In this post, I talk and fangirl about some metal music. I chose three instrumental metal bands from my collection to talk about a little more. The reason why I chose those artists is to show the fusion of different styles. The hope and the strength of such music. And because a lot of people don’t like the vocals of heavier music, I chose artists that I think showcase this style well to those who don’t usually listen to it. Perhaps these bands will show the variety and the different sides to the vast landscape of metal music. Or answer the question: Why would you listen to that?

I like the contrast in arts and want to share my love with the world

I often listen to music that has a huge contrast in it. Be it the melodies and the chunky rhythm or changing vocals from clean to screaming. My God how I love harsh vocals… I do them in my band alongside innocent cleans. You can listen to me here or check the post on my band here. But to get back to the topic… I love the fusion of different styles and contrasting melodies and instruments in music.

I don’t talk about the technical aspect of the music too much because I think that the way it makes people feel is more important, and also am not a critic. Am not one to talk about technique because all I do is sing, for every instrument I learned I gave up. 

Metal Music – Instrumental Metal

I do think that metal is one of those styles, like Jazz, Blues, and classical, that bring a huge variety of sounds to the table while retaining the emotion of a human. All music, mostly, is about emotion. For that alone, am not going to bash pop or any style of music in my posts. Metal is not the only great genre in this world. 

I will not link Spotify here or anything because my blog is monetized and I haven’t asked for permission from any of those artists. They are all up on there as well as other streaming services and can be easily found.

the Cool Stuff in Metal Music

The name alone already made me curious about this band

Vitalism, ah, Vitalism. The name alone heals me in the way of the ancients. This band is like a ritual that makes me want to dance in the middle of the room, drunken on wine and music. My God how much love I have for them and I just can not keep it all in. I have to share it with the world, with the readers of my blog.

This band from Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, was founded by Ed Garcia. It was something I kept listening to while taking baths and drinking wine for half a year straight. Yes, metal lets me loosen up and this band was my drug of choice for quite some time. It still is, the way they weave so many elements into one song just makes my head explode, in a good way. I find it very enjoyable.

For me, it is calming okay!!! Okay?!?! 

The songs sound like machinery in the “go crazy” parts. It is something that I love in djent, a subgenre of progressive metal which is characterized by its use of off-beat and complex rhythm patterns… yes, I googled it because all I could say myself was machinegun, muting, and the lowest note is the one in the Perseus galaxy…

The last one was a joke that has some truth to it.

In this kind of music, guitars tend to be dropped into really low tunings. The lowest note is just a rumbling of a galaxy and the sound of low-tuned guitars can sound like a rumble. Or a fart. Isn’t it also a low note?!

It has to do with the question in my mind… how low can you go for it to still sound like music.

They still have the beautiful melodies

They do awaken the ancient human in me with some melodies. Make me headbang in the middle of a song and then slap me across my face with Saxophone and then with Jazz on piano?!?!  EXCUSE ME!!! Progressive Metal??? What are you doing?!

I love when music is rebellious like a teenager. Won’t do what it is supposed to or is expected of it. Anything progressive, contrasting, and weird has me hooked. And as you can tell by now… I adore metal and how it makes me feel happy and free, safe in the sounds around me. I just dance on my chair, bed, and in the kitchen, while cooking, and I can not stay still… My head or feet have to be moving.

The song names?!?!

Ayahuasca, Pagan, Ramaten, Bipolarity, Favela, Yami Obi, Clairvoyance… I can not choose what to talk about. Bipolarity was the first song from them that I accidentally stumbled across on YouTube. You know how YouTube also creates playlists right? When you put on one band, the next thing you know you are slapped across the face with something amazing.

This time it was Vitalism and Bipolarity, a song that is the essence of its name. Also, the Pagan “series” found on different releases make me feel like a forest witch. Favela from SY awakens the lady in love with Jazzy stuff. Ramaten with the intro and guitars make you think about dubstep, I like dubstep, and Djent is quite similar.

These songs have me in a chokehold.

I chose these two songs because I had to choose something

I think it is impossible to choose two songs. If I had spent any more time I would have lost it because they are all so good. It is as if I had to choose wine or chocolate from the store. I am indecisive in these matters. The first EP that I heard was Causa and my second was SY, I will talk about a few songs on SY today.

“Yami Obi”

I love how this song is woven and how it presents itself. It starts with such a tune that makes me want to sway to it. It reminds me how wonderful it is to be alive. The song lifts my mood on the worst of days as the jazzy vibe engulfs me. It keeps getting better when the saxophone hits. The “djenty” part of it comes as a surprise and my God… when I first heard that song… I swear to you… my knees were weak. More than with any lover I had.

