Any Catamenia fans? - Plus any recommendations/advice? Very new to mainstream metal and could REALLY use some tips. Thank you in advance :)

Hey all, sorry for the long title. I just recently started openly listening to other metal other than Christian metal. One of the bands that I came across was Catamenia, they're black metal, but from what I can tell aren't satanic, their music is mostly just about world problems and nature.

 Anyways, I've waited this long to openly listen to regular metal and really go full force as a metalhead. The reason being is that from past experiences I was afraid that my parents wouldn't understand, even though they have no problem with me listening to Christian metal. But to my surprise they were very understanding, my mother especially. It'll still take some more time for a few things but this is a very big step for me. 

I've already got most of the original base bands down: Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Dio, Pantera, Judas Priest, Armored Saint, Avenged Sevenfold & Disturbed. As well as some other bands and artists like: Machine Head, Zakk Wylde, Marty Friedman, Cobalt, Trivium & Parkway Drive. (BTW I like very little core bands, with Parkway Drive and Trivium being exceptions.)

There's still MUCH, much more that I have to learn about the rest of the entire metal scene in general. I grew up with Metallica as my uncle got me into metal by introducing me to them, so I know the most about them when it comes to mainstream metal, and metal in general. 

I would LOVE some tips and recommendations if you all have some free time! I would be EXTREMELY appreciative and grateful for any advice and tips you would all give me, because I know VERY LITTLE about mainstream metal. Also I'm slightly desperate  
considering I waited until I was 19 to crawl out of my box. I'm also open to discussion.

Here's a song that I like by Catamenia if you don't already know who they are:



Thank you all in advance, your help and future help means the world to me! 

Glad to help, although it would be wise to ask first: what kind of metal would you like particularly?
Well, maybe I can coin some relatively big names in the meantime: Blind Guardian, Edguy, Iced Earth, Rhapsody, Sabaton. Five power metal bands, yet very different from each other (although you might need to listen to that style quite some time to hear how big the differences are).

Kalmah
Norther
Insomnium
Omnium Gatherum
older In Flames (Clayman and before)
Dark Tranquility
Ensiferum
Amorphis
Wintersun
Manegarm
Moonsorrow
Vintersorg
Borknagar
Enslaved
Equilibrium
Gates of Ishtar
Falkenbach

Should get you started

^That's a good list.  I used to be big into Borknagar and Vintersorg.  I still have some Vintersorg CDs for sale if you're interested...  I've seen Inslaved, Amorphis, and Omnium Gatherum live and they all put on great live shows.  I've also seen In Flames live a couple times though their new stuff isn't as highly regarded.  Still, they put on a high-energy and fun show.

And not to hijack this thread into something else... but I do recommend being careful with the bands you choose to listen to.  Even if they're not overtly satanic, metal tends to have a lot of anti-Christian sentiments, particularly self-empowerment (i.e. not being dependent on Christ alone), worship of nature (i.e. worshiping creation, not the Creator), and the like.  I've found myself gravitating more and more to Christian metal for those reasons.  Also, secular bands often sing about stuff that I just don't care about and therefore I am unable to connect with emotionally as I might to, say, Vials Of Wrath instead of Wolves In The Throne Room.  Some food for thought anyways.

Kerrick wrote:^That's a good list.  I used to be big into Borknagar and Vintersorg.  I still have some Vintersorg CDs for sale if you're interested...  I've seen Inslaved, Amorphis, and Omnium Gatherum live and they all put on great live shows.  I've also seen In Flames live a couple times though their new stuff isn't as highly regarded.  Still, they put on a high-energy and fun show.

And not to hijack this thread into something else... but I do recommend being careful with the bands you choose to listen to.  Even if they're not overtly satanic, metal tends to have a lot of anti-Christian sentiments, particularly self-empowerment (i.e. not being dependent on Christ alone), worship of nature (i.e. worshiping creation, not the Creator), and the like.  I've found myself gravitating more and more to Christian metal for those reasons.  Also, secular bands often sing about stuff that I just don't care about and therefore I am unable to connect with emotionally as I might to, say, Vials Of Wrath instead of Wolves In The Throne Room.  Some food for thought anyways.

