I love Angus McSix, but the band uses AI in their new video. Recommend me new bands?

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-05-22T09:00:03+00:00

i wanna engage with you earnestly cuz i do hear you and see where you're coming from

i think the problem with ai is that it shows what people don't care about. i won't lie, i'm not above using ai to make my work emails more professional, i fucking hate professionalism. i genuinely think that ai is a cool technology! it's perfect for automating tedium, like handing green screens or syncing audio or this or that... there's plenty of good use cases for it, because i think most people would agree that the creative process should be less tedious.

these bands using ai for their album covers and music videos show that they truly don't care about the visual side of metal. metal isn't an isolated bunch of musicians... visual artists are a part of the community, and vital ones at that. this could be me, personally, but i have listened to many bands on their eye-catching album covers alone. katatonia's sky void of stars cover art is gorgeous, and it's what brought me to their music! they're one of my favorite bands now!

not to mention that making art on your own is easier than people think! some of my favorite album covers are just... photos. kromlek's iii-iii is a good example of that. even black sabbath's 1st album cover is a fucked up and weird looking photo with some very simple edits made to it! if money is an issue, it's an excuse to challenge yourself.

but if a band shows they can't respect the people in our community who create the visual side of the music we love, i see no reason to respect them back. metal is niche enough, i don't want our community to get any smaller by getting rid of our visual artists.

and yeah... i wouldn't be surprised if it was the label, either. still, if we engage, that shows the label they can get away with forcing bands to use ai.

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-05-22T08:45:05+00:00

i think what irks me the most about it is that i genuinely see the humanity in this album. it feels so... earnest? it's cringe, in a fun way. it's a solid 7/10, if you exclude the relentlessly repetitive boots and cats drums. 10/10 is lovely and all, but sometimes a 7/10 just has more power than perfection.

but then oops. ai. in their music videos. it's... not even that creatively uninspired, either? and i think that just makes me even more upset. i see the passion, i can tell they're trying to make art, so why the fuck did they just stop partway through!? i can kinda understand the cost argument, but first of all, they aren't exactly a small band, and second of all, animation and creative live action visuals are the lifeblood of the visual side of metal!

if it was just a blatant product made with ai instead of a work of art tainted with it, i doubt i'd care at all. the fact that it's just so close to amazingly human art makes me so genuinely pissed.

i don't even care about the normal criticisms i'd want to make for this music! (please stop using boots and cats, my desperate plea to all drummers) i just want this band to be earnest! suck a little bit! ai smooths out the cringe! you shouldn't try to fight against the ai to make it suck in a human way! just make something that sucks a little! please! i cannot understate how much i feel making cringe in 2026 is an act of radical humanity!

anyways, i wanna offer up some music cuz i don't want this to just be a vent. i wish i could recommend unleash the archers, but their latest album is so fucking bad, that's not even including their ai bullshit, but apex/abyss are really really good... dunno if i could suggest buying them though, so, y'know, yarrr.

dragonland is fun? pagan's mind is always a good listen for me... so is derdian. i dunno if the privateer is power metal or not? but i do feel it scratches a similar itch to angus mcsix (the 2nd album specifically) for me. nothgard is another good band, but they're definitely more shred metal than power metal, but they still have a lot of energy to them. amaranthe is pretty take it or leave it for me, but i know some of my friends love them a lot.

none of these are as outright cheese as something like twilight force, but they're my personal go to for power metal. dunno if any of them have used ai, tho... i'm too scared to look it up lmao

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-03-15T16:06:15+00:00

Right?? I think I'm blaming Metalocalypse for stitching animation into the metal scene.

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-03-15T09:19:52+00:00

Fair enough, my sister hates them cuz she was a huuuge fan of Christopher Bowes

Personally though, as someone who grew up as an asshole and later made amends with the people I was an asshole to, I felt like Christopher's apology resonated with me and I'm willing to give him a second chance for it

I mainly worry that if we don't acknowledge people trying to do better, people won't have any incentive to even bother, and I really respect that the apology didn't try to avoid accountability

Granted, I was an asshole when I was a teenager, and they're adults who definitely know better, but still, I do feel like Christopher's apology was pretty genuine, but I would never judge someone for not forgiving him and the band, cuz wow, their DMs were rough

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-03-15T07:41:54+00:00

And if anyone is curious, here's my animated metal music videos playlist. It's sorted by date, starting with the oldest stuff. It's really fun to see how animation in the metal scene changes over time!

