I totally understand his question about the necessity of the growling parts. Some people just don't like it, totally get it. Apex as a concept album, answers that in full. There IS a reason.
The new Uleash The Archers album is coming out in August 2020. It is a continuation of "Apex" following the story of the Immortal / The Matriarch. The band just filmed a video for the first single which should be out the first week of June!!!
August 2020 - not that much longer to wait! Very curious to see in which direction they will take the music and the arrangements of their songs. I suppose a good indication will be the video coming up really soon. Will surely check it out - Anamaria
I saw that video today and I am SOOOOO happy. SOOO stoked its a continuation of Apex following the Immortal in his quest. From what I heard in that clip, its gonna be a FANTASTIC song!!!! :D :D :D
I LOVE the Apex album, not a single bad song. It's one of those albums I listen to all the way through over and over. I can not wait for the new album later this year!
As you guys can tell, I have been going back to your archive to dig stuff out, since new weekly episodes are not to be found these days. I hope you are OK, I miss my Sunday listening to your releases. Really good picks for UTA, especially since your reaction appeared before their new album of 2020. Such an energy in those screams! These guys are definitely live show material, maybe they will start touring next year.
Could you guys do Spiritbox , they are another under rated Canadian female fronted metal band on the rise and everyone falls in love with them . Thanks !
Well the ingredients for greatness are sure all there! For me, "Times Stands Still" is probably the favorite video from UNLEASH THE ARCHERS - not saying it's my fave song, but if you by chance have not seen it - check it out, it is class! Btw, what better emancipation song than "Matriarch", lol! :)) As for the growls mixed with clean vox and done right - almost nobody tops AMORPHIS and Tomi Joutsen in my eyes. His cleans are smooth and pin-point on tune, while his growls just... "tasty"?! Everyone recommends "The Bee", the lead-off single from their "Queen of Time" album, but almost any song from their last 4 to 5 albums would be representative. The early albums are classics of a different kind, and legendary in their own right, but I got into what AMORPHIS morphed into (pun intended) in the past two decades, after Tomi joined so don't blame me! :)
React to Jinjer. Start with "Pices" then go to "Teacher, Teacher" and Judgement and Punishment" the one take vocal performance. They have a woman front and she has the best growls in meal. Along with beautiful clean vocals. Her range is amazing. The rest of the band are also rediculously great. They are a Ukrainian band.
I'm not a fan of growling but as in Apex it brings in another character and not overdone in my opinion. Some of their earlier albums had more growling and I was not a fan until time stands still came out til present now I love them and became my favorite with Apex and Abyss. Their talents are incredibly insane 😍
I have seen the new cover art and listened to that snippet they put up on their Instagram - it sounds very good!! We will see how well Abyss fits with Apex :) - Anamaria
Great reaction guys. Noticed you are mostly going the euro-power metal route, which is dope. Would recommend checking some Lost Horizon, legendary cult band. If you are willing to go for something not as obvious, check out Timeless Miracle's only album, banger after banger. cheers!
Sold on Lost Horizon, I've been tuning into them recently and they're sooo good! What to pick though? Sworn in the Metal Wind is a given, but among the others... I'm juggling Pure, Denial of Fate, Think Not Forever, and Cry of Restless Soul (based on my own preferences and what others here have suggested). Thoughts? Any others? Thanks! -Michael
You guys should cover Nightwish in an episode. Ghost Love Score (live at Wacken 2013) is a good place to start. If you think Brittany Slayes has pipes and range...
Hey guys! I've got three bands for you to react to: 1) Ignea -- this band is from the Ukraine, and their style is Middle Eastern/Oriental. I would recommend their song "Disenchantment," from their newest album "From the Realms of Fire and Death." 2) Eleine -- I believe this band is Scandanavian in origin. I found them from their video "Enemies." 3) Dust in Mind -- I'm not sure where this band is from, but their tracks "Another Dimension," "This is the End," and "I'll Never Forget" are all good and heavy. And thanks for reacting to some of Unleash the Archers' lesser known tracks -- both Ten Thousand Against One and The Matriarch are both songs I would listen to, before going into a fight. As for another awesome track by UtA, I _know_ you would enjoy Dreamcrusher. It's one of their earlier tracks, yes, but it is very well done.
