Alien Ant Farm is an American rock band that formed in Riverside, California in 1996. They have released six studio albums and sold over 5 million units worldwide. The band's cover of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" topped the Billboard Alternative songs charts in 2001, and was featured in the film American Pie 2.
Crazy Town is an American rap rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1995 by Bret "Epic" Mazur and Shifty Shellshock. Their 2000 single "Butterfly", reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and helped their debut album, The Gift of Game (1999), sell over 1.6 million units. Their follow-up album, Darkhorse (2002), failed to achieve the same level of success, contributing to the band's breakup in 2003.
Strapping Young Lad (SYL) was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. By 1997, he had recruited permanent members; this line-up, which consisted of Townsend on vocals and guitar, Jed Simon on guitar, Byron Stroud on bass, and Gene Hoglan on drums, lasted until the band's dissolution.
Hed PE is an American nu metal band from Huntington Beach, California. Formed in 1994, the band is known for its eclectic genre-crossing style, predominately in the fusion of gangsta rap and punk rock it has termed "G-punk", but also for its reggae-fused music.
Machine Head is an American heavy metal band from Oakland, California. The band was formed in 1991 by vocalist/rhythm guitarist Robb Flynn, who remains the only original member of the band. Machine Head's aggressive musicianship made it one of the pioneering bands in the new wave of American heavy metal. Its current lineup comprises Flynn, bassist Jared MacEachern and drummer Matt Alston. Bassist Adam Duce, lead guitarists Logan Mader, Ahrue Luster and Phil Demmel, and drummers Tony Costanza, Chris Kontos and Dave McClain are former members of the band; Mader and Kontos toured with the band in 2019 and 2020 as part of the 25th anniversary tour for its first album, Burn My Eyes (1994).
Alchemist was an Australian progressive metal band from Canberra whose style combined death metal, progressive rock, psychedelic, Eastern, Aboriginal and electronic influences. The band formed in 1987 and released six studio albums, an EP and a compilation album. Work began on a new EP in 2010 but the band went on an indefinite hiatus and then split up. They are the only group to appear at every Metal for the Brain festival, an event they ran and organised from 1996. Alchemist also played at the Big Day Out and toured Europe several times.
Symphonic metal is a cross-generic style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitars of metal with different elements of orchestral classical music, such as symphonic instruments, choirs and sometimes a full orchestra, or just keyboard orchestration.
Demon Hunter is the debut studio album by American Christian metal band Demon Hunter. It was released on Solid State Records on October 22, 2002.
Demanufacture is the second studio album by American heavy metal band Fear Factory, released on March 3, 1995, by Roadrunner Records. It is the band's first album with their classic line-up, adding new bassist Christian Olde Wolbers, who performed on close to half of the album's tracks, with guitarist Dino Cazares handling the rest. Many regard it as the band's best album and a heavy metal classic. The album was certified Gold in Australia by ARIA and Silver in the UK by the BPI.
Alien is the fourth studio album by Canadian extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad. It was released on March 22, 2005. The album was written by Devin Townsend and Gene Hoglan over a six-month time period. The album reached No. 32 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and No. 35 on the Top Independent Albums chart.
Cherry Pie is the second studio album by American glam metal band Warrant, released September 11, 1990. The album is the band's best-known and highest-selling release and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard 200. The album featured the top 40 hits "Cherry Pie" and "I Saw Red".
Cannibal is the fifth studio album by American industrial metal band Static-X, released on April 3, 2007. This is the first album from the band to contain guitar solos; every song with the exception of "Goat" has one. Cannibal was the first album to be produced by John Travis, and the first album to not feature Ulrich Wild, who produced and/or mixed the band's first four albums.
Organasm is the fourth full-length studio album by the Australian progressive metal band Alchemist. It was issued in Australia by Chatterbox, with D.W. Norton producing, on 6 March 2000 as their first release with the label. It was supported by a three-month Australian tour alongside the bands, Cryogenic and Psi.Kore. Organasm featured generally shorter songs than the previous Alchemist albums, but was still rated highly by critics.
