WHICH BANDS DO YOU LOVE AND THINK SHOULD BE MORE POPULAR

I thought Red Sea should've been bigger, love that album.

Black Rider wrote:I thought Red Sea should've been bigger, love that album.

I agree I love this album to, definitely a gem.  Would have loved further music from them to.

Black Rider wrote:I thought Red Sea should've been bigger, love that album.

It was heavily Led Zep influenced and came out in 94. That's the kiss of death. But yeah, high quality stuff FFO Badlands, LZ, Kingdom Come, etc.

There are many.  For now I can only name a few:

Ancient Prophecy - German band, a successful mixture of Power, Progressive, Death, Gothic, Modern Thrash, and melodic metal 

Valor - Classic power / speed metal band from the 80's

XIII Minutes - Cool groove metal band from Oklahoma

Letter 7 - Straight ahead 80's metal

Angelic Forces - galloping 80's-style Priest / Maiden metal

Faith Factor - Intense American 80's-style power metal with a modern twist

Gloriam Dei - Great Euro power metal band from Finland

Place Of Skulls - Victor Griffin's doom / biker rock band

Messenger - The East Coast classic hard rock band

Deth Enemy - super-good hard rock / AOR band from Australia

Arvinger - Unblack metal from Norway

They Wither - Unique black metal band from South Africa

Dawnbreaker - unblack metal with thrash elements from the NY/NJ area

Crowned In Sorrow - brilliant death/doom metal

OneMustFall - Great Euro power metal from Finland


All For The King - Groove-oriented modern metal / AOR from Sweden

PFR - Really good pop songwriting & harmonies

Dogs Of Peace - same



The following do not identify as Christian bands, but have some Christian or Christian-friendly content:



Dark Sky - German band, Helloween meets the Scorpions

Mercury Fang - Swedish band, hard rock / AOR with modern production and a strong 70's and 80's flair. 

Everthrone - Highly artistic, brilliant melodic prog. metal band

Adorned in Ash - Hard to describe band with a good "extreme" metal sound
Biogenesis - modern metal played well with a nod to some traditional sounds
Temple of Blood - old school thrash played by perhaps the most handsome man on the internet, or galaxy.  A must have for any music fan who likes notes, rhythms, musical instruments, sounds, or good-looking men
Antithesis - awesome progressive power metal with excellent playing and songwriting
Enshrouding - great death metal of the creative but not necessarily brutal variety
Sacredfice - great melodic power/thrash metal a la Metal Church, etc.
Deth Enemy - excellent hard rock with some good songs and musicianship
Consuming Fire - excellent brutal death metal with great drumming FFO Cannibal Corpse/Morbid Angel
Deus Invictus - very interesting progressive death metal FFO Cynic, Atheist, Martyr, etc with a more brutal and modern twist
David Benson - great 70s Black Sabbath homage
The Great Gamble - (thanks Devon Hill) brilliant prog metal that needs a CD release
Wickeds End - Temporal pain demo - very cool thrash if you like old Slayer or Sepultura
Spirits Breeze - well-done South American brutal death metal a la Krisiun
Stryper - neo-shoegaze-core heavily influenced by Theocracy and other extreme metal
Inside Mankind - fascinating progressive metal with truly operatic female vox
Narrow Gate - that band Dream Theater fans have been looking for
Misery Chastian - cool brutal death metal

Some great picks so far! 


Idle Cure: amazing AOR

Pierce Pettis: best singer-songwriter music I’ve ever heard

Barnabas: early Christian hard rock that seems relatively forgotten compared to others

Bloodline Severed: killer melodeath 

Final Axe/Titanic/Menchen: fantastic classic metal

Legend/Legend 7: great MHR

Mark Heard: excellent songwriter 

Minier: good thrash 

Seventh Avenue: not nearly popular enough to reflect their quality.

Steve Taylor: tied with Bob Hartman as CCM’s best lyricist

Temple of Blood: excellent power thrash with the second most handsome man (the author of this post is first)

Acetametalphen: avant-garde improv Metal that defies easy classification


I’m sure I’ll think of others.

Cat O' Nine Tails.  Even within Christian metal circles they're not talked about.

Pethead wrote:Acetametalphen: avant-garde improv Metal that defies easy classification

Acetaminophen has always been one of my favorites too.

eatbugs wrote:Cat O' Nine Tails.  Even within Christian metal circles they're not talked about.

From Finland?   I checked them out, not my cup of tea but interesting concept - A Christian Pirate band  

Constantine wrote:

eatbugs wrote:Cat O' Nine Tails.  Even within Christian metal circles they're not talked about.

From Finland?   I checked them out, not my cup of tea but interesting concept - A Christian Pirate band  

Wow, really? Link please.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Pethead wrote:Acetametalphen: avant-garde improv Metal that defies easy classification

Acetaminophen has always been one of my favorites too.

