OPETH are BORING! I just don't get them at all. I like maybe 2 of their songs, after hearing 3 of their albums.

But I love Sigh! Hail Horror Hail is great!

Even if you ignore politics, most of his stuff is half-assed. You can tell he had like 20 minutes of cool music for Hvis lyset tar oss and Filosofem and he then just filled the rest of those albums with the most unimaginative stuff he could come up with. He should have kept releasing EPs like Aske.

Yeah, that song's an embarrassment.

And I'm someone who likes Cherry Pie by Warrant!

I'll never listen to it, so I wouldn't know. Too many good artists who aren't abhorrent should-have-been-abortions to play.

THIS!!!! And in the 70's, they would have probably been called metal.

I'll never get tired of saying why listen to Burzum when you can listen to Paysage D'Hiver. Paysage is way better, his albums scratch the same itch of lo-fi raw black metal with ambient as Burzum and there are no shitty politics attached to him afaik. Win-win-win.

This thread isn't going to be open for long so I'll just rant for as long as I can

I agree, the way I know If somethings not very good is if it gets described to me as "well it's sort of like x band mixed with y band with elements of z band" all I think is wow, way to completely diminish my interest completely, I get the thing of finding similarities between bands and albums, but man, I just don't wanna hear something that sounds like a mix of other bands.

I especially find this in DM these days, and I kinda believe it's that most new death metal is entirely influenced by Death metal, old bands had a greater frame of reference of influence because most of them grew up in an era before death metal had completely codified itself so there was room to have different influences than everyone else, this obviously isn't true of everyone but that's my general sentiment on the matter.

Here's an unpopular opinion I'd imagine: On this board I find entirely too many people on threads about NSBM or other topics that get debated to death to be nothing but mindless bickering, of course that's why it's fun but there's two sides to that every time either people whining about NSBM being a scourge and doing so because they know the other side, aka the whiny overly anti PC assholes are gonna come in and complain too and the people complaining about it get to act like they're trying to have meaningful discussion. lol give me a fuckin break, everyone just wants to complain and I feel like a lot of people on here take themselves far too seriously, and I'm not saying stop either, I love reading it lol

But my unpopular opinions are this:

These threads are always the most interesting on this site by far

the fast food way music is consumed these days robs metal of its mystique

Elitism is a good thing, and it's far lamer to have a bunch of people that don't take the music seriously and don't feel it in their fucking veins

Nihilist is better than Entombed by a magnitude of a thousand

Black Sabbath is far more intelligent and interesting lyrically than pretty much every other metal band

Well known bands in a genre are usually better than most not well known bands

White Zombie is a legit great fucking band, LA Sexorcisto rules.

And the metal scene is as susceptible to mass marketing corporate bullshit and selling sex as everyone else so we might as well stop pretending we're outside of the mainstream man, that shits lame.

Some doom-related ones:

* Monument is Grand Magus's finest hour. Riffs for days and such a great tone and groove/feel to the record. I like their more overtly metal stuff that came after, but they've never topped this one. One of the best records of the 2000s.

* I've seen some form of Sabbath live 9 times (with Ozzy and Dio and others) - many of which were great gigs - but the two times I saw Saint Vitus live (both with Wino) were better than almost all the Sabbath shows. Amazing live band.

* Cathedral were the band who above all others got closest to the spirit of Sabbath in their work. Gaz Jennings was and still is the true heir to Iommi's crown.

* Come My Fanatics is the best Electric Wizard album, by far. And Let Us Prey is very underrated.

* Where The Runes Still Speak is possibly the best Candlemass song ever.

* The Hidden Hand's first album is one of Wino's stronger offerings.

Opeth are one of the absolute most lacking in balls metal bands of all time tbh, I like quite a bit of their music, but I think if we were to imagine hell, it would probably be having to listen to their discography and that's the only music you could ever listen to. And besides, I don't get really how creative they are tbh, if I can find very easily a way to describe the elements in your music you're not fucking creative or progressive, like I just don't find anything particularly smart about the music either, yeah their first two albums fucking rock tbh and it's almost like the fanbase doesn't want you to know that they can actually have balls and rock when they try.

Deep Purple should get as much credit as Black Sabbath for "inventing metal". After all, the NWOBHM (which is the first real instance of metal that wasn't just hard rock + blues) was more influenced by Purple than it was by Sabbath.

Nah bro, I know you from all those NSBM threads and it's entirely the politics with you, so you can cut that shit out immediately, because if you're gonna tell me the first couple of burzum albums aren't actually loaded with well thought out arrangements and creativity, and not to mention riffs that are total balls to the wall METAL, then I don't even know what to say, to me Vikernes is a guy that just obviously has a lot of skill and natural talent, he's dumb as a sack of fuckin rocks, but that will never take away the gift he once had musically.

