What are some great metal albums to listen to while reading? For me, I like mostly instrumental stuff that isn't very catchy so I can focus. What do you read to?

Hmmm.... this is a really tricky one that depends a lot on what kind of book you're reading. I often don't listen to music when I read, because auditory and text don't really go together for me as well as auditory and visual do. I'm far more likely to mute a movie or TV show and set music over it in the background than I am to read to music playing.

That said, if the book you're reading is something that really doesn't have all that much text and that brings the visual more to the fold, like a comic or an art book, I'd say it works out much better. For some examples, I have a Costin Chioreanu art book, a Dali one, a Gustave Dore one, and a William Blake one. Those go great with listening to the metal bands who have either used the artwork of those individuals as album covers, or who have just been influenced by their philosophies and ways of life in general. So like.... thumbing through the Chioreanu book while blasting Oranssi Pazuzu? Drooling over Dali paintings with something like Menace Ruine, Wolvserpent, or Pylar? Blake painting gazing with some Ulver or Qabalah influenced metal like Mizmor or Tetragrammaton? All good ideas, methinks

It can work well for comics too, but again, that's a little more difficult because comics aren't just visual, there's text there as well. So there are three things your brain has to focus on at once: auditory, visual, and text, which could get a little difficult. It is doable though, but because of the more fast paced, page turning nature of a lot of comic series, I'd say metal more like thrash, death, or some of the more gritty, evil brands of sludge would be more suitable.

Bro, go from here if you'd like and get a "metal music for film and TV" thread going.... I think the responses on that one would get a lot more creative and hilarious

Written by Auntie Sahar on 26.02.2018 at 16:10

likely to mute a movie or TV show and set music over it in the background

Heretic

I used to listen to Arcana while reading Tolkien books :-). Interesting thing is that whenever I listen to that band again it immediately evokes memories from those books like Lord Of The Rings and it does that much more than the movie soundtrack which I had to listen whenever watching it.

Written by Karlabos on 26.02.2018 at 17:32

Heretic

Bro.... Karlabos.... BRO

Boondocks + Danny Brown?
Courage The Cowardly Dog + Sunn O)))?
Rugrats + Gnaw Their Tongues?
Spongebob + Death Grips?
Hey Arnold + Wu Tang Clan?
Begotten + Arktau Aus?
Eraserhead + Wormphlegm?
Enter The Void + Arizmenda?

COME AT ME BRO

(I will admit that you're much more likely to have fun with this if you get high on the regular.... those days are over for me, thankfully, but they still have a bit of a.... lasting influence )

For me anything really works, as long as it's not too catchy, and I know the lyrics too well.
But post metal like CoL or Isis, or funeral doom a la Shape of Despair are some of my favorites when it comes to reading time.

Don't read books any more...but
Comics + Gamma Ray
Wikipedia + something like Caladan Brood etc. works for me.

But what is really a treat is videogames+metal! This is how I like(d) it:
20 years ago = Doom + Helloween
10 ya = Unreal Tournament 2004 + Sepultura
5 ya = Arkham series + older Iced Earth
now = Far Cry series + Vektor

Written by Tomas Piller on 27.02.2018 at 11:27

But what is really a treat is videogames+metal! This is how I like(d) it:

Yeah, some games are great for that, and some aren't (i.e. games with a lot of dialogue or just really good soundtracks on their own)