Some artists have proved intimidating to write about. It feels completely futile attempting to communicate how important a song or band has been to you. Such is the case with Sweden’s Opeth. You will find many professing Opeth is the one of the most important bands in modern metal — something which is an absolute fact for anyone following the genre. Nor will you find a shortage of music reviews demanding you understand how a particular Opeth album or song is superior to another. But those kinds of statements don’t mean much to me. I was blown away by Opeth in 1995 when I obtained their debut “Orchid” from a friend running a European metal distribution service, as I mentioned in my Unanimated post. I have subsequently been astonished over and over again – for 10 years now — how Opeth can consistently release album after album of the most elite quality emotionally laden melodic metal available.

While on the perennial quest for dark and emotional music, I have had friends suggest artists whom I would have never come across on my own. Some artists I may not have even liked at first, but with some serious prodding are encouraged to give an honest try. One such artist is Britian’s Ben Christophers. His electronically flavored sound is not one I would normally gravitate towards.

One of the biggest surprises of 2004 was being sent the promo of “Epitaph” by Germany’s “Necrophagist“. I had zero expectations for this album — I had never heard the band before, nor heard a tremendous amount about them. The name tended to make me think “generic death metal”, but I was dead wrong. What I discovered was the most unbelievably technical death metal album I had heard in many years. Not just technical, but surgically precise playing that seemed absolutely inhuman. I had to double and triple check that this was a real drummer — it is really technical and precise to that extreme.

I’m going to confess right off the bat that I have never been much a fan of Britain’s Antimatter. This fact surprised even myself considering who has been involved in the group. Consisting of ex-Anathema song-writer/bassist Duncan Patterson and Danny Cavanagh, also of Anathema, I assumed the band would be trailer made for me. After all, Anathema are without a doubt one of my favorite bands and I consider both Cavanagh and Patterson to be incredible song writers. Instead, I’ve been rather turned off since first hearing the first Antimatter album, “Saviour” in 2002. While no doubt a dark record, I had an strong distaste for the the manner in which they were dark. To be frank, I am not a fan of Portishead whatsoever and they have clearly been a major influence on the first two albums. The “trip-hop” drumloops make me cringe and the female vocals never came close to doing anything for me. The two “acoustic versions” tracks on “Saviour” which stripped both of these elements were exactly what I was hoping the band would be doing instead.

The band name is what first caught my eye as they’ve supposedly chosen it because of the bird’s
massive wingspan and modesty. Pelican is still rather unknown and thus uncategorized, so it’s not surprise that I’ve seen them called at least 10 different genres. I think epic sounding and instrumental is sufficient for the purposes of our collective interest.

A mutual artistic curiosity and a close friendship led to the creation of yet another high-quality dose of dark known as Blackfield. For those of you who are familiar with Porcupine Tree, you will instantly recognize the vocals of Steven Wilson. The other member, Aviv Geffen, is a well known solo artist and peace campaigner who met Steven Wilson when Porcupine Tree performed in Israel back in 2000.

In what was one of the worst marketing debacles, contaminated with ignorance and fundamental mistakes, an incredible band disappeared before many ever knew their name. It is likely you have never heard of this album which I regard so highly. This Empty Flow were the most extreme example I’ve seen of a metal label trying to market a non-metal album to the metal community and utterly failing. Now, I love Avantgarde Music — they have released some of my favorite albums — but trying to sell an album to metalheads that has much more in common with The Cure’s “Disintegration” than anything remotely metal is just a mistake.

Usually when you find a song, band or album you like, it can appear out of nowhere. However, one of the more interesting and enjoyable phenomenons has been to watch a band local to me (Raleigh, North Carolina) develop into something truly promising for the doom metal scene. Soulpreacher have actually been around for quite a while and have released two CDs — “Sonic Witchcraft” and “When the Black Sunn Rises, the Holy Men Burn”. These releases reflect more stoner/sludge doom influences than what the band is conjuring up nowadays.

Hammock is another band which fell right into my lap several months ago while listening to a Shoutcast stream. I heard a song called “The Silence” and it absolutely absorbed me. It was a perfect mix of several bands which I adore — Sigur Ros, Slowdive, Lanterna and on some tracks even The Cure. The main difference being Hammock doesn’t have vocals and leans more towards the ambient side of the spectrum. I promptly began the obligatory google search to discover just who this band with a fairly silly name was and where the hell they came from.

I seem to be in the habit of making contributions about highly influential bands lately. Today I return to the genius that is Mark Kozelek but focus on the band he originated from. San Francisco’s Red House Painters are one of the more influential bands I can think of, their mark crossing over to a multitude of musical genres. They began their careers with “Down Colorful Hill“, released in 1992 on the legendary 4AD label. While only containing six songs, this release displayed song after song of painful reminiscing of yesteryear, recapturing old friendships and aging. The undeniably beautifully depressing music on this EP not only caught the eye of 4AD who picked it up, but legions of music fans and critics alike. Red House Painters have since released six other albums.