#92 - Scatterbrain

I mentioned at number 100 that I enjoy the irony of a humorous metal band.  Scatterbrain is probably the second most overtly comical band in my top 100.  They play obviously New York style thrash in the vein of Anthrax, who themselves don't shy away from goofiness, but with even more irreverence and jokes.  Their debut album, "Here Comes Trouble", is start-to-finish solid in terms of both composition and performance, and more than that, it's funny.

Down with the Ship (Slight Return) is a tongue-in-cheek collection of quick quotes from a bunch of popular rock tunes all fit cleverly into an otherwise straight-ahead thrash metal song.  Listen closely to the below and you'll hear bits from Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) by Jimi Hendrix, Seek and Destroy by Metallica, La Grange by ZZ Top, Lonely Is The Night by Billy Squier, Walk This Way by Aerosmith, In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins, Roundabout by Yes, Roadhouse Blues by The Doors, Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love by Van Halen, Where Eagles Dare by Iron Maiden, The Star Spangled Banner, the Woody Woodpecker theme, and Rock & Roll, Dazed and Confused, The Ocean and Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin.

Can you catch them all?

#93 - Nightwish

It's amazing to me that Nightwish can have been a top-selling band in Finland, charting at number one on both the Finnish single and album charts more than once.  That fact alone highlights an enormous cultural difference between that country and my own U.S. of A.  Their first #1 hit in Finland achieved that status at the same time that R. Kelly and Celine Dion topped the Billboard Hot 100 here at home.  If you listen to the below, you'll probably notice that Nightwish and R. Kelly don't sound too similar.

I'll be the first to admit that Elvenpath, like a lot of Nightwish songs, is kind of cheesy.  In fact, I'll even admit that the same could be said for a lot of metal.  But to me, that doesn't detract from the musical qualities that make the genre so enjoyable to listen to.  In fact, it often brings a smile to my face.  For those of you turned off by cheese, you can rest assured that this is about as cheesy as this list will get.  But you have to give them credit.  I don't think there was much of this blend of symphonic, operatic metal in 1997, when this album came out, and certainly nobody pulled it off as seamlessly as these guys do.  I don't think I've heard anyone since then who does either.

Make sure you listen to the spoken intro: Tarja's Finnish accent is clearly discernable and endearing.  This song is loaded with J.R.R. Tolkien references, which is another point simultaneously in its favor and to its detriment depending on your perspective.

#94 - Suspyre

Back to a more conventional progressive metal sound with New Jersey's ambitious Suspyre.

A relatively unknown band, Suspyre plays a lot of notes, plenty of twisty changes of direction, heavy pairing of guitar and synth, busy double-kick set work and strong, clear vocals.  The compositions and especially the guitar work feature a bit more dissonance than you typically hear in rock music, even of the progressive variety, and the classical influences are overt, making the band, to my ear, a bit more interesting than their more straight-ahead peers.  All-in-all, solid musicianship, both technically and compositionally and a pretty satisfying listen.  Check out the below song, The Singer, and let me know if you agree.

#95 - Sigh

Another nationally unique entry... this time from Japan.  A lot of weird stuff comes out of Japan and Sigh fits the bill nicely.  The main man is Mirai Kawashima, who plays keyboards and handles vocals.  He seems to love old-school 70's keyboard sounds as you'll hear him playing everything from Moog to Hammond to sampled sounds, including Speak & Spell!

Check out "A Sunset Song" below.  The instrumental opening, which returns a couple times throughout the song, is in major key.  The verses are over a riff reminiscent of Judas Priest or Mercyful Fate circa 1985, as is the chorus, although it's in 7.  The really wacky parts are the keyboard solo at 0:31 and the disco section at 3:57.  Really, the keyboards throughout are pretty off the wall.  Despite that, the tune rocks, and traditional/odd ambivalence makes it stand out as a really fun listen.

Hope you think so too.