Eve of the War is a six-track extended play from the Australian progressive metal band Alchemist. The EP was released by Shock Records through its subsidiary label Thrust in 1998/1999. The title track, "Eve of the War" is a cover version of the opening piece from the British 1978 album, Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. The EP has two live songs: "Yoni Kunda" first released on Lunasphere, and "Chinese Whispers" from Spiritech. The other tracks are a remix of "Yoni Kunda", and two re-mastered tracks from Jar of Kingdom. A music video of the title track was provided.
Spiritech is the third full-length studio album by the Australian progressive metal band Alchemist. It was released in 1997 by Australian label Thrust and distributed by Shock Records. A promotional music video for the song "Road to Ubar" was released. "Spiritechnology" samples Ronald Reagan speaking on extraterrestrial life and its possible effect on religion, while "Chinese Whispers" has become popular at live shows. The album has received very positive reviews, with Eduardo Rivadavia from Allmusic suggesting it is "possibly the greatest space metal album since Voivod's landmark Nothingface, adding that Alchemist "meshed [death metal] seamlessly with progressive rock, psychedelia, Middle Eastern nuances, and even native Australian aboriginal music". The album's lyrics tend to explore the relationship between human technology and its impact on nature, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
Lunasphere is the second full-length album by the Australian progressive metal band Alchemist, and the first of their albums to be released by Shock Records through its metal subsidiary Thrust, in 1995. Eduardo Rivadavia of Allmusic described Lunasphere as "Like a doorway into another dimension, the Aussie group's wildly experimental songs often stand on the knife edge between control and chaos, between reason and insanity, and are capable of melding wickedly crushing heavy metal riffing with surprisingly gentle moments of quiet introspection". All of this album's tracks later appeared on the Embryonics compilation, except the instrumental fragment "Luminous". A live version of "Yoni Kunda" was used on the "Eve of the War" EP. An alternate live version of both this track and "Closed Chapter" were also included on Embryonics. "Luminous" and "Garden of Eroticism" were used in the soundtrack to a 2010 episode of the TV show Bondi Rescue.
Jar of Kingdom is the debut album by Australian progressive metal band Alchemist. The band recorded the album after receiving a record contract in the mail from Austrian label Lethal Records and was released by that company in October 1993. During the recording of the first track "Abstraction", vocalist Adam Agius damaged his voice, thus resulting in the raw vocal sound on the rest of the album. The name "Jar of Kingdom" was inspired by a comment by television personality and entertainer Graham Kennedy during a comedy skit, in which he described a vial of pig semen as a "jar of kingdom". Jar of Kingdom featured early experiments with synthesisers, acoustic guitars and samples: "Whale" includes the sample of a humpback whale song. All tracks from this album except "Wandering and Wondering" and "Whale" later appeared on the Embryonics compilation.
Embryonics is a double-CD compilation of tracks by the Australian progressive metal band Alchemist. It was released in 2005 in Australia by Chatterbox Records and worldwide by Relapse Records. The album features 28 tracks recorded by the band between 1990 and 1998 including eight songs from the album Jar of Kingdom, eight from Lunasphere and five from Spiritech along with a cover of "Eve of the War" from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds that was the title track from EP Eve of the War that is now deleted. The live version of "Chinese Whispers" is also from that EP; the other live tracks were recorded in 1995 at the studios of Triple J for an episode of Three Hours of Power and are exclusive to this release. "Paisley Bieurr" and "Imagination Flower" are early demo tracks.
Tripsis is the sixth and final full-length studio album by the Australian progressive metal band Alchemist. Recorded in 2007, Adam Agius stated that the songwriting focused on a consistently heavy approach. A promotional music video for the song "Wrapped in Guilt" was planned. A music video for "Tongues and Knives" premiered on 8 October 2008.
The Symbol Remains is the fourteenth studio album by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult, released on October 9, 2020.
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