Thanks! Will definitely check out the recommendations - curious about this Ukrainian band! Please try to stay out of fights in the meantime ;) - Michael
@@MetalAcademix : I usually am a man of peace -- but I'm enough of a realist to know that if a fight needs to be fought, you go into it with everything you have, and you fight to win. I also do everything I can to avoid a fight, unless avoidance is no longer an option.
Unleash the Archers is pretty popular for a power metal band. I would say Judicator and Seven Kingdoms are some of the more under-rated power metal bands.
Totally agree. By the way, Judicator has a new album in the release pipeline, I am curious to check it out as soon as it launches. And if you like Judicator you'd probably like Visigoth, another Salt Lake City band. We reviewed it here, ua-cam.com/video/V0Rorcxlobs/v-deo.html -Anamaria
Judicator's newest single is amazing and I cannot wait for their new album. Fun fact, the singer of Judicator is also the main singer for Principium, Dire Peril, and Disforia. I am already a fan of Visigoth.
Ran into UTA on Spotify just some weeks after the release of "Apex" when searching for female fronted or "all female"metal acts. I got floored by Brittneys voice (she's in the same League as Noora of Battle Beast) and Martiarch is still my favorite cut by these Canucks. Niiice!! Was thinking of making a wish this time… would love to see you guys dedicate one of your future episodes to my all time favorite US Power Metal Orchestra - Iced Earth! Up the Metal Yells! 🤘
Glad that you enjoyed our selection of songs! We will add Iced Earth to the list of suggestions - any particular favorites from their discography? - Anamaria
@@MetalAcademix IE has by now had several different vocalists fronting the band. I like both the Barlow and the Owens eras equally, and I think this gang of rockers peaked with these two. With the former the favorite works are: Something Wicked This Way Comes (with the more than eminent closing trilogy "Prophecy", "Birth of the Wicked" and "The Coming Curse") and Horror Show (with my favorite track "Frankenstein"). With the latter IE made the formidable Framing Armageddon - Something Wicked Pt. 1. But actually allmost all recordings with the two mentioned guys are excellent Metal products. The only exception is Framing Armageddon - Something Wicked Pt. 2 (with Barlow, not Owens, singing). It's really a disaster. I still can't get over the exceptionell difference in quality between the two parts... Well, that's about it. Cheers!
Less than a week after we released this reaction and review, Unleash The Archers announced their upcoming album, a little snippet of which you can see here: instagram.com/p/CBBB2ryFpeM/?igshid=10njkea16fv8a From the Apex to the Abyss, we will follow UTA wherever they willl take us!
I am not a fan of the growl, but UtA uses them judiciously, so I don't mind them much, unlike a band let's say like Epica, which I like and otherwise would love, but the constant male growling, just prevents me from really getting into them, compared to say Nightwish who are very similar, but almost never uses growl and when they do they are very mild and fits the song perfectly.
The new album actually takes alot of risks and really strikes some new territory. They have videos obviously for the new songs (and they are all very cool) but I think if you were to pick three from the new album Faster than Light (which has a video now), The Wind that Shapes the Land (the best song UtA has ever done) and Legacy (a very unique one with some post black metal/devin townsend and pop influences) would be the ones I would look at. Abyss and Soulbound which were the first two videos, are great but they are pretty standard "Unleash the Archers" sounding songs. Faster than Light is pretty much straight up speed/power ala Stratovarius which is slightly different from the band. And I won't talk about The Wind that Shapes the Land except to say that its an epic masterpiece.
