Metal Reviews

Around '97 or so, my friend would play Load all the time and that's basically how I got into the whole metal thing, or at least stuff with heavy distortion. In '98, on my 12th birthday I was given the Reload album. I've basically worked my way up the obscurity ladder since then, my second metal band being Iron Maiden, third being Judas Priest and then a couple of years later I discovered stuff on the level of Helloween and Testament.

This will be my third time responding to this topic... not this thread, but we have a lot of n00 people so it's good to resurrect old topics.

Anyway, Reign In Blood was my first real metal CD. I was about 12 years old. Before that it was White Zombie, Marylin Manson, Smashing Pumpkins... Then it was Devin Townsend with Infinity. At the age of about 14 I had became to cool for school and wanted to fit in with my classmates. From 14 to about 16 I listened to nothing but rap. 17 I started listening to Oldies and Hair metal; Simon and Garfunkle, The Temptations, James Taylor, Van Halen, Poison, Bon jovi... 18 it was more classic rock/metal; Zeppelin, Rush, Maiden, the Who... 19 I listened to that Infinity record by Devy my brother burnt for me and I was back for good. My brother then joined Cellador and from there he introduced me to Dream Theater, Sonata, and Strato.

High school was a confusing time for me it seems.

After Bodom and In Flames I was no longer afraid of harsh vocals too.

Yeah, there have been a few of these topics, but anyways...

As I tend to mention a lot, I'm really new to metal--coming on two years now. I started with Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, and then went to the radio where I got into stuff like SOAD, Tool, and RATM. I wasn't really a metalhead at that point, but then my friend showed me the cover to Dream Theater's Train of Thought, and I thought it was badass. I listened to the CD a few months later, I think, and I really liked it. After that I got a little bit into Iron Maiden--just a greatest hits CD. My friend introduced me to Trivium, Avenged Sevenfold, and Children of Bodom (who I wouldn't actually get into until later) along with some death metal. But, I consider my finding of this site while looking for Dream Theter reviews what really got me into metal so thanks guyz.

That's actually true for me too.

My friend stole a Blind Guardian CD from some store, lol, and he gave it to me a week later and I really loved it. I went looking on the internet for some reviews of their other albums and I found this site. Most of the stuff I've bought have been because of the reviews here.

lol!! Well I've been a hardcore Maiden fan since, I'm 23 now. How would you define old btw?

Actually I was listening to The Offspring, Bon Jovi and even Metallica way before I discovered Maiden. But somehow or rather, it never got me really interested into metal. Maiden BNW was an eye opener to me. I liked it a lot. Then I bought the 'Best of the Beast' compilation. With songs like Aces High, The Trooper, and Powerslave, I really had a hard on. Then Hallowed be thy Name just made me come.

Just like many, I was afraid of harsh vocals. The first extreme band I came across was Rotting Christ, with the 'Non Serviam' album (I've not been exposed to Slayer yet at this point). It gave me the creeps, and I couldn't really get into the songs because of the vocals. Then as time went by and through numerous replays of that tape, it grew onto me. I was so addicted to harsh vocals that when I discovered Helloween and Rhapsody, I just told myself "Fuck this is gay". But Maiden remained the top of my list along with Priest and Sabbath (both Ozzy and Dio years).

Even with Black Metal and Death Metal on my playlist all the time, it took me some time to appreciate brutal death and grindcore. At the moment, after 7 hears of heavy metal martyrdom, I'm enjoying every single aspect of metal, from the traditional Heavy Metal to Brutal Death (Power also included, although it's not a clear favourite).

Although I've been listening to Metallica before Maiden, or the fact that some claim 'tallica as the biggest band in the world, it's Maiden for life for me.

Well, Journey exposed me to rock music. In fact they were the first live band I ever saw back in 1983! I was 13....do the math. Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Motley Crue introduced me to hard rock.

It was the purchase of Iron Maiden's "Piece of Mind" that really brought me into the metal fold. I was looking to buy a new "cassette" (that should date me a bit), I saw the cover art of Eddie in the padded cell and I knew that it had to be bad ass.

I guess the most of us here were inspired by Maiden a lot.

