They're trying too hard.

A worthy goal, to be sure.

I have the same goal when I write software. It's more of a job security kind of thing, though.

I went to high school with Chris Adler. He was a really nice, smart guy who loved music. I was surprised when I saw he was an internationally renowned drummer since he played bass in high school. It's kinda cool to know someone who is sort of 'famous.'

RosevilleDan: They're trying too hard.

And I'd say it's paying off. If the rest of the album is as awesome as Contractor and Set to Fail they've got another solid win on their hands.

Drive fast, headbang and punch things?

Really?

Awesome.

blabbermouth makes my crappy laptop crash.

Great Metal Jesus: RosevilleDan: They're trying too hard.

And I'd say it's paying off. If the rest of the album is as awesome as Contractor and Set to Fail they've got another solid win on their hands.

It is.

I've been digging it quite a bit since it leaked... I plan on buying it when I can. Easily as good as Ashes of The Wake, I'd say.

11th Hour

Love the machine gun double bass.

I think I might actually like this band if Cookie Monster wasn't their lead singer. That whole vocal style is an instant and complete turn-off for me.

It's all good.

carmody: I think I might actually like this band if Cookie Monster wasn't their lead singer. That whole vocal style is an instant and complete turn-off for me.

Oh, how little you actually know. Randy Blythe is speaking the Queen's English compared to some of the "singers" who populate the metal world.

/I can't for the life of me get into these guys

Oh man, this music is just about the funniest thing I've heard in ages. Ripe for a Youtube "interpretation" video.

Come on, you've gotta be under 18 to want to listen to this - it's so *silly*.

/and I get it, I used to listen to the most ridiculous metal when I was a teenager - the more ridiculous, the better - but you *do* grow out of it. Unless you're developmentally disabled, of course.
//it's still fun though, unlike, say, Chris Brown and his greatest hits.

paulseta: Come on, you've gotta be under 18 to want to listen to this - it's so *silly*.


Im 29 and Love this stuff. It's a nice release from a stressful office job. What am I suppossed to do...be the ghey and listen to my morning jacket or the white stripes...thanks but no thanks.

Ill take my music heavy loud and full of WIN!!!!!!

they write songs that make me want to punch them. Does that count?

paulseta:
Come on, you've gotta be under 18 to want to listen to this - it's so *silly*.

Yeah, not really. I greatly enjoy metal, and I'm 29. Granted, Lamb Of God are a little bit more basic than, say, Opeth or Cynic, but the music is enjoyable nonetheless. There's something to be said for pure musical aggression. Great for a workout or just blowing off some steam.

Great_Milenko: they write songs that make me want to punch them. Does that count?

The ICP reference in your handle completely invalidates anything that you have to say regarding music. It also tells me that you probably rode a short bus to school and have a job where your name is sewn on your shirt because they can't trust you not to lose a nametag.

groverXIII: paulseta:
Come on, you've gotta be under 18 to want to listen to this - it's so *silly*.

Yeah, not really. I greatly enjoy metal, and I'm 29. Granted, Lamb Of God are a little bit more basic than, say, Opeth or Cynic, but the music is enjoyable nonetheless. There's something to be said for pure musical aggression. Great for a workout or just blowing off some steam.

Thirded, here, there's nothing I love more than a raging bass line and thrashing riffs while zooming down the highway on my motorcyle. I'm not a fan of Lamb of God, myself, but I think my tastes in metal have grown more complex and diverse as I've aged and grown up with the stuff.

/28 YOA
//love the reaction that I get at work when they find out what I listen to

groverXIII: paulseta:
Come on, you've gotta be under 18 to want to listen to this - it's so *silly*.

Yeah, not really. I greatly enjoy metal, and I'm 29. Granted, Lamb Of God are a little bit more basic than, say, Opeth or Cynic, but the music is enjoyable nonetheless. There's something to be said for pure musical aggression. Great for a workout or just blowing off some steam.

Great_Milenko: they write songs that make me want to punch them. Does that count?

The ICP reference in your handle completely invalidates anything that you have to say regarding music. It also tells me that you probably rode a short bus to school and have a job where your name is sewn on your shirt because they can't trust you not to lose a nametag.

Funny you should mention Opeth - I was introduced to them for the first time this weekend. Not bad.

blueviking:
//love the reaction that I get at work when they find out what I listen to

Yeah, same here, especially since I don't exactly look like a typical metalhead. Granted, I listen to a lot more than just metal, but that's my bread and butter.

paulseta:
Funny you should mention Opeth - I was introduced to them for the first time this weekend. Not bad.

