Bros, we are really criticizing blast beats in the metal archives forum? May the end times come soon and wash us all away.

In before people start to complain about the heaviness in metal!

Nah we're criticizing the overuse of blast beats. It's also the unpopular metal opinion thread so...

Count me in with those who dislike blast beats. They should be used sparingly. In my unpopular opinion. I find their constant use lazy, amusical and extreme for the sake of extremity.

Yeah. When I hear people say that Cannibal needs a faster blasty drummer I always think "Why? So the music can be less interesting?". Sure he has his limitations, and does definitely blast, but its not like so many death metal bands that just bludgeon you with the blast beat.

I thought when Slayer used some blasts on Supremacist off Christ Illusion it was cool. It added some oomph to the cut, but it was an accent not the core of the drum track.

I think it's sorta weird to somehow try to equate not liking blast beats (or the overuse of them) as not liking metal...like, there's so many genres without them, and even lots of black metal without them it seems like a strange point to make.

Agreed on all counts.

Blast beats have a pretty awesome effect when used sparingly. On Sodom's latest album, the last song uses blast beats on the verse riffs (Friendly Fire) out of absolutely nowhere, and it kills.

IMO, true 'heaviness' is arrived at by the precise and effective use of dynamics. The use of "Light and shade" as Jimmy Page and Richie Blackmore both described it back in the 70s, is needed to achieve it.

The only time blast beats become irritating for me is in some atmo black. When the music is quite simple with single notes stretched out to create this so called atmosphere with constant blasting behind really accentuates the blasting for me, and it gets irritating. Whereas something like Panzer Division Marduk, even though people complain about the blasting there, at least the riffs on that are really fast and aggressive as well so it suits the blast beats.

I got a few unpopular opinions.

I think trve black metal sucks. Screeching over slightly melodic riffs and then changing into a whisper isn't good at all.

I think Divine Intervention is Slayer's best album.

I believe Cannibal Corpse's TOTM is overrated.

I think Atheist and Pestilence should be more popular.

The Sound Of Perseverance is Death's best album.

I prefer Morbid Angel's first album vocals as opposed to the traditional death growl they adopted later on.

Sodom > Kreator

I think the first two Monstrosity albums are a clinic on the use of blast-beat…

My unpopular I prefer the production of Hell Awaits to Reign in Blood

No way Divine Intervention is the best Slayer album..

Come on

You know what I hate? Distorted guitars

Can't wait for ''Clean Death Metal'' - regular DM riffs but no distortion or similar effects.

It's nice when used sparingly, not throughout a whole song. That's just overkill.

lol at comparing blast beats with distortion.

You know what really pisses me off? Palm muting. Wobbly strings or gtfo

I'm not sure if this is unpopular or controversial, but I think the Melvins are way more influential to a large segment of modern metal than they get credit for. Sleep, for example, get way more credit for influencing the stoner/doom/sludge scene. Maybe it's because they've taken so many weird detours, but it's like a lot of metalheads don't really acknowledge the Melvins. I'm not saying they don't get any credit, but I think they get way less of it than they deserve.

It probably doesn't help that most people know them as Kurt Cobain's favorite band.

Death got progressively worse with each album.

I guess that tracks. However, they're also a favorite of Eyehategod, Crowbar, and High on Fire, and you'd think that would count for more. Then again, I never really understood the visceral hatred that so many metalheads have for Nirvana. They're by no means one of my favorite bands (or really one I even actively listen to), but they really don't merit that level of dislike. Is it just because they were so enormously popular?

Anyway, the Melvins have made some seriously heavy shit. It's weird that so many metalheads aren't into them.

The problem with Melvins, at least for me is that they aren't exactly a metal band, they are more a very heavy alternative rock band. Also, they have a gigantic quantity of albums, so is hard to get into them, I almost always listen to only Houdini but they have a vast discography.

That's mostly true. Buzzo was always quick to downplay Black Sabbath's influence on his music in interviews, and spoke very passive-aggressively about metal in general. But how similar "slow punk" (Bullhead era Melvins, Flipper, post-'Damaged' Black Flag, etc) sounds to "slow metal" (drone, sludge, etc) just goes to show that metal and punk don't sound very different when you slow them down to a glacial enough crawl.

To a degree they limited their own appeal with their image and sense of "humor." When you make an album that sounds like a prototype of Sleep or Eyehategod but you slap a pineapple on the cover art and write lyrics like:
"uff sewed in mullnin' sa heartbreaka
Cause she could lonely sell
Like moanin' wosta lie sin
Cause she's a keen
Like he knows a shosin wona lus
Cause he's a whole sinna
Little pigs and Little Little heartleaks . . hugh! hugh!
I just thought you'd enjoy
I sonio mine and lie so low
And like a suck a wonder the san-lo
Like sonay a wosay wonay
Little queen
And little heart attack Sarah
Popa low"
... you can't really be surprised when battle vest type metalheads don't embrace you. Combine that with the fact that they later moved in sort of a "big dumb guitar rawk" direction with maybe one blatantly doom/sludge leaning song per album, and yeah.

