The heaviest you can like..

BaldJean wrote: Philéas wrote: laplace wrote: micky's right in that Bronzo are heavier than most black metal bands. you need bass to be heavy, and what black metal usually is, is HARSH. ;) I like drone and funeral doom so there's no limit to my love of heaviness. but I can't stand the Flying Luttenbachers for very long because free jazz mixed with noise is too much for me - I like heavy but not harsh if that makes sense. I agree that heavy and harsh are two entirely different things! It's good to finally see someone who shares this view. Heaviness is no problem for me either, but I don't like overly harsh music. I don't quite understand what you mean by "harsh". do you perhaps mean "dissonant"? if so, I disagree. heavy music without dissonance is like a barking dog without teeth

what I mean is sounds at a certain register... noise/power electronics ensembles enjoy making music based around metallic percussive sounds or blasts of pure white noise. black metal bands usually employ high, shrieking vocals that are often distorted and pair that with ringing guitar riffs played very high on the neck.. a lot of free jazz involves someone strangling a reed instrument to death. these sort of sounds are what I term harsh.

dissonance is a different thing, of which I enjoy a certain element of in my music - I'm a KC and chamber fan after all.

edit: my mistake, the free jazz skronk does fall under the definition of dissonance but I'm referring to the sheer noise value rather than the disjointed melody and lack of continuity.


Edited by laplace - January 31 2007 at 02:18

DUN - Eros

If I think about heavy as opposed to light, Merzbow is the heaviest "music" I've ever listened to.

To be honest, heaviness in metal and in grindcore has been around for so long that it ceases to have much impact. When you've heard Wormed, Origin, Worship and any generic grindcore or raw black metal band there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to go.

I find a band like Shellac or Big Black much more brutal than any metal band just because of the delivery of the lyrics (if there was no irony I'd probably be deeply offended!)

All that said, there are no limits for me. That's not to say heaviness can't be used to cover up the fact that a band has rubbish songs, though

In terms of pure violence, my extreme would be Messhugah.. Well, WHAT THE HELL could be more violent than Messhugah? (other than hell itself).... But in terms of "death-iness" or pure heavyness, i can take whatever is thrown at me as long as it has at least something resembling a melody, some structure. I even liked a couple grindcore songs. I used to like Benediction, Carcass, Pyogenesis, and even a couple songs by Deicide. Maybe today I wouldn't like them that much if I heared them, but then again, maybe I would. Messugah was too much for me even when I was comfortable listening to Morbid Angel, so maybe things stay the same. But I don't feel the urge, the need to actually find out about this. It's the interest that has fallen a bit, not the capacuty of my ears to absorb pain.

BaldFriede wrote: I think many albums that are called "heavy" are not heavy at all. What I miss about them is a bit of dirt. They are loud and fast, ok, but the harmonies they use are so simple and banal that I don't regard them as "heavy". To be heavy you have to be dirty too. "Heavy" has in my opinion absolutely nothing to do with speed, by the way. One of the heaviest albums of all time (in my opinion) is the live album "Vital" by Van der Graaf Generator. There are lots of albums by prog metal bands which are faster, but none kicks me in the guts as much as "Vital" does.

you need to post more often   Couldn't agree more. Though YS is the king of heavy..  plenty of 'dirt' in that.  Here...Have a couple of clappies...



Great album by the way.. have a couple more..

probably as heavy as Opeth, Rhapsody, Dragonforce

Peter Rideout wrote: Barla wrote: Cryptopsy. (Extreme Technical Death Metal) Tremendously brutal!! Actually I can't understand A WORD of what the singer shouts. Perhaps it's not in Spanish, then....

You've to hear that band, and then tell me if you understand anything Lord Worm shouts (yeah, damn cool name!).

BaldJean wrote: I don't really have limits, but I dislike it when I get the feeling the heaviness is an attitude. heaviness must make sense from an artistic point of view; a band that is heavy just for being heavy usually bores me. unfortunately I have this feeling with most heavy bands. a really heavy band I like are Skyclad; their sound is highly original because of the use of a violin. I would welcome Skyclad into the archives even. another band I like are Ice Age.some artists which are filed under "prog metal" here I would kick out though, because I can't discover anything proggy about them (must I say Devin Townsend?)

I second that.

Sleepytime gorilla museum, I think. It's not about how heavy, but about how creative it is. That's why opeth is so boring to me. Trash, Thrash, Death, Black, Heavy, Happy, Crappy, Slappy, Gothic, Neurothic and the else just sounds funny in my ears, unless the goals of the compositions are placed beneath the label.