I think my favourite line was the one about how "the fried garlic seems to laaaaaast foreeeveeeeeerrrrrrr," since it was a pretty good, witty parody of how "cheesy" some black metal lyrics can be.
ArmouredAbolitionist wrote:Dream Sphere wrote:Of the three metal bands you've said to be listening to lately. I would recommend if you haven't yet (I assume you've heard one of the albums from this era at least.) to listen to the first five Slayer albums. Especially their 3rd; Reign in Blood, 4th; South of Heaven, and 5th; Seasons in the Abyss. I haven't enjoyed much of Slayer's recent output, but since people of course have different tastes and I've seen some people who love their recent output, I'd recommend giving their three most recent albums a glance, as well as maybe their other 90's albums a quick peek as well, though their first five are the only ones I'd consider essential.
For Emperor I'm really only familiar with their first couple albums, of which many people start with them on, and which are both considered their classics. My favourite is their second called Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, so I'd recommend hearing that if you've only heard In the Nightside Eclipse so far.
I'd like to investigate those albums at some point soon.
Dream Sphere wrote:Sigh is my favourite band, and I love pretty much their whole discography, which sometimes makes it difficult for me to give specific recommendations to people. So, I guess I'll list all of their main albums; each with a short description of what to expect from each, to give you an idea on which ones might appeal to you more.
I already like
Sigh very much. I'll definitely look into their music more in great detail.
Imaginary Sonicscape is a great album. I've listened to all of its songs and my favorite is most definitely
Dreamsphere (Return to the Chaos), so good choice of a username. I also like
A Sunset Song,
Impromptu,
Bring Back the Dead, and
Nostalgia. I'd say that
Nostalgia is my second-favorite song of the album.
I feel that I now have a choice to make as I embark upon my metal journey:
1. Listen to all of the songs of every album by
Sigh, or...
2. Investigate the other metal bands.
It might be worth just checking out both new bands and
Sigh, in around the same time, instead of focusing it all on one or the other. Of course, just go with what you're finding you have been enjoying more, but I think it would be worth checking out some other bands soon too.
Imaginary Sonicscape is probably one of their most accessible albums, and normally with someone who's just getting into
Sigh I would recommend one of their other really accessible albums like
Gallows Gallery, or
In Somniphobia, but since you said you've been getting into albums by
Emperor and
Dimmu Borgir, I would guess you could probably have a pretty good experience with any of
Sigh's albums.
If you aren't familiar with the metal-archives website, you should check it out, because it has a lot of information on many metal bands who may not have much or any info on wikipedia or other online sources. Here's Sigh's metal-archives page.
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Sigh/51
So, were you to decide you would rather try out some other bands in the metal genre, could you possibly give me an idea of what sub-genres you would like to explore?
There's power metal, which is very melodic and harmonious, and also typically has a kind of singing which is quite technically proficient and maybe could be often regarded as operatic. This genre is also typically more upbeat and cheerful sounding compared to other metal sub-genres, though not all power metal is that way. Some notable bands in this sub-genre are
Blind Guardian,
Lost Horizon,
Persuader,
Angra,
Sonata Arctica,
Rhapsody of Fire, and
Demons & Wizards among a fair number of other bands.
Traditional heavy metal is a sub-genre which was one of metal's earliest styles. Traditional heavy metal is one of the primary sub-genres which led to power metal, which kinda expanded on heavy metal's melodic nature. So, trad-heavy metal is pretty accessible, too, typically. A very iconic band from this sub-genre would be
Iron Maiden, which I would guess you would at least be a tiny bit familiar with.
Satan, who released the albums
Court in the Act, and
Life Sentence, is another noteworthy band in this sub-genre
Thrash metal is another sub-genre. The most popular and recognizable metal band in the world;
Metallica, helped pioneer the genre with their first four albums. They later went on to a kind of heavy metal/thrash metal mix on their self-titled 5th album, and their two other albums in the 90's were a kind of bluesy hard rock/heavy metal with some other influences. Their 00's albums were kind of a mix of heavy metal, with their '08 album;
Death Magnetic having more thrash metal in the mix than their '03 album;
St Anger, which wasn't well received by most people. Metallica's first four albums are kinda essential, and the three afterwards are probably worthy of a listen, though despite
Metallica's acclaim, they're one of the thrash metal bands I'm not very wild about, though I still like a fair amount of their stuff quite a bit. Other notable thrash metal bands are the other three of the 'american big four of thrash metal' of which are
Slayer which you already know,
Anthrax; which I don't really care for, and
Megadeth; which made some good albums but hasn't been too interesting in recent years. Like
Metallica,
Megadeth's best albums are also their first four, but their first two 90's albums are also pretty decent. Their '04 album;
The System Has Failed is also pretty good, and the two which followed that album may also appeal to you, since those albums had gone back to
Megadeth's more thrashy sound if you're into that.