The Wind that Shapes the Land, then, is the song to pay attention to! We have no album reviews as part of the repertoire on the channel, only band reviews with materials from several albums. Would you like to see this type of content, album-focused?
@@MetalAcademix For bands you guys like when a new album comes out it seems an interesting jumping off point from the 3 song format (which I really like). It also makes looking at a new album easier because you are taking a slice of the whole album as opposed to reviewing an entire album (which can be quite exhausting).
Seems like it! I'm up for it, but it's a challenge for these type of concept albums with story lines that cut across the band's discography. UtA fans seem really into that part of the band - I'm mostly here for the jams 🤘 -Michael
@@MetalAcademix its mainly what I was thinking for cases like this where you guys have covered a band but a new record has come out. I really like the 3 song format you guys do because it gives you a good cross section of the material. This is especially good I think for progressive bands that change up the sound a lot in one album. Reviewing a full album is always possible sure, but thats a huge time investment for a reactor to undertake.
Tonight we ride is a good song bust the best off the album? Na. Test your metal Dreamcrusher frozen steel Hail of tide those are mush mush better lol. Don't get me wrong tonight we ride is metal asf but those songs just hit you differently.
I can't understand the love for "tonight we ride". I think "time stands still" is the best with "dreamcrusher" and "test your metal" coming after, on that album obviously.
10kv1 is not the star of the album, I find myself fighting for it as being among the best, which means top HALF of the whole Apex Album. (The whole album really is a masterpiece....)
Hm, I think you're probably right if you take the concept album as a whole. As someone who hasn't listened to Apex that many times front-to-back, 10kv1 stands out as a good song at first but doesn't seem to hold up over the long term (at least, I find myself skipping it these days when it pops up on my playlist). -Michael
@@MetalAcademix I put "10,000 against 1" ahead of "Cleanse the Bloodlines" (which gets a lot of attention because it has an official video), but way behind "False Walls" which gets very little attention. It's all so good, that it's very difficult to place specific songs. So much to listen to...=)
I don't think Tonight We Ride really needs the growling. But it'd be odd to my ears without it, that's for sure. In Apex though, the growling actually serves a purpose in telling the album's story. Brittany is either narrating or singing the part of her character the Immortal, whereas Grant or Andrew (I forget who) are singing the part of the Matriarch with the growling. Or at least the majority of it anyhow. Sure, they could have done it clean (and I wouldn't have necessarily objected to it) but I think expressing the malevolence of the Matriarch with the growling adds a certain something to the album that might be lacking otherwise. It'd be interesting to hear it with another female singer cleanly singing the Matriarch's role though. Anyway, just my thoughts on it.
I totally agree with you, the story justifies the growling, as it communicates the negative characters and the tragic elements of the narrative. - Anamaria
Similarly on (Earth and Ashes I think) you have Andrew doing clean vocals to represent the voice of the only "good" son. Sadly to me that and Shadow Guide are the weakest songs on the album.
Ten Thousand Against One is actually my least favorite of the four "going after the Matriarch's sons " songs (The Coward's Way, False Walls, Ten Thousand Against One, and Earth and Ashes). 🤔 Apex is the best song on the album IMO.
I totally understand his question about the necessity of the growling parts. Some people just don't like it, totally get it.
Apex as a concept album, answers that in full. There IS a reason.
The new Uleash The Archers album is coming out in August 2020. It is a continuation of "Apex" following the story of the Immortal / The Matriarch. The band just filmed a video for the first single which should be out the first week of June!!!
August 2020 - not that much longer to wait! Very curious to see in which direction they will take the music and the arrangements of their songs. I suppose a good indication will be the video coming up really soon. Will surely check it out - Anamaria
I saw that video today and I am SOOOOO happy. SOOO stoked its a continuation of Apex following the Immortal in his quest. From what I heard in that clip, its gonna be a FANTASTIC song!!!! :D :D :D
"Abyss" > "Apex"
but, only because of "Apex"
I'm, twisting myself in knots over here.
