Most people seem to love Down Among the Deadmen best, but I've never really been one of them. It has a lot of killer riffs and high-flying hooks but there's just something about the whole thing that feels a little cartoony where it should have been more serious. Whereas an album like Hardworlder sounds like a comic book and it fits PERFECTLY with the songs. I think Atavism would also be a really sensible starting point as there are a lot of great songs and the whole thing is fairly short and concise.

Depending on your personal tastes you may, like me, prefer their newer material where they've taken on kind of an older sound, mixing in some Thin Lizzy-esque rocking moments among all the heavy/power goodness. The Animal Spirits would probably make a fine point to dip your toe in amongst the newer material. Ape Uprising! is a really strong album in my opinion, with only the opening track lagging behind the others in terms of quality. Simian Manifesto may be my all-time favorite song of theirs actually, that ending riff is the best thing Lizzy never wrote.

Okay so short answer: Go with Down Among the Deadmen if you're looking for purely heavy/power metal that's kind of bright and super catchy. Check out the two most recent releases if you're interested in a more gritty approach with some nods to 70s classics.

Thanks jonpo. I'll check that album.

Trick question.

All Slough Feg albums are great, and you should get them all. :V

I think Twilight of the Idols, Traveller and Atavism are kinda boring. But I really like The Animal Spirits and Down Among the Dead Men.

HERESY, HERESY, and okay yeah, maybe sometimes.

From what I've heard, they fucking rule. Definitely my kind of metal, so yeah, I'll probably end up listening to them all .

My favorite three are DATD, Hardworlder and The Animal Spirits, though all their stuff is at least good. The first half of DATD is just unstoppably good, god-tier heavy metal. I just love the non-stop riffs as well as the character they always have even despite changing lineups every album. Traveller hasn't aged as well, but it's still better than what a lot of other bands put out.

Traveller is my favorite, Acrobat simply hates good stuff! But yeah, all of their albums are great, stellar band.

Wait, so feeling cartoony is bad but sounding like a comic book is good? I don't follow you.

I definitely could have worded that better. I shouldn't have said "..the whole thing that feels a little cartoony". In fact there are just a few songs that sound completely Disney to me, and throw the whole thing off. Heavy Metal Monk being the worst offender (this song seriously makes me recoil in abject terror) and Troll Pack being another one.

Whereas Hardworlder, to me, sounds like a comic book from the first note to the last, so although it comes off as super lighthearted it doesn't deter my enjoyment at all, because every song fits the atmosphere.

This conversation reminds me of how I showed Fergus Mac Roich to one of my friends and he said that it sounded like the intro to a Saturday morning cartoon - as if that was a bad thing!

All of Slough Feg's albums are worth checking out, though. Opinions on favorites tend to differ wildly, as is evident. I'd probably call Traveller my favorite if only for the consistency - the other albums tend to have some songs that I really don't want to hear, and Traveller avoids that for me.

On a related note, and I'm not sure if it was mentioned here before, but their next album is going to be on Metal Blade from what Scalzi said in some interview from earlier this year. I do wonder if they'll suddenly gain popularity (or exposure, at the very least) because of that. They sure as hell would deserve it.

For some reason, Holland's Martyr is a band I often tend to overlook, and thus it's been several months since I heard them. Spun their second album this morning, and it's a hell of a lot better than I remembered. The slightly open, layered sound also reminds me a hell of a lot of Sweden's Defender. Anyone else hear the connection? I realize they're both pretty obscure bands, so not everyone has heard them, but it's pretty uncanny. At any rate, I'm definitely going to have to put their first two albums back into my regular rotation, excellent stuff! Real the only good Dutch PM I can think of, actually - Emerald, Angus, Vault, and Valkyrie are good heavy metal, but Martyr pretty much have a monopoly on good Dutch PM. Well, at least they gave us one excellent band!

I've also been listening to Militia's Fiend of Misery comp, anyone else heard that one? Some excellent underappreciated USPM/thrash.

I'm puzzled about the general concensus of Traveller being their greatest album. There must be something that everyone else hears and recognises and which I don't. To me it's all kind of ok but lacking something... hooks maybe? Perhaps I should listen to it more then? My three favourites are Down Among the Deadmen, Hardworlder and Twilight of the Idols.

Strikers new album just blew my mind. This album is nothing but back to back winners. I can't believe I didn't hear about this till now

Hell yeah! Armed To The Teeth kills. I had been looking forward to it for forever, but I forgot it's release and eventually picked it up in August. No complaints upon hearing it, when I did eventually get it. I agree with you, it is just great from start to finish.

