Post by willasher on Jul 13, 2011 1:45:35 GMT -5
Warning: long message
The first metal band I listened to was Tourniquet. A college friend recommended them to me. At first I thought they were mediocure, but they grew on me until Microscopic View of A Telescopic Realm became one of my favorite CDs. It was a while later before I got into any other real metal bands.
I heard of Becoming the Archetype when I was first getting into heavy metal (or at least any metal beyond Tourniquet). I read some guide on Amazon.com about some Christian metal recommendations, and went from there to sample some music on Youtube. First song I heard by BTA was Immolation. Unfortunately, I didn't think much of it at the time and didn't listen to any more BTA for awhile.
At that early stage, I was still in the process of aquiring a taste for death metal-style vocals. Besides that Amazon guide, the main way I heard of metal bands was putting the couple ones I knew of into Pandora radio and see what new bands it played. This was how I heard of In Flames (my other favorite metal band). (I think it was Extol that I put into that pandora station.) The first two songs by In Flames I heard were "Subterranean" and "Trigger" (from two very different stages of their career). "Trigger" is one song in particular which helped me to aquire a taste for metal vocals by mixing them with very accessable riffs and a cachy chorus. It was a good song for the metal beginner.
From there, the metal bands I heard and really liked were Haste the Day (metalcore), Disciple (hard rock/metal mix), and In Flames (melodic death metal). I listened to a few songs by Extol, and really liked certain aspects of their music (including the overall hardness of it), but it never really got to me in a good way. I had a dream of finding a band that had the hardness of Extol, the awesome melodic metal guitars of In Flames, plus the happy tone of Five Iron Frenzy (my favorite ska band). Not just a positive message, but heavy metal which actually sounded positive in the music. I figured it would always remain a dream. (Although, I thought the song "The Spring" by Christian folk metal band Holy Blood came pretty close: www.youtube.com/watch?v=93kQXY-NWf0 )
Anyway, it was a couple years later when I heard something about a song inspired by C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis is my all time favorite author), so I sampled it on Youtube along with a few others from Dichotomy and bought the CD soon after. (That alone is saying something because in my big CD collection I have CDs from only five metal bands: Tourniquet, Disciple, Haste the Day, In Flames, and Becoming the Archetype. -unless you count Staind or Skillet which I don't consider to be quite metal.) It's a great CD, and the way BTA mixes piano with metal is unique and works unexpectedly very well.
So a little later, I heard about BTA preparing to release a CD named after one of the few Extol songs I really liked as a tribute to the archtypical Christian death metal band. So as soon as the CD came out, I sampled some songs from Celestial Completion on Youtube (I almost always sample music before buying because I'm picky and have different tastes than a lot of people so I can't rely on recommendations much). I loved every song I sampled from this CD, lyrics and music both. The clean vocals (especially in Magnetic Sky and Reflect/Refract) and operatic bits (Xenosynthesis) mixed in work really well. My mind exploded when I listened to Cardiac Rebellion, since I already love ska, the mixture was perfect for me. And when I listened to Breathing Light, my dream of truely positive metal came true. Needless to say, I aquired this CD almost as soon as I could (almost because it was near my birthday, so I just put it at the top of my wish list instead of buying it right away -Youtube helped me to wait).
The CD is epic from beginning to end. The single tiny thing that disappointed me when I got the CD was that the 8bit intro to The Magnetic Sky was missing. It's in the music video but not on the album track. Now, it's pretty good sign when something that little is the only bad thing I can think of to say about a CD.
One thing would bring my dream of positive heavy metal to completion. There's an old praise and worship song which I keep thinking would sound amazing if put to metal music. It's a song in minor key with a Messianic Jewish flavor. The song is "Great and Wonderful". Here's a link to a version of it I found on Youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0dfh8bHoCg
This version isn't bad, but isn't great. This group changed the melody just slightly from the way I'm used to hearing it, but at least you get the idea. If I find a better recording of the song, I'll post it in this thread. And yes, I'm suggesting/ wishing for Becoming the Archetype to cover this song on their next CD. I think if any band would have the guts to pull this off, it would be BTA.
*I had Breathing Light starting to play on my MP3 player as I started to write this message, but the song is too epic and awesome to listen to and think about what I'm writing at the same time so I had to wait till the end of the song to write the message and then play it again afterwords...
