Tastes:Rather than describing the kind of music I like, I figure it’d be better to just give examples of stuff I’ve been listening to lately.
Black metal has been my biggest stint as of late and I’ve been pushing in a lot of different directions with it.
Spectral Lore is probably my best find of last year, and a good example of both the more progressive and more atmospheric sides of the genre, and I’ve been looking into a lot of the dissonant stuff like
Deathspell Omega as of late. As for the weirder/more avant-garde stuff,
Aenaon has been a pretty strong fascination.
As far as progressive metal goes, my preferred style has tended away from dream theater-esque bands and towards bands that emphasize the metal a lot more.
Hacride and
The Hirsch Effekt are two great examples of this.
Indukti are not so extreme but another good example of what I’ve been into.
Wilderun is also worth bringing up for the folkier style while still containing a lot of the same metal that does it for me.
Dissona is probably the closest to a dream theater-like band that I’ve really enjoyed lately, but even then they still have a harder edge and different sound to them.
For music leaning really heavily on atmosphere, I’ve been enjoying both the serene beauty of
Eluvium and the crushing bleakness of
Menace Ruine. It’s totally possible that these are both flukes and ambient/drone can be really hit and miss for me but the best stuff can be pretty potent when it works for me.
Rock in general only tends to work for me when it’s emotionally charged.
The Antlers were my favorite find of early 2017 and
The Receiving End of Sirens is shaping up to be that for spring 2017. Though I’ve also been getting back into
Amplifier’s The Octopus, most for the more sinister vibes it carries. And even though they’re not a band I’m spinning that much lately, I’d be remiss to not mention
Oceansize somewhere in here. Still one of my favorites & nobody else sounds quite like them.
And of course I’d be remiss to not mention my love for progressive metal that has a sludge/post-metal lean.
East of the Wall is a band I will never shut up about and
The Ocean have probably my favorite song of anything I found last year. I’ve also been on-and-off obsessed with
El Drugstore, though I’ve failed to find anything similar that hits the same niche… yet.
A few other scattered styles mostly disconnected from the rest.
The Flight of Sleipnir have a pretty compelling doom/black metal hybrid going on that I find really enjoyable, and I’ve been checking out more post-metal like
Callisto lately.
Pop and electronic are genres I haven’t really checked out much from lately, but
Lorde and
Julia Holter remain staples for me for sure. Though a display of raw power like
Sia provides can also work if well-executed.
My only further recommendations are to NOT send me straight up folk music, soundtrack music, video game music, hardcore electronic stuff, etc. I will straight-up reject soundtracks and the others are all pretty likely to not get many points from me, as historically shown in my previous roulettes. A little outside of my comfort zone might be fine but go way too far out of it and I’ll either be annoyed or bored. I’m not looking to suddenly become a hip-hop fan or a connoisseur of Chinese folk music or the like. Because I won’t be either of those things ever, most likely.