Yeah, when I first started listening to Opeth I had trouble getting into them. Musically speaking, they're very... dense, for a lack of a better term. Ghost Reveries was their first album that I really started to get into, and is probably still my favorite, but Blackwater Park is phenomenal as well. Watershed is good, perhaps a bit more accessible.

Cynic bends Opeth over and farks it in the ass.

Cynic's good, but the synthesized vocals start to wear on me. It's a good thing their albums are only a half hour long, I guess.

Nah, I'd take Opeth any day.

Opeth requires a lot of patience though.

Yeah, they do. I think that's why I like them so much. There are dynamics to their music that you don't get from most bands. And with songs that are around 8-10 minutes, I can usually get through one song on my way to work and one on the way home.

Love Lamb of God. They put on one hell of a show as well.

groverXIII: Yeah, they do. I think that's why I like them so much. There are dynamics to their music that you don't get from most bands. And with songs that are around 8-10 minutes, I can usually get through one song on my way to work and one on the way home.

There's such a depth that you don't see with a lot of acts, it's kind of refreshing. Yes, sometimes you want the mindless thrashing sounds that make you want to pillage and conquer, but some dark ambiance, if done right, I think, is worth its weight in gold.

Yeah... I find that the quiet parts actually serve to make the heavier parts really stand out. I actually felt that Watershed needed some more heavy parts, because the ones that are in there are farking brilliant.

The band is really talented, but the singer just past my level of cookie-monster-vocal tolerance. Sad.

I think it's kind of a double-standard to call a metalhead a socially repressed, misogynistic/misanthropic nihilist with no aspirations beyond working the grill at Burger King when the shoegazers, emos and indies are little more than Liberal Arts majors that are going to be working under said metalheads when their FAFSA or parent's trust/college fund runs out. Then you have to pick a REAL major and hope that the money holds out until you graduate.

Meanwhile, the metalhead was taking online courses because, at their core, all metalheads are cheap bastards (got to pay for tickets, beer, weed (probably a minority, honestly) and albums somehow) and winds up getting a degree in programming, music theory or computer engineering so THEY can make/produce their own albums.

Here's an even BETTER factoid (a true one, at that):

The average metalhead has a mean IQ of 120-125 from a cross-section of 1,000 heavy metal fans between 18 and 35. The data was collected by the CIA in the early 1990s when they believed that there were "subversives" in the heavy metal scene.

There's a full story about it somewhere in a fairly recent issue of Metal Hammer (from UK).

The reason for this is because I don't say, "Learn to play more than three box-frame, annotated chord progressions all derived from natural and harmonic scales and keys without understanding how they fit together as a singular mode. Oh, and quit whining, tell your drummer to actually PLAY instead of being a human metronome and for God's (Satan's?) sake dress like you DIDN'T raid your little goth sister's closet."

Jedekai: I think it's kind of a double-standard to call a metalhead a socially repressed, misogynistic/misanthropic nihilist with no aspirations beyond working the grill at Burger King when the shoegazers, emos and indies are little more than Liberal Arts majors that are going to be working under said metalheads when their FAFSA or parent's trust/college fund runs out. Then you have to pick a REAL major and hope that the money holds out until you graduate.

Meanwhile, the metalhead was taking online courses because, at their core, all metalheads are cheap bastards (got to pay for tickets, beer, weed (probably a minority, honestly) and albums somehow) and winds up getting a degree in programming, music theory or computer engineering so THEY can make/produce their own albums.

Here's an even BETTER factoid (a true one, at that):

The average metalhead has a mean IQ of 120-125 from a cross-section of 1,000 heavy metal fans between 18 and 35. The data was collected by the CIA in the early 1990s when they believed that there were "subversives" in the heavy metal scene.

There's a full story about it somewhere in a fairly recent issue of Metal Hammer (from UK).

The reason for this is because I don't say, "Learn to play more than three box-frame, annotated chord progressions all derived from natural and harmonic scales and keys without understanding how they fit together as a singular mode. Oh, and quit whining, tell your drummer to actually PLAY instead of being a human metronome and for God's (Satan's?) sake dress like you DIDN'T raid your little goth sister's closet."

