That's why i said "laughable example". Have you listened to their first 2 albums tho? I would say there much closer to death and grind than what they make now!

1) You said they're still a valid example when they're clearly not.
2) I went ahead and listened to a few tracks on their first album; I hear no grindcore or death metal at all.

The wrong. It hurts.

1) Don't see how there not! (Please explain)!
2) I never said they were! I said there closer to grind and death than the music they are now!

But that still doesn't make it a good example. Metallica's early albums were closer to death and grind than what they make now; so I guess we should put them in this thread too.

Your replies to 1 and 2 contradict each other. They're a valid example despite not being death metal or grindcore which is the original point of this thread? Nobody here cares about bands that have ever sounded close (and A7x never sounded close) to those genres; the discussion is about bands that actually were those genres.

Example:
Amorphis - death metal in the early years - rock later on

Fine, do whatever you guys want! I'm not going to argue over a stupid forum post!

yeah, I really want to keep this as specific as possible (death, black, grind, ROCK), because we have had so many "bands that changed their style" topics and the same stuff always comes up. So I want to use this thread to bring up different/more unknown examples, of which I believe there are still many yet to be discussed.

Not Death Metal, but Death/Doom with their first two albums, and then "Gothic Metal" (if such exists) starting with Discouraged Ones.

So I was wrong about Disgrace; for some reason I thought they were a case like Belial and Xysma who released one rock album and broke up, but apparently they have several and are still going strong. Think I'll check some out.

Actually downloaded Belial's 3 last night. What a weird decision these guys made. Production is still heavy but the music is so far from the evil stuff they used to play!!!

Tormentor is arguably a case for this thread. Sure, Atilla's vocals are hardly normal, but Recipe Ferrum! is basically a rock album. Most of the songs are based around a couple of simple rock riffs, the drumming is ultra-stripped down and raw, and there's bluesy soloing all over the place. That guitarist is actually really good!

Pyogenesis were such a big thing in my mid-teens for me and my friend who loved the Twinaleblood album. Its perhaps the most schizophrenic release I have heard but I can't help but love it. I think they execute everything they try on this album with great results and despite the very different genres presented I think it holds up not just as individual songs but as a whole album as well. That said I never heard anything else by this band.

I bought 3 earlier this year out of curiosity (not to mention it was really cheap) and it's quite enjoyable for what it is.
Listening to Never Again though you can kind of see it coming, besides the general weirdness that album there was already a rockier-vibe to the songwriting.

Maybe its just me but the transitional records are always far more interesting and convincing for me its like by the fully-fledged "rock" albums these bands have lost their identity.

I think I can agree wit you there; so far Deluxe is probably my favourite Xysma album, for example.

Darkthrone

No. Still metal.