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Any reason to go non-prog metal ?

Started by Nicky007, Wed, 2008-10-29, 08:50:54

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Nicky007

Guys, I don't own any album by AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, or Def Leppard. However, when I'm in CD-shops browsing thru the metal section, I always stumble over albums by these groups, and then I'm tempted to buy'm cause there are so many people enthusing over'm. But the difference between me and them is generally that I'm into prog bands like Nevermore and DT.

So I'm wondering:  Is there anything I'm missing by not listening to AC/DC etc (except casually on the radio and at friends)  ???

Guys, any thoughts on this ?

Ncky.
So you've come of age
And so you want to meet God
Sure you can
He's right here next to me

maddox

#1
Well regarding to AC/DC, if you like rock which deals about the concept rock and rock alone and you like a singer who drinks Whiskey for breakfast, then i think that you're missing something indeed.
Pretty standard, straight ahead music with no progish influences at all.
Personally i'd say that it's not mine cup of tea.

With Iron Maiden however, i do think you miss something. Heavy metal the way it must be though i must add that even Iron Maiden had their bad moments and not only with the replacement singer Blaze Bayley.
There are some great moments in between, like Piece Of Mind (listen to Where Eagles Dare (bassed upon the movie btw), The Trooper and To Tame A Land (based upon the move Dune), Powerslave (with tracks like Aces High, Two Minutes To Midnight and the omniscient epic The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner), Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (with a brilliant opening track Moonchild and the title track is also great), Fear Of The Dark (title track is chilling and Afraid To Shoot Strangers is Marvellous  8)) and Brave New World (Blood Brothers and The Nomad are outstanding on this one).
But then again i've been a fan of the Maiden's since 1982 when they released The Number Of The Beast.

Knowing you i wouldn't pay much attention at the lyrics because IM usually write about hell and damnation but with a twist. They are pretty earthly people with no dark agenda i can tell you.  ;)
In fact i've never saw a moment (and i saw lots of moments  ;)) when Dave Murray (one of the three guitarists) didn't smiled.  :D

Def Leppard is rock. Pure radio orientated rock. But totally different then AC/DC. It's not about rock but about life. The songs are good, the compositions are good, the singer is good, the drummer with one arm (that's no joke  ;)) is good. They had their 15 minutes of fame lots of years ago with albums like Pyromania, Hysteria and Adrenalize and after that they have lost it a bit but with their latest Songs From The Sparkle Lounge they've found their selves again.
They deserve it to be heard. Ask Bluey about that.  ;)

Judas Priest is Heavy Metal with slick solo's and a screaming Rob Halford. During the seventies and the eighties he was at his best (read: younger years). He departed from the Priest in the early nineties and was replaced by Ripper Owens who sang in a Judas Priest cover band and has returned a few years ago.
Not bad but the highlights can be found in the seventies and eighties though i must say that Painkiller is a great album to begin with. A screaming Rob, great duells between the two guitarist and a solid rhythm section.
If you miss much about them...that's for you to decide.
Haven't heard their last album yet, about Nostradamus but from what i've heard and read i don't miss much.
Will get into that eventually when the list of 'yet-to-buy' is decreasing.  ;)

Enough?  ;D
Cause of Injury: Lack of Adhesive Ducks.

Deenfan

Very good post. I'd say you might just get your fill of those bands through the radio and telly. That's for sure the case with me and AC/DC. Def, I do put on from time to time. Iron Maiden, very rarely. They're all over the airwaves already anyway.

Nicky007

#3
Quote from: maddox on Wed, 2008-10-29, 12:40:16
Enough?  ;D

Thanks lots, Mad  :)

You're not a man of (too) many words (like wordy and nasty me), and this post of yours is to my memory the longest I'v seen by you. Great! - and very informative!

I see that you'v been around lots of metal.

I myself missed a lot of that during the 80's and 90's, as I was into New Age stuff and Theosophy during those years (and tried unsuccessfully to adapt to new-age flute and plink-plonk music; maybe that explains my need for very ballsy music today).

So, if I read you correctly, what I'm missing most is Iron Maiden. Some of my other sources actually corroborate that.

Which IM album would you recommend to me, Mad ?  (will go straight to my SL)  :)


Quote from: maddox on Wed, 2008-10-29, 12:40:16
Knowing you i wouldn't pay much attention to the lyrics, because IM usually write about hell and damnation but with a twist. They are pretty earthly people with no dark agenda i can tell you.  ;)

Probably not as dark as Nevermore, so I can surely handle IM.

Nicky.
So you've come of age
And so you want to meet God
Sure you can
He's right here next to me

Bupie

#4
Hey, I like this post too  *horns*

First, the lyrics of all those bands are completely uninteresting IMHO. I even suspect that the Young brothers (for example) can't even write ... Def Leppard's ones can be humourous at times and I think they are the most "elaborated" of the bunch but nothing to rave about, to say the least.