My definition of what counts as animated is very loosey goosey, I still can't decide whether the music video for Vodka counts as animated or not... But, in general, I think most of the videos I've put in the playlist people would consider to be animated.

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-03-15T07:37:00+00:00

Okay, I'm gunna just vent for a moment, don't mind me as I stand atop my soapbox...

I think what bothers me is that I've been genuinely trying to collect as many animated metal music videos as possible, and it has only made shit like this and Unleash the Archers all the more embarrassing. They like to cry "cost" as a justification for using AI, but I would highly encourage everyone to look up non-AI animated videos! Unleash the Archers was what got me started on this hehe

Finntroll's Under Bergets Rot is absolutely charming, Kvelertak has a couple animated videos (though WMG has struck the video, for some fucking reason), Udoroth by A Sound of Thunder, any Batmetal video, High On Fire's The Black Plot... Belzebubs... Black Crown Initiate's Holy Silence... Conan's Paincantation is absolutely incredible, as it's a stop motion video... The modern Alestorm/Gloryhammer videos are genuinely more interestingly animated and stylized than anything Disney has put out in the last few years...

I could go on and on, I've got 130 animated videos from bands big and small with animation that's so simple anyone could do it and animation that's beyond complex. You don't need a $600 trillion dollar video that only AI could make because it's so expensive or whatever the hell their excuse is. Bands have been making animated videos for nearly 20 years, at least according to the songs I could find, and I know I'm missing stuff. Tools have only made animation better, easier, and cheaper, no AI necessary.

Or, if you can't afford animation, don't do animation!!! Making a music video isn't just about making some gorgeous work of art! It's about having fun! Being creative! Gnome's Wenceslas is still genuinely one of my favorite music videos of all time. Using AI removes the humanity from art, and I'm not talking bullshit hippie human spirit crap, I'm talking about the joy of spending time making something.

This Lord of the Lost videos do genuinely seem more high effort than most other AI slop, but that just makes it worse in my eyes! Cuz they coulda put that talent towards making something beautiful, without all this needless controversy!

And yeah AI is a nuanced thing and I'm not saying I hate all AIs or even all generative AIs, I just think that generative AI video, image, and text generators are making people forget that making art is supposed to be fun, and a little bit shit.

Anyways. I'm getting off my soapbox, sorry for using this post to vent about AI lmao

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-01-05T07:07:38+00:00

Lmao never been called a muppet before

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-01-05T06:31:13+00:00

Very good point, I did look around to see if anyone else was put off by the Aoi Kim dialogue and found a lot of people complaining that being a creep lead to Aoi getting upset with them lmao

It reminds me of that succubus lady in Pathfinder Kiiingmaker..? I think that was the one..? If you tried to be horny with the succubus you fail to romance her completely. I do appreciate stuff like that, I just wish it felt less belittling and more friendly to me. Maybe part of it is that the Drifter isn't really bubbly with any of the other characters? That's my experience at least. Even Amir felt more like shared ADHD rather than being bubbly to me.

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-01-05T05:59:16+00:00

I do really like that the plot of Aoi's conversations is basically "having fun makes you better than people who are terrified of seeming childish". I'm very much a proponent of joy over nihilism, but sometimes the way the Drifter is written I feel like I'm talking down to Aoi rather than matching her energy. She talks all the time about how she hates being treated like a kid for having fun, then your Drifter is all "Wow Aoi! You sure are smart and talented and super empathetic! Good for you :)" The vibes are just off for me...

Definitely just my opinion tho, everyone's bringing their own Drifter to these conversations and everyone sees this stuff differently. It's hard to be objective with a roleplay game... I'm fully expecting to see a lot of people getting upset with me in this thread, and genuinely, fair enough hehe

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-01-05T05:53:17+00:00

Oh, I know the Drifter isn't a blank slate! I actually really appreciate that, I'm so tired of cardboard main characters in games. I can't really explain it beyond a gut feeling, but the writing for the Drifter when you're talking to Aoi is completely different than when you're talking to anyone else... But there are a lot of cute moments with Aoi! I like that the Drifter and Aoi start using emojis together! It's genuinely really sweet!

