My Favorite Metal Band from the United States

We have reached the final post in this series. And we close things out with what is probably a bit of a surprise. Yes, I prefer Megadeth over Metallica. I believe that the first four Metallica albums were amazing and probably as good a run as any band out there, but I am considering more than just those four albums. The larger discography Of Megadeth is superior to Metallica's. Megadeth has only released one bad album, compared to three by Metallica. Furthermore, Dave Mustaine was largely responsible for a lot of the best songs recorded by Metallica on their first four albums anyway. One other reason for my preference for Megadeth over Metallica is that Megadeth is better right now. If I had to choose between a new Megadeth album and new Metallica album, I would take the Megadeth album. Endgame was better than Death Magnetic to my ears.

NOTABLE SCENES: Everything.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Too many to name, Metallica gets second billing.

My Favorite Metal Band from the United Kingdom

Well, duh. If you need me to explain why Black Sabbath is my favorite English metal band, you are not a true metal fan.

NOTABLE SCENES: NWOBHM, gothic/doom metal, early death/grind.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Akercocke
Benediction
Bolt Thrower
Carcass
Cradle of Filth
Electric Wizard
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Motorhead
My Dying Bride
Napalm Death
Ozzy Osbourne
Paradise Lost
Sabbat
Venom

My Favorite Metal Band from the Ukraine

Blood of Kingu is a side-project of members of Ukrainian pagan black metal band Drudkh. Drudkh is a very well-regarded band in their own right, but for some reason, I have just never checked them out. Blood of Kingu, on the other hand, I have heard and they are quite the interesting band. Playing an eerie style of atmospheric black metal with lyrical themes based on various ancient cultures' mythology, including Egyptian, Sumerian, and Tibetan. Definitely an interesting group that has flown under the radar so far.

My Favorite Metal Band from Taiwan

Chthonic is essentially a Taiwanese Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir. They have black metal influences, but their music is more of a gothic extreme metal with symphonic elements. Which is not such a bad thing really. I like Cradle of Filth and I like some of Dimmu Borgir's material, so this is fine. The band members are all capable musicians and they do craft some interesting songs. I have really only heard one of the band's albums and I do keep meaning to check out more. I just have not really gotten around to it yet.

My Favorite Metal Band from Switzerland

Okay, I listen to a few bands from Switzerland, but most of them are basically the same band. Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, and Triptykon are essentially all one band. So, because Celtic Frost was around significantly longer than the other two versions of the band, they get the honors. Plus, it's damn hard to beat To Mega Therion. Celtic Frost of course was hugely influential on several styles of extreme metal. So they get the win here.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Coroner
Eluveitie
Hellhammer
Samael
Triptykon

My Favorite Metal Band from Sweden

This was perhaps the toughest decision I have made in this series. Not even the U.K. or U.S.A. were as difficult as picking my favorite Swedish band. Sweden of course played a major part in my branching out into the international metal scene. I got into In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Opeth, and Dissection early on in my experimentation. It really is no surprise then that one of those three bands made it as my favorite. But which one became a difficult choice.

Ultimately I chose Dark Tranquillity because they are still around and they have never let me down with any of their albums. I love the first two full-length Dissection albums, probably more than any one DT album, but that is pretty much it for them. I liked In Flames's material up until their last album and am seriously considering skipping their new album if the first track is any indication. DT has remained constant throughout their career. Their early stuff is spectacular melodic death and their later stuff, while losing a little bit, still remains impressive. DT is the flag-bearer of the melodic death scene, a scene that I discovered early in my exploration of extreme metal.

NOTABLE SCENES: Of course Gothenburg-style melodeath and Stockholm-style death. Also an impressive black metal and thrash metal scene.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Amon Amarth
Arch Enemy
At The Gates
Bathory
Bloodbath
Candlemass
Dark Funeral
Dismember
Dissection
Draconian
Edge of Sanity
Enforcer
Entombed
Grand Magus
Grave
Hammerfall
Hypocrisy
In Flames
Lost Horizon
Marduk
Meshuggah
Naglfar
Nifelheim
Opeth
Scar Symmetry
Seance
Tad Morose
The Crown
Unleashed
Vomitory
Watain
Witchery

My Favorite Metal Band from Spain

I said yesterday that brutal death has been a bit underrepresented in my discussion of Slovakia's Sanatorium. Well, now we have two countries in a row, because Wormed is awesome. Wormed is something of a cross between technical death metal and slam, but does not fall into any of the pitfalls of either genre. The vocals are delivered in a croaking style that sounds like a mixture of Lord Worm and the vocalist from Demilich. The sound is unrelentingly heavy and intense. I am still eagerly anticipating a follow-up from these guys.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Dark Moor
Dawn of Tears
Teitanblood

My Favorite Metal Band from Slovakia

I have only heard one band from Slovakia, so Sanatorium wins by default. Which I am okay with really. Brutal death metal has been a bit underrepresented in this series and Sanatorium is pretty good. Sanatorium is pretty much as brutal as it gets, with a thick and murky production, frog-croak vocals, and pounding riffs and drums. Sanatorium does border on slam at times, which is perfectly fine with me as I do enjoy slam on occasion. They do have a tendency toward the absurdly grotesque lyrics, but again that is pretty much par for the course for this style of metal.

My Favorite Metal Band from Singapore

Sometimes, some of the best metal comes from unexpected places. Take Singapore for example, a southeastern Asian country with strict regulation of media but a surprisingly high quality of life. However, arising out of this country is the amazing Impiety, a band that combines black, death, and thrash metal into an extremely volatile, violent, and aggressive sound that calls to mind the South American scene of the mid 1980's and the Australian "war metal" scene. Impiety though have been doing the same thing since the early 1990's. And they continue to put out great albums even today.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Psycho

My Favorite Metal Band from Russia

Another country without a lot of possible choices. I chose Arkona because the band is very unique: a pagan folk metal band with a female lead singer is a little unusual. Or not, maybe I am just full of shit. But the one album I have by Arkona can best be described as epic. Arkona is a band that does so many things so well that it is hard to pick out just one song. It does not help that no two songs by the band sound the same either.

