Dragonforce = New Kings of Metal

I don't ever talk about music on my site, but I'll make a weekend exception. Dragonforce is an amazing band that many people have started to find out since one of their songs is a bonus track in Guitar Hero 3. I have never been much of a Guitar Hero fan and after seeing many people play the game on YouTube with them saying how great they are (looking ridiculous too) when they aren't playing a real Guitar made me even less of a fan. All the exposure that Dragonforce got from the game made me recently check them out and give their last album they released "Inhuman Rampage" a full listen. To say this band is amazing is a bit of understatement because the quality of Metal they are pulling off at the absolutely insane speeds shouldn't be humanly possible but they do it and are very good at it. I had to see some live videos to convince myself that what they are doing on CD was actually possible live because it really has to be seen to be believed. Granted they could use some more variety in their sound because most of the songs have a "they all sound the same" vibe to them, but that is really the only thing I can knock them on.

In this stupid era of Guitars being tuned way down and either screaming or Death Metal growling taking center stage and disrupting the actual music, Dragonforce is something that the Metal scene hasn't seen in at least 15 years, or maybe ever. The lead singer ZP Theart actually sounds good and melodic and doesn't have to rely on hardcore screaming. The lead guitar player Herman Li is basically the new Van Halen and the drummer Dave Macktintosh (funny how all the good Metal drummers have first names of Dave) is totally insane with amazing double bass and even some blast beats peppered in here and there but never too much.

That is why I'm such a fan of most of the 1980's Thrash Metal bands, because they had a good mix of melody to go along with the intense Metal. If more bands followed the trail that Dragonforce is making and ditch the vocalists that do more bad for those bands than good and actually learn how to play their guitars, I can see Metal making an exciting rebirth. So start practicing you Metal bands of today because once you hear these guys play it makes you all look like a bunch of screaming whining babies that are so angry at their lives that you forgot (or never learned) how to play guitar because you've seen so many other bands get away with it for so long. Some bands did it right with the screaming (like Pantera) but far too many just do it too much and sound really lame in the process.

If you haven't been a fan of today's Metal scene then I urge you check out Dragonforce and be pleasantly surprised by their amazing skills. If you don't believe me you can take Metallica's Kirk Hammett's word for it from this quote: "I really like this absurd band called Dragonforce," Kirk said. "Those are the fastest guitar players I think I've ever seen. They're like Yngwie [Malmsteen] on steroids. No, they're like Barry Bonds on guitar. It's amazing. I saw one video and I swear to God the guy must've played 75,000 notes."

Link to Kirk's quote