Voivod is better in theory than in practice, having been unable to truly execute on their vision and release an actual interesting album.

Dimmu Borgir's Abrahadabra is amazing.

Rammstein should be on the archives.

All of Satyricon's albums are great.

I'd agree on this. For some reason heavy riffs are discounted here more if they're accompanied by industrial electronics or rapping than if they're accompanied by folk instrumentation.

What's ridiculous about what I said?

I am just waiting eagerly for the black/death metal bubble to finally fucking burst, because I'm so fucking tired of checking the "Worthwhile Albums of X Year" threads and finding absolutely nothing.

"Imaginaerum" by Nightwish is good and fun.

The album, I mean. That horrible vanity project of a film they based on it is another story.

Have you heard any of these on my list? They have no to minimal harsh vocals.

Tom Arayas vocals ruins almost half of the classic-era songs.

Darkthrone is more about quantity then quality, and have been for well over 20 years.

All Shall Fall > Northen Chaos Gods

Judas Priest have more filler-material then good material, thank fuck for personal playlists!

Oh shut up Benedict Donald Trump

Metal is dead but no one realizes it: In the current scene, the average level of music is better than ever: on the other hand, there are hardly any bands with their own style or bands that are able to write albums at the level of the classics. There are no longer any "exceptional songs"; no mandatory suicide, or alison hell, dreaming in red, remember the fallen, curse the gods, spiritual healing, chapel of ghouls, for whom the bells toll, inner self, ride the sky etc) or to create an" own universe "(Mercyful fate, Voivod, cathedral, samael etc). Not to talk that you can figure out the band by its voice only (sanctuary, savatage) hell maybe even the riffing (megadeth). Cant remember the last time i heared a riff that did kill me like "reality is when you die" (Gorefest false). It became extremely rare: 99 percent is high-level-boredom.

Most DM growls seem powerless, unnatural and ridiculous. Not brutal (like it was in the case of asphyx and obituary)

Too many musicians have too many projects; they don't mix the different styles and thereby create something new but have a different band for each idea.

Metal can only stay interesting if it becomes more "musical" and processes different influences (like e.g. on the last album by Zemial).

most thrash bands age bad; its hard to take them serious

Slaegt, Stargazer, chapel of disease, Morbus Crohn / Sweven are much more interesting than many other DM or BM bands (from incantation to behemoth etc) but unfortunately far too unknown. The chasm is probably the most underrated metal band ever.

Burzum was never really good; a few nice ideas, the rest is "image"....

Thanks for sharing. I'd never heard of these bands but am really digging what I'm hearing and will def buy these!

LOL...you got me.

Not really an unpopular opinion about an artist, but metalheads take the absolute stupidest shit way too seriously.

Cirith Ungol is boring and the vocals suck

Probably my biggest "unpopular opinion" about metalheads more than metal, is that, (ironically considering this thread) contrarianism is heralded much more than it should be, as is the need to "prove oneself as a critic", especially when it comes to the kind of people who write reviews and make sure they write some REALLY bad ones where they completely rip a band or album to shreds in order to "give them credence" as critics for when they actually write good reviews.

One reason I have never written reviews is my idea that maybe i'd feel I "have" to write bad ones for the good ones to be taken seriously. I know this isn't true and I could just write good reviews, but even that takes energy I'd rather spend just listening to the music or reading other people write about it.

But I think metal in general has a great love of contrarian opinions, and I have met so many metalheads who almost seem like they feel it's their duty in life to shit on a certain percentage of metal bands just to prove that they're "TRVE."

I'm not about to claim that Slayer is smart guy music, but then again whenever I hear a band categorized as smart, it ironically sounds dumb as shit to me so idk

And their old lyrics are not profound in the sense of they are making bold statements or something it's profound In the sense that when I hear them they immediately incite a very strong emotional response so I think it's profound to me at least

Slayer may not be the most intellectually stimulating band, but I'm a firm believer that metal is supposed to be more primal than that anyway, you're not supposed to feel the music in your brain, but in your heart.

Another unpopular opinion of mine is that I also like funk rock/funk metal and think it was a cool era, though more of it was funk ROCK than metal IMO.

