So, uhh, Death or Black?

[BlazeTSU]

i sit on the fence on this one.

i love late 80's/early 90's death metal. it helped shape my entire life and musical tastes. BUT, modern death metal bores me to tears for the most part. it doesn't interest me at all to hear how fast and crazy and how many time signatures you can fit into 4 minutes.


and i absolutely love the more rockin side of black metal. black metal that isn't afraid to rock out or show off its punk roots is tops in my book. i'm really not into a lot of the crazy hyperblast shit. after immortal did it everyone else just pales in comparision.

i'm probably more in line with thrash than either black or death though. all aspects of real thrash appeal to me. everything from metallica and slayer to destroyer 666 and throneum and everything in between is usually my favorite stuff. thrash kinda encompasses all the best aspects of metal to me. the darker side, the serious side, the musical side and the funnier side all live in thrash.

I couldn't have put it better than that, dude. I'm totally sick of "technical" bands. I'm sick of bands that are nothing more than Thelonius Monk with distortion. It's BULLSHIT! I don't care how wild 'n' wooly bands get in regards to time signatures. I'm not too into the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, I wrote this riff just to make myself look cool, but it's fundamentally unmusical. I've said it before and I'll say it again...if I hear one more warm-up scale played at full-speed over a blast beat I'm going to fucking kill someone. Meshuggah is one of my favourite bands, but I think they milk that time-signature titty too far at times.

I think "technical death metal" is my least favourite genre of metal.

What about good tech death bands like Psycroptic?

i haven't listened to a lot of psycroptic but i do remember not being repulsed when i checked them out a while back. maybe i'll look into them again.

when i think of good tech death i think of "whisper supremecy" by cryptopsy. that is the album to end all albums in terms of "tech death". it was super technical and had loads of wild and crazy changes but it had feeling and direction. every song seemed to flow and groove and it wasn't massively over-produced. its sounds good but it sounds organic and real.

[Mike]

i sit on the fence on this one.

i love late 80's/early 90's death metal. it helped shape my entire life and musical tastes. BUT, modern death metal bores me to tears for the most part. it doesn't interest me at all to hear how fast and crazy and how many time signatures you can fit into 4 minutes.


and i absolutely love the more rockin side of black metal. black metal that isn't afraid to rock out or show off its punk roots is tops in my book. i'm really not into a lot of the crazy hyperblast shit. after immortal did it everyone else just pales in comparision.

i'm probably more in line with thrash than either black or death though. all aspects of real thrash appeal to me. everything from metallica and slayer to destroyer 666 and throneum and everything in between is usually my favorite stuff. thrash kinda encompasses all the best aspects of metal to me. the darker side, the serious side, the musical side and the funnier side all live in thrash.

I'm glad you wrote all that so I don't have to.
Yeah, metal should rock. Old Death Metal has a groove that you can at least head bang to. Try doing that to newer technical stuff. I can listen to Morbid Angel, Death, and Obituary on repeat. The new stuff is just grating and turns into a wall of incomprehensible noise.
That's why my new favorite stuff is The Sword, High on Fire, etc.
Mastodon does this well too.

[BlazeTSU]

That's why my new favorite stuff is The Sword, High on Fire, etc.
Mastodon does this well too.

the new High On Fire rips! i've been listening to it a good deal lately. i've also gotten into Lair Of The Minotaur lately. They have a good mix of most of the elements that i enjoy in extreme music.


what genre of metal does the Foo Fighters, David Allen Coe, Hank Sr., Hank Jr., Hank III, AC/DC and Nick Cave belong too? i like that one a helluva lot too!

[Matt]

when i think of good tech death i think of "whisper supremecy" by cryptopsy. that is the album to end all albums in terms of "tech death". it was super technical and had loads of wild and crazy changes but it had feeling and direction. every song seemed to flow and groove and it wasn't massively over-produced. its sounds good but it sounds organic and real.

best cryptopsy album for sure blaze!!!

[MikeLindgren]

i sit on the fence on this one.

Yeah, metal should rock.

I think that is EXACTLY what I was trying to say. The technical stuff just doesn't rock. In the immortal words of Carl, "I don't need no frickin' instruction manual to know how to rock!"

[ProstheticHead12]

Neuraxis and Anata both manage to be tech death and still remember to groove and put some feeling into their music.

Whatever genre Baroness, Enslaved, Opeth, and Into Eternity fit into is my favorite.

[Veneror]

Guess I'm a little like Blaze on this. If it has groove and elements of rock/thrash to it it'll go into my ears and heart a lot easier. If it puts some actual focus on what's being said in the lyrics with dynamics and heart then that's what I'm after too. I get tired of it just being entertainment (though obviously that can be nice). That's more of what it boils down to for me. I like certain elements commonly found in both. I do know I hardly ever find myself just listening to straight brutal Death Metal though - usually more melodic. Both can be good and both can be deep - also both can be annoying and be riddled with shallow monotonous hate-babble. It's a thing of emotional and structural balance to me - something that reflects the dynamics of life overall. Right now I'm liking a lot of Folk Metal.

