Does no one care about the ruckus?

I'm not listening much to symphonic metal anymore but I used to listen quite a lot to Therion back in the days.

The fact that you say that means you know nothing about music. A lot of the music that might sound like "muppets attacking there instruments at high volume" is actually well thought out and technically impressive.

OP: Is AC/DC considered metal/hard rock? I mean before Bon Scott died, when their best stuff was made.

I'm normally more of a Nirvana/Green Day kind of guy, but I appreciate Metallica and Ozzy (though some of his stuff can barely even be considered soft rock) and so on and so forth.

Here are a few bands that I've been listening to recently as well as some of my all time favourites:

http://myspace.com/orchidsf

http://www.myspace.com/sonsofotis

...and of course

Good thread.  My favorite genres are probably Symphonic Metal, Melodic Death Metal (Melodeath), Power/Prog Metal, Viking/Folk Metal, and a bit of the more traditional stuff, like Thrash Metal.  I don't really get into Death Metal (boring Melodeath, imo), Metalcore, Grindcore, or anything like that.

I'm also a big fan of a bunch of Classic Rock and Prog Rock, especially Japanese Prog/Gothic Rock.

Anywho, a good number of my favorites have been posted already, so I'll post some more obscure bands/song.  Btw, excellent choice of Nightwish song, letstatdark!

Iced Earth - Wolf - Thrash/Power Metal - Probably my favorite band of all time.

Malice Mizer - Syunikiss - Prog/Gothic Rock - Been addicted to these guys lately!

In Flames - Brush the Dust Away - Melodeath

Soilwork - Overload - Melodeath

Dark Tranquillity - The Endless Feed - Melodeath

Amon Amarth - Cry of the Blackbirds -  Melodeath with thematic influences from Viking Metal

Ensiferum - Eternal Wait - Viking/Folk Metal

Blind Guardian - A Dark Passage - Mix of Power and Prog Metal

Kamelot - March of Mephisto - Power/Prog Metal

Eh, I find screamo vocals aren't much of an issue so long as the guitar, keyboards, etc. provide interesting rhythms and melodies.  Sometimes the overall harmonic structure makes up for it and then some.  When you have weak guitar that's nothing but fast playing in dropped tuning to back up those vocals, yeah, it sucks, and this is a problem with vanilla Death Metal, Metalcore, Grindcore, etc.

But Melodeath is awesome.  And sometimes the screamo vocals grow on you.  I can't help but yell out some of Amon Amarth's awesome battle cries lol.

If ya give Deep Purple a listen you will notice Jon Lords keyboard synthesizer work is a precursor to the modern industrial sound like 9 inch nails. 

It comes thru on "Made in Japan" live album, he tries to make his keyboard sound as hard or harder than Richie Blackmore's guitar playing. They do some incredible solos on Highway star a classic superior indulgent long song, about 20 minutes of awesome solos with violin bows and hard rock monster keyboard playing 

Agh, more people post!!! We need to counteract that atrocity of a thread leo-j just made!!!

Worst case scenario: Ps3 follows up with a Taylor Swift thread. If that happens, no amount of Slayer videos can save us!

A little something from the past.

The documentary Global Metal introduced me to this Swedish band.

More recent favorites include Killswitch Engage, Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed, ect.

edit

I couldn't leave without posting my all time favorite

Finally a thread about good music.  

Some of my favorite bands that dominate my MP3 player as of recently:

Five Finger Death Punch
Fear Factory
3 Inches of Blood
Overkill
Lamb of God
Dream Theater
Hatebreed
DevilDriver
Machine Head
In This Moment
Kittie

I'm a big fan of the Girl screamer bands Kittie and In This Moment,  any knowledge about other ones is appreciated

Always great to listen to:

Iron Maiden
Metallica (Pre Black Album)
Megadeth
Slayer
Exhorder
Pantera
Opeth
Black Sabboth
Atreyu
Chimera
At The Gates
Rammstein
Shadows Fall