Listening to lately

[_Marcus_]

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley.

One of the best synth wave artists out there with another great album. This time a bit more varied, in a good way.

[Alexhead]

OK, so I just got a ticket to see some band called Voivod with some dude named TC here in Denver, gimmie the top three albums I need to familiarize myself with prior.

[O-dot]

Killing Technology
Dimension Hatröss

Those are the defining records. I also have a fondness for the debut, War and Pain.

[Alexhead]

Awesome. I have a fondness for debut albums too.

[TC]

aw shit! yeah those are my favorites of course, and they play stuff from them. i also like nothingface, and they play a song or two from that. they play a song here & there from their mid-era, more radio friendly stuff, nothing from the two eric forrest albums, and stuff from the last two. surprisingly i don't remember they playing anything off of their self-titled, which i love.

[O-dot]

The Newsted era seems pretty much forgotten already.

[Alexhead]

Rocking my new digital copy of Hatross now, I like the somewhat punk sound of the vox. That's clearing a big hurdle, singers can sour me on a band quick.

[Alexhead]

Oranssi Pazuzu, any fans?

[TC]

Oranssi Pazuzu, any fans?

had never heard of them, just played through the latest album, pretty interesting. thanks. you really like this more experimental stuff. next you'll be listening to aosoth or something!

[Alexhead]

Heh, I just check out things a few people recommend here and there that sound interesting. I am still not the biggest fan of a lot of current metal vocals, however.

[_Marcus_]

Heaven Shall Burn - Wanderer

Love me some HSB and the new album (drops on friday) sounds REALLY promising. More diverse, more intense, more crushing.

[_Marcus_]

Hey, wanna check out the worst edit-job of a live performance ever made? I couldn't make it past the first chorus.

[TC]

yikes. i think it gave me epilepsy.

[Draesk]

Well that's... pretty nauseating. Made for those with shorter attention spans?

I've been on a kick for Intervals lately. I mean, this video isn't exactly stellar either, but eh, I like the guitar work.



Fuck, remember when this place started and we couldn't easily share videos for the music we were interested in because fucking Youtube didn't even exist? Good times.

Edit: Holy shit, Marcus, I just noticed your post about synthwave stuff. You heard of Scandroid? It's Klayton's (of Celldweller fame) elec project. You should check out the self-titled album on YT. I'm liking this Petrubator stuff too!

[_Marcus_]

Holy shit, Marcus, I just noticed your post about synthwave stuff. You heard of Scandroid? It's Klayton's (of Celldweller fame) elec project. You should check out the self-titled album on YT. I'm liking this Petrubator stuff too!

I absolutely have heard of Scandroid, but haven't had time to check out any of his stuff yet. Will surely do that now!

Yeah, Perturbator is the king of that darker synthwave stuff. But there's alot of stuff coming through right now that is totally worth checking out. I'm a big fan of GosT, for instance. A harder edge to the synthwave elements with some nice satanic touches.

[Draesk]

Scandroid are definitely on the lighter end of the synthwave spectrum, but I like how well his 3 projects cover my tastes (Celldweller being the heavier fusion of synth and metal, and Circle of Dust covering industrial metal). I picked up a bunch of the darker synthwave stuff along with Scandroid in a Groupees bundle a while back - Occams Laser, Arcade High, Division (a bit lighter I guess), Dance with the Dead (I fucking love DwtD, some real crunchy guitar stuff in there too). I've got some stuff from The Algorithm too, but that gets filed under "only in small doses"; they can go a bit far overboard into a chaotic hardcore that ends up with 60 bars of exponentially increasing bass-drum saturation (I think one song ends when they eventually overlap to become a single sustained tone...). I've picked up Perturbator's Uncanny Valley on Bandcamp though, thanks for the heads up!

[_Marcus_]

You're dropping some gooood acts there with Arcade High and Dance with the Dead (especially DwtD, that really goes deep with the 80's guitars at times). I would also recommend Ogre, Dan Terminus and Mitch Murder in the synthwave genre. Not new names, per se, but they have produced some really awesome tracks the last few years.

I never really got into Celldweller, I just knew about the guy and all of the stuff he did. Went back and listened to some tracks to get a better feel for it and there's some nice stuff in there for sure. I like it when he goes more hardcore than the pop'ier stuff he does. The mix between groovy metal breakdowns and filthy electronica is when he's at his best.

Super late edit: I just realised that DwtD's song "Screams and Whispers" really super reminds me of Machinae Supremacy's Jets 'n' Guns soundtrack.

[Draesk]

Mate, not gonna lie, I'm absolutely lovin' this. I'm fairly new to synthwave itself - in fact, it was Klayton's name attached to Scandroid & that Groupees bundle that got me hooked only a few months back. I've always had a thing for the electronica & industrial game OSTs (A.R.E.S., Explodemon, the Fahrenheit Project, Frank Klepacki's Command & Conquer, Jonathan Greer's Neon Chrome (which is proper synthwave), and Mick Gordon's Doom 2016 are all on my current playlist). Machinae Supremacy's Commodore SID-inspired blend of metal and retro game music is an old favourite (they actually did the OST for Jets 'n' Guns) and, although seriously industrial rather than electronica, it was Quake 2's soundtrack by Sonic Mayhem that got me to pick up a bass guitar 20 years ago (fuck me, that was 20 years ago?)!

Regardless, that's all history (though, along with Celldweller, I guess it made synthwave an easy step for me); I'm really enjoying getting into the darker synthwave stuff now too. It's fucking awesome finding new names to check out; further down the rabbit-hole ahoy!

"From Eulogy to Perturbator - The Tell-all Fall From Grace", by T.C. Gore.


In a completely different tack, runner-up for Band of the Week™ is Animals as Leaders (and I guess, by extension, Sarah Longfield too). I mean, it's all fucking prog-djent guitar wankery, but it's guitar wankery at its best.

[_Marcus_]

I know that feeling, had that myself a few years ago. An entire new, exploding music genre that you just wanna dive into head-first. For me, synth has always been somewhat of a guilty pleasure since pretty much forever. With the synthwave stuff growing, I've been getting alot deeper into alternative synth/electronica as well. Everything from Georgio Moroder (the Midnight Express soundtrack in particular), John Carpenters catalogue of music to this kinda obscure finnish analogue synth artist called KeBu. You need to check out his live performances on youtube, the man is a genius.

Edit: Btw, there are some really good synthwave podcasts out there. Check out Beyond Synth, for instance. Andy Last interviews the artist of the genre and plays some great music.

[_Marcus_]

Tribulation - Down Under. IT'S SO GOOD, GUYS.