I like metal music. However, most metal music is brick stupid. I wanted to put together a list of intelligent metal music for people who are not familiar with the genre, so they aren't left thinking the entire group is as dumb as, say, Pantera.

1. Slayer - South of Heaven: one of the first truly apocalyptic works of music to emerge from America, this album explores the ways and means of our eventual collapse.

2. Prong - Beg to Differ: a strong statement of social independence, BTD is an album about a lack of standards compliance with a system that has lost its own authenticity.

3. Voivod - Dimension Hatross: progressive speed metal with a futuristic and cyberpunk touch, Voivod makes an album entirely from raw creativity, fusing a new style of dissonant chording, offtime lead rhythm playing, and bizarre song structures.

4. Morbid Angel - Blessed Are the Sick: this album is so subtly musical that often it takes several listens to realize where its sleight of hand technicality manifests itself, but what is most impressive is that it does so without losing intensity at all.

5. Incantation - Onward to Golgotha: sounding like a demon emerging from hell, this visceral masterpiece of onslaught nevertheless features classically-inspired song structures and eternally monumental riffing.

6. Demilich - Nespithe: described by many as the weirdest metal album ever, this jazzy uptemp CD features a cryptogram of lyrics, left field melanges of themes expressed in riff, and some of the most unique and soulful soloing in popular music.

7. Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss: a fusion of ambient music and ultra-simple metal, this album evokes the spirit of dark woods, predators and warriors, and the values of an ancient era.

8. Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse: the word "majestic" begins to describe this masterpiece, in which an interleaving of keyboards and soaring guitars produces cavalcades of noise harmonized into melody.

9. Gorgoroth - Antichrist: done in a satire of 1920s cinema, "Antichrist" mocks all of our fears of evil in intricately compact melodic constructions.

10. Averse Sefira - Tetragrammatical Astygmata: wondering about the links between strength of will, DNA, and kabbalistic ritual? A fusion of aggressive metal with contemplative romantic wanderings, Averse Sefira render into melody an introspective art.

If you want to read more writings on metal by this author, consult the Dark Legions Archive for which he writes.

SOH is one of my least favorite Slayer albums along with SITA and their last 3.Slayer have to go back to the brutality that they captured on the Divine Intervention album.


Circle of Beliefs!!!!

Hey everyone, gather 'round and lets pay even more attention to someone who enjoys beastiality: Infoterror!

This is a great thread, good choices.

I would add PAN-THY-MONIUM and PAVOR.

dont forget:
necrophagist
arsis
atheist
cynic
death (human-SoP)
psyopus, for the jazz-heads
the red chord
converge
my dying bride

infoterror said:


You're on a metal site, making fun of metal, wow, lots of intelligence behind that thought...

Yeah but stuff like PANTERRIBLE is for idiot meat-heads.

101110111 said:

umm, im in a metal band on a metal site and i have to say i agree with oreos statement

Praise the quality metal. If you praise all metal, quality declines. There's a reason everyone on earth knows Iron Maiden and only a few know (insert shitty band here).

there are many better bands that that dude

tomx said:

also:
caphaurnum
spawn of possession
pestilence (spheres)
.... probably a ton of others

Listen to more Accept.

That is all.

I'd have to say that all Death albums (or at least "human" on) have very intelligent lyrical content. Chuck was very interested in the workings of the human mind and human behaviors.

PESTILENCE - SPHERES <3 <3 <3