Best Obscure Bands

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Who are the best obscure bands? The ones which no one but you has heard of?
And, seeing that none of us are going to know these bands you list, include some basic information on them

Obscure being defined as: Getting little or no airplay on mainstream radio stations, with few people having heard of them that you know IRL.

 

Opeth - Progressive death metal. Very complex, very long songs with layered guitars. Songs evolve all the time, a bit like a journey, you will become lost in the riffs and frequent acoustic passages, and eventually you will reach some part of the song that really hits you, and wins you over. Amazing stuff, but not for parties.

Children of Bodom - Anything goes hyper-speed neo-classical black metal. I really like their sound, it's a shredder's dream. Total contrast to Opeth, songs are much shorter. Guitars and keyboards fly all over the place, played with ferocity and extreme technical precision at a ridiculous pace, however, CoB know how to write a bloody good riff, and the solos and harmonics all serve the song rather than show how good the players are (Dream Theater, anyone?). Amazing live. Very tight and structured, and none of that very cliched, uninspiring and overdone bluesy sound. My favourite band ever. Period.

 

@Tassadar: I wouldn't really call those obscure...

I royally suck at describing bands, so check them out!

Tarot: Some kind of undescribable 80's heavy metal.

Barathrum: Well-constructed, midtempo black metal. Based on a whole lotta bass. (3 bassists on last album)

Edited Barathrum link.

[ January 29, 2004, 21:20: Message edited by: Xei Win Toh ]

 

@ Xei Win Toh

Haha, down here, any Scandinavian band in the metal section is obscure!

 

Not necessarily bands, per se...But good singers/songwriters that don't get as much airplay as I think they should:

Joss Stone

Phil Roy

Josh Rouse

Citizen Cope

Dar Williams

Damien Rice

That's about all I can think of at the moment...

 

Spirit. One of the great forgotten bands from the 60's and 70's. Their album "12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus" is one of the best things ever put on vinyl.

 

Agree with you upon CoB Tassadr, they rock
THere is also a band called Satyricon from Norway, don't know if it's classifies as "obcure" though...

 

Manilla Road, Omen, Heir Apparent, Warlord, Wishbone Ash (not excactly obscure but not so famous as the other bands of their time like Uriah Heep or Deep Purple), Foghat, Steel Vengeance, Metal Church, Angel Witch, Tygers of Pan Tang, Samson, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, Socrates Drunk the Conium and many more.

 

Captain Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters.

 

These are all bands out of South Africa but seeing that we live in the middle of a jungle, they don't get much exposure or recognition.

Seether (formerly known as Sarongas)have recently gone international but some of their old music still under the name Sarongas is pretty cool. Checkout Seether

Perez, another South African band mainly plays classical Indie rock and have a couple of good songs that compare to the best. Check out Perez

Tweak- Punk rock in the style of Blink 182. Catchy as the Ebola virus with none of the redundancy in their style of playing that lead to the demise of Blink 182.Their songs are a mixture of rap, reggae, pop, rock and punk. Checkout Tweak

Other Rockbands are Cutting jade , Springbok nude girls , Watershed ,Tree 63 and many more.

These bands really rock!

 

I was going to say Metal Church! Tygers of Pan Tang are great too

How about: Mercyful Fate, Racer X, Cacophony, Nightwish, Rhapsody, just to name a few

I'm seeing Dream Theater on Saturday night, so be nice!

 

Hell is for Heroes - not a crazy satanist band, just good British Rock.

 

DreamTheater. I'm seeing them sunday *glee*

Honestly the best progmetal (if you can call it that, it's very wide range, if you get what I mean.) band there is at the moment.

Can't wait till sunday

 

I've actually heard of DreamTheater

 

Well, if Sir Bel can name singer/songwriters, so can I.

Popa Chubby; the king of the New York City blues. He is probably my favorite artist, but it seems like not many people have heard of him. If the name does sound familiar, it is probably because I mentioned it a few times before on these boards. He is basically a blues singer, but has strong rock influences in his music. He is an excellent guitar player, and if I had to compare his style with anyone, I would say that it sounds a bit like Jimi Hendrix. Besides playing great music, he also has peculiar appearance: he probably weighs more than 300 pounds, he has many tattoos on his arms, and he often has a baby curl on his head. Click here for a picture.

 

Feeling like adding some more bands, both more and less obscure (all I listen to in reality)

Arch Enemy: Swedish Death Metal. The guitarist kick ass, and they even have a female growler on the last 2 albums.

Astarte: Most obscure band ever. Greek Black Metal of the newer Norwegian style. First all-female BM band ever. Can't even find a web page on them now, since the one i knew seems to be shut down.

CoB has already been mentioned, here is their website.

Finntroll: Finnish Troll/Black metal in a weird Humppa (some kind of finnish polka) tempo. Weird, but good.

Nightwish has already been mentioned too, website here.

Sinergy: Kind of a supergroup, though noone likes them. Possibly even more guitar chaos than CoB. Webpage currently down, it seems.

Stone: Now disbanded Thrash/Speed metal. Not really as good as most other bands here, but great moshing music when you're drunk or whatever and don't care about how good the singer is, or how well-constructed the riffs are or whatnot. Plus, Roope Latvala is on guitar.

Stratovarius: Least obscure band here. Power Metal, from Finland as most of the other bands here. Kickass musicians all around, and some of the most complicated songs ever.

 

Well, what do we have here in Germany ...

Subway to Sally - Rock Music with medieval instruments (no, not Gothic), good singing, occasionally in latin, great sound, sinister texts. Almost constantly on tour, great live band; fan friendly, I had a beer with the lead singer. Unfortunately they recently switched over to a more Rammstein-ish sound because that sells better, the kids like it ...

In Extremo - very similar to Subway to Sally, pretty good actually. I've seen them together on a festival and they were about equal, while In Extremo was more known and popular at the time

Tanzwut - While basically similar to Subway and In Extremo they are more Rammstein-ish. Pretty good.

Corvus Corax - Same band as Tanzwut, but with a different program: They play on medieval markets, and use the appropiate non-electric instruments. Pretty cool.

Hubert von Goisern - from Austria he brings Alpen-Rock-Folk-Wahtever, and he jodels occasionally. Pretty good.

The Frank Popp Ensemble - Easy listening music, quite funny, quite funky.

Max Raabe - Singing in the style of the 1920 and 1930s, with the appropiate Berlin accent. He has quite the flair.

 

Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons

The Drive By Truckers

And eventhough they are not "unknown" Widespread Panic must be the largest concert draw for a band that have never had a top 10 album.

 

Still Bust

 

Within Temptation - Brilliant, favourite band. Apparently they're extremely unobscure in the Netherlands, but it's damn near impossible to find anything of their's anywhere in Australia.

Entwine - Saw an album of theirs in a second hand music shop one day, had seen them on some gothic metal band listing onlone the day before. Went home, listened to some songs, decided 'not bad'. Their style has kinda grown on me.

After Forever - Haven't heard much of them, but what I have heard I generally liked.