Have there been any great British metal bands since the golden age of...NWOBHM?

Mod please fix title that should read any great...

http://qbmgifts.com/images/29514.jpg

but like two of those bands date back to the mid 80s. and then a couple are from the 00s, aren't they?

also, england sucks for music. let's be real.

and where's carcass on that list?!

Wildhearts

There has never been a great metal band. Not from the UK nor from anywhere else. Thus, there has never been a "golden age" of metal.

Moronic.

Cathedral?

Shut up geir.

Agreed on the wildhearts.

Carcass have reformed for Wacken 2008.

Napalm Death date back to '85 at least, and Jesu fucking suck. (Though the current lineup of Napalm has been more or less steady since '89/90, so maybe they should get in on that score. They are great, and the last album, Smear Campaign, is one of their strongest.) I'd vote for Akercocke, who are very underrated, and agree on Godflesh.

earthtone 9

i don't get these threads? is this about commercial success? groups widely accepted as 'great' by the majority of critics?

caina
atavist
moss

also, and this is from a godflesh/j. broadrick fanatic, "Jesu fucking suck" and shouldn't be on any 'metal' list.

I can agree with Jesu not being 'metal', but Jesu fucking suck = RONG

Jesu are great!
Caina, Atavist and Moss are all great. 3 bands whos members post over on SL actually.

(Though the current lineup of Napalm has been more or less steady since '89/90, so maybe they should get in on that score.

Yeah that's why I mentioned them. Anyway like I said I don't care if we include 80s bands, I originally was gonna title the thread since Has There Been Any Great British Metals Bands since...NWOBHM.

If a mod wishes to change it to that then that would be great.

"is this about commercial success?}

I'd say yes, commercial success is at issue here. I.e., has there been any great British metal in the last 15 years or so that really redifined and pushed the genre forward, both formally and in mainstream pop terms? Like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Carcass (though the latter never went pop)? Not grind, thrash, death, doom, NWOBHM, or whatever other pre-90s genre, but still fucking METAL thru & thru? Cuz I mean, I love EWiz, but they're as much a retro act as anything else. Heavy pop Wildhearts & heavy psych Heads are only tangentially relevant.

P.S. Jesu are just kinda okay. Good on a good day. Nothing at all to do with metal.

I still like to go with the chuck eddy loose definations of "metal" . If it gets covered by Terrorizer, Kerrang anything like that or is liked by metal heads then it's in!

I think if serious metalhead kids in Brazil, Russia, the US and the UK would all enthusiastically throw horns and call it FUCKING METAL, then it's metal. If not, then it's on the cusp and only half relevant.

these days jesu are arguably metal (sorry, kerr!) but 100% hewn-from-diamond genius. i've been listening to pale sketches a lot recently and there's some true beauty in there.

my pick: aereogramme. metal as FUCK, and if you don't agree then i'll find big campbell the bassist and get him to sit on you. but given that ILM has always been utterly meh about them, i don't expect consensus.

could i make a case for mogwai? i could. but i'll get shot down in flames.

xpost: okay, whatever, i don't think this thread and i are going to see eye to eye :)

Metal has become so fragmented anyway none of us are going to agree on anything. It's the ILM way!
I suppose that's why no bands will have an iron maiden or sabbath/zep type impact anymore.

cut and print

Thanks for the thread title change!

could i make a case for mogwai? i could. but i'll get shot down in flames.

It has to be Napalm Death, no question. They've got the best combination of being a top-grade, highly influential band with a varied, quality-stuffed back catalogue, with a certain degree of crossover notoriety that other similar artists can only dream of. Not that the latter means anything in terms of the music, but it will surely help to keep them in the folk memory for much longer than others.

No-one likes Terrorvision any more then?

One of the best ILM threads
How do the various members of Terrorvision spend their time these days?

cathedral. my dying bride. anathema. paradise lost.

if you sneak into the 80's, then, yeah, napalm death, carcass, bolt thrower.

i'll think of more.

(not that these bands are CURRENTLY all that exciting - the ones still going - but they were all great post-nwobhm metal bands at one time.)

For hard rock in the 80s may as well mention The Cult.

What else have we missed?

If the Cult get in, so do Zodiac Mindwarp, Crazyhead, etc. Of which direction I think no good can come. How about Fudgetunnel?

I'd vote for Fudge Tunnel, but I doubt anybody else would. Alex Newport's recent (late 90s) band Theory Of Ruin was pretty good, too - sort of a middle ground between FT and Shellac. They had one full-length and an EP.

Anyone mention Akercocke yet?

