Top 11 Modern Heavy Metal Bands: #1

Now is the moment you’ve all been waiting for: my #1 modern heavy metal band. Yesterday we looked over the fantastic work of Mastodon’s Crack The Skye album, Porcupine Tree’s ethereal sounds, Meshuggah and their extreme progressive metal, Gojira and their environmentally important lyrics and sounds, and finally Opeth, with their beautiful soft parts, and mind-numbingly awesome heavy parts. Today we look at #1. So here we go.

1: Tool

What are these guys about?

Tool is not only my number one modern heavy metal band, but my number one band of all time. My words cannot possibly do this band justice when describing them, but I’ll give it a go. Tool, hailing from Los Angeles, California, is at its core a progressive metal band. they always implement confusing time signatures (example: the track Schism uses a 13/16 time signature), and strange song structures. They are easily a thinking man’s heavy metal band, using spiritual themes and art within their music. Spiritual artist Alex Grey creates a look and world for them that fits their music in a way that most people can’t.

Their sound changes throughout albums, with their first one, Undertow, being a more alternative metal album, with some almost grunge in it. Their second album, Enima, sounds similar to Undertow, but uses sounds that would be used in their third album, Lateralus, which I think is one of the greatest albums ever written. Lateralus is an unending barrage of some of the finest music ever written, with some tracks including lyrical topics as infinity, spirals, patience and grudges. Their albums, 10’000 Days, is their weakest album, which isn’t saying much before they’ve already set the bar so high, anything they write crushes anything else. But when talking about bands as good as Tool, it is a weaker album. It still has excellent tracks, such as The Pot and Rosetta Stoned, but is generally weaker than Tool’s previous albums.

What should I listen to by them?

All of it. No, I’m not kidding. You deserve to know the entire Tool discography, because it’s so amazing, but I’ll list my favourite tracks. Off Undertow, listen to Sober and Prison Sex. From Enima, listen to Stinkfist, Eulogy, Forty Six & 2 and Hooker With A Penis. Off Lateralus, Listen to the title track, The Patient, Schism and Parabola. Off 10’000 Days, the best track is easily The Pot.

And that concludes my list! If you have any objections to my order, or missed something glaringly obvious, feel free to leave a comment and share this list. Thanks for reading, and upcoming next should be a review of the video game Borderlands!

Top 11 Modern Heavy Metal Bands: #6-2

Yesterday, we looked over the genre-melding work of Between the Buried and Me, the wicked sludge metal work of Kylesa, a great mix of black metal and shoegaze with Alcest, the heavy progressive metal of The Ocean Collective, and the atmospheric post-metal of Isis. Today, we look at five more of my favorite modern heavy metal bands.

6: Mastodon

What are these guys about?

Hailing from Savannah, Georgia, the good majority of Mastodon’s work is not my favorite. Most of their work, just doesn’t work for me. Then why did I did I put them all the way at #6? That’s very simple: Their fourth album, Crack The Skye, is my favorite heavy metal album of all time. Period. Crack The Skye is a less of a sludge metal album, and more a prog metal album. The mix of the excellent songwriting, fantastic guitar, wicked drumming, and eerie vocals, Crack The Skye is my favorite metal album ever. And that’s saying something.

What should I listen to by them?

I think I’ve made my point With Crack the Skye, but they have other wicked tracks. Listen to Blood and Thunder off the album Leviathan, and the track Sleeping Giant from the album Blood Mountain.

5: Porcupine Tree

What are these guys about?

Okay, some people would say I may be cheating here, but I think that Porcupine Tree is, in fact, a metal band. Some of their songs are heavy enough to be called metal. Other people might just call them prog-rock, while I think they are an excellent combination of prog metal and prog rock. Porcupine Tree does not have screaming vocals, they just use ethereal soundscapes, and songs that almost sound like dreams. Porcupine Tree also uses acoustic guitar, and other non-usual instruments., such as the banjo and the clave.

What should I listen to by them?

