Your Musical Journey 2014

Perun

Perun

His name struck fear into hearts of men
Staff member
The Best music in 2014 thread obviously only serves to discuss music released this year. But like most, I have also been busy discovering bands and albums that came out before. So the idea here is to retrace the musical journey you took this year.

To me, it's been a remarkable year musically speaking, and it's been dominated mostly by three bands: Atlantean Kodex, Alter Bridge and Grand Magus.

I discovered Kodex late last year, and I was already amazed and blown away then, but I really only delved into their music and discovered its nuances in the first few months of this year. They basically got me back into the epic true metal sort of thing that I'd written off for so long, especially by adding a strong doomy element in memory of Quorthon.

As for Alter Bridge, it's of course all thanks to @Ariana who got me into them. A great hard rock band of the type I'd always shrugged off before, for whatever reason... but just listen to Blackbird (the song, then the album) and tell me that's not a masterpiece. Notably, I got to see them live at FortaRock in May and had a great time. An amazing band.

I only got into Grand Magus when I got their recent album in September at a discount price on a mate's recommendation. I listened to it non-stop for about a month before trying out their other albums. This is more of what I spoke of, epic but doomy heavy metal.

Essentially, one of the biggest musical events for me this year was the CHEESEVIVÖR, which was a cause for me to go on a journey which got me to discover a lot of cool and mostly unknown bands. That's why I didn't take any suggestions - the research was part of why I did it in the first place. Some of the bands I got into ended up in the game, such as Iron Fire or DoomSword, but there were others I discovered underway that I didn't think were cheesy enough or for other reasons unsuitable. These include Dark at Dawn and Rebellion, both good versions of Grave Digger, and Crom, a Quorthon fanboy.

As for live gigs, I surprisingly only had two occasions - one was FortaRock in Nijmegen, where I got to see Sabaton, Alter Bridge, Slayer and Iron Maiden and the Maiden gig in Sofia... and that's it, really. I think.
 
Very interesting idea, Perun!

Thanks to your Cheesevivor, I have also found a new interest in cheesy power and folk metal. Although I have not truly delved into much of their material, I have started listening to Alestorm, Gloryhammer, and Grand Magus.

I'd say that my tastes this year have opened up to allow a wider range of incredibly cheesy heavy metal and, for some reason, songs with traditional folktale storytelling elements. I keep meaning to check out Primordial and I have finally gotten into Amon Amarth.

My musical journey this year gave me a better appreciation of growled vocals and finely aged cheese.
 
This year I have been busy with eighties metal, especially Dutch. This is an ongoing "project" certainly continuing in 2015 (and beyond).
Also, inspired by several My Dying Bride albums and a US magazine, ordered by my wife, called "The Top 100 Doom Metal Albums of All Time" (really cool, I'd also like to order the Black Metal Top 100 mag) I'm planning to explore the doom metal genre more thoroughly. This month I've already started with a few eighties and nineties releases from Trouble, Saint Vitus and Winter.

I have also given several Opeth albums a first, good chance to be heard.

Went to these gigs: Motorpsycho, Mayan, Avatarium, FortaRock (Maiden, Slayer, Sabaton and others), Epica, British Lion, The Sirens.
FortaRock was great. Such a pleasure to meet up with friends from this board (and to play host).
British Lion was very special as well. To see Steve Harris playing in a small club was a great feeling and the band sounded very strong! Of course, briefly handshaking 'Arry and having an autograph afterwards (plus a short talk with Michael Kenney before the gig) made it extra memorable.

2014 was also important for me when it comes to music in an active sense. In the end of 2013 I joined the band HeadSmoke and this year I've had the pleasure to do seven gigs, and work on new songs.
 
Last edited:
2014 has been a pretty sparse year for me.

The only new albums I think I got were Sabaton's and Judas Priest's.

Possibly the only gig I went to was FortaRock (cheers Foro! et al.). Although as I write this I think I might have seen Blaze too. Not sure.
 
Yeah, I may just have put one of his CDs on.:p

No, it was a great gig; I just couldn't remember when it was. My concept of time and events is not so great these days. I've checked and it was in March.
 
That's kinda what I was like when I saw British Lion; couldn't recall what year it was the last time it was discussed. Then again, I didn't recall much about the end of the night at the time! :lol:
 
Good thread!

