Stained Class, Sad Wings of Destiny...pure Heavy Metal.

Don't forget Sin after Sin...that is the album that officially made them a metal band in my opinion. Sad Wings was like a tad, TAD bit away from being metal.

What precludes brutality, tempo changes?

You said that Covenant and the later stuff was more brutal. What makes Altars of Madness not as brutal, or precludes it from being brutal, was my question.

When I listen to Covenant the only thing that goes through my mind is that it isn't quite as interesting to listen to as Altars of Madness.

I find they have no real understanding of what metal is in the first place. It's not all just down-tuned guitars and screamed vokillz, and somehow that is lost on many people.

The modern metal listeners the OP is talking about are either very stubborn or they're not listening to old-school metal properly.

Yes, too many bands trying to play the fastest blasts and sickest tech riffs, and forgetting to write good music with feeling.

I've also heard newcomers to death metal say that solos don't belong in death metal because they are from the 80's.

This honesty dosen't suprise me. Igo to school with people that think Maiden are 'boring' for not having a breakdown. 'weebing', and bad sweep picking.

The corollary are those who worship OSDM whilst generalising very negatively about modern death metal? There's plenty of 'fun' to be had with death metal that isn't old-school...you just have to look.

I completely agree. Many newer fans view NWOBHM/traditional bands mockingly - listening to them only for novelty purposes which absolutely disgusts me. I think the problem with the majority of modern metal is the lack of interesting song writing or riffage instead focusing on being overtly and obnoxiously technical. Too many bands focus on their image, avoid the fine details of memorable and sensible composition instead creating a sound in the end that equates to a spastic mess of diarrhea shooting from an asshole.

They're only idea of experimentation or difference is clean vocals "because that'll so totally blow their mind to hear clean vocals in this kind of music!!!"

Maybe I'm just getting old (which I am), but these new bands are terrible most of the time. Where the hell is the musicianship? Watch any stretch of Headbanger's Ball now and you get a disgusting swath of these dreadful "Death-Core" bands and all they seem to do is wail on their instruments and jam out a wall of noise and some incomprehensible growling. They're idea of mixing it up is a nonsensical sing-along clean vocal chorus that simply doesn't belong.

What happened to being able to write riffs and music? Where's the intricate guitar work and soloing? Like, Megadeth's opening to Good Mourning/Black Friday, or the kind of work seen in Slayer's South of Heaven or Dead Skin Mask? This is real heavy Heavy Metal stuff, and it's totally absent these days. They act like if they aren't just ruining guitars and growling out a monotone wall of noise, they aren't Metal. And that kind of shit is precisely NOT Metal. Even classic Death and Possessed contained musicianship.

Maybe it's just because I got into Metal with much better, more diverse music, but this new shit all sounds the same. One obnoxious wall-of-sound song sounds just like every other. One shitty Death-Core band is all you need to hear to know that every one of them sounds damn near the same way. Headbanger's Ball is a fucking disgrace to Metal now. Just because they throw in BLS every now and then doesn't mean they actually understand the music.

The music has no energy, ironically, either. Despite the obnoxious walls of sound we get, the music is boring--in large part becuase it has no variance.


I do agree that too many bands now just focus on image and "being extreme metal" than on actual music. I think that's one of the most obvious signs of a poseur, actually. They're afraid to experiment or try anything even slightly different. They're only idea of experimentation or difference is clean vocals "because that'll so totally blow their mind to hear clean vocals in this kind of music!!!"

What precludes brutality, tempo changes?

And I didn't say Altars of Madness isn't brutal. And it isn't as brutal due to... just ask the question: which one sounds more like brutal death?

Since when did being brutal equal being interesting? I'm not sure if you were implying that, but I don't necessarily correlate brutality with something good.

Well, I've once been told that some unidentifiable Math-core band is, "More brutal and intelligent than that pussy faggot stuff like Sabbath," if that counts.

But, as for the bands, I'd think that a fundamental understanding of your choice genre, including the ability to identify it, would be requisite to being able to play it at all, for a number of reasons.

That's not what music is about.

What is music about, then?

This thought occured to me after an experience I had with a certain brutal death metal band which will go unnamed because i don't wanna stir any shit up with them.

It started at a party where a rather popular brutal death metal band were at and we were flipping through the channels and landed on headbangers ball. An Obituary video was playing and I was totally into it. This band says "that's not even death metal" and I just sat there trying not to laugh. Later that night I played some of my cds which included early Entombed and Grave and Nocturnus "The Key" and all of those were considered not death metal by this band.

Ok, the question is, is it possible that some of these new bands who just jumped on the bandwagon in the last few years are clueless on what death metal is all about? How can you say that Nocturnus, Grave, Entombed and Obituary are not death metal? Just wondering if anyone had an opinion on this of have encountered anything like this before.

Edit: It doesn't have to be death metal, I just used that example because of my experience.

Who says what's real metal?

What makes the people of this board's view of what is real metal true? Who's to say those mallcore kids aren't true? Just because we think they're idiots doesn't mean they do. Obviously they think they're right, and we are idiots, who's to say who's right?

MUSIC

1. an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

In Adam MacGregor's definition, "the blast-beat generally comprises a repeated, sixteenth-note figure played at a very fast tempo, and divided uniformly among the kick drum, snare and ride, crash, or hi-hat cymbal."[1] Blast beats have been described as "maniacal percussive explosions, less about rhythm per se than sheer sonic violence".

As a young metal head (18), I can attest to the general view that 'm0ar Br00tal = m0ar \m/3tAL' - as this seems to be the case with the majority of people who I have had the misfortune of meeting in lines for gigs. The public is ignorant and this new generation of MTV listening 'metal heads' (if the word is at all appropriate) is the reason metalcore and deathcore are so popular. No attention is payed to the deepth of the scene of any metal sub genre. Deaths roots in bands like Obituary, Death and Entombed are forgotten, and bands like Sabbath and Maiden rarely gain much attention at all. While everyone needs a way into more extreme metal and I personally loath the type of elitism of some more 'kvlt' members of the metal community, I can see this as a response to what seems to be the pollution of the metal ideal and the roots of the genre.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have seen the future and it is bleak.

Okay, I take back the "definitely" part. My brain is exploding with the question of "what is rock?"

Who says what's real metal?

What makes the people of this board's view of what is real metal true? Who's to say those mallcore kids aren't true? Just because we think they're idiots doesn't mean they do. Obviously they think they're right, and we are idiots, who's to say who's right?

Try asking Judas Preist and Deep Purple if modern metalheads are out of touch with REAL metal.

I don't know about asking Priest about that, becuase Halford has said in interviews that some of his favorite modern bands are 3 Inches of Blood, Dimmu Borgir, and Bullet for My Valentine....