Quick. That’s what I think this fortnight’s entry in the alphabet playlist of metal will be. There just aren’t a lot of bands that I’m aware of that start with the letter Q.

P is for playlist. No, that’s a stupid way to start this entry to the alphabet playlist of metal. I know … Today’s episode is brought to you by the letter P. Nope. I’m pretty sure there’s a children’s television show that has done that before.

It’s the P fortnight because last fortnight was all about the letter O and this is how the alphabet works. Nope, this just isn’t going to get any better. Psorry—the P is silent.

Oh, this will be a disappointing fortnight of variety. The M fortnight seemingly ruined everything and set the bar way too high. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some awesome music in this fortnight’s article. There’s just not as much as when M rocked the house.

I always suspected that last week’s entry in the alphabet playlist of music was going to be hard to top. Sorry N … you’ve proved my suspicions to be warranted. This seems to be a fortnight of slim pickings.

Not trying to take away from the bands that make up this list—there are some exceptional entries here—there just aren’t enough of them. Is that due to my own limited playlist building abilities? Probably. But going through the catalogue of music I listen to, there don’t seem to be a lot of heavy bands I can easily recall that start with the letter N.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … Not only is that a satisfying word to say/type, but it’s also an accurate count of how many M bands are in this fortnight’s edition of the alphabet playlist of metal.

There are 23 Ms for those of you who don’t feel like counting.

I’m still playing catch-up. Why? Well, I’m slack. Another reason is that I’m easily distracted. My recent blog post about my ten most influential guitar duos for example got me thinking about what a list of my ten most influential bands with one guitarist would look like.

One band from today’s list would absolutely be in such a list. I’ll have to put that list together. Soon. But not before I finish this article.

A few things happened when putting this entry together in my alphabet playlist of metal. First, I realised I’ve loved a good dual guitar attack in a metal band for a very long time now. Secondly, I discovered that the letter K was another letter that brought me a more limited result when building the playlist. Finally, I discovered that this limitation made me write another late blog post.

Sorry about that.

I’ll say one thing—I’m glad it’s a public holiday today in my neck of the woods. This free day has given me the time to post something for my fortnightly article series for the first time in a long time. If I was to say another thing, it would be that I don’t live in, or anywhere near, the woods.

It would make sense for a Scarebear though. I’ll look into it one day.

To be honest, when I started this fortnight’s playlist of metal for the letter I, I couldn’t think of anything other than Iron Maiden. For a while, it was my only thought. Beyond knowing they would be the first band in my list, I got caught on which Iron Maiden song to pick as the song I selected to represent them.

Once I got past that difficult choice, the rest actually fell into place relatively easily.

I read an article recently that said Internet users have short attention spans. Long paragraphs get lost on people and nobody cares to read too much before getting to the point.

Luckily this fortnight’s playlist of alphabetical music is short and sweet. I could only find six seven H bands I liked enough to include in a playlist.