The first metal band I listened to was Tourniquet. A college friend recommended them to me. At first I thought they were mediocure, but they grew on me until Microscopic View of A Telescopic Realm became one of my favorite CDs. It was a while later before I got into any other real metal bands.
I heard of Becoming the Archetype when I was first getting into heavy metal (or at least any metal beyond Tourniquet). I read some guide on Amazon.com about some Christian metal recommendations, and went from there to sample some music on Youtube. First song I heard by BTA was Immolation. Unfortunately, I didn't think much of it at the time and didn't listen to any more BTA for awhile.
At that early stage, I was still in the process of aquiring a taste for death metal-style vocals. Besides that Amazon guide, the main way I heard of metal bands was putting the couple ones I knew of into Pandora radio and see what new bands it played. This was how I heard of In Flames (my other favorite metal band). (I think it was Extol that I put into that pandora station.) The first two songs by In Flames I heard were "Subterranean" and "Trigger" (from two very different stages of their career). "Trigger" is one song in particular which helped me to aquire a taste for metal vocals by mixing them with very accessable riffs and a cachy chorus. It was a good song for the metal beginner.
From there, the metal bands I heard and really liked were Haste the Day (metalcore), Disciple (hard rock/metal mix), and In Flames (melodic death metal). I listened to a few songs by Extol, and really liked certain aspects of their music (including the overall hardness of it), but it never really got to me in a good way. I had a dream of finding a band that had the hardness of Extol, the awesome melodic metal guitars of In Flames, plus the happy tone of Five Iron Frenzy (my favorite ska band). Not just a positive message, but heavy metal which actually sounded positive in the music. I figured it would always remain a dream. (Although, I thought the song "The Spring" by Christian folk metal band Holy Blood came pretty close: www.youtube.com/watch?v=93kQXY-NWf0 )
Anyway, it was a couple years later when I heard something about a song inspired by C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis is my all time favorite author), so I sampled it on Youtube along with a few others from Dichotomy and bought the CD soon after. (That alone is saying something because in my big CD collection I have CDs from only five metal bands: Tourniquet, Disciple, Haste the Day, In Flames, and Becoming the Archetype. -unless you count Staind or Skillet which I don't consider to be quite metal.) It's a great CD, and the way BTA mixes piano with metal is unique and works unexpectedly very well.
So a little later, I heard about BTA preparing to release a CD named after one of the few Extol songs I really liked as a tribute to the archtypical Christian death metal band. So as soon as the CD came out, I sampled some songs from Celestial Completion on Youtube (I almost always sample music before buying because I'm picky and have different tastes than a lot of people so I can't rely on recommendations much). I loved every song I sampled from this CD, lyrics and music both. The clean vocals (especially in Magnetic Sky and Reflect/Refract) and operatic bits (Xenosynthesis) mixed in work really well. My mind exploded when I listened to Cardiac Rebellion, since I already love ska, the mixture was perfect for me. And when I listened to Breathing Light, my dream of truely positive metal came true. Needless to say, I aquired this CD almost as soon as I could (almost because it was near my birthday, so I just put it at the top of my wish list instead of buying it right away -Youtube helped me to wait).
The CD is epic from beginning to end. The single tiny thing that disappointed me when I got the CD was that the 8bit intro to The Magnetic Sky was missing. It's in the music video but not on the album track. Now, it's pretty good sign when something that little is the only bad thing I can think of to say about a CD.
One thing would bring my dream of positive heavy metal to completion. There's an old praise and worship song which I keep thinking would sound amazing if put to metal music. It's a song in minor key with a Messianic Jewish flavor. The song is "Great and Wonderful". Here's a link to a version of it I found on Youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0dfh8bHoCg
This version isn't bad, but isn't great. This group changed the melody just slightly from the way I'm used to hearing it, but at least you get the idea. If I find a better recording of the song, I'll post it in this thread. And yes, I'm suggesting/ wishing for Becoming the Archetype to cover this song on their next CD. I think if any band would have the guts to pull this off, it would be BTA.
*I had Breathing Light starting to play on my MP3 player as I started to write this message, but the song is too epic and awesome to listen to and think about what I'm writing at the same time so I had to wait till the end of the song to write the message and then play it again afterwords...
). 