Musically, here are my two cents :

I think that early AC/DC is really the most interesting and innovative of those bands (yes, I wrote innovative). The albums I mentioned on the NP post, I mean Powerage/Highway To Hell/Back in Black really deserve to be heard. Basic but great hard rock. It's difficult for me to think that anybody who is into heavy or prog metal could really dislike songs like Touch too Much or Riff Raff, for instance. But everything they did after  Back In Black is pretty forgottable.

Def Leppard is definitively the band that I listened the most to from the bunch. And I still do from time to time. They really have a knack for extremely catchy melodies and their balllads are my faves from any hard rock band. Plus, I am a sucker for Joe Elliott's voice. I could make the same remark that I made for AC/DC with songs like Photograph, Animal or Torn to Shreds.

Iron Maiden comes third in my mind simply because I feel that they never got touched with the grace that blessed the two aforementioned bands for a while. I wouldn't never trade Highway To Hell or Pyromania for The Number Of The Beast, for instance. And I do think that the prog elements in their music are often overestimated. Hallowed By The Name, prog ? Frankly ?  ::)  A good point for them over AC/DC and Def Leppard is that the quality of their albums has stayed pretty equal over the years (even if I don't know the BB period) but their songs' formula rarely changes.

Judas Priest comes last in my mind. A third division metal band with a screaming singer is the picture I get from the very few albums that I heard from them. It's all personal but I really have problems with too high pitched singers (which unfortunately I found in Helloween's Keeper part I, sorry Deenfan   :-\). But I don't know them enough to have a fair advice.

That being said, I discovered those bands when I was a youngster and before getting into prog : of course, afterwards, when you get into bands like Dream Theater or Symphony X, you may consider that AC/DC or Iron Maiden solos are far less challenging ... But even when simple, if the music is good, it's good.  *horns*

Finally, I think that you really miss something big if you never listened to one complete album of the three first bands. My personal advice for a first try :

AC/DC - Powerage
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

maddox

Quote from: Bupie on Wed, 2008-10-29, 20:00:36
And I do think that the prog elements in their music are often overestimated. Hallowed By The Name, prog ? Frankly ?  ::)

But now you're moving in a different and questionable direction, Bupie.

The question you're asking here is: what is prog and who decides that it's prog?

Iron Maiden is metal. Heavy metal to be precise. It never was and never will be anything else. Sure there are some elements in their music that can be described as 'prog', and with that i mean rhythm changes, riff changes but basically Maiden already did that even before the word 'Progressive Rock/metal' ever existed.
In fact the band that started with those freaky riffs is Black Sabbath.

I always find that it's difficult to say where prog begins and where it ends but the essence of Iron Maiden is heavy metal. Nothing more nothing less.

QuoteA good point for them over AC/DC and Def Leppard is that the quality of their albums has stayed pretty equal over the years (even if I don't know the BB period) but their songs' formula rarely changes.

They indeed are pretty consistent but although i don't know all the albums of AC/DC I'd say that they are too.


Quotewhen you get into bands like Dream Theater or Symphony X, you may consider that AC/DC or Iron Maiden solos are far less challenging ...

I don't really agree with that, bupie.
I think that Maiden and Priest are a different league than DT or Symph X but both bands do have breathtaking solo's that are surely of the same level as John Petruci or Michael Romeo, which i consider as two of the best around.
The tandems Murray/Smith (from the eighties) and Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing from the Priest are considered as two as the most innovative guitarists from the eighties.
These guys did amazing stuff even before Petruci and Romeo were just kids at school and did it at the same level we think Petruci and Romeo are doing right now and to be frank, even though time has caught them up a bit, they are still around!

To use Nicky's quote on this: they are the top notch of the guitar-players!
I agree: each to his own opinion and taste of course but they practically invented this kind of music.



QuoteFinally, I think that you really miss something big if you never listened to one complete album of the three first bands. My personal advice for a first try :

AC/DC - Powerage
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

As for AD/DC: i've no idea so my vote doesn't count.

But regarding Def Leppard, Pyromania is an excellent way to start but i would ad Hysteria too. Both extremely good albums and they both holds the best of Def Leppard.
For Iron Maiden Bupie has a good point but again i would add Piece Of Mind and Powerslave as well.

Hope you don't mind this discussion both Bupie and Nicky.  :-[ ;D
Cause of Injury: Lack of Adhesive Ducks.