Speaking of Deep Purple, the most "metal" song ever isn't some Riot or Judas Priest song that makes you wanna shred a guitar while soaring through the sky at Mach 2, it's this Deep Purple song about being honest about local shows:

Some unpopular opinions....feel free to flame to your hearts' content!

Examples of good but vastly overrated albums (good records but the love is unwarranted):
Painkiller - JP (too one-dimensional for its own good)
Symbolic - Death (everything before it is much better)
first two Deicide albums (ok for what they are but whatever)
Dreadful Hours - MDB (basically MDB by the numbers...treading water)
Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death (nothing special here)

odds & ends:
Beyond the Gates blows Seven Churches away

Death's "Sound of Perseverance" is essentially unlistenable due to the shockingly terrible, utterly dreadful 'vocals'. (Chuck, RIP, but what the hell were you thinking?!?!??!)

Modern Anathema represents the band at their best (Darren White era is craptastic)

"Faith Divides Us" and "Tragic Idol" are light year more exciting than PLost's supposed return to the roots snooze-fests

Bruce's performance on "LAD" leaves a lot to be desired

"SS-3" is one of Slayer's all-time best songs

Ihsahn has made exactly two great records (Nightside & Anthems) and a whole lot of whatever

Bathory's "viking era" is effectively the greatest sleeping pill ever created. Give me their 80s output instead.

Ripper Owens was a horrific fit for Priest. The live albums are a testament to that. Hard pass. (Yet he was awesome in Iced Earth.)

I like Live After Death a lot, but I agree with you here. Bruce was feeling the effects of touring by that point.

The best Maiden live album is Beast Over Hammersmith, and the best video is Donington 1992. Rock In Rio is also brilliant.

Owens blows Halford away in Priest, IMO. Both those live albums are stellar, and I'd argue that Priest were at an all time high in terms of live performance, or at least were on form in a way they'd not been since the Defenders tour. But I agree he was great in Iced Earth, and Schaffer was a fool to ditch him (Schaffer is a fool anyway - as events last January showed - but getting rid of Owens to bring Barlow back like that made no sense at the time and still doesn't now).

To me, Burzum is literally some of the best metal ever, being made by one of the worst people ever.

Varg is a terrible human being no doubt but Hvis lyset tar oss is simply far too good an album to give up because of the artists horrid opinions.

The drums on Death's Leprosy and Spiritual Healing are great; they fit the songs and complement the atmospheres the band was going for. They didn't need to be super technical.

This is more of a general music hot take, but one that I think disproportionately applies to the metal scene more than other music scenes.

No one has any business covering a song that is less than 5 years old. The whole point of a cover is to pay homage to something that inspired you and has influenced you as a musician. Something that came out yesterday is not that song. We've even gotten to the point where people are covering the teasers for songs before the whole song is out. Idgaf that you covered the teaser for the new Dream Theater song. I Just want to hear the whole song from the actual band!

Agreed; Paysage are better. They are one of those bands I was generally pretty stoked to discover. And as far as Burzum, while I dig "Filosofem" (his best work in my opinion) the post above is makes a good point- that 25 minute ambient track could have been only 2.5 minutes (a tenth as long) and it would STILL be an unnecessary filler track.

Yeah the guy's a douche. I have watched his videos though, and while his political anti-immegrant stuff is pretty cringy, some of his other points- his views on sustainability, environmentalism, role playing games, medieval history, and self-sufficiency, are interesting and I'm okay with. This would probably count as my unpopular metal opinion; when I say this, that is NOT implying that I am okay with his xenophobic and ultra conservative views. People who know my posts know that I generally take a pretty firm stance against that crap.
I'm only saying that some of his content- the non-political side of his Thulean Perspective, was not that bad.

Yes.

To add:
-Caring about the "scene" over the quality of music therein contributes more to stagnation than it does preservation. If the "scene" all sounds similar, then the "scene" probably fucking sucks.

-Gimmick bands "get it" more than most, and there's no such thing as a successful musical act of any style that doesn't have one.

What's Iron Maiden gimmick? Eddie?

- Mourning Has Broken by Sabbat isn't a terrible album. I quite like "The Demise of History". With that said, I would say it's basically a Sabbat album in name only.
- I like Impact is Imminent by Exodus.
- Even if Forbidden by Black Sabbath isn't that good of an album, I do like the song "Kiss of Death" from it.
- Souls of Black is my second favorite Testament album.
- Scream Bloody Gore is my least favorite Death album.
- The British Sabbat destroys the Japanese Sabbat.
- Even if Iliud Divinum Insanus by Morbid Angel is a bad album, the song "Nevermore" is enjoyable.

Summoning is the most interesting black metal band in existence.

This.

Like an Ever Flowing Stream >>>>>> Left Hand Path

Dream Death are talentless, so are Divine Eve and Winter.

