Monday Metal Madness Mini Review Meltdown

For this Monday Metal Madness I thought I would incorporate an article for voting, but this time use actual mini reviews as the source of scrutiny.  I am curious to see which of these three bands you like the most.  We received all of these at pretty much the same time.  I happened to grab hold of them and liked them all even though they are three different metal genres.  They all offer something pleasurable to listen to in my humble opinion.  I have provided a brief synopsis of their respective styles along with some basic information about the band and what I think of their newly released or about to be released album.  I was going to rate the albums, but I do not want to skew anything in the voting.  Bottom line, I like them all.  Though, I will cast my vote later on.  I’d love to hear your comments down in the comments section too.  What did you like and why?  Happy voting, but more importantly happy listening.  The latter is really the point isn’t it?

Hannes Grossmann – The Radial Covenant

For a guy who seems to be quite a busy drummer his name and work escaped me until a promo copy of The Radial Covenant arrived in our inbox.  I now know a little bit of Hannes Grossmann though I feel I should have known him long before about two weeks ago.  If you are a fan of Obscura, then you already know who I am talking about, but I haven’t and this is all new to me.  The Radial Covenant is his first solo album; loaded with progressive death metal that is excellently woven into a brutally melodic album.  I was hooked from the opening track, but Sorcerer is a song that completely floored me and will probably go down as one of my favorite songs of the year.  I did sample Obscura for comparison purposes and I will say that the technical aspects between both bands is along the same lines, but I think Hannes Grossmann’s solo work leans a bit more on the melodic death metal side vs. sheer speed and technicality.  Like I said though the differences are subtle.  The album was released 22 Jan 2014 and was self-released.  Below is the video for your voting pleasure.

Jupiter Zeus – On Earth

Jupiter Zeus blurs the lines between psychedelic spacey rock and straightforward grunge such as Alice in Chains – one of my personal favorites of that genre.  On Earth is their new album released on 11 March 2014.  The band’s influences are Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Kyuss, and David Bowie.  After listening to this album for a few weeks I can certainly see that their influence steer the band to their own refined sound.  I thoroughly enjoyed the album from beginning to end even though most of the songs don’t stray too far from their core sound.  It’s a relatively steady cadence of mood and groove all the way through.  It still captivated me and provided a solid 45 minutes of thought exploration.

Neptune – Prelude to Nothing

Neptune has been around for a little while and like Hannes Grossman (the person), I never heard of them until their promo arrived in our inbox as well.  From my perspective, it was a good week when all these albums arrived at nearly the same time.  Neptune is classified as melodic death metal; Prelude to Nothing is a solidly brutal album that focuses on melody. Maybe that’s why they call it melodic death metal.  They do it well and I was surprised to get another album I wanted to listen to from beginning to end.  It certainly made for a motivating work out album.  I like the brutality combined with some lighter choruses.  Prelude to Nothing will be released 28 April 2014 via Earthquake Terror Noise.  Check out Drifting below.  It’s a great example of the overall feel of the album.

56th Grammy’s Follow-Up

I guess it’s no surprise that Black Sabbath won.  It’s also no surprise, from what I read, that the metal category was not aired on TV.  It’s really a shame that metal just can’t seem to get any kind of real public recognition in America.  At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter, I suppose.  Europeans embrace the genre much more openly than America. Perhaps, that was one of the many reasons I really enjoyed living in England for a while.

According to our humble poll, those who voted thought Black Sabbath would or should win.  Dream Theater came in a close second, with Killswitch Engage and Volbeat evenly rounding out the rest of the votes.  Anthrax got no love.  One thing the poll doesn’t illustrate is whether or not you thought Black Sabbath “should” have won or you just thought they would.

I haven’t listened to the new Black Sabbath album much, but from what I read it was pretty well received.  Personally, based on the rest of the bands, once again it boiled down to popularity in my opinion.  Not that Black Sabbath doesn’t deserve to be awarded for their contributions to metal, but if any of those other bands had been given the award, I think (mostly) only metalheads would have known who they were.  So, imagine what the voting committee thinks?   I don’t think one needs to be a rocket scientist to know who Black Sabbath.  In hindsight it is kind of funny that the guy who bit the head off a dove won a Grammy.  There you have it.  At least the Grammy’s selected all metal bands unlike last year where Halestorm really just didn’t fit in with the rest of the pedigree.

Congrats Black Sabbath.

