fabio - My primary interests are juxtaposed - I listen to almost all metal (with a huge preference for metal with melody), and classical music.  Every so often I will wander off into the lighter sides of the metal genres, and prog rock may fit my mood occassionally, but I don't know half of what I know about those other two genres.   In other words - I think there are a lot of similarities in our tastes, at least on the heavier side of things.

FTM are very decent - a little on the softer, rock side, but very listenable.  Check out Dredg for something similar.  Good tip - thank you.

Excellent posts - and a good idea to give the source for the DT history - give credit where credit is due, methinks.....

I love the ready-made links in the initial post by amir - makes it very easy for anyone to find the right stuff.

Let's do it - whenever one of us is available, and sees that DT, and "Systematic Chaos" in particular, has not been played in the time visible on the main page, we'll attempt to stick in a song of our choice - we'll find out pretty quickly if that works out!

fabio - Your points are well taken, as I think that you have illustrated that you look for different things to take away from your songs than I may.  In that you are perfectly justified, and there is no right or wrong answer - and my point was a very personal observation of why that particular song did not work for me.  Having said all that, I may change my mind altogether upon some more spins of that song and CD!

I had yet another interesting experience with the iPod today, this time in regard to Darkwater.  I heard "Again", immediately followed by "Habit" today, which was then followed by Circus Maximus' "A Darkened Mind". 

I was fully prepared to give Darkwater all the chance in the world - I very much like most prog metal, and I really enjoy their "All Eyes On Me".  However, as "Again" kept going, and was then followed by "Habit", I kept being thrilled by the technical mastery of the instruments, and the complexity of the songs - but was left feeling a need for more.  I pondered it, and when CM came on, it became clear - I had lost the plot during both songs.

Darkwater, certainly in "Habit", seem to indulge in complexity for complexity's sake - not to drive the song forward.  There were sudden tempo shifts that made no musical sense - they interrupted the feeling, the story, if you will, and simply took the song onto one detour after another, without returning to a unifying theme or end.

Circus Maximus, while in a shorter song (however, this is also true for their epic "The 1st Chapter"), started a story, and were able to keep my attention on the plot for the entire time - which was lacking in "Habit".

Before I get accused of having a short attention span, my favorite epic track of all time has a length of 1:00:06 - that's one hour and 6 seconds, and I'll let you guess what track that is.

What do you think?  And fabio, I am not trying to call you out - that Darkwater CD as a whole is very, very good - but this experience bothered me enough to write it up.

I agree, amir - I have only played 6 of the Communic tracks yesterday, and only 1 track so far for DT - the system stuck in "Forsaken" right when I tried to request my next choice.  A week may be too long, however, as you (or listeners) may loose track of where you are.  It's an experiment in progress....

Today's CD of the Day - Dream Theater's "Systematic Chaos".  Yet another outstanding release by these New York-based prog metal giants, and again a CD that has elements not found before on any of their previous material.

On a side note, I will have to send "Train of Thought" to Kailef - a must-have DT disc, and their heaviest offering to date.

Enjoy!

I would still say that Ensiferum has little chance of catching Kailef's ear for ERR - but "Victory Songs" really, truly, rocks!  I have just finished re-listening to it on the way home, and forget the criticism of the harsh vocals - I am not sure that any other vocal style would work as well in the setting that Ensiferum provide.

I am going to have to dig out Ensiferum and Iron for the car rides this week, and try to remember why I buried them in the first place! 

Voiton laulut soi ainiaan!

Actually, I was keeping it even simpler than that.  Today, I chose Communic, and every hour, as soon as the system permitted me, or when I got around to it, I picked a new song, and in the dedication section, said something like "Concertmusic's CD of the Day - Track 1 - and a little about the track or the band".

This way I played songs from the CD for everyone, and gave just a little background - juts enough to whet the appetite if anyone hadn't heard about Communic.

I'll do another CD tomorrow - with an intro on the forum, and then just a few tidbits in the dedication section - have a look and see what you think.

Let me add more fuel to the fire:  During my workout, as I cranked the iPod, what would come on but the one CD on this iPod that features harsh vocals - Ensiferum's "Victory Songs", namely, the 10+ minute title track.  This track is an immensely epic, Viking metal anthem, featuring a variety of instruments, folk intro and outro (bag pipes in the outro), awesome power/folk metal riffing, epic, sweeping, cleanly sung chorus sections - and some throw-away harsh vocals in the main parts of the song.

Now - generally I agree with CREED's opinion.  In this case, however, the harsh vocals did not totally turn me off - they did not make me jump with joy, but somehow, they fit to a certain extent.  Could I have done without them - yes - but they were there, and the song is awesome still.

Then Kiuas' "And the North Star Cried" comes on.  Their vocalist wanders off into harsh vocals every so often, but to great effect - in the sense of tone painting.  For example, he sings, with great aggressivity, for the majority of this wonderful track, but goes into a devilish snarl for the words "Death and destruction they brought" - in a very fitting way.

The moral of the story:  While inappropriate in most every way, eliminating an entire CD, or band, because of the use of harsh vocals, may end up with you missing something that is worth the pain.  It may not ever be on ERR, and rightly so, but it does have a place, and may deserve to be explored.

Here is a twist on this idea, and I'll give it try today:  Instead of asking Kailef to spend quite a bit of time each week on a CD of the Week, let's have us listeners take the responsibility to pick our own CD of the Day or Week, then request songs from this CD, and use the dedication feature to let everyone know that it's our CD of the Day.  We could also use this thread, or a new one, to announce what the CD will be that day or week.

Here is the experiment, then:  I will pick as my CD of the Day Communic's "Waves of Visual Despair".  This Norwegian trio ranks in my Top Ten Bands of All Time, with their very heavy, yet melodic brand of melancholic metal (I shy away from calling them power metal).  They have been compared to Nevermore - which I think is a stretch, as they can clearly be identified by their own sound. Enjoy!

Good points, fabio.  As a matter of fact, it would be quite some time before I got around to sending CoB, as there is TONS of other stuff more appropriate than CoB.  Their instrumental music is really good power metal material, I think, and then their ...errr... vocalist opens his mouth and ruins the whole thing.  Oh well - like I said, there is way too much other great stuff before we have to weigh the pros and cons of Children of Bodom on ERR.

I may send some Children of Bodom to Kailef, and let him decide - their death-metal style vocals are the main reason why they are not amongst my favorites, and the same thing goes for Ensiferum.

If you like them, but would enjoy more melodic vocals, check out Kiuas - both of their CDs will be up on ERR before long!  They are really kicking my car radio at the moment!

Congrats on getting that done!  I'll get with you today or tomorrow to discuss further contributions - I have a couple of ideas on how best to go about it!

Here's to making the best Internet radio station even better!