I LOVE the Apex album, not a single bad song. It's one of those albums I listen to all the way through over and over. I can not wait for the new album later this year!
As you guys can tell, I have been going back to your archive to dig stuff out, since new weekly episodes are not to be found these days. I hope you are OK, I miss my Sunday listening to your releases.
Really good picks for UTA, especially since your reaction appeared before their new album of 2020. Such an energy in those screams! These guys are definitely live show material, maybe they will start touring next year.
They released the title track of their new album, "Abyss" the other day. It's pretty tasty! 🤘
Spiritbox is the most underrated band going right now imo.
Love Unleash the Archers though.
Could you guys do Spiritbox , they are another under rated Canadian female fronted metal band on the rise and everyone falls in love with them .
Thanks !
Thank you, I will check it out - Anamaria
The new album was revealed yesterday. It's called Abyss. It comes out on August 21st, 2020.
Well the ingredients for greatness are sure all there! For me, "Times Stands Still" is probably the favorite video from UNLEASH THE ARCHERS - not saying it's my fave song, but if you by chance have not seen it - check it out, it is class! Btw, what better emancipation song than "Matriarch", lol! :))
As for the growls mixed with clean vox and done right - almost nobody tops AMORPHIS and Tomi Joutsen in my eyes. His cleans are smooth and pin-point on tune, while his growls just... "tasty"?! Everyone recommends "The Bee", the lead-off single from their "Queen of Time" album, but almost any song from their last 4 to 5 albums would be representative. The early albums are classics of a different kind, and legendary in their own right, but I got into what AMORPHIS morphed into (pun intended) in the past two decades, after Tomi joined so don't blame me! :)
I love this band! I just love the power with the Growling!
React to Jinjer. Start with "Pices" then go to "Teacher, Teacher" and Judgement and Punishment" the one take vocal performance. They have a woman front and she has the best growls in meal. Along with beautiful clean vocals. Her range is amazing. The rest of the band are also rediculously great.
They are a Ukrainian band.
Thank you for the rec, I have listened to Pisces and indeed the growls are unreal! We add it to the list. - Anamaria
I'm not a fan of growling but as in Apex it brings in another character and not overdone in my opinion. Some of their earlier albums had more growling and I was not a fan until time stands still came out til present now I love them and became my favorite with Apex and Abyss. Their talents are incredibly insane 😍
Rumors no more...pre-orders are OUT.
www.indiemerchstore.com/b/unleash-the-archers
I have seen the new cover art and listened to that snippet they put up on their Instagram - it sounds very good!! We will see how well Abyss fits with Apex :) - Anamaria
Great reaction guys. Noticed you are mostly going the euro-power metal route, which is dope.
Would recommend checking some Lost Horizon, legendary cult band.
If you are willing to go for something not as obvious, check out Timeless Miracle's only album, banger after banger.
cheers!
Sold on Lost Horizon, I've been tuning into them recently and they're sooo good! What to pick though? Sworn in the Metal Wind is a given, but among the others... I'm juggling Pure, Denial of Fate, Think Not Forever, and Cry of Restless Soul (based on my own preferences and what others here have suggested). Thoughts? Any others? Thanks! -Michael
You guys should cover Nightwish in an episode. Ghost Love Score (live at Wacken 2013) is a good place to start. If you think Brittany Slayes has pipes and range...
Hey guys! I've got three bands for you to react to:
1) Ignea -- this band is from the Ukraine, and their style is Middle Eastern/Oriental. I would recommend their song "Disenchantment," from their newest album "From the Realms of Fire and Death."
2) Eleine -- I believe this band is Scandanavian in origin. I found them from their video "Enemies."
3) Dust in Mind -- I'm not sure where this band is from, but their tracks "Another Dimension," "This is the End," and "I'll Never Forget" are all good and heavy.