Monday Metal Madness – 56th Grammy’s

It’s time for the *yawn* Grammy’s; excuse me I don’t mean to be rude, but this normally a waste of time for metal and for people who like metal.  However, this year might be a bit different.  Keep in mind this is America; we are talking about a country where metal is not as out in the open as it is across Europe.  I miss Europe!  I can see where my European friends would think this is a weak list of “metal” bands, and I would normally agree, but again this America and I want to point out one thing.  These are all metal bands.  Last year, Halestorm beat out Megadeth, Anthrax, Marilyn Manson, Iron Maiden and Lamb of God if I remember correctly.  Really?  Nothing against the catchy Halestorm, but they won out of sheer popularity and record sales.  They got played on the radio…during daylight hours.  It just goes to show that the people who run the Grammy’s and/or cast votes know nothing about “great” metal.  Again, nothing against Halestorm, I do like them, but how does a band like that beat such heavyweights?  The year before, Foo Fighters cleaned house and though they are a great band, I wouldn’t exactly call them metal.  Again, they beat out actual metal bands.

Monday Metal Madness – Name that Guitar Solo

It’s time for another edition of Monday Metal Madness with a video link.  This time, the goal is to listen to the solos including the intro/outro clips and guess which band they come from.  The solos range from fairly shirt to pretty long.  So, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult.  You have most of the entire solos intact which should be ample time.  Once you have guessed correctly, just  make a comment below.  This video will also be posted on The History of Metal shortly after it posts here.  I’ll compile answers from both sites and list them here at the guessing ensues.  Enjoy.

Monday Metal Madness: The Riff Challenge

We haven’t done a Monday Metal Madness in a while, but who says they all have to be voting booths for different things?  Don’t get me wrong voting is fun, but this time around I thought I would throw in a video quiz for you all…including A Metal State of Mind owners besides me.  They were not in on song selection for this one…so you are all test subjects for future endeavors of the video quiz kind.

Based on some of our song quizzes over at The History of Metal, I thought I would test your knowledge of the mighty riff.  In about 1:33 listen to 20 riff samples and post your responses the comments box.  Some of these are instantly recognizable from some of metal’s most popular bands.  Others might take some deep thought, but not too much because you have from 1-7 seconds to listen to them.  A few of these might be of the bass and/or of the sample kind…I couldn’t make it too easy, but mostly guitar.  Have fun and give it a try.  Be sure to be ready, there is no intro to our video clip.  It just starts right into it.  Have fun and let’s see if we can knock this out.  Teamwork is great too!  If you need hints just ask.  Enjoy!

Monday Metal Madness – Grammy 2012 Follow-Up

The Grammy’s 2013 (best of 2012) aired last night and if you are like me you didn’t watch it…ok I watched some of it.  When Taylor Swift opens the show, it’s off on the wrong foot.  Besides all the pop glamor, let’s get to the metal because that’s really the most important part.  A few weeks ago, I put together a poll to see who you would like to see win.  Lamb of God took most of the votes with the rest being spread pretty evenly.  You can see the poll and it’s results here.

Ironically, one of the two bands that didn’t get a vote actually won.  I guess I should say congrats to Halestorm for winning the Best Hard Rock/Metal category despite not really qualifying as “metal” in my opinion.  This goes to show that in Grammyland, people still can’t differentiate between Hard Rock and Metal (Halestorm & Marilyn Manson = Hard Rock; everyone else = Metal).  At least Alternative got its own category; Metal deserves its own as well.

In another category, Storm Corrosion did NOT pick up the win for Best Surround Sound album.  Needless to say, it is another year of metal bands (and related metal bands) going unrecognized for the awesome work they do.  In the end I am not sure they care whether they win or not, but it would be nice to see metal get the recognition it deserves.

Here is the winning song.  Again, congrats to Halestorm.  At least they don’t suck.

Monday Metal Madness – Grammy Nominations 2012

Last year, for the 2011 Grammy Awards (click here for our 2011 poll), there were some cool deserving bands nominated for an award.  Dream Theater received their first nomination and Mastodon and Megadeth were also nominated.  However, it was Foo Fighters who swept anything and everything related to Rock/Metal.  Nothing bad on them, they deserve to be awarded for their work, they are a great band.  But, it’s painfully obvious that the Grammy Committee is still unable to draw the line between Rock, Hard Rock, and Metal. They need to separate these categories completely.  Incidentally, A Metal State of Mind voters wanted Dream Theater to win.