When I first started listening to Metal, I was so much in love with Maiden (still do) that I only started exploring bands that inspired Maiden and also bands that drew influence from Maiden, eg Iced Earth. Looking back at it, I gotta admit it's a very close minded concept . But through the new bands I discovered, I sorta got my tastes buds diversified. Maiden, along with Sabath are probably the most successful bands in influencing most sub-genre's of metal. Take a look at my 'analysis' on the song 'Powerslave'....

played faster - thrash metal
played heavier - death meta
played faster and heavier - brootal death metal
played with shrieking vocals - norsk black metal

I started into metal with Metallica, as introduced by a few of my friends. However, I don't really count Metallica as getting me into metal- though they were the first metal band I liked, they were also the only metal band I listened to for about a year- I had no interest in listening to anything else from the genre. Then, in art class one day, a friend of mine put on Shadows Fall's the Art of Balance and I fell in love- I got their discography, and more importantly, began checking out similar bands- so I got into Gothenburg through In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, and from there checked out power metal through Blind Guardian, and from there listened to Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and from there began to check out the thrash scene by listening to Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer mainly, and then branching out from there into the thrash loving headbanging motherfucker I am today.

I was intrigued by one of Obituary's cover and wanted to listen to it... I didn't think it was bad, just really really strange and so my cousin gave me a couple of cd like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath and i got into it after some time.

From my mom's 'Piece of Mind' cd... At least, I think it was hers.
Think I was 9 or something. Of course, I didn't really start listening to metal before I got a bunch of Megadeth, Metallica and Maiden cd's from my mom's ex-boyfriend, when I was 12 or something.

It aaall started with the backstreet boys...

Then I decided to be a punk rock kid. rofl.
I still love lots of punk bands.

But I also really enjoyed KISS, AC/DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden etc through out my punk r0x phase.

Then my brother's ex- girlfriend introduced me to nightwish, and thought that was quite entertaining. Then I grew out of the punk scene and decided to join my brothers of metal.

Growing up my dad drove a truck and the only thing to do in a truck is listen to music. So when I went with him we listened to music. He had tapes of bands that I love today. We listened to Motorhead, Rainbow, Metallica, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Deep Purple, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Prodigy, Steppenwolf, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Neil Young, ZZ Top, Focus, Megadeth, Pink Floyd, etc. etc...

He didn't (and still doesn't) like Iron Maiden, so when I was getting into them he made fun of me. He called them Judas Priest rip offs. Meh I like them. I like Priest more but I still like Maiden. I asked him one day why he never listened to ACDC and he told me it's because they suck and there is so much better stuff to listen to.

Now my dad influenced to listen to the music I listen to now, but he does listen to a lot of shit to. He is really big on country, mostly Hank Williams the 3rd or as my dad likes to call him Tricefus.

Black Sabbath is to blame for my metal addiction. I saw the clip Paranoid on MTV and I was a metalhead. Before I listened to Bryan Adams and that kind of stuff, still not bad but metal is the law!

when i was born my uncles were 15 and 14. they babysat me alot because it made them look cool in front of the ladies, and they were quite into metal, like they used to hang out with armored saint when they would come to Indy.

Oddly one of those uncles is now a born again christian..

you could say i had little choice i nthe matter since i was 5 and you could play the first beat of crazy train and i would go "aye aye aye" and would sing bohemian rhapsody.

There was a London Rapper called Derek B way back in the early to mid eighties. I was a relative music eunuch around the time, yet my mate Matt was into his rap. I remember him playing a tune that licked the riff from Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water and that was the first riff that proper stuck with me.

Not long after Matt and I would just buy random rock & metal tapes from a second hand music shop in Wrexham (North Wales). Everything we bought was done more on hear say as there was so little coverage and media promotion when I were knee high to a squirrel! (My first Metal album was Iron Maiden's first).

Crazy, but from having no real music taste at the start of '86, by the end of it: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, 'Maiden, Slayer, Exodus etc formed a joint record collection that just grew with pocket money and by contributions from other mates who were converted to the sound.

I think I've mentioned an age ago in one of the forums that by the early '90 Me, Matt and a few other buddies just had this enormous collection that really was worse to split and carve up by the time we'd left school and started drifting away.

I haven't thought of this in years...

Still got the 'Maiden tape, and the vinyl version I picked up '88 though.