This sax and piano alone make my skin tingle. I am not here to say any constructive stuff but this song is baffling. The countless times I laid on my bed while wiggling my butt to it tell a lot about my love… when I wiggle my butt like a dog to a song, it gives me scratches behind my ears…

I could easily listen to it on repeat and not get tired because it has so many elements that even after around 5 years, I still keep hearing new stuff in it. Things my ears didn’t catch right away. A lot is going on, and my brain can’t dissect everything. In music, it is often about what you don’t hear. And in metal, there are a lot of layers.

Metal is like an onion. I like onions.

“Ayahuasca”

Who needs drugs when you can get high on music? In my life, I have tried some things, not much, just for the sake of it. Nothing did the trick on me as music does. This song comes in with a bang, literal bang, and technical stuff that just make me perk my head and listen in an attempt to catch everything.  And you can’t, you need a few passes of this song on repeat. It is an onion. A big one.

And then there is this thing that makes me tingle. I call it alien guns. Yup, Alien. Guns… You know the ones that make cool sounds in movies. What are they called? It sounds like alien guns. I love that! I like the sound an alien gun makes in a movie. Sci-Fi stuff. 

The moment it transcends into the more melodic part it is as if I want to just lay back and get lost. I have gotten lost in other songs, men, women, wine, but everything that leads up to the guitar solo and the guitar solo itself just won’t let me go… am a prisoner and I wish the song didn’t stop. Or that it would last for another 6 minutes or so. I love long songs btw, but on this song, four and a half minutes seem like two. How is it possible? Perhaps the high never lasts long enough? 

This song is a trip of a kind, I am hooked on it like a madwoman that just keeps returning for more to get blasted.

Try out the whole “SY” and “Causa”

These two first EPs of them are a trip and an experience. I feel that just two songs won’t do it to understand a band or to showcase everything. It is just that I don’t want the post to be too long. I will leave you to your discovery now.

Galaxies in Metal Music

Oh, my, this band is just mind-blowing, not only from the perspective of music but also from the creator of it

Andromida is fully a one-man project, meaning that one guy is responsible for this work of art. He is Ramon Gutierrez, a composer, a producer, and a man who was diagnosed legally blind at a young age. That didn’t stop him from learning violin from the age of 3. He couldn’t read sheet music so he did it all by ear. I think that his music showcases how it runs in his blood, it makes you feel it. And it can be heard, not only seen, that everything is possible if you put your mind to it.

At the age of 11, he took on another instrument – the guitar. He is completely self-taught. Not only in the instruments, he wields but also in the art of making music. He started Andromida in the year of 2016 after he was unable to form a band, their loss to be honest. His music is just really amazing and it goes with the essence of my blog well. Stardust and all that, ooh it makes me tingle.

I found him accidentally on a Spotify playlist

Spotify and their playlists. I could go on a rant about how amazing they are for discovering new music, even if I moved to Tidal now. The playlist was called Djent I believe and I found many bands on there that I still listen to every month. Most of the bands I found on there became a staple in my routine of disappearing from my surroundings with headphones on.

It was love from the first 30 seconds

Do you believe in love at first sight? I believe in love from the first 30 seconds of a song. In 2019 I was so obsessed with the band that I just wouldn’t listen to anything else. I refused for two months straight, I wanted to take it in as if I was a sponge… to feel it, to understand it. The songs are so well woven not only from an emotional standpoint but also the structure and the way he weaves elements into his songs. I want to say a fire, ice, and wind, stardust too… Figuratively. But the combination of violins, his guitars, pianos, and the electronic parts… they do form a whole.

His music makes you feel hope, hope for a better world and at the same time one with it. You are one with the earth and the stars, and there is, hope for a better life. People often hear the sadness in music, the melancholy, but sometimes it can fill you with hope. And I don’t care I used the word “hope” as if it was the only word in my vocabulary. It is the best word to describe the feeling. And sometimes it makes you feel that no matter what, you are not alone, you are human, but you are more than just that.

His music reminds me that there is beauty in this world

In a world that can cause so much suffering and pain, there is hope. See what I did there? Hope, Hope,  and more hope, and stardust, a speckle of it in all of us. I love leaving it to play to calm down at night and sip on my drug of choice for the day, Wine or Tea. The sweetest of dreams have come to me while listening to his music. It just erases my anxiety, better than any prescription drug.

