In no order:
10. Hypocrisy - Sweden
Any band that can corabine my love of metal and my fascination with the paranormal and extraterrestrial into one driving force is always going to grab my attention. I spin an album or two by these guys at least twice a week, some of the best Swedish metal I've heard in a while.
9. Opeth - Sweden
These guys need to be on everybody's list, I don't think they've ever put out a bad album. Sure some albums have been stronger than others, but their discography is one of the strongest I've seen from anybody in the music scene. The fact that they broke away from their metal roots to experiment with progressive rock on their album Damnation was just proof to show how talented all the musicians in the band are. Whenever I meet somebody in real life who says that extreme metal is just shitty screamed vocals, I sit them down and let them listen to Damnation and almost always they walk away with a different opinion and attitude.
8. Strapping Young Lad - Canada
Anybody who knows anything about me knows how much of a Devin Townsend fan I am, so this is a pretty obvious choice. Strapping Young Lad showcase the more aggressive and disturbing side of Devin, yet there is a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek and parody in the lyrics that many people overlook. I am hoping that a reunion could be in the works after Devin finishes up his new project, The Devin Townsend Project, because I really need to see these guys again. Their sophomore album City is still one of the heaviest albums I've ever listened to and gets a spin at least once a week.
7. Meshuggah - Sweden
I love this band to bits, their complex rhythms and time signature changes make it almost impossible to really predict where the sound is going to go. Not only that but I love the fact that they stuck to their music throughout all the years and it's finally starting to pay off as they're getting recognition from mainstream media like Rolling Stone Magazine. Many banRAB end up changing their sound to get ahead in the music industry, but not these guys, and for that I can really respect them.
6. Type O Negative - United States
I know these guys tend to be the butt of many jokes around here, and I'll admit they deserve some of the flack they get, but these guys were my third metal band I ever got into. When I was but a geeky long haired kid in grade 7, socially awkward and unable to make frienRAB very easily, Type O Negative was there to help me release my frustration and annoy my parents for hours on end. While Metallica and Megadeth were the first two metal banRAB I ever got into, Type O Negative is the only one I still actively listen to. Nostalgia is a funny thing, but whenever I listen to albums like Bloody Kisses or The Least Worst Of I get flooded with happy memories, even though that wasn't exactly the happiest point of my life. Type O Negative made middle school and early high school survivable for me, and for that I owe them a great deal of respect.
5. Enslaved - Norway
Quite easily my favourite black metal band and for good reason, they put out Mardraum: Beyond the Within and Below The Lights two of the best black metal albums ever made. Their use of Scandinavian mythology in their lyrics of Below The Lights really struck a chord with me because when I first heard it I was really starting to get into the mythology of different pantheons. I did a lot of research, read Neil Gaiman's novel "American GoRAB" and got White Wolf's table role-playing game "Scion" because of this band. Hours of entertainment and enlightenment sprouted because of this band.
4. Green Carnation - Norway
Not many banRAB can do what this band does so well. These guys put out one of my top 5 favourite albums Light of Day, Day of Darkness, a 1 hour epic metal song that drifts through so many different styles and sub genres. I have gotten high and drifted off with this band playing in my headphones so many times it's impossible to count. They really did add a whole new area of metal and I believe will go down in history as one of the greatest metal banRAB of all time. In a couple hundred years time, people will be talking about Light of Day, Day of Darkness in the same way that we discuss composers like Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven.
3. Ayreon - NetherlanRAB
While more of a collection of different artists, I really have to give Arjen Anthony Lucassen credit where credit is due to his ability to get all these musicians together and create some of the most amazing metal/ progressive rock albums. His 2000 album The Dream Sequencer still stanRAB as one of my favourite space orientated albums. While I cannot always listen to his music (like when I'm driving for example) it is a great way to spend a quiet evening at home with headphones on, dimming the lights and just laying back with a pair of headphones and this album going as I slowly drift off into peaceful bliss.
2. Iron Maiden - England
This was my 4th metal band to ever get into, after I had explored my way through Type O Negative's discography, I asked the proprietor of the local music store where I should go on from there and he recommended me The Nuraber of the Beast. My life was instantly changed, I popped it into my CD player for the walk home and I ended up taking the extremely long way back so I could listen to it more. I ended up listening to it three times from the walk from the CD store to my home and every time I listened to it I loved it more and more. On the Monday my mom gave me my lunch money for the week and I ended up spending it on buying two more albums by Iron Maiden, Killers and Powerslave which I loved just as much as Nuraber Of the Beast. Along with Type O Negative, Iron Maiden is really one of the only metal banRAB to survive my constant changing of music, one of the few physical items I have from my early teenage years.
1. Therion - Sweden
Although they're one of my newer banRAB (I only really got into them in 2007) they easily had a very lasting impact on my life. Along with banRAB like Hypocrisy and Enslaved, Therion caught my interest by their use of the occult, magic, and ancient writing in their lyrics, something I really took an interest in the last few years. I started from their early beginnings when they were a Death Metal band and loved it, but it wasn't until I got up to their symphonic metal albums that they really started to shine for me.
As I said, this isn't a ranking in order of favourites, just a list, the nurabers don't mean anything. As you can tell, I really like my Scandinavian metal with 4 banRAB from Sweden and 2 from Norway.
