Even though i hardly listen to em, I'd say Orphaned Land

They're one of the only bands ive heard do middle eastern folk metal right.

Abigor comes to mind. The new stuff really feels ahead of it's time in my opinion, although I know a lot of folks around here aren't too keen on the new material.

I am convinced Negative Plane is a modern classic in the making. I have a feeling it will take a while for a lot of people to catch on to how good they are. The combination of classical sounding riffs, heavier doom passages and downright awesome atmosphere is near perfect. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do next and hopefully hearing more bands take a similar and less tired approach to black metal.

You makin a direct comparison from Lord Wind to Burzum? Just curious.

If your saying Graveland is more influential and innovating then Burzum I laugh at you. I laugh at you in your face.

Anyway, aside from the pathetic attempts at shitting on the already name dropped Vektor and since Agalloch has been mentioned 800 times and everyone knows why their influential I'll skip them.

-Anaal Nathrakh manage to revamp furious black metal by mixing the slightly melodic form of black metal from Norway with more modern grind to create a refreshing take on bm that is both beautiful and grotesque.

-Children of Bodom I know a lot of people are going to probably shit on me for this one, although I'm not really referring to new material, even though it's still technically in the same style. Anyway, it just seems to me that nobody has really done anything new with the power metal genre since COB(who spawned some similar styled bands like Norther and Kalmah, albeit much better bands in the end) who mixed in some melo death elements to make a form of pm more ballsy yet just as catchy. It doesn't sound like Startovarius or In Flames but a decently new style and I think Power metal really needs another creative boost past this.

-Pensees Nocturnes style depressive black metal is some of the most fucked up sounding music I've heard in a long time, and maybe it's the somewhat contemporary french classical interludes that give it a peaceful element which Vaerohn then completely twists back into a nightmare that really gets me, as classical music can be twisted as fuck if done right. This is such a case.

-Septic Flesh always seem to be good for a new, different take on death metal. Whether it's the ambient infused Esoptron, to more menacing, grand orchestrations they always put fourth catchy, great riffs no matter what awesome stylistic background the band is using, something a lot of experimental death metal bands have since failed to achieve.

-Cynic seem to have reached into even more progressive territories since they came back in 07. And although they're hardly anything close to a death metal band anymore, they've managed to re-imprint their influence onto a new wave of bands, mainly Intronaut, Russian Circles and Dysrhythmia with their ethereal, but almost more technical approach to their sound. I have a feeling Paul is trying to put out Aeon Spokes music using the more popular Cynic name though, as each release seems to be tamer and more AS like as they go.

-Gojira progressive death metal is a genre that rarely really lives up to it's name a lot of the time I feel. Sure the likes of Death, Atheist and Gorguts definitely held that forward pushing spirit but a lot of bands like Augury and Into Eternity are bloody awesome, they feel like they take more of the technical aspect sof the music as opposed to the actual progressive side. But Gojira is definitely one of the bands that fits into the first category, with some of the most interesting uses of contrast and rhythem I've ever heard a progressive death metal band use. Sure Cynic and Death would have these great serene, atmospheric passages but the way Gojira does it, you keep that claustraphobic pinning from the riffs, where as the previous bands were almost sort of a release, with feelings of peace...

-Adrenechrome are a local band around here in Toronto who perfectly mix together Thrash, Sludge and Stoner metal into one perfect unit unlike any band I've heard. Although this may sound like something you'd expect from HOF, Adrenechrome tend to focus on blistering, Razor and Annihilator like thrash riffs that will then throw in some crushing HOF or Neurosis style riffs when they feel complimentary. In the end we get a similar fresh of breath air and relevance to today that we do with Vektor, as although influences can be heard, they do more then just worship their idols.

-Jesu. I have no idea how to describe his music as anything other then Doom Metal/Ambient/post-Rock/Pop. Yeah, trust me this is something you probably haven't heard before.

-Subrosa started as a pretty bleak sounding Stoner/Sludge band but on their sophomore they dropped the sludge and a lot of the stoner elements to go for a more purer doom release and with that they also added some of the most graceful and equally bleak string sections that really does go well with crushing doom and is an interesting, innovative idea for the genre.

-Ufomammut maybe they're just pushing extreme here, but imagine Electric Wizard, but on the drugs it manages to have not taken yet. Yeah, Ufomammut is some of the trippiest shit there is...

-Triptykon/Celtic Frost as if Tom G couldn't get any weirder he manages to throw doom into his signature primordial death/black/thrash style to make something that is not only beautiful and melodic but crushing and twisted. God damn this man can make interesting metal.

-Blut Aus Nord newer material has proven to be quite the interesting spin on bm. Starting off as somewhat run of the mill, by this point BAN have evolved into one twisted BM machine, without going above 200BPMs. The 777 albums showed that black metal doesn't need to be break neck to be fucked up as all hell and I think their incorporation of Godflesh elements, yet staying so purely black metal show BAN may be one of the BM bands of our decade.

