Wow....i love DragonForce!!! I also like their ballads too! man Herman Li, his skills on the axe are orgasmic! The music can make you dizzy but damn it's cool, it's like arcade music and speedy power metal mixed lol. Amazing band!

But what's this shit i hear about them being a mainstage act for Ozzfest?

What an awful band... I'm saddened by those kinda of speed/power bands!

I just don't like the way they compose, at the guitar the play is horrific... playing quickly is not the key to greatness, I have the impression that the guitar player doesn't even know what he is doing when he plays some songs he really isn't a good guitar player... Where is the emotion??? Herman Li is maybe a talented and gifted player but he doesn't use well his skill inside this band...

But the most anoying part of the band is the singer... his voice is unbearable!!!! I can't even listen to 15 minutes of the band without wanting to throw stuff at the radio... Just overacute tones are pain to my ears...

A real deception indeed, I wastold that they were a great band long ago, when I listened to them i didn't understand why...

The best band if u are on drugs =))) but it can blast ur mind if not... seriously

I like them alot, one of my fav. bands actually. I dare to say they're the fastest band ever seen, they're all quite tallented. All of they're albums are greatm but Sonic Firestorm is the Best. Too bad they couldn't beat it with Inhuman Rampage, hough Revolution Deathsquad and Storming the Burning Fields Slam!!!! (Plays air guitar)

Written by [user id=337] on 31.05.2006 at 11:36

What an awful band... I'm saddened by those kinda of speed/power bands!

I just don't like the way they compose, at the guitar the play is horrific... playing quickly is not the key to greatness, I have the impression that the guitar player doesn't even know what he is doing when he plays some songs he really isn't a good guitar player... Where is the emotion??? Herman Li is maybe a talented and gifted player but he doesn't use well his skill inside this band...

But the most anoying part of the band is the singer... his voice is unbearable!!!! I can't even listen to 15 minutes of the band without wanting to throw stuff at the radio... Just overacute tones are pain to my ears...

A real deception indeed, I wastold that they were a great band long ago, when I listened to them i didn't understand why...

I don't think that you presented your point very well as you said once that he is a horrible guitar player and then move on to say that he may be a talented and gifted player. Well which is it? I can tell that you obviously don't like the band, but please don't contradict yourself in your posts, it's a tad confusing.

Granted the vocals are very hard to get used to and are an aqcuired taste, but once you get it, the songs become that much more listenable.

You don't understand what I said, He is a talented player but he doesn't use his skills well that's why he is so horrible! You can be talented but play shitty things this is not something contradictory!

Read more attentivly the post before critizicing... this is quite stupid! 'Herman Li is maybe a talented and gifted player but he doesn't use well his skill inside this band...' I already said tgis sentence in the last post!

An oter example for a talented player who plays shitty things: John 5 from Marylin Manson! The man is really good but inside of Marylin Manson he plays stupid, emotionless things! Again read well 'I just don't like the way they compose, at the guitar the play is horrific... ' didn't say that the guitar player was horrific...

So please don't try to argue with people when you didn't even undertand the point! I may Have explained it in a weird order but this was understandable!

I agree with CoP, though I have to say I only heard a few song off their Valley Of The Damned album (and demo). I've also listened to Sonic Firestorm once but didn't pay attention to the music, and I saw them live at Graspop last year.

Many "fans" tend to say Valley Of The Damned is one of their best songs, and unfortunately, this one song did remain in my mind cause of all the flaws it contains: being fast for the sake of speed and not for the sake of music (I don't really care about the emotion, DragonForce is not meant to be emotional in some way IMO, but they're still meant to play music... At least I think), and with an unbearable singer. I like high voices a lot, but on this particular song, it sounded as it was badly sung.
I think he tries to sing lower in SOnic Firestorm, and I found it a good thing that he can vary his singing.

Another thing I don't like about this band is how pretentious they are. They're probaly very friendly, but the way they present their music just turns me off. Beginning their shows with an introductory tape claiming they're the fastest band ever or something like that is, IMO, lame. They should play for Guinness World Records editors instead...

But on stage, they're very active, and that's cool. Some bands can get very boring by not moving, just standing and barely smiling. DragonForce are run everywhere, jump everywhere, and are constantly smiling. Good point, though in the end, it made me think that they could be excellent openers but that would also tend to be boring during a whole show as headliners...

And now that takes me to my last point. See the festival in my signature? They cancelled their participation last year mostly cause they thought they would be headliners (hum, there were Sonata Arctica and Anathema headlining). Of course, I don't know all the details of this affair, but that sure gave me the impression that those guys are really thinking that they're at the top, that they're the finest band to ever step on this planet, etc. If they continue, we'll have a whole band of Ynigwies on stage: talented, active, but so full of themselves...

