Last night I made my return to probably my favourite venue, The Opera House in Toronto for the first time in over three years to see Seven Spires, Omnium Gatherum and Eluveitie. This was actually the 10th time I've seen Eluveitie, so that's a weird accomplishment.

I've seen Omnium maybe four times now and every time I see them, I forget how much I like them.

Sadly, with Chrigel missing the tour for family reasons, Eluveitie was definitely missing a step or two last night. They made the best of the situation, so I can't hold anything against them. The crowd also seemed pretty low energy, which is surprising. Normally, the crowd for an Eluveitie show is red hot. In any event, folk metal is best metal and I look forward to seeing them for an 11th time.

Omnium Gatherum!

Eluveitie!

just attended Detonator's show with 7 other friends, it was preceded by Electric Funeral and Piece of Maiden

6 hours of heavy metal in total

Detonator promised a Massacration show next year!

simply great

Karonte/Bloody Brotherhood - Alliance for death domination

Death Metal from Spain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxB28ZivvjI

Death Over Threat - Blood and Tears (Thrash/Death Metal)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuklLbrESuM

Went to the record store yesterday after almost a year without buying any new CDs

Disgorge - Necrholocaust

Possibly one of the best CDs i own:

https://youtu.be/2g8JgSBWpjI

yesterday I went to the third concert in the history of Vegas Bar, three bands made tributes to Raimundos, Motorhead and Black Sabbath

music from 11 pm to 5 am, simply great, dancing and headbanging and all of that

Alice in Hell is one of my fav thrash albums.

I think the Massacration band is reunited. Detonator promised a concert with the whole band next year

Added a classic to the collection today. 10/10 Album

Best album from the band ever. Some of the late stuff was OK but, meh... Annihilator were made for speed metal!

Absolutely in love with this version of Sacrifice by Bathory

So my 2023 game for metal releases has been rather sparse. Probably need to find some new discoveries to freshen up after many of my favourites had already released something in the last few years.

However, one album that has really struck out to me is the latest from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Granted, they don't predominantly play metal but their latest release PetroDragonic Apocalypse really hits hard with their aspect on metal. Been my most listened album over the last month and probably my 2023 metal album of the year unless something else suddenly comes up.

Arckanum - Kostogher. Black Metal from Sweden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeKMVnBhoM4

Same here, i can't come up with any release from this year that has caught my attention. Probably the new stuff from Cannibal Corpse thats coming out in september but... meh, not really hyped about it.

another concert! 4 bands banded together in Studio 96, a recently reopened night club. the place has a pole and a disco ball! very poggers. the music was excellent, each band with a different vibe. it started at 23:00 and lasted till 04:30

hell yeah i like fear factory and slayer

New Stuff into the collection

Yo people, this is crazy quiet.

I had been thinking about you guys here so I thought I'd ask Newgrounds to send me a new password (forgot everything, durrrr) - so how are you guys?

For those who haven't heard it, this is the new Cannibal Corpse record and they are still as reliably kickass as ever:

All good on my end. Latest gig was seeing KK's Priest and they went down well. I gotta say, Ripper Owens can sing classic Priest songs better than Rob Halford does these days. The killer tracks on the two albums really puts Ripper to great use.

And while I'm on the subject of Priest, knowing there's a new Judas Priest album coming out in March is pleasing. Not sure how it will fare compared to Firepower but I'll always welcome a new release from them.

Feels like they deliver as always. I don't know about anyone else but I find George Fisher sounds better on vocals in recent times than he's ever been. Consistent and stronger!

Fine. So Ripper still has it, huh? Cool. I do like "Jugulator" and listen to it from time to time.

Yes. "Firepower" was a lot of fun and a few select songs still get their regular listens from me.

Yes indeed and I dunno, knowing what kind of nice guy George is in real life makes it even better. I usually don't care too much about individual characters in bands, but Corpsegrinder is just a fantastic dude.

I also forgot my password a few times.