Most of their stuff is excellent, especially the album In Absentia. Their album Fear Of A Blank Planet is also very good. Good tracks on that include the title track, My Ashes and the 17-minute long epic Anesthetize.

4: Meshuggah

What are these guys about?

All right, back to proper metal. Hailing from Umea, Sweden, Meshuggah is an extreme/progressive metal group. One of the heaviest bands on this list, Meshuggah is also the oldest: I cheated my own criteria to add these guys, whose first album came out in 1987. But it didn’t feel right to not put these guys on this list, what with them being so good and all. They are also one of the most hardest bands to play to: they constantly use bizarre time signatures and odd song structures.

What should I listen to by them?

The album Destroy Erase Improve is a metal classic, the track Future Breed Machine is unparalleled in terms of awesomeness. Their latest album, obZen, is not as good as their older stuff, but is still wicked. The tracks Combustion and Bleed are the best on the album.

3: Gojira

What are these guys about?

Okay, we are starting to get into the best of the best metal bands now. Gojira (originally Godzilla), from Bayonne, France, is one of the best progressive metal bands out there. Using bizarre time signature, odd drumming, and one of the best screaming singers ever, Gojira is pretty damn good. However, they have another important contribution: they are a green band. Most of their song lyrics include references to pollution and human waste (listen to the song Toxic Garbage Island), and they have even joined environmentally friendly groups.

What should I listen to by them?

The album The Way of All Flesh is a scary good album, with the best tracks include The Art of Dying and Vacuity.

2: Opeth

What are these guys about?

Opeth, Opeth, Opeth. Where do I start with these guys? Coming from Stockholm, Sweden, Opeth is considered one of the best metal bands of all time. This is a title they definitely deserve. Then why are they not #1? That’s because #1 is better. Back to Opeth, one of the band’s defining characteristics is that it uses both heavy parts, with frantic guitar, fantastic drumming, and my favorite screaming singer ever. The calm parts, however, is like entering another world. The acoustic guitar is beautiful, and the clean singer’s melodies are extremely good. Easily one of the best metal bands ever.

What should I listen to by them?

The album Blackwater Park is one of the best albums ever, with the best tracks include The Leper Affinity, Harvest and The Drapery Falls. The album Ghost Reveries is also an excellent album, with tracks such as Ghost of Perdition and The Baying of The Hounds.

That concludes the list for today, and #1 with be released tomorrow!

Top 11 Modern Heavy Metal Bands: #11-7

Ah, heavy metal. One of my favorite genres of music, which then branches out into even more genres. As a total metalhead, I listen to metal on a daily basis, but I’ve never really taken the time to rank them. That’s what I’m going to be doing this week, listing my favourite modern heavy metal bands. Now, before we go into the list, I’ll rank some criteria. First, they must have had released their first album in 1990 or after (with one exception), and they have to be in at least one of metal sub-genres (prog metal, post-metal, etc.). One final thing: why top 11? In the words of Doug Walker, I like to go one step beyond. Without further adieu, let’s get into the list.

11: Between the Buried And Me.

What are they about?

Okay, this one is a guilty pleasure. While certainly not the best metal band of all time, I find them enjoyable. They are mainly a prog metal band, though they meld multiple genres, including jazz and even bluegrass into a listenable heavy genre-melding mix. While their songwriting leaves much to be desired, I find many of their songs epic and enjoyable.

What should I listen to by them?

Listen to their album Colors, which should give you a good idea of what these guys are about. Their album The Great Misdirect, although not as good as Colors, has a couple of wicked tracks (Listen to Fossil Genera-a Feed From Cloud Mountain; fantastic track).

10: Kylesa

What are these guys about?

Kylesa is a sludge metal band from Savannah, Georgia (where else?) that has a deep, heavy, thick and appropriately sludgy sound using two drummers, and both male and female singers. Kylesa is easily the definition of sludge metal, and they sound ridiculously awesome while doing it.

What should I listen to by them?

Take a listen to their most recent album, Spiral Shadow. It’s a proper sludge metal album, with fantastic riffs, wicked double drumming, and deep vocals. The best tracks on it are easily Tired Climb and To Forget.