First album as in Browning or Vincent?

Sodom are way better than Kreator.

I don't think it's unpopular. Hell Awaits is a good sounding album.

Vincent and it’s not unpopular ..

It’s the true.

He got worse in every followed album to reach the non-voice in D.

Soulside Journey is Darkthrone's best album by far.

90's Alt Rock is great, and far better than was passes as rock today. We didn't realize how good it was because there was an abundance of rock and metal to choose from at the time. Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden deserve the praise they get.

Megadeth is overrated. Dave is a good guitarists, but not the best song writer, and his vocals have always sucked.

Amon Amarth is great, but their sound is heavily influenced by Hypocrisy.

Good production makes metal better. Razor-thin lo-fi production sucks and is used to hide the lack of talent. And I want to hear the goddamed bass.

Ozzy was never a good singer, but always worked with good musicians.

Kiss is overrated. Without the makeup and costumes, no one would have ever given a shit about them. The best thing Gene Simmons ever did was record the demo for Van Halen.

You realize you're more likely to hear bass guitar in a raw, barely produced demo quality recording? Mixing the bass down to barely audible levels is an intentional studio mixing decision--it goes back at least to post-KEA Metallica, probably earlier--and it implies lots of thought and attempted polish put into the production. Whether you like the end result or not.
Meanwhile there's not one moment you can't hear the bass in, for example, the allegedly "bass-shy" Transilvanian Hunger (which is also very clear in general, so the rawness isn't "hiding" anything about the level of talent).

I also prefer good production, but I think good production means a lot of things rather than just the generic Andy Sneap McMetal sound.

Agreed on these three (although the early Soundgarden material is too dull/uninteresting).
AIC is a stellar band without a bad release.

Yeah. While a lot of that music doesn't resonate with me lyrically like it once did, I find it so much better than what I come across with modern rock.

Especially Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, I can live without Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

Since people are talking about 90's alt rock...

Quorthon's solo albums are amazing. Each song could've a massive hit on its own. Both Album and Purity of Essence are the definition of "all killer, no filler". It just baffles me Quorthon had all those great ideas lying around, and he decided to put out Requiem and Octagon for his main, most popular project...

Never listened to them. I should check them out.

Agreed! Purity of Essence has a few less than stellar tracks, but for a goddamn DOUBLE ALBUM it holds up really, really well.

Here's an opinion that might start a discussion or two, but I think folk metal from the 2000's has held up better than a lot of the thrash revival bands have. I have no problem with retro-thrash and I would certainly choose them over groove metal, nu metal, or metalcore bands so I can understand why a band like Evile came off as a breath of fresh air when they first hit the scene. However, I can't really argue with the people who say "Why invest into Evile when I can just listen to Slayer instead?" I think that's a really good point, and say what you will about bands like Korpiklaani or Finntroll, but you can't accuse them of that. They don't sound like "modernized, but less-than-stellar" copies of bands from the 80's or even Skyclad who many would argue invented folk metal.

Don't agree, but I do think:

Individual Thought Patterns > Symbolic > The Sound of Perseverance

I'm of two minds here. On one hand, I totally and completely agree with the idea that the rethrash scene fizzled out as unceremoniously as it did because it was a redo of something we already had once two decades earlier, so when the fad wore off those bands would have to compete for nostalgia with some of the most iconic metal bands to ever exist. Folk metal didn't have that problem since the scene was at least something genuinely new (yeah yeah Skyclad beat em by a decade but they were basically the only band for a decade, similar to how Meshuggah only sounded like Meshuggah for eons before other bands started popping up and calling it djent) so when the fad blew over at least they were the only nostalgia-candidates around.

On the other hand, man whenever I hear those bands I am instantly teleported back to the mid-aughts. Whether or not it's still good is up to you but holy hell is that sound dated as fuck. For me, I'm not sure the scene as a whole really holds up that well but the biggest bands of the time must have been popular for a reason, because I still listen to Ensiferum's classic albums fairly regularly (it helps that they're still around and occasionally still releasing good stuff). I initially thought it was because they were less the dumbass Wacken Metal huumpa stuff but other bands that took a more "battle metal" style appreach like Turisas and Blackguard haven't really held up well at all so I think Markus Toivonen was just one of like three guys who owned fur clothing that could actually write a good song.

I got into metal just as folk metal was really blowing up, so I listened to basically every folk metal band at the time. Even more than Ensiferum, Moonsorrow is easily the best band from that scene.

You joke, but I once had a friend who mentioned not liking metal, and when I asked him why, this was essentially his response.