#96 - Intronaut

Intronaut, as far as I can tell, come from right up the road in North Hollywood.  They're probably mostly a progressive metal band, but they have more of an atmospheric, almost alternative sound than most of the super-notey groups often associated with the genre.  They play in odd meters, but keeping the listener off-balance never seems to be the goal.  And you hardly ever hear a guitar solo.  Normally, I'd be against that omission, but these guys throw in enough variety and obvious chops to make me hardly miss it.

Elegy, the song I'm including for you below, is all over the map.  It's quite heavy at times, but there are also some pretty interludes, a melodic, anthemic chorus, some jazzy drumming and a kind of spacey instrumental section in the middle.  Hope you like it.  As always, let me know what you think!

#97 - Sceptic

Sceptic is the only Polish band on my list, and I think they're the only Polish band I know.  I'm not a huge fan of thrash metal generally, but the technical skills of this band along with some of the wide interval, death metal-ish melodies in the guitar, the driving feel and the unusually warm sound combine to make them a really enjoyable listen.

I was actually looking for a different song, but this one will do.  I'm a sucker for cheap tricks like a break where the drums cut out for a bar (or 2) on such a driving tune like they do at 0:43 setting up the vocals.  Same deal with the mellow bass solo section at 2:26 followed by the transitional ascending guitar run into the rock hero solo immediately after.

Fun fact: the vocalist on this recording (not their current vocalist who is the woman pictured above) was an olympic sprinter for Poland in 2000 and 2004!

By the way, I'd love to hear what you think about this or any of the music on my list.  It's really interesting to me to hear (read) different perspectives, and maybe a fun dialog can come out of it.  Feel free to use the comments below or Facebook to let me know what you think.

#98 - Ayreon

Ayreon seems like a band name, but it's actually just one dude with a huge host of guest musicians.  The dude is Arjen Anthony Lucassen, a Dutch composer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who writes, records most of the instrumentals for and produces Ayreon's rock-opera-like albums.

Ayreon's music is mostly progressive metal, usually with multiple contrasting vocalists singing different roles.  The list of vocalists who have recorded with Arjen is long and a veritable who's who of progressive metal and rock singers, including Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, Devin Townsend, James LaBrie of Dream Theater and Ty Tabor of Kings X to name a few.

I'm sort of cheating, because the below is actually from another Lucassen project called Star One, but the formula is the same as on other Ayreon albums so you'll get the point.  And I really like the singers on this one.  Enjoy!

#99 - Vanden Plas

I think it's safe to say that progressive metal, descended from the likes of Yes, Rush, Kansas and King Crimson, is my favorite subgenre and one that you'll get plenty of representation from in this countdown.  For those of you unfamiliar with the style, some of its characteristic sounds include multi- and mixed-meters, synthesized symphonic and keyboard sounds, high-pitched clean (as opposed to growly or harsh) vocals, and long and relatively complex formal structures.

It's probably also no secret that I love Germans :) which brings me to my next band who hail from my home away from home, Kaiserslautern!  Vanden Plas, named for a fancy make of car, even wrote and recorded a fight song for Die Roten Teufel, K-Town's municipal treasure and soccer team.  They're a polished band, if a little sanitized.

Their Christ 0 album is based on the Alexandre Dumas novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, and has some lovely compositions as well as solid playing throughout.  Highlights include a cover of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar and "Fireroses Dance" below, which features a Bolero-like crescendo, string orchestration and forty-piece chorus.  It starts out peaceful, featuring piano and strings, but turns heavier around 3:06, shortly after which the mixed-meter and chorus kick in.

And let's not forget, they're from Kaiserslautern!

#100 - Type O Negative

These probably won't come this fast and furious, but I didn't want to make you wait too long for some actual music.  So, starting off at number 100...