9: Alcest

What are these guys about?

Chances are you do not know Alcest. That’s okay, because it’s probably the most obscure band on my list. However, you need to know them. Hailing from Bagnols-sur-Ceze, France, Alcest is a lo-fi black metal band with a shoegaze quality to it.

What should I listen to by them?

Their album Ecailles De Lune is fantastic shoegaze black metal album, with some excellent tracks on it, such as the two-part title track, and the trippy shoegaze track Solar Song.

8: The Ocean

What are these guys about?

The Ocean (also know as The Ocean Collective) is a post-metal/prog metal band from Berlin, Germany. They combine elements of prog metal, with classical instruments (similar to the Evpatoria Report), creating an epic post-metal sound. They use both clean and screaming vocals, which makes for a very varied sound.

What should I listen to by them?

The album Heliocentric is an utterly fantastic prog/post metal album with an important lyrical quality; The lyrics describe a religious person turning to the world of science (which is why the title is Heliocentric). The best tracks are the opening track, Firmament, and the two-part ending track, The Origin of Species, and The Origin of God.

7: Isis

What are these guys about?

Isis is a post-metal band hailing from Boston, Massachusetts. Isis is, sadly, the only split-up band on this list. Isis is a very hard band to describe, but most people (including me) think of them as a post/prog metal band, as they implement odd time signatures and bizarre song structures. They are very heavy, and extremely atmospheric.

What should I listen to by them?

Mainly everything, but their final album, Wavering Radiant, is one of the creepiest, most atmospheric and heaviest albums out there. Listen to the tracks Ghost Key and Stone to Wake a Serpent.

That concludes the list for today, but check back tomorrow, as we go from #6-2!

Bioshock Infinite 15-Minute Demo (Holy Crap This Looks Incredible)

E3 2011 is over, and it showcased some incredible games. One of these games was Bioshock Infinite (my preview of the first trailer can be found here). As with most games showcased at E3, the full gameplay demo was showed behind closed doors, and wasn’t allowed to be released to the public. However, Irrational games has finally released it, and it looks absolutely INCREDIBLE. This is easily number one on my most anticipated video games list. Hope you enjoyed, and hope you are as excited as I am.

Crossfit Journal: July 6th, 2011

For the past week, I have been going to a local CrossFit gym, Crossf it Connection. Crossfit is a special kind of gym, mainly using high-intensity Olympic lifting, and multiple other intense regiments. During the summer, I will be keeping a digital journal, which will be distrubuited through Silent Echo. Today was my second visit in a long while, and the WOD (workout of the day) kicked my ass (Crossfit kicks your ass, no matter how fit you are).

The WOD consisted of two parts: Part One was we had10 minutes to find your one-rep clean and jerk max. My max was found to 70 lbs. Part Two is the one that kicked my ass: It was 10 rounds, and we had to do one rep of our 85% max (60 lbs.), then we had to do a 200 meter run. We do that 10 times. As with all CrossFit WODS, it was very difficult, but the end was satisfying. The WOD took me 18 minutes.

I will keep up the journal throughout the summer. Hope you keep reading, and maybe you to, will start working at your local CrossFit.

Song Synopsis: Windowlicker

Time to start my first ever music-related post! To begin, I will go into detail of one of my favourite songs of all time, “Windowlicker” by Aphex Twin. To make your reading experience better, listen to the song on YouTube while you are reading, which I have posted below.

The song starts slow, with a deep distorted voice while the music builds up into a solo drum part. It then begins a build up, and finally starts into the chorus, which is a quick and energetic distorted choir over rapidly changing break beats. The song then gets calmer again, but more erratic than the beginning. Very quickly after, the chorus repeats itself. A new section then starts, signalled by a fast transition. The choir is still going, and some very fast drum samples can be heard. The song then goes into a quiet part and starts with a choir-less intro. If you listen closely, you can hear a non-distorted voice say J’aime faire des croquettes au chien, which is French for “I like to make nuggets for the dog”, which continues with Aphex’s trademark dark humour. The choir starts up agin, but less voices and less distorted. A reverse part starts happening and song starts to pick up again. A distorted sound is heard and get faster and happens more often until the the song stops and all heard is the sound over and over. The song quickly pulls back into the chorus but some parts are changed. A quiet transition happens and the song goes back into chorus (this part is not in the music video, the transition goes right into the wall of bass). The chorus continues. The chorus ends, and and a loud, very distorted bass is heard. The build-up brings us to the outro, which is a dark wall of extremely distorted bass. The bass ends, and a part that sounds like it is in reverse plays. A high-pitched sound is heard and the song ends.