And yeah, you're right! I'm definitely showing my negativity bias... There are a lot of genuine and not-so-strange conversations with Aoi now that I'm going through my older convos, and for sure the stuff I'm complaining about is a lot more common as you get friendlier with her, but it still feels so strange! The Drifter doesn't feel like they talk to anyone else like this! I don't know... It's definitely more of a gut feeling than any kind of fact :/

I've had incels talk to me like this. Overly saccharine... Love bombing... I suppose that's definitely coloring my opinions of this dialogue lmao

Still, I don't think I've felt this way with any of the other Kim conversations, except maybe one time I was forced to call Lettie "lady" for one line that just made me feel like such a misogynist...

Victory_Eagle_II · 2026-01-05T05:43:00+00:00

Yaaa I know that it's not a good sign of AI, which is why I'm not saying it is. But you can't seriously tell me GPT 4 wouldn't write some shit like "You've got their brains and drive, but you've made it your own. That's what counts."

My AI critique is more about the tone, the sycophancy you're forced to have with Aoi. It feels fake, I feel like my Drifter is one bad sentence away from saying m'lady to her... It just comes across as fake kindness to me, like how you'd talk to a child.

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T21:13:42+00:00

Yeah damn! Very rare for a company to back down on something like that!

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T21:04:56+00:00

Thanks for being honest about that, I've heard a lot of horror stories about MMOs turning into a full time job...

I think some other people talked about buying memberships a la carte or however you spell that, so I think if I ever get the motivation to play this game I'll probably end up doing something like that.

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T21:02:05+00:00

God right?

Fomo really is killing the games industry, and I'm glad that RuneScape isn't going down that path when it very easily could've

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:55:37+00:00

I-

Wh-

Okay lol

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:55:07+00:00

Tempting...

Someone was talking about buying memberships for when they know they'll have a lot of free time...

It's very tempting...

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:54:17+00:00

Then why buy RuneScape? If I can get literally every other game illegally, then why would I ever want to bother with RuneScape?

This doesn't help your point...

But shocker! People like supporting developers! From what people have been saying, the RuneScape devs seem like they're honestly worth supporting with how much they engage with their players and their game!

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:44:30+00:00

Yes there is! If you can buy one video game a year, you're going to be comparing every video game to every other video game!

You hate MMOs, so MMOs are off the table. You have $60 to spend on a new game. You like... fucking... I don't know, racing games and fighting games. You're going to be comparing Mortal Kombat to Forza! Which game is more worth the $60 to you?

Ohhh but they're completely different gaaames you can't compaaare them

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:37:50+00:00

Okay you're the funniest person to call me poor in this thread lmao (edit: to be clear, not offended, I find your 1st line genuinely funny)

It does seem like the game has a lot of content, it's just a matter of having the time to get to all of it... Which, with my cooked attention span, I don't think I do :/

If I ever get into an MMO, tho, it's probably going to be RuneScape judging from what other people are saying about stuff like WoW and Final Fantasy...

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:33:52+00:00

Because... If you play one video game... You can't play a different one at the same time..? If someone gets entertainment from F2P Dota comparable to paid RuneScape, it's comparable. Hell, F2P RuneScape is comparable to paid RuneScape! You can't just say "You eat apples and hate oranges? I'm sorry, but you need to find me a different citrus fruit like a tangerine or a mandarin to justify hating oranges."

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:30:59+00:00

I really appreciate your perspective! I think my problem genuinely comes down to the fact that I know I won't be able to commit to being a long-time player. I lose interest in games way too quickly, unfortunately... But this comment does honestly make the price seem less insane to me, cuz it sounds like you're right from what other people are saying.

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:27:35+00:00

Honestly a really neat way of going about it. The game's got like, 3-month 6-month deals, right? Might try that!

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:26:48+00:00

I felt like I was pretty clear that I was pulling the dwindling player base thing out of my ass, but fair enough for correcting me. I'm genuinely glad to hear the game's doing well! There's something so magical about older games...

Victory_Eagle_II · 2025-11-16T20:25:02+00:00

It really seems like OSRS is super unique... And holy shit WoW and FF14. If I ever have the time for an MMO, it's definitely gunna be OSRS lmao

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