I'm happy my little take on the almighty Metallica gave rise to such fruitful discussions.

I am so fucking salty they're opening for Maiden on the US leg of the spoonful of Somewhere In Time helps the Senjutsu go down tour. Rod Smallwood really should have figured out that Iron Maiden fans want younger Iron Maiden opening for them by now (and no that doesn't mean Steve Harris' kids).

Maybe I've just grown familiar with them over the years but, I feel like Necrophobic have started to sound rather safe since Mark of the Necrogram. Both The Mirror Black and In the Twilight Grey, to me, sound like they'd be great for beginners as a launching pad to delve into their material. My reaction to those two albums has been fairly neutral. I suspect Sebastian Ramstedt has been saving his best new material for In Aphelion and giving Necrophobic the leftovers.

Agreed.

Womb of Lilithu wasn't great, but the last three albums on Century Media are all way too polished. Sounds like Amon Amarth.

Agreed.

Womb of Lilithu wasn't great, but the last three albums on Century Media are all way too polished. Sounds like Amon Amarth.

I think that's why I keep coming back to this forum. There's something satisfying about typing something that creates a civil but colorful debate where you learn about other peoples' tastes as well as gaining a deeper understanding to why you feel the way you do.

Maybe a wrong thread to put this in, but don't want to open a new one for it. An article on Stereogum about the lack of metal in "metal" stars/headliners of today.

https://www.stereogum.com/2258777/metal ... ing-board/

I'm still always suspicious that any of that stuff matters. It doesn't really matter that much if metal has big viable arena bands. I'm listening to Root's Black Seal now for instance and it's complete bliss - heavy, thundering, outside the mainstream excellence. There's so much amazing shit out there and always has been. Metal's underground didn't flourish as some sort of life-support latched onto Metallica; they were just inspired by those bands... now that we have all the ease of the internet for music discovery, it's extremely easy, moreso than ever, for kids to find the good shit and model their own work after what they want. The big label pop does not matter.

We are grown men and should be able to discuss civilly.

Unless you chastise me for liking fruity power metal. Then all bets are off.

This is the truth. Besides, even if metal, in fact, dropped dead this instant and no new albums were ever released, all of us would have multiple lifetimes' worth of previously released unheard albums to dig through. Not to mention the tons of old ones to relisten. We fixate too much on novelty and recency when we should just listen to Blood Fire Death again. Or Root's Black Seal, which rules.

Maybe a wrong thread to put this in, but don't want to open a new one for it. An article on Stereogum about the lack of metal in "metal" stars/headliners of today.

https://www.stereogum.com/2258777/metal ... ing-board/

Maybe a wrong thread to put this in, but don't want to open a new one for it. An article on Stereogum about the lack of metal in "metal" stars/headliners of today.

https://www.stereogum.com/2258777/metal ... ing-board/

Maybe a wrong thread to put this in, but don't want to open a new one for it. An article on Stereogum about the lack of metal in "metal" stars/headliners of today.

https://www.stereogum.com/2258777/metal ... ing-board/

Rock music as a popular music movement is dead. But we will thrive in the underground, like we always have done.

I really despise nowadays popular music though, my girl made me watch some of the Coachella festival last weekend and I was nice to her trying to enjoy that stuff, but man that music fucking blows. If that's what's popular nowadays then I don't want anything to do with it and metal is pretty far from that plastic influencer top dollar crowd. I also think that the metal new bands really don't have that much to offer to a young girl in her early twenties, not so sure how we are going to connect with that crowd with bands like Witch Vomit or Necrot (both that I love and listen to daily).

I agree with way more points in this than I thought I'd do, but I feel it takes a lot of time to say what most, nay, every metalhead has always known: the mainstream is going to chew up the elements of metal it requires and spit out some palatable corporate crap that is easy to consume for the majority of people. Which isn't a new thing, really. It happened in the 80's with glam in the late 90's/early 00's with nu metal, then metalcore. There, I said it in a single paragraph.

Mark of the Necrogram and Dawn of Damned are sinister and obscure albums simply requires an active listening….

Two masterpieces

The last great album they put out was Death to All. It's not like I have lost interest in melodic black/death metal. I still seek those bands out regularly, but Necrophobic sound like they are just going through the motions at this point. There's an audience that seems to enjoy what they are doing and that's fine. It's just not for me. I feel the same way about a band like Unleashed. I see people praise their newer material all the time and they get good reviews but I just don't get it.

I thought that Dawn of the Damned was their best since Darkside. The latest one is solid; but it does safe, sure.

- I prefer 'Clandestine' to 'Left hand path'.
- I prefer Vomitory to Dismember.

- I prefer 'Clandestine' to 'Left hand path'.

- I prefer 'Clandestine' to 'Left hand path'.

It's not like women in their twenties were all that into metal in the 80s either. Obviously hair metal bands like Motley Crue and Poison had their female fanbase but metal by this site's definition has by and large always been historically male dominated.

Also I feel like people put on their nostalgia glasses when they talk about metal music in bygone times, when the reality was that it was never the most popular genre of music. More popular than it is now, sure, but there were probably more people into Cyndi Lauper in the 80s then the fanbases of most NWOBHM/speed/thrash metal bands combined. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica were (and still are) exceptions to the rule and even then their fans were outnumbered by Michael Jackson fans. The main difference between then and now is that there are no longer any cultural gatekeepers limiting the kinds of music people are exposed to and that there is no real shared, communal pop culture anymore thanks to the Internet. The landscape has completely fragmented and there are a million different niches, of which metal is one. The good thing about that is that it's easier to gain access than ever before, so finding your way into the metal scene is still possible even though you don't have a MTV Headbanger's Ball playing music videos of the popular bands anymore. I think this idea of the big gateway band is less important now than it was for previous generations, and perhaps less viable when there isn't really anyone acting as a tastemaker and saying what's cool and what isn't (unless you count Tiktok as one).

You know the reason on why it sounds like "by-the-numbers Swedish death" is because every swedish death metal band were inspired by them right?

I also think that the metal new bands really don't have that much to offer to a young girl in her early twenties, not so sure how we are going to connect with that crowd with bands like Witch Vomit or Necrot (both that I love and listen to daily).

There's plenty of women that like heavy as fuck music of all kinds; very silly to not think so in 2024.

There's plenty of women that like heavy as fuck music of all kinds; very silly to not think so in 2024.

I disagree man, this is not true. Most girls don't like death metal I think is very delusional to think that.

Kalaratri and
Ace_Rimmer are right, at least for me, we have been a male dominated genre since the very beginning and in the extreme metal scene that disproportion of genders only increased.

I am not saying that is good or bad, it's just a fact about our scene.

Pleased to say there were quite a few women at the Carcass gig I went to last week.

I disagree man, this is not true. Most girls don't like death metal I think is very delusional to think that. Kalaratri and
Ace_Rimmer are right, at least for me, we have been a male dominated genre since the very beginning and in the extreme metal scene that disproportion of genders only increased.

Iam not saying that is good or bad, it's just a fact about our scene.