This is one of my favourite songs—and for obvious reasons: it’s catchy, it’s awesomely bizarre, and this kind of erratic, jumpy song clicks with me. Hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you listen to more Aphex Twin. He has a lot of music: five albums, nine EP’s, and other music done under other aliases. Other songs I recommend are “Alberto Balsam,” which is a calm and simple song and “Come to Daddy,” which is the exact opposite of “Alberto.”

Thanks for reading my post, and expect more in the future.

I’m back! With fresh new ideas!

It has been a very long time since Silent Echo stopped having new posts. Most of my readers have probably thought I got bored, just couldn’t think of new ideas, or had nothing to write about. All of those are true, but, I also have come up with a new concept I will implement during the summer. I will start  ”Bands You Should Listen To”, which will begin this week. It will include a review of  a band, a detailed explanation of how they sound, and which tracks and albums to listen to. I will also continue with movie and video game reviews, and updates on the scientific community. Thanks to all the people who helped with last year’s Silent Echo, but now we must start again!

Don’t Leave on Us Now, Bungie

Ah, Halo. The prime example of what a successful video game series should be. Raking in millions of dollars and hordes of loyal fans, developer Bungie has left behind almost 10 years of the incredibly popular game series. However, before they give the reins of Halo to Microsoft, Bungie wants to exit with a bang.

A big bang.

Enter Halo: Reach, Bungie’s final Halo game.

The uber-hyped prequel to the main series, Halo: Reach follows the saga of Noble Team, a group of super-soldiers working for the UNSC in the year 2552, where humanity has expanded its civilization far beyond Earth, into the cosmos. They are mainly stationed on the planet Reach. However, a group of aliens, known as the Covenant, threaten to wipe out humanity. That’s where you come in. Known only as Noble 6, as the new guy to the team, your mission is to help defend the inevitably doomed planet of Reach.

I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again, Halo: Reach is an absolutely gorgeous game. Character animations are great, backdrops are fantastic, texture work is flawless, weapon design is cool–it’s just an all around beautiful game to look at.  The different art style for the two different species are very distinct. Humans have blocky, highly industrial buildings and weapons, while the Covenant have a smooth, almost organic feel and look to it. To sum it up, Halo: Reach is visually stunning and just a pleasure to look at.

Keeping consistent with the quality so far, the single-player gameplay for Halo: Reach is fantastic. However, I have only played Halo 3 for around a week (almost a year ago) and other than a few things, I don’t feel a huge difference. The game is more of the same: shoot Covenant aliens until you get to your next objective. A few levels have vehicles, both human and Covenant. There are lot of vehicles, ranging from UNSC Warthogs, SUVs with turrets attached to them, to Covenant Banshees, which are alien fighter jets with silky-smooth handling. Most of these don’t pop up much in the game, but feel really fun to play around with.

One of the unique additions to Halo is a space battle. This mission only appears once in the campaign (and doesn’t last very long) but is very fun to play and experience. Another one of Halo’s new additions are Armour Abilities. Using these will give you a special ability for a period of time. These include the awesome and necessary Jet Pack to Sprint, which gives you a burst of speed. Most of these are fun to use, and give a good twist to combat. To sum up the single player gameplay, I’ll say that running-and-gunning is very fun, but there’s too much of it, and not enough variety for everything else.

