ARCH ENEMY

genre: Melodic Death Metal

Arch Enemy is a innovative band; they contributed their music to complete the genre "Melodic Death Metal". Before Arch Enemy, many Melodic Death Metal just simply added synthesizer to their music to make it sound more "melodical" (just like Children of Bodom, In Flames, etc). I'm not claiming that adding synthesizer to their music is lame and stupid because Children of Bodom, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and many other Melodic Death Metal bands wrote good songs. But instead of adding synthesizer to the band's music, Arch Enemy created a beautiful guitar lines to make it sound more melodical. Arch Enemy's song is filled with two contradicting sounds: it has a heavy, fast and dark guitar riffs covered with vocal's growling voice and wild double bass drums, however then it suddenly changes to beautiful guitar solo. Not only the band's guitarist, Michael and Chris Amott (they're brothers), creates fast, heavy, "death metal"ish riffs using the alternative picking technique, they also creates very melodic guitar lines. Those two elements contrasts in the song and creates their own idiosyncratic style of music. The Amott brothers often shares guitar solos and creates harmonious guitar lines using the 3rd chord harmony. However, the guitar line is not the only thing that is unique in this band. Their vocalist, Angela Gossow is a woman. Just reading this won't make it very special, but if you try to listen to their song, you won't believe that the vocalist is a woman. She uses growling vocal style to suit the music. There were actually another vocalist named Johan Liiva before Angela joined. Even though the two vocalists uses similiar growling voice, their style is different. While Johan's voice is wild but little warm, Angela's voice sounds more aggresive. Both vocals are magnificent enough to match the band's music, but Johan's withdrawl and Angela's joining brought huge difference to the band's music style.

The Amott Brothers (Chris on the right, Micheal on the left)

Recommended Songs:

-Sliverwings (sung by Johan Liiva.)

-Nemesis

-Blood on Your Hands

-In This Shallow Grave

-We Will Rise

-Ravenous

Arch Enemy - Blood On Your Hands

This song is the one of the best song from the vocalist Angela Gossow. Harmonious guitar lines, guitar solos, and speedy, heavy riffs can be heard in this song.

Arch Enemy - Silverwings

This song is the one of the best song from the vocalist Johan Liiva. The contradiction of the heavy guitar riffs and beautiful guitar solo is very interesting.

Try both songs and compare two vocalists.

Who do you prefer?

INCUBUS

genre: Alternative Rock

Incubus is a band that has idiosyncratic style of music. Unlike many other bands, incubus have DJ in the band, who makes the band sound even more unique. The band is made of 5 members: Brandon Boyd (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, percussion), Mike Einziger (lead guitar, piano, backing vocals), Jose Pasillas II (drums, percussion), Ben Kenney (bass guitar, backing vocals) and DJ Chris Kilmore (turntables, keyboard). On their second album, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. the band created a radical, weird but creative sounds, and this grabbed many metal fans' attention. The band included Mike's strange wet guitar noises produced by tons of effects, heavy distorted guitar riffs, Ben's bass slapping technique, Jose's turntable noises, Jose's two bass drum and Brandon's rapping/singing style. Most of you may think that it'll sound very weird if those techniques are mixed together as a song, however Incubus did a eminent job on mixing them together in a song and created a original and creative music style. However because of the band's too radical sounds, it couldn't earn Mainstream recognization (although 100,000 copies were sold). On the contrary, the band's third album, Make Yourself, brought huge success to band that the song Drive reached the 3rd place for billboard chart for 6 weeks. One of the reason, that band succeed was that their music became much more melodical, and they removed lots of heavy distorted guitar riffs. Instead, Mike added some advanced guitar proggression chords to make the band sound much more exclusive. Also Brandon abandoned his rapping style since then. Incubus was a Nu Metal band with a experimental sounds but they suddenly morphed into a alternative band. Still Incubus have their own unique style of music and this is why they are still an outstanding band.













Mike's various guitar effects
Band's guitarist Mike Einziger

DJ Kilmore is one of the reason
why Incubus is so eminent

Recommended songs

• -Drive
• -Love Hurts
• -Here in my room
• -Anna Molly
• -I miss you
• -Redefine (included in the 2nd album -soungs very radical and heavy unlike the previous recommended songs)

Incubus - Drive
-One of the best hit songs (from the album Make Yourself)

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