Heavy Metal

[Fortis]

Classics of death metal:




Modern day death metal I've been digging:





Do you guys dig death metal? I feel like it's one of those genrees that undergoes a massive change every 2-3 years. Deathcore was one of the most recently death metal shapeshifts. It was annoying at first but really grew on me.

I don't get to often hit up a real death metal concert too often. Vaun, you're into DM, right?

 

[Vaun]

I don't get to often hit up a real death metal concert too often. Vaun, you're into DM, right?

I am man, I have been a fan for over 30 years. I just didnt keep up with it over the years. I am a guitarist and a lot of my music selections are driven by what I like to play, at a time as a teen it was death metal. Between '88-91, I saw a lot of shows like Napalm Death, Slayer, Sacred Reich, Corrosion of Conformity, Sepultura, Iced Earth, etc. I am blown away at how technical the music has progressed over the years.

 

[Fortis]

I don't get to often hit up a real death metal concert too often. Vaun, you're into DM, right?

I am man, I have been a fan for over 30 years. I just didnt keep up with it over the years. I am a guitarist and a lot of my music selections are driven by what I like to play, at a time as a teen it was death metal. Between '88-91, I saw a lot of shows like Napalm Death, Slayer, Sacred Reich, Corrosion of Conformity, Sepultura, Iced Earth, etc. I am blown away at how technical the music has progressed over the years.

Same dude. Didn't know you played guitar. Do you play often? I started about 9 years ago. Really helped me develop my understanding of music. I definitely "hear" things now. Before learning music, metal was just cacophony.

 

[UroboricForms]

Gorguts and (old) Cryptopsy are awesome. The Canadians have a really unique and impressive way of doing things.



this is one of my favourite albums (and band) ever. Riffs, solos, and fretless bass are just astonishing. I recently caught the official tribute act Death To All featuring former members (inc Steve Digiorgio and Gene Hoglan from this album) and it was a blast, the guy pretending to be Chuck was pretty good, awesome to get to hear those songs played live.

 

[Vaun]

I don't get to often hit up a real death metal concert too often. Vaun, you're into DM, right?

I am man, I have been a fan for over 30 years. I just didnt keep up with it over the years. I am a guitarist and a lot of my music selections are driven by what I like to play, at a time as a teen it was death metal. Between '88-91, I saw a lot of shows like Napalm Death, Slayer, Sacred Reich, Corrosion of Conformity, Sepultura, Iced Earth, etc. I am blown away at how technical the music has progressed over the years.

Same dude. Didn't know you played guitar. Do you play often? I started about 9 years ago. Really helped me develop my understanding of music. I definitely "hear" things now. Before learning music, metal was just cacophony.

yup, metal was a big part of that too. In the 80's it was all about being technical, that sort of went by the wayside in the 90's when everything went full PC, but now I see more amazingly technical metal guitarists than there ever were before.

 

[Fortis]

Oh man, everyone is tech right now. It's a good and a bad thing. I have a friend in a respected death metal band, and he says that he can't compete on that playing field, so he focuses on developing special techniques that make his own style more pronounced. It's an interesting theory.

Me? I just dick around on the guitar and try to play my favorite songs. I don't want to join a band or anything.

 

[Vaun]

Oh man, everyone is tech right now. It's a good and a bad thing. I have a friend in a respected death metal band, and he says that he can't compete on that playing field, so he focuses on developing special techniques that make his own style more pronounced. It's an interesting theory.

Me? I just dick around on the guitar and try to play my favorite songs. I don't want to join a band or anything.

yeah, its a beautiful thing, people taking their abilities to the absolute edge. It only progresses music as a whole. We had a devolution in the '90's when everything became so PC and metal was sneered at, then went more underground. People(like me) started getting away from soloing and into more bland alternative music. I went through a jazz phase and I think I am better for it. Had the trajectory kept going as a strongly from the 80's to now, I would like to think we would be in a completely different place.

 

[Lochte]

Mastodon is beautiful.

Animals as Leaders and Protest the Hero are my favorite of newer bands, though the latter is a bit on the left lyrically

 

[quino_16]

Any fans of Deicide? They kinda went of the rails lately. However, their first two albums are masterpieces of death metal.

 

[quino_16]

Any thrash fans? this is one of my favourite albums

Yup. Slayer, Sepultura and Metallica are probably my favorite thrash bands. Have you heard of Morbid Saint? They're a great band.

 

[TravelerKai]

Mastodon is beautiful.

Animals as Leaders and Protest the Hero are my favorite of newer bands, though the latter is a bit on the left lyrically

Animals as Leaders are bad fucking ass! 8 string guitar for the win!

 

[UroboricForms]

Any fans of Deicide? They kinda went of the rails lately. However, their first two albums are masterpieces of death metal.

Hell yes, Legion in particular is beyond savage. Not as catchy as the debut but a doubly intense in every way. IMO that was the last really great one they did, there's one or 2 good albums following that (Serpents of the Light for example) but these days they are just horrendous.

