Euro Metal Recommendations

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-02-21 10:53am

Simple enough thread. Looking to check out other metal groups of non American origin, so I was hoping a few of the native Europeans on the board could provide a few recommendations of metal bands to check out. A few lists would be appreciated.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-02-21 11:28am

Anal Stench - appalling name, but they are fucking cool as shit! Russian or Ukranian or something, they have song titles like "crucified by vodka" and "Sputnik" and "Go Gegarin, Go!"

Carcass - british gods of goregrind (earlier stuff, that I don't really like) and their later stuff is amazing, really groovy death metal.

Bolt Thrower - more british gods of slower death metal.

In Flames - long standing gothenburg style metal. Think growly vocals with iron maiden style tempos and cool drumming.

Arch Enemy - similar to In Flames, lots of guitar soloes. Got a female singer at some point, then weren't as good.

Soilwork - a nice mix of electronics, melodies and gothenburg-style metal.

The Project Hate MCXCIX - mix of death metal male vocals, lacuna coil style female vocals, and fairly solid instrumentation. Mid-paced.

Behemoth - awesome brutal death metal in their later stuff, obviously inspired a lot by Nile at this point, lots of egyptian imagery mixed with thelemic themes, instrumentation is quite technical, lots of greek and arabian sounding bits, earlier stuff is kinda lame black metal.

Dimmu Borgir - probably the best band for OTT orchestral black metal.

Bal Sagoth - excellent british "battle metal" band (black metal but with all sorts of weird scifi, mythos and fantasy mixed in) lots of keyboards, excellent guitaring, vocals are mainly spoken word with different voices for the various characters. Soon to be releasing "The Chthonic Chronicles".

Anaal Nathrakh - post black metal/grind/industrial - I love this band, fucking harsh as hell, technical instrumentation, and a good mix of industrial in there, like a super harsh version of kmfdm. British, from Birmingham.

kmfdm - industrial metal that you should already know about.

Vader - ass-kicking, really cleanly produced death metal with an industrial tinge to it. I've just got into them and they totally kick ass.

Entombed - more death metal, wolverine blues is a really catchy album, all their other stuff apart from morning star is pretty mediocre, you only really need those two albums.

Therion - orchestral metal that you should already know about.

Zyklon - founded by some guy from Emperor I think, more death metal.

Kill II This - quite catchy industrial metal, like kmfdm. British.

Grave - pioneers of death metal that have largely been overtaken by lesser acts. Fiendish regression was released in 2004 and is brilliant.

Mors in Tabula - they added my band on myspace, pretty cool greek industrial metal.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » 2006-02-21 01:46pm

Metal is far too generic

Power: In Flames, Ed Guy, Hammerfall
(In Flames is really great)

Symphonic: Nightwish (the most popular band of the scene), Within Temptation (dutch band with is labelled pop in the Netherland but is Gothic Metal everywhere else), Therion, After Forever/Epica (kinda Within Temptation)

Black Metal: Impaled Nazarene, Seth, Marduk, Immortal, Emperor, Seigneur Voland, Anorexia Nervosa
(Impaled Nazarene is my pick even if it's far from representativity of the european Black Metal scene)

Doom/melancolic: My Dying Bride, Dark Tranquility
(Dark Tranquility just rock)

Death Metal: Misanthrope (french band with a particuliar scenic/musical style)

nu Metal: Lacuna Coil (kind cheesy Italian soft metal, but i like it anyway)

that's my favorite euro metal bands.

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2006-02-21 02:33pm

Rammstein
I don't listen heavy metal, barring an occasional Nightwish song, but this band from Germany is an exception to the rule. If the word "powerful" needs to be described with a good example in a dictionary, Rammstein's vocals sung in German would just be that. Their latest album Rosenrot consiting of leftover material from earlier work isn't all that good, IMHO, but Sehnsucht, Reise Reise and Mutter are all worth checking out.

Zadius · Post by **Zadius** » 2006-02-21 04:46pm

I can recommend some good viking and folk-black metal bands:

Einherjer, Ensiferum, Equilibrium, Falkenbach, Finntroll, Moonsorrow.

All are from Europe.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2006-02-21 08:10pm

Amon Amarth!

Darth Quorthon · Post by **Darth Quorthon** » 2006-02-21 08:14pm

Yeah, what they said.
Plus

Bathory: My all-time favorite. From primordial black metal to epic viking metal, with a little thrash thrown in.

Rotting Christ: Symphonic black metal from Greece. One of my favorites.

The Crown: Shredding swedish death metal. Highly recommended.

Rhapsody: Symphonic epic metal at its most over-the-top.

Norther, Kalmah, Cryptic Wintermoon, Imperanon, and Wintersun: Fast black metal in the style of Children of Bodom. Cryptic Wintermoon has a decidely more gothic feel to it.

Caliban and Heaven Shall Burn: Hard-hitting metalcore (no, I don't know what that means)

Godflesh: One of my favorites, but obscure and not too popular. Slow, grinding industrial music from one of the founding members of Napalm Death.

Amon Amarth: Good mid-paced and slow death metal.

Also:
Naglfar, early Sentenced, early Tiamat, (did anyone mention Blind Guardian?), Borknagar, Samael, and At The Gates.

Zadius · Post by **Zadius** » 2006-02-21 08:24pm

TheMuffinKing wrote:Amon Amarth!

Oh shit, how did I forget them. My mind must be screwed up from all the head banging.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-02-21 11:03pm

Definitely a Within Temptation fan here, along with After Forever, Edguy, and Tobias Sammet's (the man from Edguy) Avantasia.

Avantasia is, in my opinion, just about the best music ever written.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-02-22 07:10am

Darth Quorthon wrote: Rhapsody: Symphonic epic metal at its most over-the-top.

Shit, I meant to note them but had forgotten by posting, anyway, Rhapsody get a special mention for having Christopher Lee in their band, sounding like Saruman.

Also, more OTT blast-speed power metal = Dragonforce.

Caliban and Heaven Shall Burn: Hard-hitting metalcore (no, I don't know what that means)

It means they're emo kids trying to be metal.

Samael,

I don't believe I forgot Samael, they're one of my favourite bands, and I know I made a mental note to mention them before I posted.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-02-22 10:38am

Excellent. This should be plenty to get a good feel for the various Euro stuff out there.

Darth Quorthon · Post by **Darth Quorthon** » 2006-02-22 07:39pm

Rye wrote:
Caliban and Heaven Shall Burn: Hard-hitting metalcore (no, I don't know what that means)
It means they're emo kids trying to be metal.

Hey hey hey....

Actually, they sound a lot like Soilwork, but slower and with less electronics, you know, melodic death, but someone came up with the "metalcore" sub-genre.

I forgot some too. Like Skyfire, Enslaved, ...And Oceans, Amorphis(early is best), Lanfear, Mayhem, Satyricon, Sonata Arctica, and Thanatos.