That last paragraph definitely sums up how I feel about it. That's the one thing my parents had worried about, however I try my best to be as careful as possible. I deffinetly prefer Christian metal, but I do like to hit up some other metal bands sometimes (Like some of the ones I've listed). As for the large list of bands above, I'll have to check them out. One trend I have noticed with bands like, let's say Cradle of Filth, is lots and lots of extreme vulgarity, kind of sickening if you ask me. So I try to stay far from that part of the metal scene. When it comes to black metal I try to stay towards the Christian side of things, because a non-satanic band or other forms of non-ungodly bands in the black metal scene are extremely rare. But I know that it's not exclusive to the black metal scene (Slayer for example) so I'll try my best to be very careful. Thanks for the advice and concern. I'm deffinetly still open to more advice and tips.  


The genres I like the most are deffinetly thrash, black, death, doom, power, classic, melodic, symphonic, and I don't mind if some sub-genre's cross over with each other. Also another band that I forgot to mention is Anthrax, although I don't like them near as much as other bands.

ImagoDei wrote:Kalmah
Norther
Insomnium
Omnium Gatherum
older In Flames (Clayman and before)
Dark Tranquility
Ensiferum
Amorphis
Wintersun
Manegarm
Moonsorrow
Vintersorg
Borknagar
Enslaved
Equilibrium
Gates of Ishtar
Falkenbach

Should get you started

Thanks for the giant list, I'll deffinetly check them out! Thanks!

(Edit) So far I'm really digging Kalmah. After this I'm going to go ahead and give Norther a listen. Always been a big fan of melodic death metal. 

Andreas89 wrote:Glad to help, although it would be wise to ask first: what kind of metal would you like particularly?
Well, maybe I can coin some relatively big names in the meantime: Blind Guardian, Edguy, Iced Earth, Rhapsody, Sabaton. Five power metal bands, yet very different from each other (although you might need to listen to that style quite some time to hear how big the differences are).

Thanks for the suggestions (BTW I do indeed like power metal), my fav sub-genre's (I also mentioned them in my reply to Kerrick) would have to be thrash, black, death, doom, power, classic, melodic, symphonic, and I don't mind if those sub-genre's cross over with each other sometimes.

Mysterious Gamer Dude wrote:That last paragraph definitely sums up how I feel about it. That's the one thing my parents had worried about, however I try my best to be as careful as possible. I deffinetly prefer Christian metal, but I do like to hit up some other metal bands sometimes (Like some of the ones I've listed). As for the large list of bands above, I'll have to check them out. One trend I have noticed with bands like, let's say Cradle of Filth, is lots and lots of extreme vulgarity, kind of sickening if you ask me. So I try to stay far from that part of the metal scene. When it comes to black metal I try to stay towards the Christian side of things, because a non-satanic band or other forms of non-ungodly bands in the black metal scene are extremely rare. But I know that it's not exclusive to the black metal scene (Slayer for example) so I'll try my best to be very careful. Thanks for the advice and concern. I'm deffinetly still open to more advice and tips.  


The genres I like the most are deffinetly thrash, black, death, doom, power, classic, melodic, symphonic, and I don't mind if some sub-genre's cross over with each other. Also another band that I forgot to mention is Anthrax, although I don't like them near as much as other bands.

Right on.  Some other bands I'd recommend then (in no particular order) are:

In The Woods...
Their early stuff was black/Viking style metal but then they went more avant-garde.  Here's the opening track from their most popular album.  They broke up years ago and recently reformed.  Their new album has one or two songs that I don't care for the lyrics of, but they're pretty clean.


Warning
I just saw these guys live and they're great.  I've been a fan of theirs for years. They play very melodic doom metal.


The 3rd And The Mortal
These Norwegians started out as a female-fronted melodic doom band but since went avant-garde.  Their final album has a couple four-letter words but their lyrics are otherwise clean.


Unexpect
These guys are totally bonkers, and yet it works.


