Swedish music!

Oh cool! Yeah making money and making metal rarely mix haha.

I suppose offering recommendations really depends on what you are in the mood for. My mood varies constantly but it usually dictates I listen to metal no matter what, and with so many sub-genres, that is always possible

I actually have a recommendation for you on the epic metal side of things which seems to be where you hold the most interest. Check out this link:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=92890

That is a story about the upcoming album from the band Pyramaze with two song downloads to preview. Their upcoming album has Matt Barlow who was Iced Earth's original singer (he has since joined that band again after being away for years working in law enforcement). This is actually some of the better epic metal I have heard in recent years. I find most of it too hokey and not actually powerful enough, but this is quite good and I think you will like it a lot.

Elsewhere in metal I just love so many bands, but here are some bands in different sub-genres that I have a personal love for. I could obviously list more. The styles range from band to band and even album to album so all I can do is list the name otherwise my head would explode trying to describe them all.

Darkane
Soilwork
Theory In Practice
Ram-Zet
Unexpect
Decapitated
Circus Maximus
Extol
Andromeda
Angra
Scar Symmetry
Symphony X
Nevermore
Devin Townsend (solo) / Strapping Young Lad
Dream Theater
Sybreed

Yeah, I've seen them live. Turunen was in my opinion a lot more still, not really being a good performer, but Anette is great a performer.

Of that list, Nevermore was really good live and their album Dead Heart in a Dead World is quite good. I had one Scar Symmetry album and didn't like and it sold it back to the record store (the record store here buys back albums). Dream Theater is excellent.

SYL/Townsend I can only stomach if I'm in the right mood. The guy is literally crazy, so I can't take a steady dose of him.

From the DVDs I've seen Turunen, she looked very stiff live. My wife isn't too crazy about her. She said she was something along the lines of "robotic." But she loves Annette.

Annette doesn't have the voice of Tarja, but she does have better stage presence and is more charismatic. I've also heard she's more "professional" and not so much a "diva." I hate divas, and I couldn't be in a band with one. I guess neither could Tuomas, Emmpu, Jukka, and Marco.

Bumping.

I'm a member of eMusic and my month resets tonight, so if any of those bands are on eMusic, I'll download their albums. For those of you who don't know, it's just another one of those music services that artists upload their mp3s and get paid per download. So the more people who download, the more the band makes.

Anyways, Scythe, I'll let you know what I think of those bands in the next few days (if they use this service).

holy wow - i MUST be old if cheesey & i know the SAME friggin band?!?

Opeth, Nightwish, HIM, Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir are great bands. Is Cradle of Filth a Swede band too?

German music?
Rammstein and Larm Micht kick butt!

Wow! You and I have almost the same taste.

Of those bands, I've seen them all live except for Opeth which I really wanted to see.

As for nationalities:
Opeth - Swedish
Nightwish & HIM - Finnish
Cradle of Filth - English
Dimmu Borgir - I think Norwegian but not sure

David Hasselhoff! :lol:

I don't trust Swedish music...it insists upon itself.

I was a kid when Night Rider came out and even then, I knew that guy shouldn't sing. He sang on a few episodes of Night Rider, and it was bad, really bad.

Scythe - Pain of Salvation, Paatos, and Anekdoten:

Of the 3, I only liked Paatos. I like her voice and love their use of the mellotron although their music sometimes goes off in tangents or into space in some weird direction and it takes several minutes to come back down to Earth.

Their instrumentation is quite good, but sometimes it's too much. It's one of those things where good musicians get carried away and venture too far from the original idea of the song. Sometimes it works (as Pink Floyd always seemed to make it do) and sometimes it doesn't (some of you might hate me for saying this, but I think Sonic Youth is the prime example of when it doesn't).

I now have 3 of their albums. I'm sure they're one of those bands that will grow on you so I'll keep listening to them. So far, I do like them though.

I'd agree that Paatos is the best amongst the three. I think PoS and Anekdoten are much more of an acquired taste. Which PoS album(s) did you listen to?

The newest one that was on eMusic.com. They had 30 second samples and I listen to half of them. They just didn't do it for me.

Paatos though is really growing on me.

Wow, no love for Meshuggah? What about The Refused? They're more on the hardcore side, but they were way ahead of anything going on here in the states.

You probably heard it on the "oldies" station........while it was "new" music for me!!! :lol: