Folk metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised by the widespread use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent, traditional singing styles. It also sometimes features soft instrumentation influenced by folk rock.
Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Using a music recommender system called "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, either from Internet radio stations, or the user's computer or many portable music devices. This information is transferred ("scrobbled") to Last.fm's database either via the music player itself or via a plug-in installed into the user's music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.
Exclaim! is a monthly Canadian music magazine that features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and cutting-edge artists. Content is based on the monthly print publication, which publishes 9 issues per year, distributing over 103,000 copies to over 2,600 locations across Canada. The magazine has an average of 361,200 monthly readers. Their website, exclaim.ca, has an average of 675,000 unique visitors a month.
Katatonia are a Swedish metal band formed in Stockholm in 1991 by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström. The band started as a studio-only project for the duo, as an outlet for the band's love of death metal. Increasing popularity lead them to add more band members for live performances, though outside of the band's founders, the lineup was constantly changing, revolving door of musicians throughout the 1990s, notably including Mikael Åkerfeldt of the band Opeth for a period. After two death/doom albums, Dance of December Souls (1993) and Brave Murder Day (1996), problems with Renkse's vocal cords coupled with new musical influences lead the band away from the screamed vocals of death metal to a more traditional, melodic form of heavy metal music. The band released two more albums, Discouraged Ones (1998) and Tonight's Decision (1999), before settling into a stable quintet lineup for all of 2000's. The band released four more albums with said lineup - Last Fair Deal Gone Down (2001), Viva Emptiness (2003), The Great Cold Distance (2006), and Night Is the New Day (2009), with the band slowly moving away from their metal sound while adding more progressive rock sounds to their work over time. While lineup changes started up again into the 2010s, Renkse and Nyström persisted, and the band continued on to release their ninth and tenth studio albums, Dead End Kings (2012) and The Fall of Hearts (2016). After touring in support of the album through 2017, the band entered a hiatus at the beginning of 2018. The band returned from their hiatus in February 2019.
Converge is an American hardcore punk band formed by vocalist Jacob Bannon and guitarist Kurt Ballou in Salem, Massachusetts in 1990. During the recording of their seminal fourth album Jane Doe, the group became a four-piece with the departure of guitarist Aaron Dalbec and the addition of bassist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller. This lineup has remained intact since. They have released nine studio albums, three live albums, and numerous EPs. The band's sound is rooted in both hardcore punk and heavy metal, and they are considered pioneers of metalcore as well as its subgenre mathcore.
Amoral was a metal band from Helsinki, Finland, formed in 1997. They played technical, progressive, melodic, hardrock oriented metal. The band's 4th album was an about-turn, replacing the dominance of quirky death metal with an exemplary display of riff-driven, heavy, yet melodic power groove and the occasional sing-along chorus. Amoral performed extensively in bars, clubs, festivals and other venues in Finland, Europe, Japan, China, Philippines and USA. The band split up in 2017 after 20 years together.
Aiden was an American punk rock band from Seattle, Washington that formed in the spring of 2003. They achieved underground success during the mid to late 2000s with their classic lineup, featuring vocalist William Francis, guitarists Angel Ibarra and Jake Wambold, bassist Nick Wiggins, and drummer Jake Davison. Aiden's final lineup featured Francis, guitarist Aiden Weiler, bassist Kenneth Fletcher, and drummer Ben Tourkantonis.
Cage is an American heavy metal band from San Diego, California.
Ghost Opera is the eighth studio album from metal band Kamelot. It was released in 2007 by SPV GmbH/Steamhammer Records, on June 1 in Germany and followed by releases on June 4 in Europe and June 5 in the United States. It is the first studio album by Kamelot to feature keyboardist Oliver Palotai, and the last with bassist Glenn Barry. The album spawned four music videos for the songs "Ghost Opera", "The Human Stain", "Rule the World" and "Love You to Death".
Sahg is a four-piece Norwegian hard rock/ doom metal band formed in Bergen in the summer of 2004, by key figures in the metal scene of their country: Tom Cato Visnes, Einar Selvik (Kvitrafn), Olav Iversen and Thomas Tofthagen. Iversen has been the main songwriter and the only constant member of the band since its inception.
Anthony J. Mifsud is a Maltese-born Canadian actor, singer and songwriter. He performs professionally under the moniker Mif.
Metal Storm is a webzine specializing in various forms of heavy metal music. It is based in Tallinn, Estonia but caters to an international audience, symbolically recognized by the acquisition of an EU domain in 2008. As of June 2013, the website hosts 7,812 band profiles, 7,800 reviews, 553 interviews and 16,753 news items.
AbsolutePunk was a website, online community, and alternative music news source founded by Jason Tate. The website mainly focused on artists who are relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, but it was known to feature artists who have eventually achieved crossover success, including Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, New Found Glory, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, The Gaslight Anthem, Anberlin, Thrice, All Time Low, Jack's Mannequin, Yellowcard, Paramore, Relient K, and A Day to Remember. The primary musical genres of focus were emo and pop punk, but other genres were included.
Sputnikmusic is an American music community website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites. The format of the website is unusual in that it includes both professional and amateur content, distinguishing it from professionally written music websites such as Pitchfork Media and Tiny Mix Tapes, as well as collecting and presenting a wiki-style metadata database in a manner comparable to Rate Your Music and Discogs.
Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives is a website which lists bands of predominantly heavy metal music. Encyclopaedia Metallum was described by Matt Sullivan of Nashville Scene as "the Internet's central database for all that is 'tr00' in the metal world." Terrorizer described the site as "a fully-exhaustive list of pretty much every metal band ever, with full discographies, an active forum and an interlinking members list that shows the ever-incestuous beauty of the metal scene". Nevertheless, there are exceptions for bands which fall under disputed genres not accepted by the website.
The Carnage Ending is a tenth studio album by Dutch death metal band Sinister. It was released on 28 September 2012 through Massacre Records.
The last rites, in Catholicism, are the last prayers and ministrations given to many Catholics when possible shortly before death.
Delusions of Grandeur is the fourth studio album by the Norwegian heavy metal band Sahg, released on October 25, 2013, under the Norwegian record label Indie Recordings. It's the first concept album of the band, with the delusions of grandeur theme or megalomania.
Hell Destroyer is the fourth album by the heavy metal band Cage.
