flipp.net: Music

Metal

• Entombed. Great Swedish "death'n'roll" band. These boys don't know how to relax. Brutal, bone-crushing metal from beginning to end.
• In Flames. Another Swedish band. Incredibly skilled musicians playing they're own form of melodic metal, still aggressive as ever and unique.
• The Haunted. Yet another Swedish death/thrash-metal band. Like Entombed we're talking about pure aggression, yet their sound is a bit "cleaner" than Entombed's, if you can call this music "clean" :) Their first album starts with the song "Hate song", which pretty much sums it up :)
• Dark Tranquillity. Another of Sweden's trendsetting bands. Dark Tranquillity's music is dark, melodic, angry and beautiful. Their Haven album is one of my all time favourite albums.
• Finntroll. Finnish band with their very unique folk/troll/fairy-tale metal. They sing/scream in Swedish about trolls killing and eating the poor Christians, just like in the old Nordic fairy-tales :). Their music contains elements from old Finnish folk-music, called humpa. Very catch stuff :)
• Tristania. Norwegian goth band. Personally I don't like the term goth, since I always picture teens with stupid make-up and clothes, pretending to be vampires or what-ever. Anyway, Tristania makes powerful yet very beautiful music. They're not afraid to experiment with different sounds and it usually always ends up sounding great. Tristania features Vibeke Stene, which imho, has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard. Her contribution to Tristania is priceless.
• Dimmu Borgir. Norwegian black-metal band. As with goth, I don't like the whole black-metal concept, with worshipping Satan, silly make-up, clothes etc etc. Music-wise though, Dimmu Borgir excels. Like Tristania they have a powerful and grand sound.
• Fear Factory. This is an American death/thrash/"cyber"-metal band I've been a fan of for a long time. Their music is fast as hell, aggressive and angry. In my opinion their music has become a bit weaker with the latest two albums, but still good stuff.
• Pantera. Another American band. To me, Pantera is the definition of aggression. They're music can be described as a "vulgar display of power" which, incidentally, is also a name of one of their albums.

Elektronika

• Front Line Assembly. This industrial-techno band has been one of my favourites for years. Their music has evolved quite alot, from very eighties-style industrial to modern dark techno. Actually "techno" isn't quite descriptive, as they don't sound much like Prodigy, Aphex Twin and Leftfield.
• Front 242. Another old favourite of mine. Front 242 is very similar to Front Line Assembly, both music- and name-wise, thouth they have evolved a bit differently over the years.

Alternative

• Mr Bungle. Are they from this planet? Are they on some kind of drugs? Have they suffered severe brain-damage? No, the're just Mr Bungle, some of the craziest, funniest yet excellent musicians around. Their music range from crazy carnival ska to blues to gipsy polka. But whatever they play it always sounds incredible.
• Fantômas. Very similar to Mr Bungle in two ways: They feature Mike Patton, who I personally think was born on Pluto, and they make crazy and excellent music. Their first album can be described as very experimental. It doesn't have any lyrics, just Mike Patton screaming his head off.
• Tomahawk. Another band which includes the insane genius Mike Patton. They sound a bit more like Faith No More, yet manages to include some of the crazy elements found in Mr Bungle's and Fantômas' music.

Jazz

• Pat Metheny Group. Pat Metheny is one of the most talented jazz musicians around. His music ranges from fairly traditional jazz to more experimental stuff.
• Miles Davis. I don't own many of Miles Davis' records, but the few I do has become very dear to me. He's in many ways one of the pioneers in jazz, described as "Picasso of Jazz".
• Jan Erik Vold. Not really a musician, but a great Norwegian poet who's put alot of his work to music, helped by many different jazz musicians, such as Chet Baker, Egil Kapstad, Jan Garbarek etc etc.