I am just wired this way I guess, sounds either make me want to crawl out of my skin and flee into a quiet place (ugh, noise) or in the case of music… It makes me calm down and much more of a functioning human being.

He left me unable to speak

“Soulseeker”

I think I found mine while listening to it.  It makes me tingle in all of the right places. Gives me goosebumps and all that. Butterflies in my stomach? Definitely. This song left me unable to speak when I discovered it, I just kept playing it on repeat, stunned in place.

It starts with the sweetest of tunes which pull me into the song. This song is the essence of weaving galaxies and stardust into music. The underlying melodies make me feel eternal and in love with the world and what it has to offer. And the rhythm makes me want to jump around like a little kid and yell at the top of my lungs. The guitars in this song make me want to tell all the little kids: “Learn to play.”

I don’t want the song to end. Every time I listen to it I just have to listen again. Am like a heroin addict that just begs for more.

The keyboard and the violin make me want to crawl out of my skin.

By the time the guitar solo hits, I am already covered with goosebumps and it just keeps going! It gets worse with every minute of the song. I get this feeling in my stomach, and my whole body, that it holds something in it, something to do with the question of what is life. There is so much in there that just makes it a whole. 

“Transcend”

The violin!!! Doesn’t need more words than that. My hair just stands on my body already before the guitars start playing, the intro alone just sends chills down my spine. How does he do it? The first seconds of the song and I am already as if no other song on this earth has ever made me feel this way.

The way the song builds up and shifts and then builds up again only to shift again. I think it showcases the contrast that I love so much well. The tension building and the way it just keeps you wondering what is the culmination of the song. It still boggles my mind how well all the instruments sit together to create other-worldly masterpieces like such. 

They are not the only songs

I don’t think he has a single bad song, not any of the bands I listen to have bad songs. HEY! No laughing, I am a fangirl okay? A seasoned one. I obsess about bands I love and growl at people when they say something bad.

Try out “More Than Human” and “Voyager” Next

These EPs have amazing songs on them. I think that Albums and EPs give a different kind of a picture and feeling when listened to as a whole from start to finish. 

I only named those because they were the first ones I listened to so naturally they are really important to me. They bring back the feelings I first had for Andromida. The same goes for the songs I named.

Metal that Makes You Feel Good Inside

Another one-man wonder

Yup, again, just one guy… Andy James is a British guitarist who is also in a band called Five Finger Death Punch which he joined quite recently. Andy has been in a heavy metal band called Sacred Mother Tongue, then in Fields of the Nephilim, and Butcher Babies. He also teaches guitar at Andy James Guitar Academy offering lessons to members. Andy has some playthrough videos on his YouTube channel too… how cool is that? If you have time, definitely check out his playing on YouTube. Not only because it is beautiful but it shows exactly how much it takes to be that good.

He has been playing since the age of 12

He makes me feel bad about quitting. Especially because of his little finger (No, not like that!), he barely uses it. This finger was the one that made me cry in lessons because it got painfully stuck while playing chords. Naturally, I am jealous of anyone who plays that well because at the age of 11 I was sure that I will be a guitarist. After begging my mother for two or three years I finally got a guitar for my birthday only to quit a year after. I didn’t believe you can still learn to play without using a pinky, even if my teacher told me I should try to play without it.

He is amazing

I look up to Andy and admire him, not only for his lack of use of a pinky but his skill and his music. He is not just showing off… his music is really beautiful even if the man shreds on his guitar like a madman. Yup, he is fast, very skilled, and very artistic.

But as you can tell, I still enjoy music that has a guitar as a centrepiece in it and I get mind-blown by this guy.

Funny story. When I met my boyfriend he was so drunk when he grabbed a guitar I was like “that guy can’t play at all”… It was a month or so later in our courtship that he picked up his electric and I looked at him as if he was a magician. So it is not surprising that I love watching those musicians play on playthrough videos on  YouTube, I could spend hours on there. Partly I blame Andy James for getting me obsessed with the guitar again. I can’t play but I can enjoy it and appreciate the skill, knowing well how long it takes to be that good.

Not my fault I listen to him so often now

When I and my boyfriend started showing music to each other, I remember clearly how he asked for progressive metal bands from me. Back in the day, I was a library… But somehow I didn’t know Andy’s solo music and in return Kuldar got me hooked on him. This guy is someone he looks up to and I can see why. Not only because he is somewhat of a virtuoso… His music has that feeling of the old days, the hopefulness and the banging of old-school metalcore vibes, and the guitar solos and melodies that could make anyone feel like falling in love.