The bands that got me into music before I ever even heard metal were bands like: RHCP, 24-7 Spyz, Living Colour, Fishbone, etc. with shortly after that Real Thing era- FNM, Infectious Grooves, Primus.

I can certainly understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it brings me back to a time in life when I was discovering music, and aside from that, ESPECIALLY Living Colour out of all of them is just really a truly quality band IMO.

Feeling pretty opinionated today so let's go!

Deicide and Obituary have never been good.

Led Zeppelin wasn't metal. Neither was Deep Purple.

Morbid Angel is decent but not godly as seems to be the consensus.

Overkill is a C grade band at best.

Black Sabbath's existence renders 99% of stoner/doom metal irrelevant. They just did it all better.

On a related note, Candlemass is boring.

So is Possessed. And Motorhead.

Elitism (to a certain degree) is not a bad thing.

I agree, and that's honestly why I think Elitism isn't exactly a bad thing, and before anyone starts crying, that doesn't mean that someone is better or worse than anyone for liking or disliking certain music, I'm talking about actually taking the music somewhat seriously and not turning it into some lame ass headline type bullshit and that's what I think you're describing, all these "true" assholes are the exact thing elitism is supposed to stand against, it's not the guy with short hair listening to Deafheaven that's the problem, it's the useless assholes who have no semblance of personality, and needs to talk down to people because he likes a demo that only sold 10 copies, and doesn't care if it sucks, as long as he can feel some sort of importance, just turning the whole thing into a popularity contest when the music means far more than that to people that actually value it.

I don't particularly care that people act like that, they're usually just dumb and insecure about themselves, so it's whatever but it just robs the music of its meaning imo

If it wasn't for Cause of Death being my favorite DM album, I'd say that Obituary are generally one of the more worthless classic DM bands tbh

And that reminds me, I haven't heard a lot of stoner metal, and I'm never gonna go out of my way to check it out, idk, I've been a pothead in my life before, but even when I was smoking constantly, I could never stand people that only talked about weed and that was the whole thing, stoner metal just reminds me of going to the dispensary and I think that place is the lamest shit of all time, I hate stoners so fucking much, I'm an alcoholic, and I'd much rather be that than a God damn stoner, that's complete bias on my part but I could complain about the way people obsess over weed these days for a whole fucking day and never run out of shit to complain about

Yeah, i'm not talking about being critical of bands or albums when it's coming from a real place, but there's part of me that feels that because metal, (could be the same for punk or maybe even gangster rap?) is a genre that exudes a certain amount of "toughness" or "machismo" that there's a lot of chest thumping and puffing up oneself going on at times to prove how seriously one should be taken because they "know their shit", and one of the best ways they prove it is by shitting on a whole bunch of bands or albums that other people love so they can get people to question their own opinions and think "maybe this guy really DOES know his shit!!"

I'm not really talking much about people on this forum all that much though, before anyone flames me.

I'm not saying I haven't seen it, I certainly have, but more often in older reviews than in the kinds of conversations I have with people on here. I generally feel that when we have these conversations on this forum that not many people get like that, and i think the conversation section of this board probably represents the upper echelon of what I'd hope most metalheads would be like.

But the attitude comes out still at times whether it's here, facebook or other online sites, in person, etc.

Other contrarian opinions:

Early Necrophagia was heavier than early Death and as such, should quite possibly get more credit for starting death metal, or at least as much.

Early Master and their unreleased 1985 demo is also heavier than early Death and if they'd actually released it on time they might be getting credit for starting the genre more than Death, but Master's importance to early death metal can really be seen if you look at the insert photos for so many old school death metal bands. I believe I've seen more photos from the late 80s and early 90s of metal bands wearing Master shirts than Death shirts.

Death, while certainly an excellent band and deserving of credit as being ONE of the first death metal bands is worshipped to a degree that is disproportionate to their level of skill or relevance to death metal and extreme metal as a whole. They were, IMO, just ONE of the very important early death metal bands, and not necessarily more important than Morbid Angel, Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, Master, Necrophagia, Deicide. etc.

By the same token, though this is probably not unpopular, Slayer holds the same position for thrash that Death holds for death metal: excellent band, wrote great stuff, but worshipped beyond their level of skill and seen by many as being so far above and beyond other thrash bands which were equally good if not better.