Q&A with Lamb Of God, discussing their latest interview: "we don't want to say the usual things, we want to say things that allow us to be acceptable to the aggression-based listeners. METAL, FARK YEAH!"

Lamb of God is the best band on the planet right now. Can't wait til this one drops - I think it's going to be a great summer for metal.

davidcc2: I went to high school with Chris Adler. He was a really nice, smart guy who loved music. I was surprised when I saw he was an internationally renowned drummer since he played bass in high school. It's kinda cool to know someone who is sort of 'famous.'

For drummers, Adler is pretty famous. His speed and control are well known and has put out a lot of good videos.

CYNIC?? Are you people kidding me? That is hands-down my fav. Big lamb of god fan and still remember the days when the guys would grab a pint in Epanema...

//happy bands like this still exist

Lamb of God are pretty good musicians, but once again we come to the main problem with many metal bands today: the vocals are totally incomprehensible.

Since this is so pervasive, I can only assume it's not really a "problem" per se with many (most?) metal fans today. And so I ask: what is so attractive about this vocal style? I mean, honestly, what is the good of listening to the "singing" if you can't understand a word of what's being sung? You literally cannot understand any of it - it's not even hard, it's just plain impossible. In order to get any of it, you would have to follow along with a lyric sheet and then memorize it, because you're still not going to get it if you don't. So what is the good of that? Honest question for anyone who is into that vocal style - I really want to know what the attraction is.

j4x: Cynic bends Opeth over and farks it in the ass.

Really? I never knew that.

Fark U: Old skool Helmet is more Metal than this crap. (Been listening to "meantime" all day today)

Hate to be the thread's Debbie Downer but this "sound" is really old and just plain horrible, quality wise (can't even use the "bad mixdown" excuse, this is every damn song. So I assume it's intended so.) There is nothing musical about it to me, and I'm a pretty musical person who doesn't prejudge based on a genre class. The vocals and instruments sound like a bunch of mush. How anyone can enjoy this on a regular basis is beyond me. Every song does, in fact, sound the same. Me thinks people just like the "aggression" image about it, like you hear it but you don't really listen (with your ears and brain, not your ego.) Its hard for me to read comments about these bands and how everyone says how great they are, this and that, when I listen nothing good is outstanding to me about it. Can't understand the lyrics, and the music is "a shell" of what it should be, sound wise. Almost like the sound quality is secondary to the "fast bpms" and "loud, peaked out 11!" sound that seems to plague a genre that could offer so much more otherwise.

Yeah, its fast. That doesn't make it Metal. Nor does it make it "hardcore" to me it sounds very commercial and cookie cutter (MTVish, for sure) especially lumped in with the rest of this exploited genre image. Where's the originality and risk taking in this genre anymore? Its like they are too scared to do something else and risk losing the all important "Metal" tag. Lame. I'm not talking Metallica sort of risky like the black album but be damned if it wouldn't hurt to lay off the double bass and screaming for 2 or 3 songs every now and then, just maybe? Any moron can learn to strum a distorted guitar and scream intelligibly while a drummer does his own little 3 minute drum solos in the background. I hear no distinctive "band" here.

/Jumps off soapbox to play some GTA:SA
//Ahh '94! Hardly knew ya!

To extol the talents of a band like Helmet and rip the musicianship of bands like Lamb of God is unbelievably obtuse. There is no comparison between the utterly mundane riffs (and worse yet, the barely in key "everyman" vocals) of a song like Helmet's Unsung and damn near anything in Lamb of God's repertoire. And also, why in the world would they risk their "metal" status? They write and play music they love. They aren't trying to change the world of music like, say, the Beatles ended up doing from their inception to their breaking up.

I like their video for "Redneck".

What's not to like about strippers in tour busses?

karmachameleon: Lamb of God are pretty good musicians, but once again we come to the main problem with many metal bands today: the vocals are totally incomprehensible.

Since this is so pervasive, I can only assume it's not really a "problem" per se with many (most?) metal fans today. And so I ask: what is so attractive about this vocal style? I mean, honestly, what is the good of listening to the "singing" if you can't understand a word of what's being sung? You literally cannot understand any of it - it's not even hard, it's just plain impossible. In order to get any of it, you would have to follow along with a lyric sheet and then memorize it, because you're still not going to get it if you don't. So what is the good of that? Honest question for anyone who is into that vocal style - I really want to know what the attraction is.

