I see more ladies than I expected to at the last Cannibal Corpse show I saw, and there are ladies at Full Terror Assault every year, which is almost all thrash, death, and grind but still mostly dudes, just better than a Rush concert.

Of course I always have this in mind when I diss LHP. My counter argument is that neither the Nihilist demos nor Carnage's "Dark Recollections, which pre-date it, have that "generic" sound to them, so even if they were making a landmark album they weren't kickstarting the whole movement.

I don't really think I should call it generic either, though, I just think it feels very "safe" even for a movement that was still in its infancy.

Meh, it still feels like you're looking at it without actually considering the historical context. If it sounds "generic" compared to early Carnage and Nihilist, it's because most bands took influence from Left Hand Path, rather then early Carnage and Nihilist.

Saying LHP is "by-the-numbers" is like saying that Number of the Beast, or Under a Funeral Moon, or Master of Reality are "by-the-numbers" records of their own respective genres. They aren't. They were game changers and people plagiarized them so much it makes them sound "generic" to our 2024 ears, but that's just kind of... looking at them wrong.

Left Hand Path came out nearly 6 months before Dark Recollections.

LHP - Recorded and mixed at Sunlight Studio, Stockholm, December, 1989.
DR - Recorded at Studio Sunlight, Stockholm, Sweden in February 1990.

I stand corrected, I had the dates mixed up in my mind.

I can't actually recall 'Pieces' at the moment, I'll revisit it, and yeah 'The god that never was' is ok but it can't touch the second, third or fourth Vomitory albums imo.

I think you have a point, I don't think I phrased my initial criticism correctly. Let me put it this way: I feel like, on its own merits, Left Hand Path is not that interesting, musically, and thus most things that have been heavily inspired by it suffers from also not being as interesting (though that is not a fault of the album itself).

Now, do I feel this way because I'm approaching it outside of the context it originally came out in and comparing it to all the stuff I know came after? We'll never know. But if it means anything, Left Hand Path was the first Swedish death metal album I've ever heard. I hope that cleared up everything.

Well LHP is a total ripping fucking classic. It steamrolls from beginning to end. But that said I do prefer Clandestine too, as it's got more melodic stuff going on yet doesn't forsake the heavy ripping riffs - I love that stuff.

Wolverine Blues is almost as good as both, too. A great rough and tumble rager.

That's fair. Regardless of how influential it was, I can totally understand why someone would argue that it wasn't ambitious enough. I enjoy Swedish death metal do a degree, but it never was the sound I favored the most in death metal.

You know that I have ton of respect for you but that doesn’t mean nothing….

Nothing at time sound like LHP

Nothing….

What ambitious have Leprosy or Altars of Madness?

Change forever the world of extreme music like did Sgt Pepper or White album for pop,you can’t sound like Pink Floyd to be ambitious …

A total “stupid”album like Nevermind maybe have more ambitious of Obscura if you see from another point of view…

I tend to play Wolverine Blues more than the others when it comes to Entombed.

They do exist though. I know a woman who loves deathcore and slam and Tony Danza experiment kinda crap and thought Altars Of Madness was lightweight. (Then again, when it comes to Carcass she only liked Heartwork and thought Necroticism was too fast and thrashy).



This is so spot on you almost want to punch the computer screen and hope it breaks everyones jaw perpetuating it.

On a social(without make name)I find tons of girls that like metal and expecially black metal

South Americans girls rules!!!!

Anyway in my life I don’t find a girl that like black metal(but i live in a small place)

What about Autopsy?

I know only that one of most famous songs of death metal is a rip off of Entombed riff that they didn't even bother to put it on their album except as a bonus track.

I do love Mark of the Necrogram, but it's so far the last one that really excites me. I guess after that I feel like I've heard all their tricks.

Side note: I don't know why I keep wanting to call Dawn of the Damned "The Mirror Black." Probably in my head it just sounds like a better album title. Glad everyone knew what I meant though haha

Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, King Diamond, Mercyful Fate, Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, Death, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Behemoth, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, At the Gates, Dark Tranquility, Hypocrisy, Carcass, Children of Bodom, Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold are real overrated bands regardless of flawless albums that each band has.

Considering several of those are some of the most foundational and influential metal bands in history that will be unpopular.

Who would you say is not overrated for example?

You must study and repeat…

And associating certain names like last three is blasphemous…

in the Middle Ages there was the stake

I think it'll be more unpopular to say that Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold have flawless albums.