Anthrax is the most overrated bigger Metal band, MGLA the most overrated newer BM. Cannibal Corpse is as boring as deicide is ridiculous. Manowar was never good. the first 3 samael destroy whole Norway within seconds.

Diabolus in musica is the most underrated Album by a bigger Metal band; Feel sorry for the fanatic by far not as bad as its reputation. What Entombed did on uprising, and morning star is better then on wolverine blues and "to shoot...."

That fast-food critique is interesting, I agree with that one. The way streaming is effecting many artists is unfortunate.

Ditto on the elitism thing too. Nothing annoys me more than bands/"fans" which obviously don't feel the spirit of metal. If you're into something, especially something like metal, be INTO it god damnit!

Extreme metal is still very much outside the mainstream, but I will agree that people who put emphasis on that fact as if it somehow makes the music better is annoying.

Vader’s cover of Raining Blood is superior to the original.

I've got a couple:

-Post Once Nightwish is the best Nightwish. To be clear I do like their earlier albums, just not as much as the 'newer' ones.

-On the topic of Nightwish, The Wacken 2013 performance of Ghost Love Score with Floor is the best version of that song.

-The Cavernous Death Metal trend made it hard for me to find any new death metal bands for the longest time, because those were the ones that constantly got hype everywhere I looked. That sound is just not for me, barring Incantation themselves and like Tomb Mold and Blood Incantation (if they'd count). Hell because of the hype behind every one of those bands, I put off listening to Blood Incantation for years until I finally gave in and found out that I enjoyed them.

-I have a hard time getting into modern trad metal because the vocalists are so bad. For example Lunar Shadow! I liked the riffs, but the vocals just put me off.

-I like In Flames post Clayman material up until Sounds of a Playground Fading (ugh that title). But even that one has A New Dawn which was pretty good. Siren Charms and Battles were godawful though. I, the Mask is the best thing they've released since Come Clarity (with the exception of This is our house which might just garbage)

Slayer got lazy, and made mediocre, and bad albums. But, thinking that Reign in Blood isn’t a great work of art, that got angry edge right, artistically, for once, makes you wrong.

European style power metal, or symphonic, is pop music. Not pop music to play in a nightclub, but pop music for people who play video games.

Goat metal, in the Revenge style, is best with good use of dynamics, especially tempo changes, variation in vokills, and instrument noises. Otherwise, it sounds too incoherent to be warlike. They’d hate to hear it, but, I think they could learn from crossover and hardcore. The Impiety/Angelcorpse style feels, more consistently, like good music to annihilate people and blaspheme to.

Most good bands tend not to be just one style exclusively. Modern popular old school only death metal bands seem to only be influenced by death metal. Cookie cutter black metal can take from Transylvanian Hunger, and forget, that Fenriz did it as an experiment, in making an album with only one drumbeat. Even Darkthrone’s true cult era is full of Celtic Frost breakdowns, and D beats. Don’t be like Greta Van Fleet, or Wolfmother, and only listen to one band.

Listen to Integrity, and GISM, then show it, to your friends, who are starting a hardcore band. They might end up making music that doesn’t go in one ear, and out the other. More hardcore should have guitar solos. Even Hatebreed.

If Pantera and Prong are on here, then Slipknot counts. They can count as groove metal. They sound like the non-metal band Korn, and they sound like Acid Bath, Neurosis, and Morbid Angel.

Songwriting triumphs, over technical skill. Celtic Frost, Venom, even early Slayer, they didn’t need shredder playing. Shredding can be good, but only with good songwriting. That’s the foundation. The Celtic Frost-influenced non metal band Nirvana is a good example of this in pop music.

If you complain that ‘there’s no good music these days,’ if you lecture me, about how you’re older than me, and you saw shows, back when they were good, or, even worse, you’re young, and you complain about there being no good music, and you don’t look for good new bands(they exist), and you don’t go to shows(music is actually played, in clubs, not just stadiums, and yes, some of it’s actually good), you are part of the problem.

If you wonder why there isn’t a band that plays a certain way, and you form one, to do so; if you see local bands, who’s music actually kicks ass, when there are only 10 people in the crowd(which enables them to eventually play for 100, then 100); if you tell those, who complain, about how “today’s music sucks,” about good new bands; and if you go to shows; if you are in an underground band, or you let them sleep on your floor, and provide them infernal hails, and gifts of food, beer, and weed, and, most importantly, word of mouth music recommendations, you are part of the solution.