Bupie

No problem with me Mad  ;)

About Maiden and prog, I just wanted to point out that some people see a connection between their music and prog metal that I personaly don't see. And I mentioned Hallowed By The Name because it is a song often quoted as an example of Maiden's prog affinities when I don't see any prog element in it (even if I don't pretend to tell or define what's prog and what's not). So I join you when you say that Maiden is just heavy metal which doesn't mean that it makes their music less enjoyable or interesting than prog metal. I just consider that their so-called prog relation is not a good reason to try them.

For AC/DC, unfortunately, not only they don't evolve anymore but they also have lost their touch for making good songs IMHO (even if I have not listened to their last three albums). But in the meantime several friends of mine, including proggies, claim that AC/DC gigs are the ones where they had the more fun !

And I agree about Hysteria, of course  8) I just played it so many times that I am a bit blasé  :)

Nicky007

Here's a useful guide to the Iron Maiden studio and official live albums by a big fan who seems to know what he's talkin about:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/R28XUA6CBNRCF6/ref=cm_syt_fvlm_f_5_rlrsrs0

Mad & Bups, very interesting discussion you had here. I'v taken it all to me  :)

Nicky.
So you've come of age
And so you want to meet God
Sure you can
He's right here next to me

Bupie

OK, guys, hmmm, I hardly dare to ask ...  :-[ :-[ :-[

I know they are the most pretentious/ridiculous/sexist/unsympathetic band in rock history.

But their first guitarist had played before in a French band named Shakin' Street where he delivered delicate and inspired solos.

So I ask to myself : how could he go straight away from this (Shakin' Street) to that ( :-[ :-[ :-[) ?

Since I have never heard anything from  :-[ :-[ :-[  (or if I did, I didn't know it was from them), I am curious  ???

So you are going to mock me, despise me, maybe you won't ever speak to me again, maybe Peter will ban me ... but I need to know.

How ... mmh, it's time to be brave ... how does early ... Manowar sound like ? Don't tell me about lyrics  :P or imagery  :P, I already know  :P

Just the music. Please. Deenfan ? Steve ? Mad ? And then I'll delete this post.

PH


funkster

Manowar !!!

I had Fighting the world years ago and loved it - metal but some more commercial momnets. Did not fancy anything of theirs after that though as it seemed sexist/spinal tap rubbish

As for the other bands -

Def lep - pyromania and hysteria
Maiden - Killers to seventh son and then the last 3
AC/DC - if you want blood and highway to hell
Priist - Unleashed in the eats , British Steel and Painkiller. There are some good compilations out as well


johninblack

Quote from: maddox on Wed, 2008-10-29, 20:38:49
But now you're moving in a different and questionable direction, Bupie.

The question you're asking here is: what is prog and who decides that it's prog?

Iron Maiden is metal. Heavy metal to be precise. It never was and never will be anything else. Sure there are some elements in their music that can be described as 'prog', and with that i mean rhythm changes, riff changes but basically Maiden already did that even before the word 'Progressive Rock/metal' ever existed.
In fact the band that started with those freaky riffs is Black Sabbath.

I always find that it's difficult to say where prog begins and where it ends but the essence of Iron Maiden is heavy metal. Nothing more nothing less.



Totally spot on, Their latest album probably has more "proggy" moments than any other but it's still heavy metal at its core.

Nicky I'd start with Powerslave then either Somewhere In Time or The Number Of The Beast and I wouldn't bother with the Blaze Bailey stuff.

As to the connection between Maiden and prog metal to my mind Maiden stop just short of prog metal but I feel there is no doubt that they are very much responsible for the existence of prog metal. Seems to me it's a natural evolution for those bands that like Maiden and prog.

maddox

Sorry Bupie but i'm not much of a help on the matter.

Frankly said the only 'real' Manowar song i know is Battle Hymn (care for metal anyone? pinch this  ;D) which in my opinion is a great song but their other songs just don't do anything to me.

Next.  ;)

Cause of Injury: Lack of Adhesive Ducks.

ironcow2103

Quote from: Bupie on Thu, 2009-01-22, 15:46:04
how does early ... Manowar sound like ?

Depends on what your tastes are. Off their first album Battle Hymns songs like Death Tone, Metal Daze are pretty standard period fast Heavy Metal songs that could be by any period B level band (Accept, Helloween etc) albeit played better. The second side of the LP is to my mind better Dark Avenger and Battle Hymn being a cross between a film score (probably for Conan!) and HM. I think we now call this Battle Metal but it was unique at the time. These two songs and the original version of Defender (released as a single and like Dark Avenger featuring Orson Wells narration) are worth checking out.

Their 3rd album Hail to England is probably their best and well worth trying with Sign of the Hammer (their 4th) almost as good - this contains their best ever song Guyana (Cult of the Damned) which is so hard to describe but if they can ever be called progressive it is this for such an unusually structured song that works so well that is contrary to anything else they produced.