Well my most listened artist this year has without a doubt been Bob Dylan..Basically started the year on a Dylan kick and have been listening to him on/off the entire year. Lately I went through his entire discography in the months of October and November :D

Other kicks I've been on through the year...A long 70s rock period consisting of mostly Caravan, Rolling Stones, Yes, Pink Floyd, Sabbath, Soft Machine....A big Frank Zappa kick, a Steve Miller Band and a Velvet Underground kick, a Megadeth kick, a Queen period, a huge like 2 months Grateful Dead trip (started listening to the studio albums but then went into their boxset of complete Europe 72 recordings and got about halfway before I got bored :D) Around February I had a bit of a Brazilian samba/salsa trip and listened to a lot of Brazilian music like Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Jorge Ben, Trio Mocoto, Novos Baianos etc...:)

New discoveries this year (both old and new bands), Fresh Maggots, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Temples, Foxygen, Vista Chino (old Kyuss), Dungen, Jacco Gardner, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Jonathan Wilson, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Natural Child, The Felice Brothers, Ape Machine, Gary CLark Jr., Dollhouse, Rival Sons, DeWolff, Powerglove, Gregory Porter, Unkown Mortal Orchestra, Benjamin Booker, Ume, Blaak Heat Shujaa, First Aid Kit, Hiss Golden Messenger and a lot of other good stuff I'm sure :)

Here's to more good music in 2015! :cheers:
 
Last edited:
Hmm, Tankard as of late. Manilla Road and Motörhead during the spring, summer and fall. Candlemass, Bathory, Artillery and Venom were also some bands I got into this year Also, bands like Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet re-enforced my love for Southern Rock.
 
This year's main discoveries lie on 80s new wave era for me. Depeche Mode has become one of my favorite bands and synthpop in general has become one of my favorite genres. I also found out about some cool post-punk bands from the same era but haven't had the chance to explore them further. I admittedly have been lazy in my musical journey this year, didn't listen to a lot of stuff I had planned to, hope to pick up the slack next year.

Biggest change for this year is that I started enjoying simplicity over complexity, which provided a boost to my liking of pop music.
 
@Perun (and anyone else who's interested).

Have you heard of Ahab? Doom from Germany. They were recently recommended to me by a friend. Their debut album from 2006, called The Call of the Wretched Sea, is inspired by Herman Melville’s 'Moby Dick'.
114541.jpg

A review by Matt Solis (from Decibel Magazine):

The ocean is goddamn terrifying - it covers more than 70 percent of the planet, yet 95 percent of it remains uncharted. Judging by those numbrs, it seems likely that there's a hideous beast hiding somewhere in its depths right now, waiting for the perfect moment to rise from its watery tomb and crush humanity under its reeking tentacles. And when it does, The Call of the Wretched Sea will be the perfect soundtrack.

Ahab may not have intended to create a new subgenre [nautical funeral doom, if you're keeping track] when they released their debut LP in 2006, but by combining the awesome power and glacial pace of funeral doom with watery keyboards, cavernous production and Moby Dick-inspired lyrics, they essentially did just that. Songs like "Below the Sun" and "The Sermon" crush like the atmospheric pressure in the Mariana Trench. Daniel Droste's eerie, reverb-drenched guitar melodies swirl on top of Pequod-sized riffs. The entire album sounds like you're being dragged to the bottom of the ocean by a gargantuan monster from beyond the stars. Listen inside a diving bell for maximum effect.

- - - - - - -

From a 2006 interview:
Which kind of band did influence your sound ? Do you take inspiration from cult bands like Black Sabbath, Pentagram, St Vitus or do you prefer bands who play the same kind of doom like you : Shape of Despair, Pantheist… ?

Our main source of inspiration to compose “The Call Of The Wretched Sea” was Melville’s novel of course. We just tried to set the words to music to compose our own dark soundtrack to the story. “The Call…” is a concept album which is lyrically based on “Moby Dick”. We didn’t want to retell the story… our aim was to use some chapters of the book to set the words to music and to deliver this dark and gloomy atmosphere of the story that we experienced during reading it. Of course there are also some bands which inspired me a lot. Especially My Dying Bride and old Anathema influenced me a lot and their cds are still among my all time favourites today.

- - - -


What do I think of it myself? Well, I must confess that the first listening took a bit too much of my patience. It is slow stuff, and it takes a while before a song is really "starting/going", so to speak. But the atmosphere is quite something, so when I let that in, I really like it. An intriguing soundtrack indeed.
 
Last edited:
The Call of the Wretched Sea is one of my favourite and most listened to albums, and I've been talking about it quite a bit on this board in the past.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top