I've been on a big lead bass kick lately. From fusion greats like Gary Willis to a tech death god like Dominic Lapointe or the unsung prog metal hero that is Andreas Blomqvist of Seventh Wonder, I've really been loving the instrument these days. It occurred to me though - do any metal albums exist where the bass guitar gets as many (or close to as many) actual solos as the lead guitarist gets? Most metal bands that happen to have virtuoso bassists usually only give them a proper lead section maybe twice an album at most.

So yeah, I'm looking for recommendations of metal bands/albums with generally heroic bassists who get as many opportunities as possible to shine. I'm open to any subgenre but my general preference would be for something fairly precise and "modern" sounding I guess. Anything prog or death metal related is usually an easy win for me but feel free to recommend outside of those as well. A few examples of bands who's bass playing I dig (besides the ones I mentioned last paragraph) are as follows: Martyr, Cynic, Atheist, Alarum, Cryptopsy, Watchtower, Cannibal Corpse (especially on The Bleeding) Suffocation, anything with Steve DiGiorgio, Gorguts, Faith No More, Timi Hansen era Mercyful Fate, Iron Maiden ofc, Obscura etc.

Not my usual cup of tea (not a big fan of tech death) but in Pavor's second album Furioso the bass player is shredding all over the place and the lead spots are fairly frequent: you may be interested!

If i remember well the bass was super frontal and fairly crazy also in the only Spiral Architect album

of course if it doesn't necessarily have to be metal, you could always just go for some primus

Wow that Pavor album was nuts! Definitely the kind of thing I'm looking for, that's gotta be some of the most acrobatic bass playing I've heard recently. Most of the actual solos were a bit on the short side but still made a strong impression. The album as a whole was really good too, even if some of the songs felt a bit long.

I've only heard the first song from that Gotsu Totsu Kotsu album so far but it sounds close to what I'm thinking of as well. From that song alone the bass gets a BIT buried at times but those slap bits were cool. I'll be checking out Spiral Architect soon too since I've now put off listening to them for close to a decade. Thanks for the recs guys!

StarGazer comes to mind. Damon Good from Mournful Congregation lays down some sick fretless bass lines with StarGazer.

https://youtu.be/dQBicrqRKvk

Try out Sadist, from Italy. They have a lot of prominent bass parts - check out their latest, "Hyaena", or "Season In Silence", but most of their stuff is good (except "Lego").

Necromantia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3_kbY5LwY

They use 8-String Bass.
Not many Black Metal Bands do this.

Scarlet Evil Witching Black is one of the best black metal albums ever. Good call.

Sieges Even - Life Cycle
Tempest - Annihilation of the Wicked
Joey Tafolla - Infra-Blue

Recommend this song and this album as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAmzleslgxw

Some great recs so far guys. I'm still working through them but the Spiral Architect album definitely scratches the right itch, super creative playing on that one. The Sieges Even debut was pretty killer too, I wouldn't have guessed Oliver Holzwarth had that level of skills just from knowing him as the fill-in guy for Blind Guardian.

I'm already familiar with Sadist, but I've only heard the Tribe album so I'll have to check out the ones you suggested. I recall the bass playing on the Tribe album being pretty great but if I recall correctly most of their other albums have a different player. I'm listening to that Master tune atm too and this guy has tremendous bass tone as well. Quite a hidden gem discovery really.

So far most of these recs are more about busy sounding bass lines rather than full out solos in every song, but this is still filling out my knowledge of lead bass-centric bands so keep 'em coming.

Viraemia
First Fragment
Archspire
Intronaut

obligatory mention: https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Ba ... ers/116964

Have you listened to Manowar? (I see it's not mentioned here…)
Albums like https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/M ... mer/528690 and https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/M ... Steel/1133 have a good presence of bass, Joey DeMaio is really proficient with it and he is also the songwriter usually, and there are bass solos sometimes (and in particular, Thunderpick from Sign of the Hammer is 100% bass solo)

i second primus

also cliff burton, roger patterson (earlier atheist), the guy from death's individual thought patterns (ha), phil lynott (bass solos while the rest of the song goes on), or maybe some 70's prog/fusion jazz/rock like those mc laughlin albums with jacos pastorious

Not the exact definition of metal by the MA standards but Jinjer has a kick ass bass player and he stands out far more than the guitar.

The new Havok record only has like 1 or 2 bass solos but he bass is fucking insane throughout the entire thing

Continuo renacer is certainly one to check out

Pretty much every song on Alhambra's debut has a bass solo. Munehisa Jinbo is an absolute madman.

Also, Unexpect have some of the most impressive basswork I've heard in metal, though I'm not sure if it'd be considered outright soloing due to the nature of the band.