Traveller is one of my favourite albums of all time. The riffs, the way the songs are constructed, the lyrics, all great. The first line uttered by Scalzi on this album still captures my imagination. And there are several lines throughout the album that I just love (Overlapping nucleotides, double helix is genocide!) It's very good escapism, I really love that in my music.

To this day, I still do not know the song names on the album, when I play it, I listen to the whole thing. That is extremely rare.

Bill Tsamis' solo keyboard album is finally getting a CD release. Not sure how many people here wanna hear an instrumental keyboard album, but it's pretty cool stuff. Very majestic sounding. Bill has a great ear for melody.

samples?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF6hKJnMPPo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJobTYaN ... re=related

The synth sounds a little cheap, but fans of old school RPG music might like it.

I just looked at the KIT lineup. Fuck you, Germany. I don't even want to know that this festival exists.

/wrists

Scalzi himself says Traveler is one of his least favorite albums (in an interview posted sometime over last summer), and that he suspects many people like it most because it's the most mainstream "metal" sounding record they ever did. Which is kind of true when you think about it. It's the one with the least forays into non-metal territory like hard rock, folky Celtic stuff, etc. and it has the most streamlined songwriting. It's still pretty damn awesome though.

Haha these are my feelings every year

Well, you could travel. That's what I'm doing.

I don't even know if I can afford travelling to Maryland Deathfest, much less outta the country.

Traveller has never been my favorite. Twilight of the Idols was my first so it's got a special place, but still not the best. Down Among the Deadmen might be my favorite. I'd maybe say...

Down Among the Deadmen > Twilight of the Idols = Traveller > Ape Uprising = Atavism > Hardworlder > The Animal Spirits (couldn't get into this one much at all)

Not sure about the s/t, haven't listened enough. I don't rank Ape Uprising and Atavism much bellow TotI/Traveller. They're all four pretty quality, even if Atavism is skimpy in places.

I feel for ya, Nahsil. MDF looks fucking awesome this year, too.

Rage's Soundchaser is actually really good. Great hooks and a really spirited performance from Peavy. I don't really like modern power metal all that much, but this album is cool. This last two part song is definitely one of the band's best. Victor's leads are perhaps a bit too shred for me, but I think his rhythm playing is certainly interesting.

Yeah, don't start with Traveller: from what I've heard of it it's not representative of their sound. Down Among the Dead, Animal Spirits and Hardworlder are the best places to begin with.

Don't start with Atavism either: too much of that album is comprised of instrumentals that don't go anywhere.

Soundchaser is pretty tight. The first few songs are very catchy. I really like the guitar playing on that album, he knows when to reign it back a notch when needed.

This is by far my favorite Rage album. It stays away from the gimmicky, cliche lyrics more than the rest. Everyone is at the top of their game on that one too.

Soundchaser is amazing. I also own Unity but don't enjoy it nearly as much, it's not even close. Which other Rage albums are up to par with Soundchaser?

Menace, The band who put out the Quake metal EP in 2003, which was a killer slab of Heavy/speed I must say, just released a new album last month and it sounds very good from this sample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfHyPAN6rtk Nice and aggressive speedmetal.

I am going to have to pick this up asap.

So apparently Angra have a new singer and will be playing 70000 tons of metal with him(/her?) but they aren't telling us who it is.

It's Anette Olzon!

Don't joke with that Tony. It's not funny.

Tim "Ripper" Owens?

John Cyriis!

Okay, I'll join in; Daniel Heiman?

That would be awesome.

I kind of hope not, from what I've heard on his work with Lost Horizon his voice gets kind of boring, always the same tone and approach to everything.
Whoever it ends up being should be able to put some serious interpretative work into Bittencourt's lyrics, Heiman sounds too monotone to me.

On the other side... Finally, now time to go record another album!
Although knowing late Angra's story of releasing one masterpiece followed by a mediocre album, I'm kind of rather looking forward to the album that will come after this one.

Their last two albums have easily been the best of their career. Well Rebirth was really good. But the two more recent ones take more steps into originality and deliver more daring, adventurous material, so they're better overall. Temple of Shadows and the earlier Matos stuff is all pretty overrated...

I've only heard the debut. It's not bad for Brazilian Euro-power (ha!), but it's not particularly good either.