I'm being encouraged (or pressured, even) to continue persuing drums. Heavy music, not as much these days, but I can't control my tempo when I hit a drum set. I have to go fast. Focusing on better groove would be good. I'm just around pro drummers a lot and don't feel comfortable playing in front of them. But I'm more into relaxing music ATM like electronic or instrumental hip hop/trip hop. Dreamy stuff. If I do have that itch, still scratched by mostly sludge stuff like Obscure Sphynx and Intronaut. My best friend just showed me Modern Day Babylon. It's an instrumental djenty sounding band, but they get a bit post-rocky, kinda Isis style. They rock, and Coma is fuckin' sick!

This is badass. Never really checked out CC, but have been a fan of Alex Webster since hearing Blotted Science.

You and @Murray, Nev, D3NTATUS, Elghoulio, Idiosyncratic, ShitOnAStick, Bill, AllmightyBruce, TakeNoPrisoners, Charon, and a bunch of other folks here formed my taste in music from age 16 and on. Good to hear from you guys. I haven't forgotten.

I'm good I guess. Nothing much going on on my end. My band has a show (technically since it's almost 1am here) today so that's going on. We have no other shows planned for the month so two of us are dressing as Wayne and the other two as Garth and we're doing Wayne's World stuff. Would have liked to take the Pacer but it's not wanting to run at the moment.

Yeah, he's still doing well. I'd say the KK's Priest albums has put him in a much better light and is giving him the additional recognition that he deserves. There are some underrated tracks that he did in the Judas Priest era. I say he wasn't at fault in his time with them. Same goes for his Iced Earth days. It wasn't him that was the issue, his albums there in particular were lackluster themselves.

I'm gonna have to give Jugulator and Demolition another spin. Now if only Judas Priest themselves would be more respectful of the Ripper era, that'll be swell but probably not gonna happen. ☹️

Firepower is always good to go back to. I also like some tunes from Redeemer of Souls but admittedly I do find that album could have trimmed down the amount of songs.

I do love how the band's themes and his own persona contrast each other. He's one metal musician that I'd like to meet to see how wholesome he is in person.

While on the subject of Corpsegrinder, I did like his guest appearance in Igorrr's latest album. Been one of my favourite tunes from them and his input was a nice touch. 👌

Right back at ya. Was such good times back in the day and the discoveries I made through our community in this thread made an impact. Of all those you mentioned, the only one I occasionally hear from is ElGhoulio as I have him on Facebook.

So I just recently heard of the name Æther Realm and my god, I wish I had heard about these guys sooner. Only listened to their album Tarot so far but plenty of Ensiferum and Wintersun vibes here and these are sounding like quite an alternative to them, particularly the latter for, well, not releasing any damn music at all! 😂

One song from them that has really struck out so far is The Sun, The Moon, The Star. It's amazed me what they've done with a 19 minute song and let themselves progress and flow through naturally.

Maiden are pretty cool. Have a favorite album by em?

Well, maybe in time you'll be able to slow down ;-) I'm sure that's possible, with the right amount of practice. I do have the same feeling around great guitarists too, gotta admit.

To be honest, I only remember Blotted Science due to HIS bass playing ^^

Man, these names....yeah, I still remember most of them. It's been so long, yet sometimes the "itch" comes and I log back into this thing here. Good times!

So how was the gig? Tell us about it, the concept surely sounds interesting! ^^

You are probably correct about that one, but I'm still hesitant to listen due to KK's kinda lame attitude and the way he "handles" things...

Jugulator yes, Demotion = no - I am not willing to try that ever again ^^

The new single is GREAT!

I've also shelved RoS because it bored me to the tears, but maybe...one day.

Totally!

Barely used time to check out a lot of new stuff, something I should reconsider...

Yes, it did make an impact, guess for quite a few people. This was also the time when I became less of an online idiot. I took this Metal Hell thing VERY seriously back in the day, but it didn't hurt :-P

Welcome! Well, I guess so?

These days I listen to Bruce Dickinson and Blaze Bayley's solo stuff more, but of course they have their merit.

What albums do you prefer?