Morgion
This band was my intro to doom/death and they remain one of my favorites of the genre


Kauan
Black/folk/doom/post-rock beauty.


Alcest
The originators of hipster post-black metal and one of my favorite bands.  I've seen them live three or so times now.

Kerrick wrote:

Mysterious Gamer Dude wrote:That last paragraph definitely sums up how I feel about it. That's the one thing my parents had worried about, however I try my best to be as careful as possible. I deffinetly prefer Christian metal, but I do like to hit up some other metal bands sometimes (Like some of the ones I've listed). As for the large list of bands above, I'll have to check them out. One trend I have noticed with bands like, let's say Cradle of Filth, is lots and lots of extreme vulgarity, kind of sickening if you ask me. So I try to stay far from that part of the metal scene. When it comes to black metal I try to stay towards the Christian side of things, because a non-satanic band or other forms of non-ungodly bands in the black metal scene are extremely rare. But I know that it's not exclusive to the black metal scene (Slayer for example) so I'll try my best to be very careful. Thanks for the advice and concern. I'm deffinetly still open to more advice and tips.  


The genres I like the most are deffinetly thrash, black, death, doom, power, classic, melodic, symphonic, and I don't mind if some sub-genre's cross over with each other. Also another band that I forgot to mention is Anthrax, although I don't like them near as much as other bands.

Right on.  Some other bands I'd recommend then (in no particular order) are:

In The Woods...
Their early stuff was black/Viking style metal but then they went more avant-garde.  Here's the opening track from their most popular album.  They broke up years ago and recently reformed.  Their new album has one or two songs that I don't care for the lyrics of, but they're pretty clean.


Warning
I just saw these guys live and they're great.  I've been a fan of theirs for years. They play very melodic doom metal.


The 3rd And The Mortal
These Norwegians started out as a female-fronted melodic doom band but since went avant-garde.  Their final album has a couple four-letter words but their lyrics are otherwise clean.


Unexpect
These guys are totally bonkers, and yet it works.


Morgion
This band was my intro to doom/death and they remain one of my favorites of the genre


Kauan
Black/folk/doom/post-rock beauty.


Alcest
The originators of hipster post-black metal and one of my favorite bands.  I've seen them live three or so times now.

Those are all great bands! However my favorites would have to be Alcest, Kauan, Morgion and DEFINETLY Unexpect; those guys are crazy, I love it! One thing for sure is that when I listened to Unexpect, what I heard was... unexpected, and brutally awesome!

BTW I do LOVE heavier bands as well, such as brutal death metal and old school death metal, I also like the growling vocals too (I forgot to mention those earlier). But out of doom metal, my favorite band that I've come across so far would probably have to be Candlemass. They are sick.

Thanks for the recommendations, this will help a lot! 

Glad I can help!  Yeah Unexpect is pretty awesome.  I chatted some with their singer via email around the time their second album was released and asked about the lyrics.  At least at that time, he said none of the members were Christians but none of their lyrics are anti-Christian at all.  All three of their albums are excellent, though I find myself listening to their final one the most.  They self-released it and so I don't know how easy it is to find...  Looks like it's on Bandcamp digitally though:
https://unexpect.bandcamp.com/album/fables-of-the-sleepless-empire

For black metal, hands-down my favorite secular band is Weakling.  They have one song with a four-letter word in its title, but they are not evil/anti-Christian.  They only ever released one album but it's a masterpiece.




Another popular band is Ahab.  They play "nautik funeral doom" metal.  I've also written back and forth a bit with one of their members many years ago and like Unexpect, they're pretty neutral lyrics-wise.