[kfoll]

i sit on the fence on this one.

i love late 80's/early 90's death metal. it helped shape my entire life and musical tastes. BUT, modern death metal bores me to tears for the most part. it doesn't interest me at all to hear how fast and crazy and how many time signatures you can fit into 4 minutes.


and i absolutely love the more rockin side of black metal. black metal that isn't afraid to rock out or show off its punk roots is tops in my book. i'm really not into a lot of the crazy hyperblast shit. after immortal did it everyone else just pales in comparision.

i'm probably more in line with thrash than either black or death though. all aspects of real thrash appeal to me. everything from metallica and slayer to destroyer 666 and throneum and everything in between is usually my favorite stuff. thrash kinda encompasses all the best aspects of metal to me. the darker side, the serious side, the musical side and the funnier side all live in thrash.

I couldn't have put it better than that, dude. I'm totally sick of "technical" bands. I'm sick of bands that are nothing more than Thelonius Monk with distortion. It's BULLSHIT! I don't care how wild 'n' wooly bands get in regards to time signatures. I'm not too into the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, I wrote this riff just to make myself look cool, but it's fundamentally unmusical. I've said it before and I'll say it again...if I hear one more warm-up scale played at full-speed over a blast beat I'm going to fucking kill someone. Meshuggah is one of my favourite bands, but I think they milk that time-signature titty too far at times.

I think "technical death metal" is my least favourite genre of metal.

Hmmmm... no hostility here, huh Mikey?

I don't know about all that "technical" mumbo jumbo or whatever... and it doesn't really matter to me what genre a band chooses to call itself or is called by its fans. My most important criteria is that there is creativity, originality, energy in the performance, and just plain good songwriting.

I kind of lean toward death over black but it was the other way around for awhile. I just don't rule out anything because I know sooner or later i'll give something a listen and like something about it.

[MikeLindgren]

I'd buy a Disturbed album over Psyopus any day of the week.

[ProstheticHead12]

I'd buy a Disturbed album over Psyopus any day of the week.

I just threw up in my mouth a little when I read that. Disturbed is complete garbage. Buy a Melechesh album.

[ScreamBloodyGore]

I'd buy a Disturbed album over Psyopus any day of the week.

I just threw up in my mouth a little when I read that. Disturbed is complete garbage. Buy a Melechesh album.

No, seriously, you should all buy a Melechesh album.

[MikeLindgren]

I'd buy a Disturbed album over Psyopus any day of the week.

I just threw up in my mouth a little when I read that. Disturbed is complete garbage. Buy a Melechesh album.

That is my point, indeed, good Sir. I'd place Justin Timberlake on the list to overtake any technical bullshit. I think Blaze opened up my Pandora's box on this because I get particularly miffed whenever I hear the word "technical" in regards to music.

[Mitch]

A year ago, I would have said death. But it seems like death metal has become really stagnant lately, with even great bands like Nile starting to run out of ideas (maybe I just need to listen to ithyphallic more).

I've been enjoying a little of the grind-influenced bands and some of the technical stuff, though. Anata put out one of my favorite records of last year. I listened to the super-tech stuff like Spawn of Possession for about a week before I got bored with it. Necrophagist is still pretty cool, though.

Recently it's been mostly black. Although the culture and attitude surrounding it can be elitist and sometimes comical, I still find it intriguing despite not subscribing to it. When an album has raw production, it seems a lot less pretentious than it probably otherwise would.

If somebody's screaming about frostbitten forests and arcane cave beasts, I want it to sound like it was recorded right fucking there, not in some shiny room with a glass wall and computer monitors everywhere. Unless it's power metal, but that's totally different entirely.

The thing is, black metal has this dichotomy of tradition and experimentation that seems stronger than other forms of metal. Many bands adhere strongly to the early 90s second wave sound, but many others alter that sound in unexpected ways to create music that is both new and old. That's why I like good black metal: it balances two strong opposing forces.

I'm not sure about the groove factor. It's really important to some albums (new Baroness comes to mind, also The Ocean), but I tend to dislike the bands that consciously focus on that. I think if the music is crafted well, groove will enter naturally. Sometimes I find groove in unexpected places, like in the Wold I was listening to several days ago, which to me indicates good songwriting because the emphasis was definitely not on headbanging. So yeah.

[Mitch]

what genre of metal does the Foo Fighters, David Allen Coe, Hank Sr., Hank Jr., Hank III, AC/DC and Nick Cave belong too? i like that one a helluva lot too!

Post-metal.

[Kurt]

Black metal, sans rock-n-roll.