Now for what everyone’s been waiting for: my take on Halo: Reach’s multiplayer. First, let’s just say that this is easily the Xbox 360′s best multiplayer. Everything about it is top notch, from matchmaking, to the constantly updating roster of game modes, down to the high level of customization. Aside from classics game modes, such as Slayer and Capture the Flag, there are two other modes of note. First is Firefight, which pits you with three other teammates facing increasingly difficult waves of enemies. This mode is very addicting, fun and challenging.

The other major addition is Forge World. This mode gives you a vast space to work with, and create your own map. Yes, you read it correctly, a map creation tool. This mode gives you a massive number of tools to work with, from buildings, to platforms, and gameplay stuff, such as placing weapons and vehicles around the area. It’s also easy to use, with me making a half-decent map in just 45 minutes. This mode is innovative, fun and definitely requires creativity.

Halo: Reach is a fantastic game, with an awesome single-player campaign, addicting multiplayer, and the bottomless  Forge World, I’ll call this game the best game for Xbox 360 so far this year. This game easily gets a 9/10, the single point detracted due to lack of lengthy variety in the single player campaign. I would easily call Halo: Reach a purchase.

Nostalgia to The Extreme

This year’s summer movie season was absolutely terrible, with awful movies like The Last Airbender, The Expendables and other crappy movies. Not everything has been terrible though. Highlights include Inception and Toy Story 3. One of these rare gems is Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

Based off a comic book written by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim is directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and starring Micheal Cera (Superbad, Juno) as the titular character, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a fusion of genres, with a massive nostalgia factor added to it.

I’ll start with story, then I’ll get to production values and execution. The main character is the titular Scott Pilgrim, a 22-year old living in Toronto. He’s in a band (Sex-Bob-omb (the first of many video game references)) and lives with with his homosexual roommate. After meeting (and promply falling in love with) Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), he learns, that in order to continue dating her, he must defeat her seven evil exes. It also follows a love triangle, in which at the beginning of the movie, Scott is dating Knives, a 17-year high-schooler who has her heart broken after Scott falls in love with Ramona. The story, as silly as it is, is funny and appropriate for the style of the movie, which i’m going to explain now.

Exampe of the style of the movie

The movie takes a lot, and I mean a lot, of inspiration from video games and comic books. During normal scenes, comic book style sound effects pop up on the screen, and Shaun of the Dead style editing cuts also appear. But my favourite scences in the movie are the fight scenes between Scott and the exes. They take large inspiration from old-school fighting games such as Street Fighter and others. They have great fight choreography and incredible visuals. You’d think the fights would get boring after 3 fights, but they don’t. Every fight has something different to keep it fresh and amazing.

To finish the review, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is a great movie. It has spectacular visuals, good cast and a hilarious script. Definitely a movie at the big screen. However, if you’re an older-than average movie-goer, I wouldn’t recommend this movie. You wouldn’t get most of the references and themes. However, if you’re a young movie-goer please check out this movie. You will thank me, and this movie isn’t doing well at all in the box office. You’ll be doing a favor to them and yourself. For my first rating, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World gets a 8.5/10, which is a “very good”. Please, go see this movie. Now.

Music intro

I love music. There is no reason I should be living right now if there wasn’t music. I also really like expressing my opinion on music. In the future, I will be making music reviews. But, before I make reviews, I feel that I need to express my taste in music.

My favorite genre of music is metal. For me, there’s metal, and everything else. I like heavy guitar, deep, growling death metal screams and blast drumming. I also enjoy acoustic guitars, soft parts and clean vocals mixed in with metal (eg. Opeth). My favorite metal bands are Mastodon, Isis, Deftones, Meshuggah and Tool.

I don’t like a whole lot of rock, but I really enjoy Tame Impala, a very good psychedelic rock band. I easily recommend them.

Easily my most hated genre is modern pop. Bands like Hannah Montana and Justin Beiber make me want to rip my ears out and kill someone. The tunes are garbage, they all sound like the same song, and the throngs of helpless fans make me sick. Hey, it’s my opinion, not yours.

So there you have it, when I make reviews, it will follow these ground rules. I didn’t go over all of them, just my main opinion on things. Expect music reviews in the future.