Let's just start simple...

For my first post, I'm just going to talk about my various tastes in music, and what I look for in certain songs. To start short, my tastes are Post Rock, Black Metal (note: if you're not very metal-genre savvy, this is NOT to be confused with general mainstream death metal, metalcore (or any "core" for that matter), screamo *pukes*, etc.), Folk, Folk Ambient, Folk Metal, Shoegaze, and others. I'm not going to get too in depth with each genre today, but I will say some of the most basic characteristics, and maybe even give an example. So, I'll start with Post Rock. Now, this genre is a bit hard to explain, though if you know it, and listen to it, even just from time to time, you'll know it. It can have a calming ambient-type feel to it at times, weird guitar sounds (such as using a cello bow on a guitar with a reverb pedal and a few others). I would say more, but I'll just give you an example (collapse under the empire). As you can see, it can get a powerful message through without any lyrics at all. Even without a video, you can interpret the message any way you want. Moving on to Black Metal. Black metal developed in the late eighties, with high influences of thrash. It is commonly misunderstood, because many people see the genre as pure evil, though quite the opposite is true. Sure, there have been many bands with occult inspired lyrics, but that is not true for most. As for the music, it is commonly semi-simplistic (though not all the time), with rough sounding chords and little solos (again, not all the time). An example would be the Finnish Folk-Black band, October Falls. (for lyrics, go here and click "view lyrics" on the song I). Moving on to folk. Now, most people can have a somewhat good idea of what folk is, as it is the most cultural music of many nations. I personally like European folk, such as Neun Welten. As for folk ambient, it is basically traditional folk music mixed with a somewhat spacier and more relaxing atmosphere. A great example would be Nest.  Well, that should be good for now, I'll save Folk Metal (which is very, very broad), and Shoegaze for my next post.
Ciao!
-Isaac-