Today I'm looking into a band that I got the sudden urge to listen to, then never really did. However, tonight while I was working and had my music playing in the background, several songs by this band played that I had never really given a proper listen to. They were pretty catchy so I'm catching up on some music that I've been missing out on recently. Today it's all about King Diamond!
Now this is one weird ass band. If you've listened to any of the video above I'm sure the first thing that comes to your mind is "WTF at these vocals". I agree, the super high pitched little girl vocals aren't exactly something I'd expect from a metal band. But that's what makes King Diamond so unique. It's what makes this band stand out like it does.
The whole reason I had the desire to start listening to this band was because of the movie Clerks 2.They play the above song in a few different scenes during the movie and I always enjoyed hearing it, but never knew who sang it. After finally educating myself, I thought "This is pretty good....I better go check out the rest of his stuff!"
So I obviously haven't been listening to much of his other stuff for long yet, but his album "Them" is probably my favorite so far. The music is pretty much just straight up heavy metal with maybe a hint of thrash. Many of the members in King Diamond were together in a band before this called Mercyful Fate that had a very similar sound. I have no doubt that after some more listens to King Diamond I'll head off and check out Mercyful Fate's discography to see how it compares.
This is one band that I need to listen to some more before I can get a clear idea of what exactly I think of them. They do have some good stuff though, so I'll probably be listening to this stuff for the next few days on my IPod.
Yeah its a few days late...whatever. I haven't had any specific cravings for any particular band since Anthrax, but I've been listening to a band that's been a big favorite of mine for almost 10 years now. Today I get to talk about the one and only, Fear Factory.
Fear Factory is an industrial metal genre band. Their songs have a theme around machinery and they incorporate it into their lyrics and music. I'm still not sure what it is about this band that draws me to them so much. I know I really like the drumming at least. It seems to have such a crisp sound on every song. The first album I heard by them was Demanufacture, their second full release. I enjoyed quite a few songs on it--Demanufacture, Replica, New Breed, Dog Day Sunrise, Pisschrist....they all just had a sound to them that pumped me up.
I later expanded on the band's albums and discovered Obsolete. Once again I was totally absorbed into it. The first two songs had crazy energy. It was another solid album, but I wasn't done there.
Not long after, the band released Archetype in 2004. This was just after I first discovered the band and I knew I had to get this album as soon as possible. It was their most mainstream release to date, but that didn't stop it from being probably my favorite album at the time. It was also this time that I managed to see Fear Factory in concert along with Throwdown, Children of Bodom, and Lamb of God in Cleveland, Ohio. It was my first "true" metal concert and it was a blast. Unfortunately it was also the only time I've been able to see Fear Factory in concert, although I'm hoping to be able to see them in May when they tour for their new album.
Fear Factory has released two more full albums since then: Transgression and Mechanize. I don't mind Transgression but it never really excited me near as much as previous albums so it doesn't get much play time these days. Mechanize, however, appeared to have brought back the sound I love and the songs crush you with their intensity. I can only hope their next album (The Industrialist set for May!!!) continues on this trend and smashes me in the face.
Fear is the mind killer.
What I find somewhat humorous about my experience with Fear Factory is which album I would consider my favorite. I never really listened to their Digimortal album for awhile because reviews I read and people I spoke to always slammed on it saying it was by far their worst album. Maybe my taste in music just sucks, but I absolutely LOVE Digimortal. Sure, the songs don't really break any new ground from before, but they are all catchy as hell. It also has another crossover between rap and metal in a song titled "Back the Fuck Up" and I love it. It's hard to pick a favorite song from it since its a solid listen from beginning to end, but it would probably be "Hurt Conveyor" by just a bit. I almost always listen to the the entire album though, it's that good.
So if metal about actual metal and machines that has some groovy beats is your cup of tea I highly recommend you pop one of Fear Factory's albums in your CD/MP3 player and give it a whirl.