Another good black metal band is Bann.  I think one of the members maybe played in Ahab for a bit or something, though I don't remember.  They only ever released one EP and one full-length, but both are very good.  Though they are not Christians, when I asked about their lyrics their singer gave me this very thoughtful response:

Hoffarth wrote:First of all thank you very much for your interest in our music and the lyrics. It's always a great pleasure, when people tell us, they like our work and show their deeper concern for it. Regarding my lyircs I can tell you, that they are not at all of the typical antichristian/misantrophic black metal kind. Mostly I deal with the reality of medieval life and people - so of course there are a lot of religious motives and aspects, but I always try to see things as objective as possible. The lyrics to the song "Aber aus der Asche wird ein Schwan entstehen" is about the Czech reformator Jan (Johannes) Hus, who was a harbringer of Martin Luther and got killed by the catholic church because of his religious doctrines of peace and delf-determination. My picture of this man, who died for his believes in a good-natured christian god, is a very positive one. So you could say, the lyrics of the song are pro-believe/pro-christian, but anti-medieval catholic church. Each of our songs has another historic topic and because of a certain abstractness of my poetic style one could interpret a lot of different things. Maybe the most important thing I can say is, that all members of Bann are neither anti-religious nor practising christian, but we all are liberal and thinking people. By the way: in Germany a lot of Unblack Metal fans are listening to our stuff, too.

Ok, Bann is now one of my favorite secular black metal bands. They have the sound and the lyrics. I loved the lead singer's response, and I was already liking the band just after reading that. But after hearing the music, I was immediately sold. Like, that is just awesome! 

Also, Weakling is brutal! Sucks they only have one release but still they're a great band and have an awesome sound. I also love Ahab's growling doom sound, it's totally brutal.

Also it's cool how you get to talk to all these bands, there's probably very few bands that you haven't heard of. 

Awesome!  Yeah Bann is great.  Their EP was pretty limited but I just did a quick search and it looks like it's still available in a few spots, such as eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/BANN-Antiochia-CD-German-funereal-black-metal-blackened-doom-bethlehem-balnasar-/191939171400?rmvSB=true

Weakling's CD is still in print and while it's not very broadly distributed, it's around.  The main guy is now in a band called Dispirit which I've seen live a few times.  They're pretty good but aren't as much up my ally as Weakling.  He was also in a funeral doom metal band called Asunder which released two full length albums and some splits.  A Clarion Call is a great album.

All of Ahab's albums are good though after The Call Of The Wretched Sea, they put more emphasis on clean vocals and lighter passages too.  Their first album is definitely the heaviest but I enjoy all four albums.

Havent listened to much unblack metal you havent already listed

(You may have heard of these already as well)
So I'll throw in some random bands from multiple genres

One of my favorite power metal bands:



Melodic Death Metal



Not Christian professed, but has clean lyrics that have Christian themes

Easily one of the most underrated thrash bands of all time



Same case as Devastation:



And for good measure I'll throw in some core   give it a chance, or not

Kerrick wrote:Awesome!  Yeah Bann is great.  Their EP was pretty limited but I just did a quick search and it looks like it's still available in a few spots, such as eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/BANN-Antiochia-CD-German-funereal-black-metal-blackened-doom-bethlehem-balnasar-/191939171400?rmvSB=true

Weakling's CD is still in print and while it's not very broadly distributed, it's around.  The main guy is now in a band called Dispirit which I've seen live a few times.  They're pretty good but aren't as much up my ally as Weakling.  He was also in a funeral doom metal band called Asunder which released two full length albums and some splits.  A Clarion Call is a great album.

All of Ahab's albums are good though after The Call Of The Wretched Sea, they put more emphasis on clean vocals and lighter passages too.  Their first album is definitely the heaviest but I enjoy all four albums.

Thanks for the link, and pointing me in the right direction! I'm sure I can manage to find Weakling's album, it'll just take some research. As for Dispirit, I'll have to check them out. Hopefully I like them! And also, I'm still checking out Ahab's other albums, as well as a lot of other bands that you've all suggested (Most are from that giant list at the top of this page. Right now I'm REALLY digging Moonsorrow, although I'm being cautious with the lyrics.)

Devastation is now easily one of my favorite thrash bands. I love the creepy intro, it's just sick and brutal! Crucifer is awesome as well, and I can always use some good ol' fashioned power metal.   As for Becoming the Acrhetype, Immortal Souls, and Impending Doom, I'm already a fan! (ESPECIALLY Immortal Souls) Although I've never been too big on A Plea For Purging. Also, I though BTA was classical death metal, at least they're first few albums? But all in all that's a great list of bands! 
Thanks for the recommendations!   