Wait, what is the correct spelling of this band?  I looked under both spellings above and can't find anything.

This seems to be one of their better and more straight-ahead songs.   
Some are just oddly structured and not particularly tuneful.

Constantine wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

Pethead wrote:Acetametalphen: avant-garde improv Metal that defies easy classification

Acetaminophen has always been one of my favorites too.

Wait, what is the correct spelling of this band?  I looked under both spellings above and can't find anything.

It's Acetametalphen, which is a play on Acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol). 

It's actually some music my friend and I recorded back in college, but we never made it public anywhere, except for a goofy music video on YouTube that's pretty hard to find. It was just us messing around with some recording software and we were both into thrash and death metal, so that's what came out. It's not professional in the slightest, but it was sure fun to do. I added it to the list for fun.

Constantine wrote:

Temple of Blood wrote:

Pethead wrote:Acetametalphen: avant-garde improv Metal that defies easy classification

Acetaminophen has always been one of my favorites too.

Wait, what is the correct spelling of this band?  I looked under both spellings above and can't find anything.

I found it. We called ourselves Salem at first, but changed it to Acetametalphen, which fit the goofy lyrics better. 

Keep in mind this was a project for fun, not done professionally or anything. Much of the music was improvised and recorded separately. Also keep in mind that this was 14 years ago!

Constantine wrote:This seems to be one of their better and more straight-ahead songs.   
Some are just oddly structured and not particularly tuneful.

It's odd to me that metal so desperately wants to create new genres that this is what they latch onto.

I can't say it's bad, nor can I say I ever want to hear it again.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Constantine wrote:This seems to be one of their better and more straight-ahead songs.   
Some are just oddly structured and not particularly tuneful.

It's odd to me that metal so desperately wants to create new genres that this is what they latch onto.

I can't say it's bad, nor can I say I ever want to hear it again.

I should make a new even narrower sub-genre called "Giant Squid Metal" where all I sing about is giant squids and each track has ocean sounds in it.

Pethead wrote:

It's actually some music my friend and I recorded back in college, but we never made it public anywhere, except for a goofy music video on YouTube that's pretty hard to find. 

Lol, it has potential!   I like the 80's-style screams.

Yeah, I got some of that "long lost stuff" on You Tube as well, but I'm not identifying myself as having been involved despite people asking who the members are (we used fake goofy names).   I wrote some catchy songs but the lyrics were very unChristian as I was not a Christian at the time.  I did not put any of it on You Tube because I destroyed all my copies of the demos, but they are still floating around out there and being talked about, which feels very weird.

Pethead wrote:

I should make a new even narrower sub-genre called "Giant Squid Metal" where all I sing about is giant squids and each track has ocean sounds in it.

If you include Octopuses I will volunteer my (limited) guitar playing services.   I can write catchy riffs so the choruses will be guaranteed to stick in people's heads whether they like it or not....! 

Constantine wrote:

Pethead wrote:

I should make a new even narrower sub-genre called "Giant Squid Metal" where all I sing about is giant squids and each track has ocean sounds in it.

If you include Octopuses I will volunteer my (limited) guitar playing services.   I can write catchy riffs so the choruses will be guaranteed to stick in people's heads whether they like it or not....! 

I like it. "Cephalopod Metal." I'll do the drums. We'll make some waves. (Sorry).

Pethead wrote:

I like it. "Cephalopod Metal." I'll do the drums. We'll make some waves. (Sorry).

You’re kracken me up!  It's a deal!   We can call ourselves Squid Row        

....Or Ink Floyd!   

Pethead wrote:I should make a new even narrower sub-genre called "Giant Squid Metal" where all I sing about is giant squids and each track has ocean sounds in it.

Someone already beat you to the punch!
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Giant_Squid/83500

Kerrick wrote:

Pethead wrote:I should make a new even narrower sub-genre called "Giant Squid Metal" where all I sing about is giant squids and each track has ocean sounds in it.

Someone already beat you to the punch!
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Giant_Squid/83500

Well, not all their lyrics are cephalopod related. And do they have ocean sounds in every track?

Haha I doubt it.  So I guess you've still got monopoly on that niche! 

Pethead wrote:

Kerrick wrote:

Pethead wrote:I should make a new even narrower sub-genre called "Giant Squid Metal" where all I sing about is giant squids and each track has ocean sounds in it.

Someone already beat you to the punch!
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Giant_Squid/83500

Well, not all their lyrics are cephalopod related. And do they have ocean sounds in every track?

As a seventh grade science teacher who covers cephalopods, loves metal and owned the band's material, I did not find them useful for metal or science.