And thanks for reacting to some of Unleash the Archers' lesser known tracks -- both Ten Thousand Against One and The Matriarch are both songs I would listen to, before going into a fight. As for another awesome track by UtA, I _know_ you would enjoy Dreamcrusher. It's one of their earlier tracks, yes, but it is very well done.
Thanks! Will definitely check out the recommendations - curious about this Ukrainian band! Please try to stay out of fights in the meantime ;) - Michael
@@MetalAcademix : I usually am a man of peace -- but I'm enough of a realist to know that if a fight needs to be fought, you go into it with everything you have, and you fight to win.
I also do everything I can to avoid a fight, unless avoidance is no longer an option.
Unleash the Archers is pretty popular for a power metal band. I would say Judicator and Seven Kingdoms are some of the more under-rated power metal bands.
Totally agree. By the way, Judicator has a new album in the release pipeline, I am curious to check it out as soon as it launches.
And if you like Judicator you'd probably like Visigoth, another Salt Lake City band. We reviewed it here, ua-cam.com/video/V0Rorcxlobs/v-deo.html
-Anamaria
Judicator's newest single is amazing and I cannot wait for their new album. Fun fact, the singer of Judicator is also the main singer for Principium, Dire Peril, and Disforia. I am already a fan of Visigoth.
Did not know that! He's a very proliphic singer then. I should check out these bands, of which I have heard only of Disforia.
I didnt know that Aaron Kauftman reacting to metal songs when he is not working on Gas Monkey...🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Ran into UTA on Spotify just some weeks after the release of "Apex" when searching for female fronted or "all female"metal acts. I got floored by Brittneys voice (she's in the same League as Noora of Battle Beast) and Martiarch is still my favorite cut by these Canucks. Niiice!!
Was thinking of making a wish this time… would love to see you guys dedicate one of your future episodes to my all time favorite US Power Metal Orchestra - Iced Earth!
Up the Metal Yells! 🤘
Glad that you enjoyed our selection of songs! We will add Iced Earth to the list of suggestions - any particular favorites from their discography? - Anamaria
@@MetalAcademix IE has by now had several different vocalists fronting the band. I like both the Barlow and the Owens eras equally, and I think this gang of rockers peaked with these two.
With the former the favorite works are: Something Wicked This Way Comes (with the more than eminent closing trilogy "Prophecy", "Birth of the Wicked" and "The Coming Curse") and Horror Show (with my favorite track "Frankenstein"). With the latter IE made the formidable Framing Armageddon - Something Wicked Pt. 1. But actually allmost all recordings with the two mentioned guys are excellent Metal products.
The only exception is Framing Armageddon - Something Wicked Pt. 2 (with Barlow, not Owens, singing).
It's really a disaster. I still can't get over the exceptionell difference in quality between the two parts...
Well, that's about it.
Cheers!
Less than a week after we released this reaction and review, Unleash The Archers announced their upcoming album, a little snippet of which you can see here: instagram.com/p/CBBB2ryFpeM/?igshid=10njkea16fv8a
From the Apex to the Abyss, we will follow UTA wherever they willl take us!
I am not a fan of the growl, but UtA uses them judiciously, so I don't mind them much, unlike a band let's say like Epica, which I like and otherwise would love, but the constant male growling, just prevents me from really getting into them, compared to say Nightwish who are very similar, but almost never uses growl and when they do they are very mild and fits the song perfectly.
The new album actually takes alot of risks and really strikes some new territory. They have videos obviously for the new songs (and they are all very cool) but I think if you were to pick three from the new album Faster than Light (which has a video now), The Wind that Shapes the Land (the best song UtA has ever done) and Legacy (a very unique one with some post black metal/devin townsend and pop influences) would be the ones I would look at. Abyss and Soulbound which were the first two videos, are great but they are pretty standard "Unleash the Archers" sounding songs. Faster than Light is pretty much straight up speed/power ala Stratovarius which is slightly different from the band. And I won't talk about The Wind that Shapes the Land except to say that its an epic masterpiece.
