The Sins of Thy Beloved - Lake of Sorrow (1998)

(Had to censor the cover because I think I said this blog was safe for work... LOL! Original Image (NSFW))


Genre: Doom Metal / Gothic Metal
Quality: MP3 @ 192 KBPS
About: As far as I know, this is the only album where a violinist named Pete Johansen is featured prominently. Why do I go straight to the violinist? Because holy mother of jesus, it is amazing. Pete does not play the violin, he makes sweet passionate love with it.

That aside, this is a simply perfect doom-gothic metal album. In every song, there is a trade off between the terrific male growls of Glenn Morten Nordbø, and the light and beautiful female vocals of Anita Auglend. He is so harsh, whereas she sounds so vulnerable.

An interesting component of this album is that while the violin is very prominent in the first three tracks, it almost completely drops off later in the album. The album as a whole seems to get a brighter feeling towards the end. For example, the three minute violin intro to track 3 "Worthy of You" nearly makes me break out in tears, but the violin chorus in track 4 "Lake of Sorrow" is (ironically) a happy little folk tune.

The feeling I get from this album is difficult to describe, but I will try. Even when you are drowning in a lake of sorrow, there is always hope.


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A Metal Hurricane, Vol. 4

Genre: Varies, see description and track listing.
Quality: Mostly over 192kbps MP3, one is AAC.
About: I believe this is my best playlist to date. If you're here, likely you already have bands like Alcest (Track 8), Angra (10), Revolution Renaissance (14), and Grey Waters (9). But you probably don't have Yearning (1), Far Beyond (3), Enter My Silence (7), Pay No Respect (12), or Shadow Gallery (15). These are all great and very underrated metal bands! I won't say more specific things about the aforementioned bands, you should experience them for yourself.

Because of bands like Alcest, Austere and all related bands, I've been getting more into shoegaze. It is called that because founding artists generally stared straight down during live performances. I used last.fm shoegaze radio to find bands like The Depreciation Guild (5), who became an instant favorite. This song has such a great beat and I wish I was in a band because it would be such a nice candidate for a power metal cover!

I've always been into very melodic music, whether it's rock or metal or anything else. I was randomly browsing a blog, and I usually hate when music is played on music-blogs because people are probably already listening to music while browsing! But in this case it was a very good thing because I heard another instant favorite - Brother Firetribe (2). This is melodic rock but it is somewhat heavy at times, and it is interesting because it was actually founded by the guitarist/composer from nightwish! Annette is even in one song (not this one). The singer here is absolutely incredible, he is like a combination of Mark Boals and Michael Kiske which are my two favorite living singers. Powerful yet clean.

Kymera (6) is another unknown amazing melodic rock band, with another vocalist who reminds me of Kiske.

Glen Hansard (4) is an amazing singer-songwriter and the best decision he ever made was to release a movie called Once in 2006. This is direct from the movie and I'm not sure why but just seemed to fit very well in that spot in the playlist.

Serj Tankian (11) is of course the singer from System of A Down. I consider their first album a metal album, but since then the band and the recent solo projects have shifted more to a mainstream alternative sound. Here, he experiments which I really like. The album as a whole is too slow and uneventful, but this track grabbed me. I guess the disco-type beat.

Billionaires Boys Club (13) is the epitome of unknown hard rock. It features Mark Boals on vocals, and had some really enjoyable songs such as this one. It's just one of those bands that remained unknown for some reason. Lack of promotion and touring. This band would have done really well today now that we have internet to find all this great music!


Track List (1:13:22 total time):
1. Yearning - Bleak (Atmospheric Doom/Death Metal / Clean Vocals)
2. Brother Firetribe - I'm on Fire (Melodic Hard Rock / AOR)
3. Far Beyond - My Way Of Endless Grief (Melodic Power Metal)
4. Glen Hansard - Say it to Me Now (Acoustic / Singer-Songwriter)
5. The Depreciation Guild - Crucify You (Shoegaze / Chiptune / 8bit)
6. Khymera - No sacrifice (Melodic Rock / AOR)
7. Enter My Silence - Thin Red Line (Melodic Death Metal)
8. Alcest - Tir Nan Og (Atmospheric/Acoustic Black Metal / Shoegaze)
9. Grey Waters - The Truth is in Your Eyes (Depressive Black Rock/Metal / Shoegaze / Emo)
10. Angra - Lease of Life (Power Metal / Ballad)
11. Serj Tankian - Deserving? (Symphonic/Alternative Rock/Pop)
12. Pay No Respect - Only the Brave (Hardcore / Beatdown)
13. Billionaires Boys Club - Send Your Fat Friend Home (Hard Rock / Glam Metal / AOR)
14. Revolution Renaissance - Crossing the Rubicon (Power Metal)
15. Shadow Gallery - Colors (Melodic Metal / Ballad)

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*As usual, the music files are included as well as a .m3u file. If you have problems, let me know.*

Please support the musicians that spent so much time, effort, and money to make this great music for you - Buy their albums and go to their concerts (if possible)!
(In this case, click the donate button on the top right and I will be more likely to continue exposing you to these bands. :D)

Yearning - Frore Meadow (2001)

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal / Shoegaze / Doom Metal
Quality: mp3 @ 192 kbps

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A Gothic Hurricane (by hurricane_mario)

Genre: Melodic Death/Doom Metal, Gothic Metal, Symphonic metal, related genres.
Quality: Varied
About: I had a few of these songs going through my head the other day so I decided to make a playlist. I tried to steer away from non real gothic bands that idiots tag as gothic just because there's a female singer. But a few crept in towards the end when I ran out of ideas. I don't listen to gothic much, but when I do it's songs like these.