It has something ancient in it,

Something that carries the essence of music in it. A healing power, or something like that. It just makes you feel good even if sad. I wonder if the musicians know that they make the world a better place by just doing what they love. What I mean is that they save lives and accompany people in the darkest of nights. It never fits in my head how people can live without it. For me, the world would be a very dim place. I listen to Andy a lot when I feel that I need a lift in my mood and he never fails me.

When I first heard him I felt the same way as I did when I was 11,

Listening to Guns and Roses, begging my mother for an electric guitar. I was in awe by Andy and I was so calm and everything around me seemed to be on halt. Mentally I was in a very bad place at the time, his music really took it away for a split of time. It reminds me that no matter how cruel the world and humans can be, they also create masterpieces. Not only in music but in poetry and drawings. But there is always music to catch me when I feel sad, it is my medicine. 

I chose these songs as a starting point

How does one choose only two songs from an artist they admire, this doesn’t work at all as planned. Anyway, I chose songs from the album called Arrival. I think that this whole album as a whole is such a great starting point to introduce Andy. All his albums and EPs are, but this is the one in particular that I am really in love with.

Stay

My god, this song sounds like a plea. It makes me feel eternal love. Such beauty that I want to hold that song and hug it. I don’t know why… This song is a kind of ballad that reminds me how beautiful the guitar can be. My God, the whole song is put together so beautifully that I just feel protective of it. Just as much as my boyfriend.

“Stay” is the one that I want to pack up into a small box and carry with me

Funnily enough, I want to tell it it’s okay and all that mushy stuff. I will stay, am not going anywhere. Weird huh? I mean the song gives meaning to the title not vice-versa. I love how it makes me feel, not sad but like holding someone in my arms close to my heart and not letting go. Mushy, it is love! Okay, it is love! For a song!

 I couldn’t choose between As I fall, After Midnight and ’85 

’85

It is a kind of song that just makes you stay still and listen, as if standing in the rain, barely moving, with headphones on, and not caring that you just got wet. It just sends chills down my back and calms me down when I am anxious. Music doesn’t need words to tell a story at all. You are free to interpret the story as you wish. I wonder how it makes others feel. Do they feel the same emotions toward a song?

After Midnight

It has some calming underlying melody in it that makes me feel eternal. I love every hour of the night and it is like reminding me why. Something about it reminds me that life is wonderful. It makes me sway to the music. Yes, I dance to it. I want to cry and I want to scream and I want to tell the whole world that there is beauty in this world. 

As I Fall 

Oh, a banger, it reminds me of the young days of metalcore and the old-school bands I listened to when young. It is like a fusion. All of his music has those really beautiful melodies and guitar solos but my God the rhythm. I feel old when I listen to this song because it awakened the young teenager in me. It reminds me of why I started listening to such music. It was because of how it made me feel. 

I want to just jump up and down in my room and pretend I am at a concert like when I was young. 

More than two songs, ups

These songs show well how this man is a master of making you feel something with his playing. I am telling you, he is not just a great player. He is a great producer and composer. His songs make me want to cry and smile at the same time. When music makes you feel something, you know it is for you.

Try out everything from him

Seriously, just pick an album.

And if these bands are not enough:

Angel Vivaldi

Btw, he has collaborated with many artists, Andy James included. He also evokes similar emotions in me. I have been a fan for a long time. Around 10 years, since “Sign of Life Inside” which has vocals on it too, metalcore, and all that. I found him on a playlist on Spotify that I can’t remember. 

But try out “Away With Words”, even song names on the EP are void of words. Cool, I love this guy.

I Built the Sky

I accidentally found it while listening to Andromida, they were under “similar artists” and I clicked because I liked the band name. They are mostly different, I think… “Sky is not the Limit” was the first album I listened to from them. Try it out

Intervals

This is a cool artist that fuses different aspects of music well. Intervals have songs with vocals by Mike Semesky too, and older ones with when there were enough people to call it a band. Now there is just Aaron Marshall. I really like the “Shape of Colour”.

Anup Sastry

A drummer, producer, and audio engineer. He was in Intervals btw, as a drummer.  And he was in two bands that I love to bits: Skyharbor and Monuments as a drummer. His solo project is sublime too, he also collabs with other artists.

Animals as Leaders

Another djent, jazz, and a Guitar God Fusion sprinkle. When I found them I was so obsessed that they kept playing for days on end.

Polyphia

More of a progressive rock band perhaps, I don’t know what they are… They fuse so many styles that they create a whole new one… “Polyphia”