Imagine claiming bands that literally defined the genre and in some cases sub-genres are overrated.

I hate the word "overrated". It's just a vague (and usually so stupidly arbitrary) notion, and it usually just means "People like these bands more then I like them, so they are wrong."

And yeah... calling Black Sabbath, Maiden, Priest, Death, Darkthrone, Carcass overrated... it's pretty damn silly.

Agreed. It's absolutely (usually) just a cheap way to critique a band without actually critiquing them. I wish these people would just say "I don't like this band" or "this band just doesn't click for me". It's okay to say that.

^ this sounds harsher than I mean, I'm certain I've said those exact words myself before lol

Overrated is just a polite word for bad. I think Black Sabbath with Ozzy were pretty bad but people tend to get really pissed off and defensive when I say it like that.

I dunno. It's all relative/subjective.
For example, I think Priest's "Painkiller" is an excellent album. I quite like it...every song. There's no scenario in which I'd proclaim it being a 'bad' album.
But I question that amount of praise heaped upon it which, to my ears, is somewhat unwarranted / exaggerated.

Yeah, considering the influence of Black Sabbath and IMO Judas Priest are in most every metal band that came after them....how can they be overrated? Sure you can say you don't like them, that is fine. But overrated?

No it’s underestimated…

It’s underrated wink

Overrated is indeed an overused and misunderstood term. But I will say I haven't been pressed to spin anything by a lot of those really popular bands in a while. I can't tell you the last time I listened to a whole Judas Priest or Megadeth album new or old. Just so much other stuff I wanna check out and listen to instead.

That's what overrated actually means, yes. And that's how it should be used, but more often then not, it's just a way to say "I don't like this popular band/album".

Overrated just doesn't tell me anything - that's just saying "I don't like it as much as others do." Which, so what? What else do you have to add to the conversation beyond that? Why are they not as good? It's just a weird way to frame it if you're not going to really go into anything else.

Benedict's post above seems like a more measured way - actually explaining the opinion anyway...

I think Maiden and Ozzy Sabbath are rated exactly as well as they should be. Tremendous stuff and I never get tired of it.

At this point I've taken to only call overrated bands that have been bad longer than they've been good (at least agreed by the general public). Because sure, they have masterpieces in their catalogue, but if they aren't really matching that quality ever again then they aren't that great, are they? In that sense, yes, bands like Cryptopsy, Deicide or Metallica are overrated. Doesn't make me like their good stuff any less, of course.

Iam not pissed or defensive, but you have to admit that is a weird thing to say in a Metal music forum.

There are only a few bands that I think have a discography without big dips in quality here and there.

It’s always uncanny to me when somebody says that X band is the greatest of all time when they exclusively only care about the first 5-10 years of a multi-decade career. Bonus points for when that era just happened to be during the person in question’s formative years. Like wow, that band was only good when you were a teenager, what a funny coincidence!

Only because most metalheads lack the balls to say it. Because it's such a gatekept community we fear being excised from, the vast majority of us think that because it's a classic it must be good and I must enjoy it. Even if it's not and I don't. And even in an unpopular opinions thread.

But it's either "most metalheads think it" or "I think it", you can't have it both ways. Most people say they're great because they genuinely think they're great. Like, I know perfectly well they're one of the bands I enjoy the most in the world. I respect you for having your opinion but let's remember that's, like, your opinion, man.

Yeah I mean I'm not saying those old Sabbath albums are great just because I want some sort of nebulous respect of a community... like what you like, but come on lol.

You really think peer pressure isn't alive in our community? Isn't this thread evidence for it? And yes, it's only my opinion, but from my experience most of us (including me) are harboring opinions we think are too unpopular to be expressed. I mean, that should be common knowledge if we're really honest with ourselves.

I find this incredibly difficult to believe, particularly when expressed on page 226 of an "Unpopular Metal Opinion" thread.

The only thing that I agree with you is that saying that Black Sabbath Ozzy's era suck is an unpopular opinion, a really unpopular one. But I have to say that is also a pretty fucking dumb opinion if you ask me, much more if we are talking in a metal forum.

I really don't get the gatekept thing, I have always said in this forum that bashing nu metal and metalcore/deathcore is bullshit, I have never cared about people that don't think like that.

But if you think that Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Vol. 4, Paranoid and the homonymous first album are bad music or bad albums, I don't know why you would write in a metal forum in the first place. I can't connect with someone that doesn't appreciate a monster guitarist like Tony Iommi, I just don't get it, much more if you considered yourself a metal fan.