I've been giving Serious Black in depth spins over the last several days. I wasn't familiar with much of his work until I listened to Project Arcadia earlier this year. I enjoyed his voice on that disc, but after listening to SB, all I can say is "damn, that guy can sing". I'm looking forward to the SB set.
Loved his performance with Tad Morose at pp5. I haven't picked up the SB disk yet but its on my list!
Be sure to check his work with Bloodbound if you haven't already. Their first album, Nosferatu, is melodic heavy metal with power metal choruses. Sweet stuff.
Urban breed might be the best metal vocalist out there. I SERIOUSLY suggest you youtube some Tad Morose, Project Arcadia, Bloodbound and Trail of Murder stuff if you like his voice. If you like a little heavier stuff, the Tad Morose is more like classic American Powermetal..... Metal Church, Armored Saint etc. but has more harmony vocals. The Urban era Tad Morose is probably among my top five bands of all time.
I love his work in Tad Morose and Bloodbound; but it is gotten to the point where you need to buy an official Jorn Lande branded "Where am I now?" flow chart to figure out what band he is a member of at the moment.
The Serious Black CD is absolutely fantasctic. Top 3 material for me, in an exceptionally good year of Heavy Metal. His releases with Tad Morose are great too, and their live performance at Progpower remains one of the great moments in the history of the festival, IMO. The first Bloodbound CD had its moments.
I have quite a few of Urban's CDs and I have really enjoyed most of them, but Serious Black is by far my favorite. That disc just hits the sweet spot for me - heavy yet melodic.
Likewise, I am really looking forward to Serious Black performance at PP next year. One of the favorite disc of the year, easily top 5.
Undead, Matters of the Dark and Modus Vivendi may be the greatest trio of power metal records produced in succession by one band… and I’ll fight any man who says otherwise. OK. So I won’t actually throw blows over this, but I am right.
Now that's a bold statement, which immediately led me to start thinking of which ones I would put alongside this..... I will agree that that Tad Morose's triplet there is RIGHT alongside anything..... Not sure any of these would bump ahead or just run parallel, but they are right there for me. Angel Dust - Border of Reality through Enlighten the Darkness Edguy - Vain Glory Opera through Mandrake Gamma Ray - Land of the Free thought Powerplant Helloween - tricky; all the Deris albums are varying degrees of solid, but I'm not sure any of my favorites here line up three straight..... Still, one hell of a run of good discs. Blind Guardian - Twilight Hall through Nightfall Sorry! Didn't mean to hijack the thread! Definitely agree on the Urban love-fest. The guy can flat out SING and is one hell of a live frontman to boot. Can't wait to see SB live next year.
Interesting, Not contradicting, more just thinking out loud. I might take Blind Guardian's run of Imaginations, Nightfall, and Night at the Opera. Maybe Helloween's Walls of Jericho, and two Keeper albums (just because they seem to be the band most power metal bands are still imitating years later). And Sonata Arctica's Ecliptica, Silence, and Winterheart's Guild .
Oddly, I wasn't really into Serious Black's debut until I'd spun it 25-30 times.. definitely more of a grower for me, but now I love it. Good thing. That might have been awkward.
I couldn't agree more with Zod. That era of Tad Morose absolutely ripped my head off. Also trying to do a direct comparison with Tad Morose with BG and Helloween etc. doesn't really work for me. It is an apples to oranges comparison. Tad Morose is darker and heavier than those mentioned.
But the question at hand was "may be the greatest trio of power metal records produced in succession by one band". All bands in question are in the power metal genre. They may not all sound the same, but they are much more alike than different.
Well....... I still agree it is the best of the subsequent releases by one powermetal band. It wasn't an argument of quality on my part, but more style. I understand the labeling aspect involved, but frankly, Tad Morose sounds very little like Blind Guardian. To meTad Morose is traditional metal with powermetal backing vocals, or "American style" powermetal more than European style powermetal. I really am not trying to split hairs here. It is all good. I just get a totally different groove from Tad Morose than I do from the other bands mentioned is all....... other than Angel Dust. Someone mentioned them.
Yep, yep! I always considered them more just plain old "metal" than power metal, and I think Urban would agree. I think there's just a tendency for people to want to further subdivide/describe stuff and they get lumped in there. Or you could go 'like' his Facebook page to keep up. Shaye
"Plain old metal" works for me. I think their style gives those releases staying power as well. While they are certainly unique, there is a lot of "tradition" in there. Tad Morose was/is popular in the UM oldschool forum for that reason. I mentioned Metal Church in this thread and for good reason. I was a HUGE fan. When they disbanded (Howe era) it left a huge void in metal music for me. There were great bands out there that I got into mind you, but it wasn't until I heard "Matters of the Dark" when that void was filled MC vacated. Tad Morose does NOT sound like Metal Church to my ears, mind you, but that "groove" MC had was finally recaptured. In fact, I have told Urban (and you as well, probably) that his vocals reminds me of a cross between Ronnie Dio and Mike Howe. The guitar riffing of Daniel and Christer is also not far off fron Vanderhoof, Wells and Marshall. As I said earlier, they don't LIKE Metal Church by any stretch of the imagination, but they are certainly MUCH closer to Metal Church than they are Edguy or Blind Guardian.