NOTABLE SCENES: Russia has a pretty decent slam scene.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Abominable Putridity
Grenouer
Katalepsy

My Favorite Metal Band from Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is not exactly a hotbed of metal activity. The only Puerto Rican band I have heard much material from so far is Sacrilegio, and I have only heard their side of a split with Mexican band Blood Exile. Nevertheless, Sacrilegio is a pretty impressive band. The speed/thrash metal band shows strong influences from Bay Area thrash metal bands with their own spin. Sacrilegio is a relatively new band but is one to watch.

My Favorite Metal Band from Portugal

I am reposting this since Blogger went down. I did not have this saved anywhere so I am doing it from scratch.

Moonspell has been a band that I have been listening to since I first started getting into extreme metal. The band is another one that has made frequent changes to their sound, starting out as a black metal band and then incorporating more and more gothic metal influences until they took over the sound. Later Moonspell reincorporated black metal influences to end up with the healthy mix they have now. Moonspell has always retained their dark and dreary sound and the band's major defining characteristic has always been Fernando Ribeiro's soulful baritone.

My Favorite Metal Band from Poland

This country came down to two choices, both of which would have been worthy. The tiebreaker went to Behemoth over Vader simply because I have been able to hear much more of their catalog. Vader's stuff is sometimes hard to come by. Behemoth has always put out great albums, whether in their black metal early days, their blackened death crossover, or their more recent occult death metal material. Nergal has been recovering from leukemia in recent months and just recently made it back to the stage for the first time.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Besatt
Decapitated
Luna Ad Noctum
Vader

My Favorite Metal Band from the Phillipines

Like Peru yesterday, this is not a difficult choice as I only own one album from any band from the Phillipines. Oddly enough Deiphago possesses a lot of the same musical qualities as Anal Vomit from yesterday. Deiphago is a dirty-sounding, raw black/thrash metal band that sounds as if they are heavily influenced by the South American metal scene in the mid to late 1980's. I do not like Deiphago quite as much as Anal Vomit though due to the really poor production. The album sounds like kind of a sloppy mess. But I do suppose that was probably intentional to really capture the Sarcofago feel. Deiphago has relocated to Costa Rica as of 2004.

My Favorite Metal Band from Peru

Not a lot to choose from here. That's okay though as Anal Vomit is a pretty damn good band. Anal Vomit captures the sound and fury of the mid 1980's South American metal scene and brings that into the modern age. References like Sarcofago and Holocausto are obvious. Anal Vomit has kind of a terrible name and particularly so because they are not a pornogrind band. Which is good because I probably would never have checked them out otherwise.

My Favorite Metal Band from Norway

Admittedly, Norway was very difficult. I kind of knew it would be. As much as I like the black metal scene in Norway, I have never really considered what my favorite band from the scene would be. So when I finally set to it, I was not sure what the answer would be.

I guess I picked Immortal due mostly to the fact that they are more of a raw thrash metal band similar to the early black metal bands such as Bathory and Venom. Their fast riffs and dark atmosphere was truly unique from the other bands in the scene. All of their albums have been exceptional, as opposed again to some of the other bands from the scene. Immortal disappeared for awhile but came back strong in 2009. Quite simply, everything the band has done has been great.

NOTABLE SCENES: Second wave black metal, duh.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
1349
Blood Tsunami
Burzum
Darkthrone
Dimmu Borgir
Emperor
Enslaved
Gorgoroth
Ihsahn
Khold
Mayhem
Nocturnal Breed
Satyricon
Syrach
Tristania
Vreid

My Favorite Metal Band from New Zealand

Dawn of Azazel is one of my favorite bands. With their sound rooted in a similar style as Aussie bands like Abominator and Destroyer 666, Dawn of Azazel is a brutal and relentless riff machine. Their sound can probably best be described as an uneasy chaos. It's a combination of thrash, death, and black metal that is dark and destructive. Another interesting facet of Dawn of Azazel is vocalist Rigel Walshe's day job. He's a police constable.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Ulcerate

My Favorite Metal Band from the Netherlands

Yes, I am repeating another pick from the Top 100, but seriously what do you expect? The Netherlands proved to be a particularly fertile ground for death metal in the early 1990's. Vocalist Martin Van Drunen has been in a number of bands but really seemed to make his mark with Asphyx. His psychotic wailing fit the band's doomy and gloomy sound pretty well. Picking just one band was very difficult for this country because there are a lot of good bands and a lot of them sound pretty similar. Asphyx wins out because it is the best work Van Drunen has done to date.

NOTABLE SCENES: Death metal.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
God Dethroned
Hail of Bullets
Nox
Prostitute Disfigurement
Sinister
Thanatos

My Favorite Metal Band from Mexico

Yet another one I just covered recently, so nothing further to add here.

NOTABLE SCENES: A particularly dirty brand of blackened death.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Hacavitz
The Chasm

My Favorite Metal Band from Lithuania

Lithuania is not exactly well-known for their metal scene. I have albums from two bands from the country. Both are fairly raw black metal bands. Argharus probably wins in a close race just due to the superior productions value over Poccolus. The music has a cold atmosphere and the vocals are reminiscent of Attila Csihar's vocals on Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom. Sathanas. Argharus sound like they would have been at home in Norway in the early 1990's.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Poccolus