Because it's not about the vocals?

argh argh argh

oooooohhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaa

It's shiat. The vocals. Metal singers used to be some of the best voices out there.

None of this growling stuff has any shelf life like Maiden and Priest do.

If you dont like the vox or music why bother commenting in the thread. You bunch of biatches just like to complain like old ladys.....................

Got the leaked copy, and I'm going to be picking up the official copy when it's released. The whole album is just balls to the wall. I love it.

I'm also an Opeth fan. But seriously, can you put on Opeth in the car and fully enjoy every nuance? No. You have to really be sitting at home with headphones or a good system.

Put Lamb of God on in your car, crank it up and just enjoy some good straight ahead (not really since most of their meters are screwed up) metal. I can understand their vocalist a hell of a lot better than Opeth's....except when he does clean vocals.

Oh well. My music sucks, yours is better.

Oh yeah, I'm 28.

I'm checking out some Cynic now, and I like it, but it's not superior to Opeth. I'm not a huge fan of the robo-vox. Akerfeldt's clean vocals are better for me.

tailormadebassist: I'm also an Opeth fan. But seriously, can you put on Opeth in the car and fully enjoy every nuance?

I disagree. I rock out to Opeth damn near every day on my way to work. And I enjoy every minute of it. My Arms, Your Hearse makes me so happyyyyyy.

Add me to the list of people (and I suspect there are many out there) who recently got into Opeth because of all the love here on Fark. I'm not really much of a metalhead at all, but damn, Opeth has some pretty astounding stuff. They can truly pull off the clean and mellow to heavy and growly transition without being cheesy. Great stuff.

Thanks, Farkers!

unclejimbo827: karmachameleon: Lamb of God are pretty good musicians, but once again we come to the main problem with many metal bands today: the vocals are totally incomprehensible.

Since this is so pervasive, I can only assume it's not really a "problem" per se with many (most?) metal fans today. And so I ask: what is so attractive about this vocal style? I mean, honestly, what is the good of listening to the "singing" if you can't understand a word of what's being sung? You literally cannot understand any of it - it's not even hard, it's just plain impossible. In order to get any of it, you would have to follow along with a lyric sheet and then memorize it, because you're still not going to get it if you don't. So what is the good of that? Honest question for anyone who is into that vocal style - I really want to know what the attraction is.

Because it's not about the vocals?

What's it about then? Not to be obtuse, but that doesn't really answer my question.

Let's try this instead: those of you who are (for example) Lamb of God fans and like their music just fine as it is - if you had a choice, would you replace the vocalist with an actual singer? Why or why not? And if the vocals truly don't matter, would you just do away with the vocalist altogether?

Hi, I'm a 35 year old user of fark who enjoys classic rock. roaroaroaroar

karmachameleon: unclejimbo827:
Let's try this instead: those of you who are (for example) Lamb of God fans and like their music just fine as it is - if you had a choice, would you replace the vocalist with an actual singer? Why or why not? And if the vocals truly don't matter, would you just do away with the vocalist altogether?

I wouldn't want them to change a damn thing about the vocals. I like 'em the way they are. Pissed off. It suits their music. If he started singing, I don't think I would like it as much. It wouldn't be Lamb of God. If they did...oh well, their choice.

I've listened to alot of the previous album without the vocals. And it's still amazing. But the vocals make LoG for me.

Another quick thing....Cynic is amazing. I just wished he wouldn't use the robotic voice thing. Kinda gets old quick.

karmachameleon:
What's it about then? Not to be obtuse, but that doesn't really answer my question.

Let's try this instead: those of you who are (for example) Lamb of God fans and like their music just fine as it is - if you had a choice, would you replace the vocalist with an actual singer? Why or why not? And if the vocals truly don't matter, would you just do away with the vocalist altogether?

I actually love his vocal style. I would not change it. I don't think anything else would fit the music, other than if someone could tone it down slightly, to more of a phil anselmo approach where it's a mix of heavy screaming and soulful vocals. But that's hard to pull off. I think it's fine the way it is, and I wouldn't change Randy out of the band for anyone else to be honest. I think he's great.

As for why I like it? I don't really know. I didn't like it at first, but it honestly grew on me. I don't think there's really a substantial reason. I think that any real music fan knows that you really can't quantify what makes music good. It's so subjective.

Wow, what a brilliant band. Angry-sounding and awesome to headbang along to?

These guys are metal "lite", perfect for the new generation who luuuuurve watered down music.