Good Contemporary Rock

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-11-16 11:05am

My quest for music that doesn't utterly suck has hit a brick wall. Sure, there's loads of good old stuff, and some decent newer stuff (Soundgarden, et. all, although its hardly classic rock), but it seems that sometime in the 1990's people decided they just weren't going to make good music. Bands like Radiohead and Coldplay suck. Recent MTV trashrock (as I like to call pretty much everything nowadays) is incestous crap. However, there have to be a few diamonds in the rough, bands that I'm missing under all the glitz.

Therefore, I ask each and everyone one of you to come up with at least one good current rock band and post it here. Nothing earlier than the 1990's. No Christian rock. Alt. rock is fine, just make sure its not too weird.

And no, the Rolling Stones, as much as they kick ass, do not qualify.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2003-11-16 11:06am

The Cooper Temple Clause : - British, decent vocals, varies between heavy and chilled out. Check out Promises, Promises and Who needs enemies

Kinesis : - political, okay vocals, good guitars check out Bill board beauty and Everything Destroys Itself

And Muse : - Riff Heavy, very good vocals, awesome band check out Plug In Baby and Time is running out. best of the three

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-11-16 11:08am

Brief descriptions and the names of some songs would be appreciated, too.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-11-16 11:38am

oxymoron: extremely good street punk. melodic rough and without stupid oohs and aahs. german band, english vocals (he fakes that brit accent quite well in my opinion).

songs:
mohican tunes
dawn patrol
bored & violent
dead end generation

Demiurge · Post by **Demiurge** » 2003-11-16 12:08pm

Is Soundgarden the band that did "Black Hole Sun"?

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2003-11-16 12:27pm

Don't know if they qualify for the kind of rock you want but The Darkness kick ass!

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-11-16 12:28pm

Demiurge wrote:Is Soundgarden the band that did "Black Hole Sun"?

yes.
they suck.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-11-16 12:49pm

The Tea Party. Good Canadian rock band, on the heavier side of things and they have some eastern styles on some of their songs. The insturments on the songs are quite amazing, instead of the simple distorted guitar crap & drum machines we get these days, it's more like the intricate complex stuff on Metallica's earlier albums.

Songs to hit up:
Fire in Your Head
Correspondences
Sister Awake
Walk With Me
Heaven Coming Down
Samsara
Mantra

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-11-16 01:22pm

yes.
they suck.

Correction. Black Hole Sun sucks. The band did put some pretty good stuff out.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-11-16 01:38pm

Oh yes, almost forgot Tori Amos. Check out "Professional Widow" and tell me you don't hear some Led Zeppelin in there.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-11-16 01:47pm

Rob Zombie - I dunno what to say, but his music just so owns, it's catchy, likable and sounds metally.

PM5K - similar to above

Dimmu Borgir - probably some of the most ear-friendly black metal ever, easily likable tunes

Pissing Razors - whjat you expect to be a shitty grindcore band turn out to be really quite strong yet consistant and they keep the tune in the right place, always works.

Pantera - Go from high pitched sounding vocals on the first album to good and fairly low the second album onwards. I suggest getting "this love", "Hollow", "Walk" and "5 minutes alone"

Faith no more - a bit of an aquired taste, but good "thrash funk" a tiny bit like red hot chilli peppers

type o negative - goth slow metal that doesn't take itself too seriously. I suggest "Black no 1"

Apollo 440 - a rock/dance combo band, did some memorable stuff.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2003-11-16 02:05pm

Apollo 440 - a rock/dance combo band, did some memorable stuff.

lost in space soundtrack anyone ?

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-11-16 03:41pm

The Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets..... the world's only Lovecraftian Punk/Surf band!

zombie84 · Post by **zombie84** » 2003-11-16 04:33pm

Radiohead are very good. Probably the only progressive rock band that gets played on the radio these days. Very interesting and challenging work, especially when you consider the utterly simplistic shite that they're up against. Go check out the album OK Computer, you wont be dissapointed.