Any thrash fans? this is one of my favourite albums

Yup. Slayer, Sepultura and Metallica are probably my favorite thrash bands. Have you heard of Morbid Saint? They're a great band.

Yep, gotta love that classic no-nonsense brutal thrash style. Beneath the Remains from Sepultura is probably the apex of the genre imo. Morbid Saint is crucial listening too. Another big favourite of mine is Demolition Hammer's Tortured Existence album. I do love more experimental thrash like Voivod but for pure raw aggression nothing gets the job done like Beneath the Remains.

 

[Fortis]

I like Animals as Leaders, but I think that the project sometimes tries for too much and falls a little flat. Tosin is quite the guitarist, though. He will probably be one of the greatest guitarists out there if he manages to avoid the usual pitfalls that kill virtuosos: shitty management, lazy record labels, debt, drugs, alcohol or divorce rape.

I have a friend who is close with some people in that circle, so I often hear a lot of the metal gossip. Ha. Not much dirt on Tosin that strikes me particularly believable. Apparently, he has a big ego, but I don't see that as much of a character fault. I'm not paying him to be nice to me. I just want him to shred like an animal.

Speaking of awesome metal guitarists, I've always been partial to this man:

He's not exactly a shredder, but I think he's always writing the sorts of riffs I enjoy:

 

[TravelerKai]

I've heard Tosin is cocky too, but what musicians at that level of elite skillet isn't? Victor Wooten is egotistical as well. If people called you the Michael Jordan of the bass guitar, you probably would too.

They are both extremely meticulous in their preparation and as a result they become self aware of how good they are.

 

[UroboricForms]

I've seen Gorguts live and spent a few minutes chatting to Lemay. Great guy. They're probably my favourite death metal band, the show was just blindingly good.

 

[Fortis]

I'm not against it. I'm not paying these guys to be nice. I'm paying them money to be awesome musicians. If a guy is feeling himself because he's good I'm all for it. Humility is a good value, but I do think a lot of guys just use it as an excuse to underachieve and be pussies.

All that said, I have yet to meet Wooten or Abasi, so I can't actually say any of that is true. If a metal guitarist is able to draw in crowds on his name alone, that is a really wonderful thing.Making it in metal takes pro-management skills, raw talent and a pair of brassy balls. These labels don't play around and have taken bands down with debt. What makes it even worse is that the genre is glutted with a lot of talentless hacks, so it's so hard to be heard. I knew this one band that stole another bands entire album and put it on their Soundcloud as though it were their own. It's a grimy genre if you're not really about it.

One of my favorite bands from about 10 years ago !T.O.O.H.! Originally broke up because Eachache (I think) records debt raped them when they were young and inexperienced in the music industry. I'm sure a ton of other bands I liked went that route as well.

 

[Honorable Man]

I like System of a Down, Mastodon, and Queens of the Stone Age. Outside of that, I don't find the genre to hook me in a significant way. Maybe if I played guitar this would be different, but I'm too biased towards a focus on melody.

 

[TravelerKai]

I like System of a Down, Mastodon, and Queens of the Stone Age. Outside of that, I don't find the genre to hook me in a significant way. Maybe if I played guitar this would be different, but I'm too biased towards a focus on melody.

Queens of the stone age are not heavy metal. Maybe not even metal at all. More like hard Rock, like. Disturbed. System of a down probably as well. Mastodon is heavy metal though.

 

[aphelion]

Gothic metal is the pinnacle of metal. I appreciate lots of forms of metal, but nothing does it for me like the beauty and the beast stuff. Theatre of Tragedy, The Sins of Thy Beloved, Even Song, Nightwish, Therion, Tristania, list goes on.



I'm heading to Amsterdam in October for the Femme Metal Event. Possibly the single hottest lineup I've ever seen, and I'm not talking about looks. Lacuna Coil, Therion, Tristania, Draconian, Visions of Atlantis, Xandria, are you kidding me. Plus some stuff I never even heard of before.

 

[Vitriol]

Gothic metal is the pinnacle of metal. I appreciate lots of forms of metal, but nothing does it for me like the beauty and the beast stuff. Theatre of Tragedy, The Sins of Thy Beloved, Even Song, Nightwish, Therion, Tristania, list goes on.

I'm heading to Amsterdam in October for the Femme Metal Event. Possibly the single hottest lineup I've ever seen, and I'm not talking about looks. Lacuna Coil, Therion, Tristania, Draconian, Visions of Atlantis, Xandria, are you kidding me. Plus some stuff I never even heard of before.

Lacuna Coil's Comalies and Therion's Vovin are probably two of my favorite albums of all time. However, I think most of the bands you mentioned were putting out their best stuff in the 90s and early 2000s. I really liked the first few albums from both Tristania and Theatre of Tragedy, but they changed around their members and their newer stuff is pretty much unlistenable to me. Theatre of Tragedy used to sound almost like Candlemass, then they went all techno-pop. Nightwish went from having lots of classical influence and shredding to basically being a rock'n'roll band. Therion was death metal, then they gradually started to add classical influences and opera singers, now they've kind of went off the deep end on the last couple of albums, etc.