Type O Negative is a good place to start for a couple of reasons.  First, I like a band with a sense of humor.  Type O Negative captures an understated, dark and low-grade (like 2nd) humor much of the time with a sludgy groove supporting lyrics like "Baby, Lily Munster ain't got nothing on you.", "God damn ye merry gentlemen." and "Jesus Christ looks like me!"  Second, there's a lot of layering of synthesized and found sounds, revealing an attention to detail that belies their apparent cavalier attitude.  Third, I love a creative cover of a great song, and Type O Negative has done plenty of them: "Hey Pete" (Joe), "Paranoid/Iron Man", "Summer Breeze", "Cinnamon Girl" and "Daytripper" to name a few they've recorded.

I'm including my favorite cover of theirs, Black Sabbath's debut and self-titled song from 1969.  Type O Negative makes it even spookier and heavier than the awesome original.  There are references in it to other Sabbath tunes.  See if you can hear "Fairies Wear Boots" and "After Forever" weaved in there.  I first heard this when it came out in 1994.  I was at U of M at the time and picked it up at Tower Records in Ann Arbor.  It was the first song I heard by them, and I loved it right away.

My Mega Mixed Tape

When I was a kid... well, really a kid, teenager, young adult and even into my in-denial age, I loved making mixed tapes for friends.  I loved making them many times more than the recipients of them actually liked getting them.  I'd plan out the tracks and the order of them.  I'd do the math to figure out how to maximize the song content on a 90 minute cassette tape, which was about the longest that would actually work for a couple weeks or so.  I've wondered how many of those that I've spent arduous hours planning, assembling and labeling ever got listened to.  Chances are, it's a small percentage.

About 20 years ago, I was a big fan of heavy metal music.  Still am as a matter of fact.  But back then, shifts in the cultural landscape were afoot that caused worry for this young metalhead, and I'm sure many other disciples of the rock.  KNAC, Southern California's metal station at the time, had started playing more and more grunge, and fewer and fewer blistering, awe-inspiring guitar solos.  Nirvana had hit in a big way, and so had follow-ons Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam.  It seemed that a swirling vortex of lethargic and lackadaisical guitar playing had opened over Seattle and it was sucking my home, L.A., the land of Hollywood and hair, toward it.  The intense energy and impressive technical playing of metal music, which had been gaining popularity for about 10 years or so, suddenly gave way to strummy, complainy, albeit still somewhat heavy rock.

Looking back, I get it.  Several years of big solos, big shrieks and big hair had worn listeners out.  It was over the top music with an over the top image.  Sure it still appealed to skinny kids who fantasized about being muscle-bound, armored kids (with horned helmets and a chalice of grog), but to many, it came across as lacking subtlety, and by extension, hipness.

By the time 1998 had rolled around, I figured metal was dead or dying.  Sure I had heard a few more recent bands that played variations of it, but gone were Headbangers' Ball and any obvious radio sources for discovering interesting, heavy and technical metal.  I had convinced myself that replaying old Metallica and Black Sabbath albums over and over would be a satisfactory way to live out the rest of my listening days... and really, could a music fan really hope for anything more?

About that time, I met a guy named Chris who knew a lot more about metal than I did, especially about what had been happening with the music since grunge had overwhelmed it in terms of popularity.  He turned me on to a few excellent bands of the 90s and also to a great resource for the questing metal explorer, The BNR Metal Pages.  I've discovered a ton of music thanks to Brian Russ, the site's proprietor, and am still a reader of the site today, 15 years later.

A while back, BNR published a countdown of his favorite all-time songs.  It was really fun to follow, and the guy has great taste (if you can consider metal tasteful, which I do).  It got me thinking about the music that I love and how much I'd like to make a huge mixed tape, like BNR did, to share some great music with my friends.  I considered posting it on Facebook, but my friend Krista suggested a blog format instead.  Having never blogged before, I thought it might be fun to give it a try.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll have something else to say along the way, or once the mixed tape is done.

So here goes... my mega mixed tape for you, my friend.  This list contains my top 100 metal bands, which will probably have changed by the time I'm done posting it.  But I bet it'll still be close.  Stay tuned for number 100...