-Om stoner/doom, with only Bass!? what is this sorcery? And it sounds quite unique to most stoner/doom as well, and the Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun like atmosphere and influence is totally mind blowing and new(for metal). Neat.

-Ghost/Blood Ceremony/Occult "metal" Although these bands have a sound that isn't quite new, it's new for metal I suppose. The only thing I've found they have in common other then the Occult Rock influence is Pentagram, but there's a catchy sensibility that I think these bands have caught on to that will definitely make it easier for the Traditional Metal bands(although Blood Ceremony are Doom) to have an audience in today's society.

-High On Fire Really what needs to be said at this point? Without HOF we probably wouldn't have half the sludge bands we have today and it's their interesting mixture of Stoner/Doom, Motorhead and Celtic Frost that make this band the awesome juggernaut it is.

-Neurosis Again, obvious. Without them we wouldn't have the atmosphere or post-rock tendencies of a lot of new bands and even though I think it's their Sludge elements that sell them for me, the atmosphere definitely sets them apart from every other band, not to mention nobody has captured that same feeling as of yet. Not Isis, Not Rosetta no any of these post-metal bands.

Havohej comes to mind for me. He’s been rather quiet lately, but on the releases where he dived into black noise (or whatever you want to call it) I think he created something truly special. Aside from the impressive feat of capturing the visceral hate of black metal without using any discernible guitars, there is something very disturbing and hellish in his work. Kembatinan Premaster is strange, cold, disconcerting- there is really not much else like it.

Hopefully we hear more from him in the future, there is definitely room to take that style further.

I don't know if Graveland is more influential than Burzum, but his music is more interesting than anything Burzum has ever done besides Det som engang var and his newest album. Varg has gone through quite the musical journey from making terrible bedroom bm on his first album, to making decent if not duller more thought out stuff on his latter work. I never got the hype for Burzum as a musical outfit, but Graveland has always been a band you can pick a favorite album spanning a long career.

Graveland's Will Stronger Than Death is probably one of the better albums of the last few years, and so many upcoming bands could probably take a few cues from it. But it's Darken's fault for associating himself with the NS scene in the 90s, and now his songs will never be heard by 99.999% of even the metal population.

Hmm, I thought about your question for quite some time now and imo, well, there is just none band (for me personally! totally feel free to disagree) which kind of "surprised" me for quite a long time. To me it feels like everything has been done one way or the other before. Don't get me wrong - surely every now and then a band pops up that sounds really good to my ears but "new" or "visionary"? No, just no.
Like some other user posted, including some prog stuff doesn't make a band's music oh so special. Same goes for combining different genres in whatever combination. Again - I do appreciate certain newer band or newer ouputs with a new direction by veteran bands but there just was none which made me think of like "Oho, that's such a new style, this is gonna be the new way". Obviously certain genres weren't around, say, ten years ago but I really hesitate to use the word "visionary" for some Post-Rock-Neofolk-Black-Pagan-Metal or Prog-Tech-Death-Thrash. The time of visionaries is some kind of over for a long time and now it's just a matter of which genres are combined.
Possibly I'm just too long into this music and to some point just overfed

Not specifically any project. Just the fact Darken and Varg are both quite prolific "one man band's".

Yep best thing Varg did was play on a Mayhem album. The shoegaze Burzum ok was ok too i guess.

Darken has heaps of great albums though.

Belphegor and Behemoth, I know they sound like stock answers but those two were the first real black/death hybrid bands. Necrophobic is more black than death and is arguably not really a blackened death metal band.

Whut?!

Do you by any chance know Belial? And that's just the first example I could find without putting much thought into it.

Anyway, as to contribute to the thread a little bit. Neurosis' name has been brought about a few times already, and very deservedly as to me they're the single most influential band of the last 20 years. Someone could bite my head off for all that's worth, I don't care and it's my opinion. Darkthrone is another obvious answer, but while they were/are what everybody knows to the blacker arts, Neurosis where influential in sludge, "post-metal", and even dark ambient stuff if you care to check their side-projects. The sole amount of bands each one of those two has influenced must be close to equal, but the different span of musical genres has Neurosis as a victor to me.

I could also say Gorguts, but then again I would be saying another obvious one, lord knows how many bands have been whoring out and making careers based on Obscura alone!

I'm going to go with Eluveitie. Folk metal bands are springing up left and right, and for the most part they all sound similar. Eluveitie brings some interesting ideas to the table without sounding overly "happy."

yes, obviously you have bands such as Belial or Beherit or Sarcofago which are genre hybrids, but, like I said with Necrophobic, a lot of those sorts of bands were prototypical and weren't as well developed in that style as the two bands I mentioned. Not to say that they weren't good or that they weren't an inspiration, they just hadn't fully developed the black/death metal sound.

