I’m always interested in finding new music, ranging widely across genres to do so. But one type of music I could never get into was heavy metal. Even as a preteen boy growing up in a 1980s suburban town it was just not my thing. But I’ve grown aware that heavy metal in the 21st century is a different beast than it was in the 1980s, a wide-ranging umbrella covering a lot of creative output. So I put the question to my friend Erik, an expert on the subject, “What metal bands would you recommend to someone who has never liked metal.”
Among the bands Erik recommended was the Chicago-based trio Russian Circles who play a mostly instrumental style influenced by shoe-gaze that’s called post-metal. Their new album Memorial can be streamed online at bandcamp and it really impressed me. I was drawn in by the trance-like quality and the excellent musicianship.
Erik has more suggestions for me so you expect to see more metal in future SOTW posts. You can read more of what Erik has to say about metal at PopMatters, Last Rites, or The Man With The Lightbulb Head.
If you have any suggestions of what I should listen to next, leave them in a comment below.