Caina's my current fave, too.

I'd vote for Fudge Tunnel, but I doubt anybody else would.

Oh god yeah how could I forget!! Fudge Tunnel for sure!

i'd vote for fudge tunnel too!

Anyone else?

Carcass have reformed for Wacken 2008.

*spits out coffee*

Are you fucking serious? I LOVED Carcass--that might make it worth flying overseas!

I am serious. I posted about it on the rolling metal thread a while back I think.
They're playing material from all their albums supposedly.

According to Jeff Walker:

"Well, they said it would never happen. In fact I said it would never happen. Then I noticed no one pays attention to what I say anyway and I sounded like an idiot...

Summer 2008 will be the twentieth anniversary since the release of Carcass' first studio album. It will be fourteen years since we last played live. We've decided to exhume the old corpse next Summer at Wacken.

The timing is purely coincidental - it's been a long journey to get to this point where myself, Bill Steer and Mike Amott have enough common desire again to make it possible. We're finally conceding to the demand that seems to be at an all time high and doesn't appear to be going away any time soon. Any past reasons we may have had for not wanting to do it, or thinking it was impossible, have simply dissipated in the face of overwhelming interest in us performing THOSE riffs for a generation of believers who never had the opportunity back in the day. We could say we're doing it for 'the kids' - but fuck that ! We're doing it 'cos it will be fun again to play the classic Carcass tunes !! Of course it would seem inappropriate for us to contemplate to do this without Ken Owen, but I assure you he'll be there, and we'll push some sticks in his hands and make him play, plus we'll have a killer drummer to sit in and play HIS parts.

Myself Jeff Walker on bass and vocals, "the semi-legendary" Bill Steer and Mike Amott on lead guitar and Daniel Erlandsson, filling in for Ken on drums, look forwards to mutilating your hearing.

And if we don't do it ? Who else will overshadow the Led Zeppelin reunion ?

Ha !

Prepare to rot and roll."

Metal has become so fragmented anyway none of us are going to agree on anything. It's the ILM way!
I suppose that's why no bands will have an iron maiden or sabbath/zep type impact anymore.

No one wishes to disagree with what I said?

I know there may be a band comes along at one point in the future, gets huge, and loads of bands get influenced, but I don't see it happening just now. Does anyone?

Chuck hasn't posted yet. There must be some UK bands he likes.

I think he likes the Barron Knights.

I was reading this thread and listening to Saxon's Wheels of Steel this morning and thinking, hmmm, well, you know NWOBHM really was a golden age, and in no small measure this was due to the refreshing influence of UK punk on British heavy metal. Metal right now could afford to strip back and go in simple and hard again, with a little less emphasis on technique and a bit more on the noble tradition of swaggering around trying to impress the opposite sex (or the same sex in some cases). That side of metal, and the attendant humour, is missing a bit from contemporary UK and US metal. The Germans still have it, esp. Edguy.

<i>"Well, they said it would never happen. In fact I said it would never happen. Then I noticed no one pays attention to what I say anyway and I sounded like an idiot...</i>

then i noticed nobody gave a flying fuck about anything any of us had done since carcass broke up. then i noticed my overdue electric bill...

haha

I honestly want to say Wolfsbane, though I haven't really listened to their albums (or, um,, album -- I think I only ever heard the one that Rick Rubin produced, and the cassette is in a storage garage) in years.

Who I would really probably vote for, though is the Wildhearts -- Are they metal enough?

And if they're not, I guess Therapy? isn't either? At least according to "serious metalhead kids in Brazil."

Orange Goblin never really clicked with me. So yeah, Electric Wizard (whose new album I still haven't heard) are probably a good choice. Ditto Cathedral, My Dying Bride, maybe Paradise Lost.

Is it weird that nobody has mentioned Venom yet? (Were they really considered part of the NWOBHM? I'd think they were the beginning of the next era, but maybe I'm wrong.)

Yeah, from what I remember a lot of metalheads didn't even take them seriously at the time.

Orange Goblin I saw twice and they bored me. Wildhearts were great live until the last time i saw them(just before Endless nameless came out) where they just plain sucked. Not seen the reformed Wildhearts. Therapy? went utter shite with Infernal Love.
Wolfsbane I never liked. Do you remember when NME gave their live album 10/10?. Still. they were better than The Quireboys! And Little Angels are probably still the worst UK heavy rock band along with Skin.

Quireboys were great! dude! In a "Happy Shopper Dogs d'Amour" kinda way.