Nasty Savage's self-titled album is overrated. They wrote way better material on the Indulgence - Abstract Reality - Penetration Point run.

The 'This label never disappoints!' metal label doesn't exist.

It's funny, because about 5-6 years ago, I would've disagreed with you. Now, though, I couldn't agree more.

I guess it's a matter of whether you can appreciate Slaughter of the Soul ripoffs more than insert modern Cannibal Corpse album ripoffs.

Here are a few of mine, some of them are hotter takes than others:

- Soundgarden's best album was Louder Than Love, and Superunknown was a massive bore with only a couple interesting songs
- Tony Martin and Glenn Hughes are both better vocalists than Ozzy Osbourne
- Primal Fear is a massively underrated speed metal band
- KK's Priest's debut album was good from start to finish
- Overkill has a better discography than any of the so-called Big 4
- Helloween's Chameleon is a decent experimental effort
- Alice In Chains' weakest album was Dirt
- Dio's best album is Magica, followed closely by Dream Evil

5 hot takes:

*the vibe, atmosphere, production, engineering, tone, texture, and timbre is more important than the riffs

*there is just as much if not more creativity going on in djent as in any accepted subgenre here

*Andy Sneap is one of the best metal producers

*Tarja was the least interesting Nightwish vocalist

*Stuck Mojo is more metal than many bands here



Who else would you extend this to? Couldn't you say Led Zeppelin is even more influential to metal than BOC?



I'm not sure how controversial that is. It arguably draws in the largest amount of thirsty fans who are there for the aesthetics rather than for the music.

Well..... since someone was posting about how Blue Oyster Cult should be on the archives, to that I say....

Non metal bands should not be on the archives no matter how big of an influence they had on the genre. Influencing a genre does not make an artist a part of the genre. Plain and simple.

And while I'm on the topic of influences...

Punk and hardcore has had a much bigger, broader influence and impact on metal in the last 40 years than hard rock and prog rock ever did. There would be no thrash, death, grind, black, sludge or any adjacent sub-sub genres without it.

That's an interesting one. I don't mind that album, I wouldn't regard it as one of their best though. As far as Testament goes, I actually quite like the album DEMONIC. Yes, it is a lot different that the albums that come both before and after it but I find it an enjoyable listen. I like the groovy opening song, Demonic Refusal.

I agree with you on that one. The Japanese Sabbat play basically third-rate black/thrash that's not particularly interesting. I think they are more or less some kind of parody band.

Also, a lot of people seem to be into this all female Japanese-metal groups, most of which are pretty dreadful in my opinion. I even know that session musicians are brought in for some of the recording, playing some of the harder solos and even the drumming on some of their albums. If you think that some of those ladies are playing all the instruments on the recorded albums, you'd be wrong.

How is that an "unpopular opinion"? I mean, if you consult objective sources, metalheads as a whole already rate SBG the lowest of any Death record, so it seems to me like your opinion on it is the complete opposite of unpopular.

Yeah, here it's third lowest, RYM it's second lowest, Metal Storm it's lowest.

Their self-titled and The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here are their absolute best, imo.

Yes, that's right, I put a post-Layne Staley album above their OG material. Blashpemy!!!

AGAIN.







At least you admit your stupid bias and endless rants.
We should change the reviews to "he's a bad person".

- Most songs on The Lord of Steel are good.

- Savatage's Power of the Night is better than Hall of the Mountain King.

I kind of agree with this, however, at this point I feel that most black metal bands, including many of the ones that once set the early stylistic limitations, have moved past that, so nowadays most black metal is actually interesting. Granted, that may be because I don't pay much attention, if any, to all the output that is stylistically stuck around 1993-1995.

I find it hilarious that anyone has an opinion on this at all.

On topic; Rust In Peace is overrated as hell.

No. I still think Drudkh and Hate Forest are good bands even if I don't listen to them. Burzum is just trash.

Man, why do I read these threads? For no reason at all I end up getting all worked up with some of the stuff I read, ffs, I am 44 years old and I still care that someone on the internet called Geoff Tate in his prime a mediocre vocalist and others call Rust in Peace overrated ("FUCK YOU GUYS!!!!! FUCK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!" . - “Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind.” ― Terry Pratchett, Eric)

I am disappointed in me.

Thumbs up to the "most black metal is awful" opinion and the superiority of clean vocals to shrieking.

Ontopic. Har, har.
DEMONIAC IS ONE OF THE BEST ALBUMS OF THIS DECADE.

I can't stand black metal. Really, i've tried, but i don't get the appeal of it?

Also : albums that came out in 2021, sounding that they came out in 1983. -> Demoniac...

Here's an unpopular opinion for you; politics is a relevant and interesting discussion topic for a metal forum when it's directly related to metal music and artists and it's asinine as hell to try to dismiss it.