After that is Fighting The World which is too commercial for Manowar and has a lamentable reworking of Defender.

Next is Kings of Metal, somewhat cheesy but sets the scene for what they produce today with the metal ballad Hearts of Steel and the narrated Warrior's Prayer.

Then comes The Triumph Of Steel, which is notable for the 28 minute long Achilles, Agony And Ecstasy In Eight Parts including a 5 minute drum solo which starts at the 7 minute mark which I love... Undoubtedly this was inspired by the indulgent excesses of 1970's prog like ELP!! :-)

Moving on is Louder Than Hell, a return to a more regular sound with catchy HM songs like The Gods Made Heavy Metal. Well produced, this is a good introduction to Manowar today.

Which is not what can be said about Warriors of the World with cover versions of Nessun Dorma and An American Trilogy. They do work, but I would not recommend this to anyone but a fan.

Finally Gods Of War which is more a Metal Opera in a mis-mash of narration, songs and atmospheric orchestral pieces. The nearest they have come to doing a Conan rock soundtrack.

Overall with Manowar the key is realise that it is not serious and to laugh along with them (not at them).  Manowar are a highly enjoyable experience and the one time I caught them live in the 1980's certainly not a Spinal Tap joke band.

Incidentally, regarding Iron maiden you should all check out the stuff since Bruce's return as it is all high quality and will provide a lot of enjoyment to fans of prog-metal. Brave New World is a must have album - go treat yourselves.


ironcow2103



maddox

Cause of Injury: Lack of Adhesive Ducks.

Bupie

Quote from: ironcow2103 on Thu, 2009-01-22, 20:42:30
Overall with Manowar the key is realise that it is not serious and to laugh along with them (not at them).  Manowar are a highly enjoyable experience and the one time I caught them live in the 1980's certainly not a Spinal Tap joke band.

Thanks for all the infos and links, Iron  ;)  I think I begin to get the picture. Interesting point of yours that they are not serious about all the imagery and "ideology" they rest on.

Quote from: maddox on Thu, 2009-01-22, 20:23:04
Frankly said the only 'real' Manowar song i know is Battle Hymn (care for metal anyone? pinch this  ;D) which in my opinion is a great song but their other songs just don't do anything to me.

I don't really know what to think about it. The song is effective, for sure, and Ross (the guitarist I initially mentioned) takes a good first solo. Yet, the whole think leaves me perplex for non musical reasons ...

johninblack

Quote from: Bupie on Fri, 2009-01-23, 01:09:15
Thanks for all the infos and links, Iron  ;)  I think I begin to get the picture. Interesting point of yours that they are not serious about all the imagery and "ideology" they rest on.

Great for controversy though "We are the true gods of true metal and all the rest are fakes"
I agree that as long as you laugh with them they are fun.

Nicky007

Quote from: ironcow2103 on Thu, 2009-01-22, 20:42:30
Their 3rd album Hail to England is probably their best and well worth trying with Sign of the Hammer (their 4th) almost as good - this contains their best ever song Guyana (Cult of the Damned) which is so hard to describe but if they can ever be called progressive it is this for such an unusually structured song that works so well that is contrary to anything else they produced.

OK, sounds interesting, Iron. I'l keep that in mind. Thanks  :)

Nicky.
So you've come of age
And so you want to meet God
Sure you can
He's right here next to me

Bupie

Well, since this topic exists, I am going on with nice and kind bands, the ones with leaders you'd really be delighted to share a dinner with ...

I heard and read that WASP's Crimson Idol is a great metal album ? True ?

maddox

Quote from: Bupie on Thu, 2009-02-05, 11:17:15
Well, since this topic exists, I am going on with nice and kind bands, the ones with leaders you'd really be delighted to share a dinner with ...

I heard and read that WASP's Crimson Idol is a great metal album ? True ?

Though i really really don't like WASP i must say...

True.  :-[

And also The Headless Children, especially the title track is great.

There are some giant questionmarks that i write behind the word WASP though.
They're (or rather he since Blacky Lawless is the main character in this band) not quite original when it comes to album titles.  ::)

Funny that Amazon.com adds the word 'Explicit' to the title tracks.  :D
Cause of Injury: Lack of Adhesive Ducks.

Bupie

Thanks, Mad  ;)  That pretty much sums up what I could find about this band.

funkster

A few other excellent metal bands to check out

Sabbat
Metal Church
Exodus
Celtic Frost
Testament - saw them last week in Liverpool and wow was it loud  *horns*



keyboardistmatt

Quote from: funkster on Mon, 2009-02-16, 11:51:35
A few other excellent metal bands to check out

Sabbat
Metal Church
Exodus
Celtic Frost
Testament - saw them last week in Liverpool and wow was it loud  *horns*




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