Here are a few more from the Christian thrash bands

Arnion


Coracao de Heroi


FreaKings

You're probably familiar with My Silent Wake, but if not, you should get acquainted right away.    They're one of my absolute favorite bands and seemingly can do no wrong.  They're doom/death at their core, but have a lot of acoustic, experimental, ambient, and more too.  They started out as a Christian band but are no longer, however I believe one or two of their members may be Christians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gpYBD6h-dY

Departe is not a "Christian band" but the lyricist is a Christian and it definitely comes out in their music.
https://departenoise.bandcamp.com/album/demo-mmxiv

metaldude wrote:Here are a few more from the Christian thrash bands

Arnion


Coracao de Heroi


FreaKings

You know your thrash! Those are all great bands, however I'd say that out of those three that Whitened Graves would have to be my favorite.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Kerrick wrote:You're probably familiar with My Silent Wake, but if not, you should get acquainted right away.    They're one of my absolute favorite bands and seemingly can do no wrong.  They're doom/death at their core, but have a lot of acoustic, experimental, ambient, and more too.  They started out as a Christian band but are no longer, however I believe one or two of their members may be Christians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gpYBD6h-dY

Departe is not a "Christian band" but the lyricist is a Christian and it definitely comes out in their music.
https://departenoise.bandcamp.com/album/demo-mmxiv

Yeah I'm pretty familiar with My Silent Wake, although I have never just sat down and listened to their music. I just checked them out and I have to say, they are freaking sick! And Départe sounds a heck of a lot like black metal, or at least similar, with death and doom elements, combine that with the fact that they have a Christian lyricist and for me equals SOLD.  thx for the recommendations!

Mysterious Gamer Dude wrote:Yeah I'm pretty familiar with My Silent Wake, although I have never just sat down and listened to their music. I just checked them out and I have to say, they are freaking sick! And Départe sounds a heck of a lot like black metal, or at least similar, with death and doom elements, combine that with the fact that they have a Christian lyricist and for me equals SOLD.  thx for the recommendations!

So the big question is... how are you going to afford all this new music??? 

Kerrick wrote:

Mysterious Gamer Dude wrote:Yeah I'm pretty familiar with My Silent Wake, although I have never just sat down and listened to their music. I just checked them out and I have to say, they are freaking sick! And Départe sounds a heck of a lot like black metal, or at least similar, with death and doom elements, combine that with the fact that they have a Christian lyricist and for me equals SOLD.  thx for the recommendations!

So the big question is... how are you going to afford all this new music??? 

I'll figure something out! I'll probably have to collect a few albums here and there over time   Darn money always making me buy things! 


Thanks for all your help! And thank everyone else for their help as well! 

We're just getting started. Let us know when you've had enough. 

metaldude wrote:We're just getting started. Let us know when you've had enough. 

Mysterious Gamer Dude wrote:Devastation is now easily one of my favorite thrash bands. I love the creepy intro, it's just sick and brutal! Crucifer is awesome as well, and I can always use some good ol' fashioned power metal.   As for Becoming the Archetype, Immortal Souls, and Impending Doom, I'm already a fan! (ESPECIALLY Immortal Souls) Although I've never been too big on A Plea For Purging. Also, I though BTA was classical death metal, at least they're first few albums? But all in all that's a great list of bands! 
Thanks for the recommendations!   

No problem

Yea dude Devastation is so great, just stumbled upon them and have been a consistent thrash band in my mix

Awesome to see you like the other bands as well!

BTA was initially straight up death metal, if you like death metal, check out their first couple albums, Terminate Damnation and The Physics of Fire

Their last album was kinda deathcore, I AM, the album previous is one of my favorites as well, Celestial Completion

Kerrick wrote:

metaldude wrote:We're just getting started. Let us know when you've had enough. 

metaldude wrote:We're just getting started. Let us know when you've had enough. 

Keep em' coming!