Lostprophets do pretty well in most places tho I'll leave it to someone else to proclaim their greatness

Shitloads? Lostprophets? Srsly?

I've wanted to stick my oar in for a few days now but can't think of an answer to the question that I'm happy with! Napalm Death and maybe Electric Wizard prob come the closest if we're reading "great" as having made great records that are widely recognised as such AND inspired a bunch of others to do similar AND maintained some sort of consistency. I'd like to rep for Taint because I think they've made some absolutely top class music but that's more a personal pick rather than one I'd expect other people to get behind (see also namechecks here for Atavist, Moss, The Heads I'd think)

xpost no, probably not shitloads but I think they can go most places in the world and play decent-sized venues at this juncture

I guess I was really saying to Herman that there aren't any Metal bands at the same level as Zep or Sabbath (or even Maiden) now, for a bunch of reasons.

Oh wait, you know what REAL REAL REAL (as in extreme) early '90s British metal band I forgot (and who hardly ever get mentioned on ILM, for some reason?) Anacrusis! The get my vote, I just decided.

Where were Mekong Delta from? (I've still never heard them, but I've been curious for years.)

I don't think I've ever heard Terrorvision either. (I used to get them mixed up with Therapy?, bizarrely enough. Was there any connection at all?)

Nope. Therapy? more or less self-identified as Indie whereas Terrorvision were a straight-ahead Heavy Rock group. Almost a different audience over here.

What, no mention of ILM poll winning faves the Darkness yet?!!?

xpost

yes, absolutely: i mean, i loved and adored therapy? when i was 16 but would have been horrified -- in a prickish 16-year-old way -- if anyone had accused me of liking "metal". then again: a lot of that, i guess, was down to how these bands came over in interviews ... terrorvision are one of those bands i'm sure i decided i disliked based on one interview in the NME.

Therapy? did abandon the indie-ness tho and went "metal" and at that point they truly sucked the big one. Remember the Kerrang cover when they "ironically" dressed as a metal band? I don't think Andy Cairns was being ironic at all. They appealed to a metal audience but for some reason thought they had to become MORE metal to keep them, and of course made some shite records and lost the audience. If they had stuck with Nurse/Troublegum type material they probably could've done very well.

I know a lot of kids who were into both bands but I think a band like Therapy? could play the ironic(?) metal card whereas Terrorvision wouldn't want to have anything to do with that scene.

Do Aussie bands count?

I think Angry Anderson was numerate, not sure about the rest of the band.

KID BECAUSE I LOVE

Shame Angry Anderson is best known over here for the wedding song of Scott and Charlene in Neighbours.

First coupla Rose Tattoo albums = Da Bomb

Jim, were you a teenage metalhead?

I.e., has there been any great British metal in the last 15 years or so that really redifined and pushed the genre forward, both formally and in mainstream pop terms? Like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Carcass ?

The Yorkshire trio Anathema/My Dying Bride/Paradise Lost is the best case - both artistically and commercially very succesful. Every goth/doom band, your Evanescences, The Gatherings, Within Temptations are based on their sound, not to mention thousands of doom bands worldwide.

Second case would be Cradle Of Filth - I hate that band but there's no denying the huge, huge effect they had on metal and their sales - every album did over 100.000 which is huge for a metal band. Between 1995-2000 half of the demos I heard were wannabe CoF clones.

And from 2001 onwards, Anaal Nathrakh is the biggest baddest motherfucker on this planet.

First coupla Rose Tattoo albums = Da Bomb

hell yeah. first three, i'd say, if you don't mind the AC/DC/vanda&young production style on the third.

Anacrusis! The get my vote, I just decided.
Oh yes, I've played "Manic Impressions" and, err, the one after it way too much. That and Coroner basically convinced me for a while that tech-ish thrash is the best thing to come out of metal.
Then I realized that nearly everything else that could be described like that was terrible (well, maybe not "Time Does Not Heal" and the first Forced Entry album, though those are much more Bay Area)
I was SO excited when I got all the OOP Believer albums in a trade a buncha years ago. And they all SUCKED. wtf! And I was just as excited when I traded for a buncha OOP Mekong Delta albums, and they all sucked. wtf! (And I loved Rage, mind you! Well, "Perfect Man", anyways)

Where were Mekong Delta from? (I've still never heard them, but I've been curious for years.)
Germany. Buncha Rage dudes, innit. At the very, very beginning anyways.