Also, similar to my point, about songwriting, if the music isn’t fun, I don’t listen to it. Could be sad fun, angry fun, whatever. No boredom.

Also 90% of everything is crap.

Morrigan NOOOOOOO

But yeah if you hate the vocals, you won't like Cirith Ungol. The debut is not as belabored as their other albums and the songs are catchy too.

edge of a knife, edge of a knife, maybe that's what they mean by real life

These types of threads are useless contrarian contests.
There's my unpopular opinion.

Ugh. Like which one?

The big 4 is entirely based on sales, who would replace them? Anthrax has multiple gold records and during that era the only thrash bands outselling them were Metallica, Megadeth, and maybe Slayer.

Apologies for not including in my last post, but, many bands misuse blast beats. Lack of variety can make music less interesting, and also less heavy, which is what you get, with constant blast beats.

In atmospheric black metal, this is intentional. The heaviness comes from guitars, usually. Playing really fast gives you the same effect as playing really slow, the shamanistic trance. Way too many death metal bands use constant blasts. It can make the music sound like it’s some parody song on YouTube. The skill level of guitar and bass players, in writing heavy shit, outclasses the drummers, a lot of times. Constant blasts are more “extreme,” but less barbaric.

Napalm Death’s Scum has a lot of variation, despite being mostly blasts. And it also has a good drum sound. I hate bass drums, that don’t have bass. I get why producers do this, because high tempos, combined with too much bass, would sound shitty. But they often go to far in that direction. Dying Fetus blasts a lot, but they have good production, and their drummer can hit hard. I don’t know if they use triggers in the studio, but live, their drummer can actually hit hard

no

Deathcore although not entirely rooted in metal is much closer to death metal than bands like Iron Maiden, Burzum, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, so just because its "not metal" does not automatically make it garbage and poser shit.

I'll take tough guy lyrics over fairies and dragons anyday.

Breeding the Spawn is Suffocation's best album.

Steven Tucker is a better vocalist than David Vincent.

Here a few more I can think of ...

- 'British Steel' is a weak JP album. Lots of simplistic riffs and dumbed-down songwriting, it doesn't deserve its classic status. Even the album before, KM/HBFL is much better.

- Contrary, to what people say, Motorhead have had some weak albums in their catalogue. Both 'March Or Die' and 'Bastards' are weak albums. And '1916' is also overrated. This was a down period for the band.

- 'The X Factor' is clearly the best IM album form the 90's. Maybe this one is not too unpopular, but people dismiss it because of Blaze's vocals. I'm not a fan of his vocals either, but this album definitely has the best songs/songwriting in that era.

Most Norwegian black metal isn't really that good and got hyped to death by easily impressionable teenagers because of all the church burnings, Euros' murder, etc. A lot of metalheads complain about nu metal being lame but Norwegian black metal was every bit as ridiculous.

I don't have any statistics to back this up but my guess is that session musicians are far more common than most people realize. I do think it's kind of a let down to find out that you're listening to some rando musician instead of the band that you love. That said, I don't think it is any more lame for an all female band to use session musicians than it is for an all male band to do it.

Also, bringing in session musicians doesn't necessarily mean that the band members can't play the material. Like in the case of the song Born to Lead by Falling in Reverse. It has a fucking monster of a solo that is recorded by Rusty Cooley for the album, but Jacky Vincent played that solo live and made it look like he wasn't even trying that hard.

It's funny. Mary's Blood uses a session guitarist in order to play their music live. That guitarist is Yashiro. Who's screaming internally and sweating bullets with every passing second, because she's straining with every fiber of her being to keep up with Saki, who plays these blistering solos while smiling and bopping around like she's singing in the shower or something.

It was the first foray into being radio friendly and it is loaded with memorable hooks, it's a classic that defined them for a decade, at least.

I definitely appreciate that they bring her with them on tour instead of the ol' laptop backing track. I wish they would just make her a full time band member and let her move around on stage though. It's a little awkward when she's the only one that has to stand in the back next to the amps.