Quote:
And now that takes me to my last point. See the festival in my signature? They cancelled their participation last year mostly cause they thought they would be headliners (hum, there were Sonata Arctica and Anathema headlining). Of course, I don't know all the details of this affair, but that sure gave me the impression that those guys are really thinking that they're at the top, that they're the finest band to ever step on this planet, etc. If they continue, we'll have a whole band of Ynigwie's on stage: talented, active, but so full of themselves...

Eh? They've played quite a few festivals in the past, and this year they're playing Download and Graspop (again) to name a few, in none of these festivals there were, or are, headliners, and they've never dropped out. Maybe they were told they'd be headlining, but the organisers changed their mind, so DF decided to drop out to spite them. I dunno, maybe you're right. I have heard they can be stuck up at times. Maybe the recent success with Roadrunner has got to their heads, like with Trivium

As I said, I don't have all the details about this, the only thing I'm sure of is the impression it gives to me.
I don't think they were promised to be headliners, but they might have interpreted it this way. Raismesfest is a small festival compared to Download and Graspop, that they cannot influence.

I even find the bio on their website to be a bit exaggerated, in terms of adjectives.

They're a wee bit stuck up, but comparing anyone to Yngwie is insulting! ahh I've got a g3 dvd and Yngwie's HILARIOUS...but thats another story. From what I can make out, they had to drop out of that festival because they were double-booked or something like that

Yea, Yngwie is an amazing guitarist, better than Herman I think, Yngwie doesn't smash the fretboard like Yngwie does (EDIT for Wrathchild : Yngwie doens't smash the fretboard like Herman does), he lays some passion in it , that's what I like most, DragonForce has passion too , but it's got no soul ...

Written by [user id=8170] on 08.06.2006 at 22:35

Yngwie doesn't smash the fretboard like Yngwie does

The world's not enough for Yingwie

But better get back to DragonForce. As a conclusion to my posts, I'd say that now that they proved they were skilled and fast, they should move on to something "else".

Written by wrathchild on 08.06.2006 at 12:50

I agree with CoP, though I have to say I only heard a few song off their Valley Of The Damned album (and demo). I've also listened to Sonic Firestorm once but didn't pay attention to the music, and I saw them live at Graspop last year.

Well, I'll divert the thread back on-topic if you want .

Basically, if you've listened to Valley of the Damned and don't like it, I wouldn't advise you to look into their other stuff, unless you really want to give them anaother go. VotD is (in my mind) their best release, and the only one that doesn't suffer from 'Deja Vu' syndrome. I actually can't remember what points I made in my last post (and I'm too lazy to check :p), but I'd like to add a few more constructive criticisms to this topic.

Guitar solos. I love them. I like fast metal. But I want a guitar solo that I will be able to remember. There's no point in showing off in your guitar solos if they're completely forgettable and untabbable. A good example of a fast, memorable solo would be Hangar 18 by Megadeth. I can instantly listen to and playback all of those seven solos in my mind, similarly to CoB's Kissing the Shadows (although I would be the first to admit that Alexi's solos are suffering as the band progresses). Furthermore, this is not solely directed ad DragonForce. Both Dream Theater and Iron Maiden, both of whom I like quite a bit, suffer from forgettable solos (especially the 'No Prayer...' material onwards for Maiden-some of it's good, but there's loads of filler solos). As such, I believe that soloing for the sake of soloing is pointless, and that a good solo should actually DO something with the song. What's the point of showing your talent in playing if you can't back it up with a well-written solo?
Enter 'Creeping Death' by Metallica. The solo is both fast, easy to remember AND uses repetition and musical quotations to work the main melody into a solo. THAT is what a solo should do. With DF, it's almost as if they just want to show how fast they can crush 3,000,000 notes in together. But what annoys me more than that is the fact that they're being lauded by the brain-dead metal media like Kerrang and Metal Hammer as the next big thing. I would definitely choose Iced Earth's 'Pure Evil' or Blind Guardian's 'Mirror, Mirror' over any composition by DragonForce, yet this is the band that gets all the attention. I don't know if that should annoy me or not, but it does. To any devout DF fans reading this, I apologise if I sound a bit harsh. I do like a bit of DragonForce, and can really enjoy Valley of the Damned or any of their other songs taken individually. But the lack of variety really gets me, and that's why they never truly excite me. [worst phrasing ever...]

That said, I would go and see them if they came back and I had enough notice, and I will probably get round to listening to (or buying ) Inhuman Rampage. My only concern is that if they don't get their act together soon and change their sound, they'll drop out of many listener's opinions. While I normally don't advocate peer pressure in regards to what the musicians want to do, I think that this is a 'special case' and one that I feel strongly about. DragonForce are good, yes, but if they put more effort into songwriting and used their skill in playing along with songwriting, think how much better they would be!

