Heavy Metal Fretless!

[fivebass52]

Came across this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrwWBFp91U0 - while doing a youtube search for Warwick Corvette STD 4, as per LeftyClover's in the For Sale section... Not my "cup of tea" when it comes to this type of Metal, but the bass player, Dominic "Forest" LaPointe, just Kills his bass part from this song by his band, and really rips about two-thirds of the way in... scary song, good bass player.... Scary Good!

[AzWhoFan]

Awesome!
i wonder if he studied under Slybass?

side note: I have seen his name - or a variation thereof - the last few months when selling basses on eBay ...

side side note: that now makes 3 great lefty bassists from montreal. Sly, this guy, and moi!

[fivebass52]

Awesome!
i wonder if he studied under Slybass?

side note: I have seen his name - or a variation thereof - the last few months when selling basses on eBay ...

side side note: that now makes 3 great lefty bassists from montreal. Sly, this guy, and moi!

But of course! I was going to mention, but forgot to acknowledge, he is a lefty.....

[Frenchy-Lefty]

I think Gravesbass will dig this

[Addison]

There's a whole boatload of insanely talented fretless death metal bassists... most were probably inspired by Steve Di Giorgio who was one of the first to bring fretless into that style of music when he joined the band with the actual name DEATH when they got into their super technical phase.

Probably one of the most famous current bands in this genre with a fretless player is Obscura... here's one of their videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mesr2siegRg

Although I did the metal thing when I lived in the Bay Area fairly successfully, my tastes never quite went too far in this direction... however, I respect their abilities immensely. They're borderline athletes on their instruments.

[Addison]

Here's a cool interview with the current Obscura bass player...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKgdyhFSNAs

[Jeroen]

Jeroen Paul Thesseling used to be in Obscura, he is an amazing bass player. Saw him perform with Pestilence several times, and I have an Obscura album he plays on. Haven't heard them with their current bass player yet. Jeroen Thesseling has a signature Warwick Thumb NT 7-string fretless (with a low F# as bottom string). Imagine the weight! The guy totally rips. He's studied microtonality, and besides metal he's done a lot of flamenco stuff. Really cool and versatile bass player. He's no longer in Obscura or Pestilence, but still doing pretty cool stuff.

I also like Robin Zielhorst a lot, he's played with Cynic and plays an awesome Wyn 5-string fretless. Saw Cynic perform as an opening act for Opeth once, and I was amazed by his playing and his tone.