Monday Metal Madness – Christmas Metal

It’s been a while since we did a poll and I thought it would be the perfect time to sample and vote on some Christmas metal.  First of all, thank you for voting in the last poll which was an opinion poll.  You loyal readers voted England as the best metal producing country with Sweden at #2.  Though, I think most people voted due to the historic nature of metal England has produced, not necessarily for what England is producing today.

The other day at work one of the country music listeners asked me if there was any Christmas metal.  I really didn’t know until I started searching for it.  I was surprised to find a few things so I thought I would put it to poll and see what you think.  I did not use Trans Siberian Orchestra though, I thought that would be an unfair advantage.  Here goes, and have a happy holiday season.

First up is Twisted Sister with Heavy Metal Christmas.

This is 331Erock, our favorite guitar virtuoso, with a Christmas medley.

Third up is a collaboration effort with the following artists:

Jeff Scott Soto (Vocals; Yngwie Malmsteen, Talisman)
Bruce Kulick (Lead Guitar; Grand Funk Railroad, Kiss)
Bob Kulick (Rhythm Guitars; Kiss, W.A.S.P)
Chris Wyse (Bass; The Cult, Owl),
Ray Luzier (Drums; Army of Anyone, Korn)

Next is Joe Satriani with Silent Night.

Alice Cooper presenting us Santa Claws is Coming to Town.

This is another collaboration effort with the following artists:

Chuck Billy (TESTAMENT)
Scott Ian (ANTHRAX)
Jon Donais (SHADOWS FALL)
Chris Wyse (THE CULT)
John Tempesta (ROB ZOMBIE, THE CULT)

The last one is how the Grinch Kicked Metal Ass by August Burns Red

 

 

 

Monday Metal Madness – Opinion Poll #1

Readers voted most for Amon Amarth’s cover of Aerials (System of a Down) for the last Monday Metal Madness on 12 Nov.  Coal Chamber’s Shock the Monkey (Peter Gabriel) was a distant second and Megadeth rendition of Paranoid (Black Sabbath) scored zilch, nada, nothing.  Thank you for voting and be sure to catch our Top 25 Favorite Cover Songs posts starting in January 2013.

Recently, your fellow administrators of A Metal State of Mind wrapped up our Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time.  It was fun to create and share with you all and our friends at The History of Metal on facebook.  After all was said and done, I (plantera7) noticed the majority of the bands that made my list came from the United States.  Perhaps that is because I am American, I am not really sure.  I like metal from all over.  There are plenty of other countries out there that put out great metal which brings me to this week’s poll.  It’s basically an opinion piece not accompanied by any videos.  Which country do you think is responsible for some of the “best” metal out there today?  There is no method to the madness, just vote for how you feel.  If you like, post a video from a band of said country as back up; could be worth some discussion.  Thank you for playing.  Within the poll I will list a few countries well-known for their metal, but feel free to write in…

Monday Metal Madness Poll – Good Cover Songs

Looks like the Stoner votes are in and Kyuss took the victory for best Stoner rock band over Monster Magnet and Sleep.  Thank you for playing in that poll and if you haven’t casted your vote there is still plenty of time.  You can check out that poll here.

Starting sometime in January, A Metal State of Mind will post our Top 25 Favorite Cover Songs in increments in lieu of the Theme Thursday.  The Theme Thursday will become an as necessary post since we have been doing that nearly two years.  For this week’s poll I am going to give you a small glimpse into what you will see on my (plantera7’s AKA Reggie) Top 25 cover song list.

These three cover songs represent the high, medium, and low of my list…a top 10, bottom 10, and one in the middle.  I am not going to spoil my list that much as far as who places where, but I am curious to see how you vote for what you think is the better of these cover songs.

Here are your choices…

First up is Coal Chamber’s version of Shock the Monkey.  The original was recorded by Peter Gabriel which makes this cover qualify for an “unlikely” cover which was the subject of a theme some time ago.  I like their take on the song where they made it their own, but didn’t stray too far from the core of the song.  Do you also notice the cameo?

Second is Megadeth’s rendition of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid.  I have to say it is all the cover songs of Black Sabbath that got me more into Black Sabbath themselves.  That sounds like it doesn’t make much sense, but I am more fond of Sabbath covers than the band itself, but that is slowly changing.  This is not the ony Sabbath cover on my list; just one I chose for this poll. What to you think?

This cover struck me as odd when I first heard Aerials covered, but it is very well done.  I would have never imagined Amon Amarth knew who System of a Down was, but I stand corrected.  Again, this is another example of a band making the song their own, but not steering too far from the core of the song.