The Wind that Shapes the Land, then, is the song to pay attention to!
We have no album reviews as part of the repertoire on the channel, only band reviews with materials from several albums. Would you like to see this type of content, album-focused?
@@MetalAcademix For bands you guys like when a new album comes out it seems an interesting jumping off point from the 3 song format (which I really like). It also makes looking at a new album easier because you are taking a slice of the whole album as opposed to reviewing an entire album (which can be quite exhausting).
Quick follow up : do you mean that we should choose three songs from the same album? Or? - Anamaria
Seems like it! I'm up for it, but it's a challenge for these type of concept albums with story lines that cut across the band's discography. UtA fans seem really into that part of the band - I'm mostly here for the jams 🤘 -Michael
@@MetalAcademix its mainly what I was thinking for cases like this where you guys have covered a band but a new record has come out. I really like the 3 song format you guys do because it gives you a good cross section of the material. This is especially good I think for progressive bands that change up the sound a lot in one album. Reviewing a full album is always possible sure, but thats a huge time investment for a reactor to undertake.
Tonight we ride is a good song bust the best off the album? Na. Test your metal Dreamcrusher frozen steel Hail of tide those are mush mush better lol. Don't get me wrong tonight we ride is metal asf but those songs just hit you differently.
Hey pls do a video about nightwish!! Maybe ghost Love score, live wacken 2013!
Greetings from Argentina!
I can't understand the love for "tonight we ride". I think "time stands still" is the best with "dreamcrusher" and "test your metal" coming after, on that album obviously.
I like most of the songs you name. My preference for Tonight We Ride is partly driven by the video which I very much enjoyed. - Anamaria
mono-children of dark
heaven shall burn-endzeit
grave diger-thousand tears
10kv1 is not the star of the album, I find myself fighting for it as being among the best, which means top HALF of the whole Apex Album. (The whole album really is a masterpiece....)
Hm, I think you're probably right if you take the concept album as a whole. As someone who hasn't listened to Apex that many times front-to-back, 10kv1 stands out as a good song at first but doesn't seem to hold up over the long term (at least, I find myself skipping it these days when it pops up on my playlist). -Michael
@@MetalAcademix I put "10,000 against 1" ahead of "Cleanse the Bloodlines" (which gets a lot of attention because it has an official video), but way behind "False Walls" which gets very little attention.
It's all so good, that it's very difficult to place specific songs. So much to listen to...=)
Please react to bands Therion and Haggard hello from Costa Rica
Added to our suggestion list! - Anamaria
JUDICATOR!!!
I don't think Tonight We Ride really needs the growling. But it'd be odd to my ears without it, that's for sure. In Apex though, the growling actually serves a purpose in telling the album's story. Brittany is either narrating or singing the part of her character the Immortal, whereas Grant or Andrew (I forget who) are singing the part of the Matriarch with the growling. Or at least the majority of it anyhow. Sure, they could have done it clean (and I wouldn't have necessarily objected to it) but I think expressing the malevolence of the Matriarch with the growling adds a certain something to the album that might be lacking otherwise. It'd be interesting to hear it with another female singer cleanly singing the Matriarch's role though.
Anyway, just my thoughts on it.
I totally agree with you, the story justifies the growling, as it communicates the negative characters and the tragic elements of the narrative. - Anamaria
Similarly on (Earth and Ashes I think) you have Andrew doing clean vocals to represent the voice of the only "good" son. Sadly to me that and Shadow Guide are the weakest songs on the album.
Ten Thousand Against One is actually my least favorite of the four "going after the Matriarch's sons " songs (The Coward's Way, False Walls, Ten Thousand Against One, and Earth and Ashes). 🤔
Apex is the best song on the album IMO.
woa you look very beatyfull, nice suit, not you tie guy