Oh, ah, British, eh? Oh yes, Bolt Thrower were brilliant. They're still really very good, it's just that there's only so many Bolt Thrower albums anyone really needs in their life. I'm having a hard time coming up with any good British metal bands that have appeared in the last ten years. But then, most of the metal I like is bands that are from the early 90s or before, or have ex-members of bands from those periods etc. Bah, I'm old and wear glasses. Akercocke was dud-dud-dud!

i liked the last two ackercocke albums a bunch.

i really liked the album by Indesinence on Ackercocke's goat of mendes label. i hope they put out another album. great doom in the british tradition.

I had no idea Anaal Nathrakh were British, but they are great. I think Esoteric is the best of the modern British metal bands though.

I was SO excited when I got all the OOP Believer albums in a trade a buncha years ago. And they all SUCKED. wtf!
what did you expect, this was always a 100% derivative christian gimmick band.

Anaal Nathrakh's debut is an unbelievable monster, but everything after it is disappointing to me, with the possible exception of the When Fire Rains Down From The Sky, Mankind Will Reap As It Has Sown EP. Eschaton was a slight improvement on the miserable Domine Non Es Dignus, but I don't love the new one at all. Way too melodic (idle observers please note: this is a highly, highly relative term) and conventional.

(Sorry I'm late answering K I went out last night.)

Yeah I was a total teenage metalhead, although mostly into Prog by the time I was 16. I used to listen to and tape the Tommy Vance show on Friday nights in our dining room on a mono radio/cassette with one of those hearing aid looking earphone things. At one point I had the mullet too.

Photos!!!!

I don't have any, and I don't know if my mom and dad do. There must be some somewhere I guess, but I ain't looking for them. I started out with the full perm. I had a verrrrrrrry bad "hippy" kinda phase and I aren't going into the details of how I used to dress but it was not pretty. And beads were involved. Having Dave Lee Roth as a fashion role model is not good.

I agree with Geir.

I saw Carcass on the Heartwork tour and I'd still vote for Bolt Thrower.

This strengthens my theory that Bolt Thrower is the most charismatic death metal band ever.

I mean, they're like Motörhead - whenever one of those bulldozer-engine-starting opening riff of a BT song comes on everyone goes misty eyed: "ahhhhh, Bolt Thrower, good old Bolt Thrower!".

Carcass shredded, but they were assholes on stage. I made a little banner (I've never done this before or since) that said "Oxidized Razor Masticator" or something. Whatever song off Symphonies... that I really wanted to hear.

They saw it, and responed "learn to spell dude". It was totally spelled right. They were just being dicks. And by that time, they were in their spandex pants, puffy sneaker stage and couldn't care less about playing to 100 people in Portland, OR.

Bolt Thrower would have been gentleman (even Jo!). I'm sure of it.

A banner? haha.

Anyone else?

wot no raging speedhorn?

this is an excellent question, really, given how huge England was in the birth of grind - how'd they lose interest? concur w/scott that Ackercocke is pretty great. Also, one of their albums had mad boobies on the cover, props for that.

Every one of the first three or four Akercocke albums had naked chicks on the cover - I was so disappointed with the break with tradition on their most recent disc, I mentioned it in a review.

I'm not sure I could even thing of any new English grind bands.

Narcosis were the last ones that anyone gave a shit about outside of their own micro-scene, but they broke up

lol I was gonna mention Narcosis, I have the split with Melt Banana.

Err... well one of the bands playing Damnation with Carcass, Napalm Death etc called Desecration is kind of death/grind although looking at their website they've been around since 1995 so not exactly a new grind band. There must be some new UK grind bands, just can't think of any.

Do Aussie bands count?

-- JN$OT, Friday, November 23, 2007 6:01 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Link

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I think Angry Anderson was numerate, not sure about the rest of the band.

-- Noodle Vague, Friday, November 23, 2007 6:02 PM (8 months ago) Bookmark Link

^^^if not excelsiored should've been

New Capricorns album has a lot to recommend it. Big riffs, heavy yet metal-noob-friendly... oh and they've gone and broke up, how about that

"There must be some new UK grind bands, just can't think of any."

Trencher?

Desecration are from my manor, yeah deathgrind would be a reasonable description and they do it well. Couple of them actually play in Extreme Noise Terror on the side too

I love Trencher but I think dudes who are really into their grind would escort you off the premises if you referred to that band as such, more so than ever these days

any takers for black sun? filthy miserable sludge doom from glasgow...new album features a collab with billy anderson too.

They were pretty skill at Supersonic but that's my first encounter with them. Might take a punt on the new LP

Not heard the black sun yet but they're on a friends label now so i will def buy it from him.

Lp out in a few weeks apparently

on at war with false noise