I know what you mean, but you should really hear this, or this. Despite those being from their 1993 EP those songs are actually from their 1991 demo. Let me know if you maintain your opinion later on.

I think Moonsorrow fits this description. Probably the most creative and interesting folk metal band out there. Quite consistent too.

I'd second whoever said Anaal Nathrakh, over the past decade they've really carved themselves out a niche by combining black metal with grindcore to create a sound that is truly punishing but also highly memorable and in some cases really catchy. In the Constellation of the Black Widow was the album of 2009 for me when it came out.

Talented band. I can't get into their stuff much.

I'd rather listen grind or black metal. Mind you Gods Of War was a neat combination of the two genres though.

This is a tough one to answer - There are bands I consider "visionary" for what they did at some point in the past that was very different, but as for bands that have truly different "sounds" now? That's more difficult. I think you have bands that are doing a lot of minor refinements to sounds that have already been done, and there's a lot of examples of that. Certainly would could argue that all evolution is merely refinement to some degree, but I don't think the creative leaps that have been made have been quite as far. At some point, the sheer volume of music produced with the instruments provided fills most of the spaces that already are out there, leaving only tiny cracks with which bands can be "original" to whatever degree. Is Ulcerate truly an "original" sounding band or are they only a slightly denser Immolation? Is Blut Aus Nord really "innovative" or are they just the arthouse version of December Wolves? And on and on and on.

I think as far as "metal musicians as true auteurs" go, I think you see it where the artists are often more serious about what they do, and that gets us to avant/hipster black metal (which are effectively two sides of the same coin, IMO). There are people who have very serious ideas about what they want to do and how they want to do it and differentiate itself from the pack, and even if I don't like those ideas, I respect the fact that someone out there is trying.

Well a lot of people love those first two discs and I feel that and Darkthrone's Blaze in the Northern Sky capture something a lot of records wouldn't manage to do. And Graveland has plenty basement sounding elements in itself. Also Hvis Lyst tar os is one of the most interesting black metal records ever made.
Also whoever said Necrophobic lean way more towards black metal needs to actually listen to all their material. The Nocturnal Silence is pure swede death.

Anyway, looks like everyone has had their say. I predicted beforehand that there would be no meaningful consensus because no particular trend seems preeminent in the metal psyche atm, but I am surprised how many people mentioned Graveland. Would have thought people would be bored of that by now. Of course, most seem to think that Countess is also going strong and not losing steam.

As promised, the guys doing weird, new and wacky things with metal I like should be pretty obvious: Metatron, Fogarty, Holliman, the Rev... Apart from that, I can think of dozens of black metal bands who's inclinations and innovations I highly approve and think are making great music right now but these innovations come at so gradual a rate as to be more rightly called evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Adopting a vision largely developed by someone else and staying the course they have set is not generally considered a visionary course of action, but I wonder if vision is something so truly individualistic rather than something which can often times be better understood within the context of collective social practice... Oh well!

Thanks for the thoughts, folks, and feel free to keep the thread going after I bump it.

Morbid Angel is a truly visionary band, just listen to "Heretic"! I think that Trey Azagthoth is one of the most talented guitarists in heavy metal history, anyone who can make a guitar solo sound like a waterfall flowing through space is truly a "visionary" in my opinion.

I've heard nothing but bad things about that album, though. Almost as much as Illud.

What the hell would that even sound like, anyway?

Heretic's a mess, but Illud makes it sound like a masterpiece.


Considering space is a vacuum...

Peste Noire and Negative plane are visionary. I second Gnaw Their tongues and Teitanblood.

Esoteric fits right into this category. Enough of the stoner bullshit, this is how I want doom to be - Wandering, terrifying, cavernous and transcendent.

Oh, and The Chasm. So visionary no one has caught up yet.

Time to change my sig! Also, I second Esoteric (sorry that I can't elaborate, it's just stating the obvious for me).

Infinitum Obscure is doing something interesting in the vein of The Chasm.

Definitely Fanisk. I am no Nazi, but their music is just fantastic!

There is quite a good reason for that...

I don't think you could have sold Vektor any shorter, man. Nobody sounds like Vektor. Nobody.

Funny. Esoteric would be my answer too. Seems they've already been plugged here several times.

Sigh, as well.

The True Werwolf. Every release just invokes that atmosphere...

I would definitely say Blut aus Nord. Each of their albums have been so progressive that they have carved out an entirely distinct sound and style

Spamming tritones is so progressive.

Visionary in thrash is not really increasingly complex riffs, longer songs and crystal production. The impossible task for thrash is retaining or renewing the rough, live energy of thrash without revisiting the 80s, which apparently few bands can do. Sauron is one that can.