Recent listening (a lot of songs linked)

'Lo. Been liking some recent music discoveries, so decided to share. I'm going to link a bunch of songs in between my rantings, and I wouldn't expect anyone to listen to all of them, but if you have any passing interest in any of these artists, I hope you can enjoy some of these songs.

I have become a huge fan of Devin Townsend and Strapping Young Lad... I've been listening to him more than anyone for the past month or so. Favorite albums as a whole would be Ziltoid and Terria, but he has plenty of awesome albums... Ocean Machine, Addicted, Infinity, and Accelerated Evolution, just to name a few. Devin's singing in the first video below - Regulator, off Ocean Machine - is awesome. Second video is Deadhead off Accelerated Evolution, which has also grown on me. Devin's take on metal, to me, is just incredibly catchy, and results in so many memorable songs.

His newest album, Epicloud, is pretty good too... the re-recording of Kingdom is amazing, definitely one of my recent top songs. The Epicloud version, in my opinion, is probably his most epic song... not sure how else to describe it, just epic.

Even if Devin's solo career is probably better than Strapping's discography as a whole, Strapping's masterpiece City has been my favorite album overall for a few months. I've gotten two friends somewhat into this album... for what it is - that being chaos - in my opinion, no album pulls it off better. Detox has become pretty much my favorite song... it might even overtake Leaders (Katatonia). Going to link it, it's pretty damn heavy (but not the heaviest song on the album) but also dark and emotional. Singing is epic as I would expect from Devin.

Somewhat related to Devin, I've also somewhat gotten into his guest singer(?) Anneke van Giersbergen's old band The Gathering. Anneke really is an amazing singer. Like many of my favorite bands, they are pretty dark, but calmer than most of what I listen to.

That said, The Gathering's most recent album (without Anneke), Disclosure, is pretty good. Heroes for Ghosts came up on Spotify (which I've been using the radio of occasionally), and I was impressed. Pretty calm, dark, and the middle part is awesome.

I still love Katatonia and Opeth, but I haven't been listening to them nonstop as I kind of did months ago, haha. Katatonia's Night is the New Day has oddly become my current top of theirs, though... I really love their heavy guitars on that album and on The Great Cold Distance, which I would generally say is very close behind City as my overall favorite album. On Night is the New Day, they use heavy parts less, but the album has a really great and dark atmosphere, and when the heavy guitars come in they ALWAYS fit so well.

And sometimes there's still the Opeth mood, which when satisfied is pretty much unmatched for me. Morningrise and Blackwater Park probably remain my favorites, but My Arms Your Hearse has become one of my favorites as well recently. I also still (oddly?) love Orchid. Linking one of their live staples - which I saw them perform acoustically, it was really interesting - Demon of the Fall. If you haven't heard it, it's pretty much as death metal as Opeth get until Deliverance, but it's still very progressive.

I've also been listening to a good amount of "post-metal," and some sludge metal. The Ocean's Precambrian is one of my recent top albums... crushingly heavy at times, pretty atmospheric, and awesome overall. Some people may not like The Ocean's vocals, and I could see that, but I have just grown to not care that much about a singer's voice or vocal style unless it's ridiculous. Neurosis also has some great stuff. Their 2004 album The Eye of Every Storm stuck with me somewhat more than their highly-regarded 1996 album Through Silver In Blood, but I still enjoyed the latter on my only listen so far. I'll link the (long) title track of The Eye of Every Storm... it drones for a while in the middle but it's very atmospheric and cool in my opinion.

Amorphis and Deftones have finally grown on me recently. Amorphis, in my opinion, are just really catchy and have a good amount of memorable songs and parts of songs. I saw Deftones open for System of a Down last August - and it was awesome - but I hadn't checked them out until I decided to pick up the White Pony CD at Best Buy. From there, I picked up most of their other albums... they've definitely been one of my recent favorites. They kind of pull off their own take on darkness and heaviness in an awesome way.

(Last one!) I checked out what's supposed to be Fear Factory's best album, Demanufacture... I was blown away by the heaviness of the title track. Otherwise, somewhat catchy and pretty damn heavy stuff. I was wondering about checking out some more Fear Factory, if any other of their albums are anywhere near as good as Demanufacture.

Other bands that have grown on me are Anathema, Agalloch (both more than before), and Antimatter (pretty dark, which is what I like). Agalloch, especially, has become one of my absolute favorites. I checked out Sunbather by Deafheaven, which had been getting really good reviews from critics which led to my checking it out, and enjoying it. Black metal or not, whatever - although I think "blackgaze" works - to me it was interesting music. I'm slowly getting more into Emperor and Isis.

Welp, that's about it for my recent listening. I also recently have been collecting CDs of my favorite albums, even if I had them digitally... they sound awesome loud through the surround speakers in my attic, plus I feel they're kind of fun to have. Not sure when my next post will be. I'm kind of considering reviewing the debut album of Dan Swanö's newest project, Witherscape, which should come in the mail (with a shirt!) soon... we'll see though.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed some of these songs.