1. The Old Dead Tree - Start the Fire
2. Ava Inferi - Colours Of The Dark
3. To/Die/For - Guilt Ridden State
4. Flowing Tears - Godless
5. Moonspell - Everything Invaded
6. Rapture - (About) Leaving
7. Krypteria - My Fatal Kiss
8. Lacrimas Profundere - A Pearl
9. Theatre Of Tragedy - Silence
10. Aesma Daeva - The Camp of Souls
11. Xandria - Now & Forever
12. The Sins of Thy Beloved - My Love
13. HIM - Your Sweet Six Six Six
14. Sirenia - The Last Call
15. Within Temptation - What Have You Done (Feat. Keith Caputo)

Same as last time. The songs and a .m3u file. Hope it works right. Definitely will work in VLC though.


4shared Download

Please support the musicians that spent so much time, effort, and money to make this great music for you - Buy their albums and go to their concerts (if possible)!
(In this case, donate button in top right.)

Polynove Pole - Na Semy Vitrah (2009) (Correct id3 tags, 320 kbps mp3)

Genre: Female-Fronted Gothic Doom Death Metal
About: I generally think this genre is overrated and cheesy (barely gothic but labeled as such because of the female singer, and an im-so-angry-at-the-world male growler in the background), but this is awesome. They actually put some feeling in to their music. Not many bands come from Ukraine, and even if many did, this band would likely be the best one. This is their debut album, so give them a try. The album name means "On the Seven Winds".

(I fixed the id3 tags because it was weird characters that converted wrong to the english character set, for example - "Ïîëèíîâå Ïîëå – Íà ñåìè â³òðàõ". How do people not notice that crap in their library and fix it?)

Download pt 1
Download pt 2

Alternate - Free download from their Official Site (Enter name and location then click button. Not sure what the bitrate is or if the tags are correct, but this way you show the band your support because they track the number of downloads)

Desire - Crowcifix (EP) (2009) (Desire (Prt) - Crowcifix)

Genre: Doom Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Funeral Doom Metal
About: Desire makes a rather unexpected return with an EP with two new tracks and a live song. I don't even know how to describe this band in words. The music is so powerful yet beautiful. For all fans of Doom metal.

Download

Uaral - Lamentos A Poema Muerto (2007)

Genre: doom metal, acoustic, folk, influences of depressive/suicidal black metal
About: This is music to lose yourself into. The feeling of hopelessness and loneliness present here is simply amazing. But what makes them so unique is this is achieved using almost entirely acoustic guitars. Beautiful flowing spanish folk melodies. But then seemingly out of nowhere, the vocals come in. They vary from low melodic vocals to growls, and sometimes almost grindcore/frog vocals and also suicidal black vocals. And there is actually crying in some songs

The only "happy" sounding part is track 5, but that is somewhat muffled as if it is a memory of a past time, in which things were different.

The only "metal" parts of this album are usually at the climax of the song, in which the acoustic guitar is still present but overlapped with electric guitar melodies. This band must be heard to be believed.

Download

Moonspell - Lusitanian Metal (DVD Audio) (2008) - Separate mp3 tracks

Genre: Doom Metal, Heavy Metal, Black Metal, Gothic Metal
About: Moonspell is fantastic live. I had the good fortune to see them supporting Danzig (who sucks arse btw), and it was just awesome. The song Vampiria actually made me shake because of the atmosphere and how well it was played and the beautiful yet creepy red lights. Here is the track list for this concert.

Live At The City Of Ravens (Metalmania, Poland 2004):
1. Intro
2. In and Above Men
3. From Lowering Skies
4. Alma Mater
5. Vampiria
6. The Southern Deathstyle
7. Everything Invaded
8. Opium
9. Devilred
10. Abysmo
11. Ruin & Misery
12. Mephisto
13. Full Moon Madness

If you so wish, you can buy a 2-DVD set which includes: this concert, all of their music videos up to 2005, and various live footage from 1992-2005!

(I'm not sure why they have no material on here from post-2005, maybe they thought they were better a few years ago?)

Download

Frozen Tear - White With Frost (1995)

Genre: Melodic Death Metal, Doom Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Black Metal
About: The first and only demo (technically second, there was a demo released under the name Thorny Wreath) from this rather amazing Melodic Death/Doom metal band from finland, with some raw black sounding influences. It is quite frostbitten, as the title suggests.

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The Old Dead Tree - The Water Fields

Genre: Doom Metal, Gothic Metal
About: Extremely solid album. I recommend to all.

Year: 2007
Download

Rapture - Discography 2007

Massively underrated Death/Doom band from Finland. One of my favorites and I think everyone should check it out. My favorite songs are: To Forget, Transfixion, Raintracks, These Past Nightmares, Cold on My Side. But honestly, every song is perfect.

Edit 07/2009: Download - Folder on mediafire

Album: Rapture - Futile
Year: 1999
Genre: Doom Metal, Melodic Death Metal, w/ no clean vocals
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Album: Rapture - Songs for the Withering
Year: 2002
Genre: Doom Metal, Melodic Death Metal, w/ some clean vocals
Download


Album: Rapture - The Silent Stage
Year: 2005
Genre: Doom Metal, Melodic Death Metal, w/ many clean vocals
Download