Phew....
[/rant]

Written by SteTech on 08.06.2006 at 15:02



Maybe the recent success with Roadrunner has got to their heads, like with Trivium

Speaking of Trivium and DragonForce, I saw on the front cover of a guitar magazine that Herman Li and Sam Totman say Trivium play like 15 year olds. I would have looked inside the magazine for the entire article but I didn't have the time. Still, the statement made me laugh.

Haha! How true, I can play Trivium stuff (well almost, not the solos yet) and I'm 14, o when I'm 15 i should get there .

I'm sure what @Silky said was very good, but I'm too damn lazy to read it all.

Hahaha, that's so awesome. From what I've heard, though, Trivium's main guitarist (not the loser singer) is pretty respectable.

i personally think DragonForce is a good band in terms of talent,
their two guitarists are both very skilled and the band is quite fast, however the drums are quite bad IMO, yes they are fast, but thats it, the guitars however arent only very fast but they also do some awesome solos


however this is a band which gets boring pretty quickly

Yeah, they have a couple of stand out songs, but once youve heard one of the others youve heard em all. And the lyrics are so damn CHEESY!!!!!
And to briefly go off topic, the Trivium guitarists are both pretty good, but theyre best at writing riffs...theyre not really anything special compared to the rest of the metal scene - and crap guitarists compared to DragonForce!

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DragonForce ....??? pretty young band isn't it? but incredible ZP has a great, amazing voice From their 3 albums ...I must say that Valley of the Damned seems to be to be better

They're a cool band but unfortunately I can't STAND the singer and it completely keeps me from listening to them :'( but other than him I think they're great, from what I've heard.

Written by [user id=8232] on 17.06.2006 at 19:31

They're a cool band but unfortunately I can't STAND the singer and it completely keeps me from listening to them :'( but other than him I think they're great, from what I've heard.

Yeah, their singer blows. I only have their Valley of the Damned album, kind of catchy....guitar is pretty good. But their style of "lets play as fast as fucking possible" metal combined with the vocals don't work for me.

Written by Stigmatized on 17.06.2006 at 19:38

Yeah, their singer blows. I only have their Valley of the Damned album, kind of catchy....guitar is pretty good. But their style of "lets play as fast as fucking possible" metal combined with the vocals don't work for me.

Exactly. If you dissect each song individually it's not actually that bad, but looking at a whole song or album and you can see how shallow the music is. It's just too repetitive for me to really like. And ZP's voice does suck quite a bit. I asked one of my friends about Blind Guardian (he's a prog/power head :), and he said that he couldn't stand Hansi Kursch's vocals. I then pointed out to him that although Hansi may sound like a strangled cat at times, at least his voice has charisma and attitude-ZP's is just plain flat and boring.

Written by RavenLord on 17.06.2006 at 20:33

Written by Stigmatized on 17.06.2006 at 19:38

Yeah, their singer blows. I only have their Valley of the Damned album, kind of catchy....guitar is pretty good. But their style of "lets play as fast as fucking possible" metal combined with the vocals don't work for me.

Exactly. If you dissect each song individually it's not actually that bad, but looking at a whole song or album and you can see how shallow the music is. It's just too repetitive for me to really like. And ZP's voice does suck quite a bit. I asked one of my friends about Blind Guardian (he's a prog/power head :), and he said that he couldn't stand Hansi Kursch's vocals. I then pointed out to him that although Hansi may sound like a strangled cat at times, at least his voice has charisma and attitude-ZP's is just plain flat and boring.

He doesn't like The Vocal God that is Hansi? I'm speechless....

FUCK YOU ALL, DragonForce is a very talented band, with a unique and a very good sound. I don't know what are fighting for. Look, if you look deeply in the style of the band, you will see that is different that other power bands. Although all their albums has the same line, this is a very good band.

@jorkg: starting a post like that isn't the best way to convince people. You think they're good...fair enough, so do I. But still you have to admit that their music is repetitive...?

And soulless. It's impressive and fun, but it doesn't mean anything. Just look at their lyrics - they just string together tenuously-similar phrases that have a power metal vibe to them. DragonForce are a great band when you want something fun and brainless, but I don't really undertsand how you could see them as anything more.

Theyre fun and enjoyable to listen to....but massively overrated. People that normally dont like Power Metal love them and claim that they're "the greatest power metal band ever," which is just bullshit.

I agree... overrated is a good word for them. I give them credit that they certainly got the whole "epic" aspect of power metal right... but I can't get past their lyrics (or their name for that matter). I've never been too keen on anything that's even boarderline fantasy/battle metal.

hehehe this must be the cheesiest band on earth but I don't really care... they have some of the catchiest songs in the whole Power Metal genre, specially "Black Winter Night" (that damn chorus!).... They're not mindblowing though, IMO the most overrated PM band after Stratovarius.