I gave up on so-called "alternative" rock--what a crock of shit that title is! In 1990, when Poison and Whitesnake were mainstream, Nirvana was definitly alternative, the complete antithesis to glam rock, but nowadays stuff like Green Day and Ataris and White Stripes are about as mainstream as you can get.

Metal nowadays is really the only form of "Alternative" rock. And even then, most people only experience it through mainstream trash like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit.

Bertie Wooster · Post by **Bertie Wooster** » 2003-11-16 04:43pm

I like radiohead a lot, but I admit since Kid A, their stuff could put off new listeners because it seems weird. OK Computer and The Bends are excellent rock&roll albums.

Some pretty good progressive rock bands are Pavement, Folk Implosion, Sebedoh and Guided by Voices. They are neither hard, nor soft.

Bertie Wooster · Post by **Bertie Wooster** » 2003-11-16 04:45pm

Oh yeah, The Strokes new album is pretty good.

Edit- finished sentence

Exonerate · Post by **Exonerate** » 2003-11-16 05:09pm

I can name some more mainsteam stuff...
Incubus, Weezer. They're both fairly mellow.
Tool is rock-ish. A Perfect Circle has the same vocalist. Disturbed is pretty similar.
Bush is rock...
Cursive is probably soft enough to be listenable for mainsteam tastes.

Name a few bands you like, and I'll try to come up with something similar to them

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-11-16 05:10pm

I'm quite fond of Staind myself. And if you likes Sound Garden try listening to Audioslave:
Sound Garden + Rage Against The Machine - Political Bullshit

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2003-11-16 05:11pm

zombie84 wrote:Radiohead are very good.

Radiohead are a very strange band. They're not one of the ones that you either lolve or hate as each album varies so much that you apply the love/hate to each seperate album and not the band.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-11-16 05:20pm

I used to be really into Radiohead. Ok Computer is one of my favourite albums ever, The Bends not too far behind. The came the train wreck that was Kid A and it all went down hill. If you really like Radiohead's old stuff listen to Muse, basically the same thing with a little piano mixed in.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-11-16 05:25pm

I found Harvey Danger to be pretty good, although it's hard to find anything by them.

Post by **Dalton** » 2003-11-17 03:14am

The Offspring (mixed bag there, mostly angry rock) and System of a Down (which is all FUCKED UP SHIT).

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-11-17 05:36am

Well, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and Ozzy have all produced good albums since 1990

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Raveonettes, Rob Zombie,

ooh, lots.

zombie84 · Post by **zombie84** » 2003-11-17 12:31pm

Tea Party's album Transmission is one of my favourite albums...their newer stuff is much more softer and mainstream in sound (but still pretty good) but Transmission is a wonderful hard rock/progressive rock fusion. Placebo is also a solid rock band, nice overtones of Rush in there, though i dont even know if they're still together anymore. Tool and Perfect Circle are of course excellent dark hard rock bands, but again, Tool is no more and Perfect Circle has claimed to be over and done with their one album i believe. Wish i was bigger on contemporary rock but i havent really heard anything worth recommending in a few years. Social Distortion is an excellent punk rockish kinda band that stands out from all the new posers but the last album i bought from them was in the mid 90's. Treble Charger are an excellent rock band, though their latest stuff has drifted into pop-punk territory with some songs; their first two or three albums are excellent though...but then those are 5 or 6 years old now.

Hmm, notice that nothing i can recommend is from the present. Audioslave are okay and Chile Peppers still put out some decent stuff that gets way too overplayed. Sum 41 are probably my favourite of the latest wave of bands, even if they have pop-punk overtones; though they pander to that crowd, they have an amazing sound, solid songwirtting and a wicked Iron Maiden influence that puts them at a cut above all the other bands.

Bertie Wooster · Post by **Bertie Wooster** » 2003-11-17 01:27pm

Portishead is very much underrated IMO. They have two very good albums - Dummy and Portishead. Awesome vocals with brooding, dark tunes.

Sigur Ros from Iceland have two exceptional albums as well. Very, very mellow, but calming almost to the point of making one drowsy.

Sonic Youth's last album Murray Street is superb. (Progressive Rock)