There's also the 'big three of German thrash metal' which is
Sodom; who are pretty consistent, though maybe a little mediocre at times depending on the album, a couple good ones from them are
Persecution Mania, and
Agent Orange. Then there's
Destruction, which made some classic thrash metal albums in the 80's, though I'm not
very familiar with them. Then finally there's
Kreator, which had a pretty good run of albums before they started releasing albums which weren't very well received.
Kreator's albums
Pleasure to Kill, and
Coma of Souls are probably their most iconic albums, but I also like their album called
Terrible Certainty quite a bit. There's a large number of other good thrash metal bands like
Overkill; who made some classic stuff in the 80's, but which has also had a pretty good three album streak so far in this decade, starting with 2010's
Ironbound. There's
Testament who've made some quite melodic thrash metal, but have also semi recently released an album while retaining its melody, had death metal influences in it, which was released in 2012, and was called
Dark Roots of Earth. There's also some technical thrash metal bands like
Coroner,
Voivod, and
Vektor whom are also worth checking out.
There's also doom metal, which has often been fused with other sub-genres of metal. There's stuff like death/doom, and other styles which kinda mix doom metal with folk and black metal. Some of
Black Sabbath's stuff could be considered doom metal, like much of their debut self-titled album, though
Black Sabbath is also known for having a kinda heavy metal sound.
Black Sabbath is typically described as the first real metal band, instead of bands like
Deep Purple, and
Blue Cheer who are typically considered as proto-metal or hard rock. Another noteworthy band is
Candlemass which helped pioneer the epic doom metal sub-genre which is almost like if doom metal had met opera or had been partially mixed with power metal. Then there's death/doom, and probably two of the most iconic bands in this sub-genre (though who went off into more of a gothic inspired metal route, though I think they did eventually return to their roots) are the bands
Paradise Lost, and
My Dying Bride. I've found I like
Paradise Lost's music more consistently than
MDB, because I find while some of
MDB's albums are very good for the most part, often the "cheesy" clean vocals ruin it for me. There's also a band called
Uaral who are from Chile, which mixes death, black, and doom metal with their native folk music, and it works out quite well in my opinion. Their second album, which was their last one has much less metal influence, though, their first was maybe only 50% metal anyways, due to the large prevalence of folk music. The two albums are still excellent, though.
Then there's death metal, one of the main sub-genres which the 'extreme metal' blanket term is used for. Death metal has done a lot of branching off, after its origination in being developed as an even more extreme style than thrash metal. Some of the original pioneering death metal bands are
Necrophagia,
Death,
Morbid Angel, and
Bolt Thrower. There's also stuff like melodic death metal, and progressive or technical death metal, but I won't get into that unless you're curious, as I don't want to leave too large a wall of text.
Then there's black metal, which while some of its fans and bands like to keep black metal as 'pure and unchanged' as possible, many other bands in the genre are some of the most experimental bands in the metal genre. Black metal also originated around the same time as death metal in the late 80's, and which grew from the base of thrash metal, and both the black metal and death metal scenes sort of fed of each other for inspiration through the late 80's into the early 90's until they were pretty distinctly different from each other by the early-mid 90's. The first-wave of black metal is basically the first bands who could be considered pioneers of the genre but maybe didn't quite have that fully developed, iconic second-wave of black metal sound. Some iconic first-wave of black metal bands are,
Bathory; who was probably the first to really get the sound, and whom also developed the viking metal sound of folk mixed with black metal. Then there's also
Celtic Frost, and also the band
Mayhem who started out with a more first-wave of black metal sound, but which by 1994 came out with an iconic second wave of black metal album. Then some second wave of black metal bands are bands like
Burzum,
Gorgoroth,
Immortal,
Emperor, and a number of others whom I haven't mentioned. Most of those bands haven't strayed very far from their original sound, though that's really only in comparison to the more experimental black metal bands, and even the ones I mentioned earlier had made some noteworthy changes over their careers.
There's more I would've liked to add, but I'm gonna have to leave it at this for now.
I'm flattered that you had the patience to create such a long response for me. I'll look into your recommendations. 
