Metal in the Modern day

[Sheol]

On 11/1/2021 at 3:00 AM, NokturnalBoredom said:

Hopefully it does not combine the mumble-rap trend with metal to create a sort of Nu-Metal 2.0

Gee, thanks for that nightmare vision.

I agree, mumble rap is the dumbest fucking thing I've heard. I even have a hard time with Jay-Z because he doesn't. Fucking. Enunciate!

Anyways, it's clear that what's "modern" is very dependent on your age group. In some circles of Instagram vinyl community there's a huge nostalgia for what they refer to as the "MySpace bands", usually being mathcore/grind/deathcore bands I've never heard of but obviously were instrumental in shaping those guys lives. I'm guessing they're 10-15 years younger than me so that checks out. Same with all the djent and deathcore bands who have now kind of grown up and are seen the same way we regard Morbid Angel and Entombed, i.e. foundational classic bands. So Vildhjärta, Whitechapel and Fit for an autopsy are now "legacy bands" according to today's 25-30 year olds, and Lorna Shore is the saviors of metal. 🤷‍♂️

[Dead1]

I prefer white.  Easier on these old eyes.

[NokturnalBoredom]

3 hours ago, Sheol said:

I agree, mumble rap is the dumbest fucking thing I've heard.

It's dumb because it's not hip-hop. Hip-hop depends entirely on words & the voice, the words and the voice are to hip-hop what the guitar is to metal. When you aren't actually saying words but just making a noise, you're not truly making hip-hop, you're just making noise that you call hip-hop in an attempt to get credibility. But that garbage becomes popular because of the people who make it, making TikToks of themselves taking dangerous drugs and naming themselves "Lil Xanax/oxy/fent/whatever"... and most of the time they're suburban white kids who don't know anything about urban life, or if they live in a city, it's the gentrified section of LA or Brooklyn.

And I'm not one of these "Can't spell Crap without rap" clowns, because I legitimately like Notorious BIG, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Common, Mos Def, and others.

 

 

3 hours ago, Sheol said:

So Vildhjärta, Whitechapel and Fit for an autopsy are now "legacy bands" according to today's 25-30 year olds, and Lorna Shore is the saviors of metal.

That's hilarious and just goes to show that this generation has no appreciation for anything that came before it. To me a legacy band is like Bathory or Mercyful fate. Emperor hasn't done anything besides concerts for twenty years and I still consider them to be a "current" band and not a "legacy" act. Social media has made it so that people only care about what's "current" and if there's one thing I know about what's "current", it's usually garbage. Some "current" bands are good (Witchtrap) but most "current" bands, especially what's coming out of my country (America) is trend-following auditory fecal matter. And these kids get really pissed off when you say that you don't do "trendy" because they have no identities of their own, their identities and tastes are totally dependent on what is "trending" on social media. They have no originality & no appreciation for anything that was once original at a time, so while I think that metal will not die, and that there are kids now who will make good metal, I'd still prefer to listen to the stuff I was listening to as a young adult or discovering bands I might have missed from that time period.

[v-metalman]

When I was a teenager, nightwish was very popular and brought many pupils to other metal bands and styles. I don't know if there is anything like that now. It would be nice. I started a metal band myself this year (due to Corona-Lockdwon and missing alternatives...) in the melodic/traditional area and we have a few listeners (anyway we have very few) who also listen to electronic or even rap - and at least with rap I can't do anything at all. The communication makes our (female) singer there, but there is certainly a group that does not really belong to the metalheads, but also listens to metal - and I don't mean Hard-Rock and ballads, but really Metal like thrash metal. What surprised us a bit is that you find so few bands in the metal area like us. If you search for #Metal on Soundcloud, for example, you'll find mostly death/black metal. So if you start from the side of the musicians, then this style must be incredibly popular. But I do not know about the listeners...

 

 

[Dead1]

Local scene was moribund before COVID due to lack of new bands.  And that's not just metal but hard rock and punk.  In fact only active rock bands are 1950s-60s cover bands whose members are generally over 50.

My niece's generation (born 2004) just doesn't do distorted guitar music and my own generation is busy with kids and family.  

[v-metalman]

Well, this is probably an overgeneralization. There are quite some new Metal/Hard Rock bands and young Metalheads. We have some bands in Germany, I am also in one project and plan to present some songs here one day. But they are rather unknown, only known for a little, often local audience. If you look at soundcloud, you find everything, every style, every kind of quality, from very professional good songs with good audio quality which are as good as the bands that really earn the money to really bad songs and poor audio quality. However, since there are so many, you have to look a while to find what you like. But I am sure every one here can find bands there which s/he likes - new bands, new Metal bands or whatever. Heavy Metal is rather commercial, but not for younger bands. And not every Metalhead of the "older" generation is interested in new Metal bands. They have their old bands and are happy. So it is not just the bands, it is also the audience and the quantitiy of bands which might result in what you feel as "lack of new bands". The bands are there, but they hardly can reach their audience.

And true, there are many cover bands, also really good ones. I saw Motörizer a few years ago, a German Motöthead-cover and it was absolutely worth it. I never saw Motörhead live, too bad - and now it is not possible anymore, but they did a good job, they did Motörhead all honor. Maybe that they are over 50, perhaps only over 40, I do not know, but it was a good show.

[Sheol]

On 12/15/2021 at 10:48 PM, Dead1 said:

Local scene was moribund before COVID due to lack of new bands.  And that's not just metal but hard rock and punk.  In fact only active rock bands are 1950s-60s cover bands whose members are generally over 50.

My niece's generation (born 2004) just doesn't do distorted guitar music and my own generation is busy with kids and family.  

Yeah, but I'm guessing you're talking about the loval Tasmanian scene? I can imagine that the mentality and audience support for metal is a bit different on an island that neighbours another much larger landmass. I'm guessing many 20 somethings move to study abroad, and those who stay might not be metalheads to begin with. Just guessing here.

There are tons of new bands releasing things everyday in every genre of metal and many of them are indeed young. Maybe not teenagers, but def in their 20's. I mean, Tribulation was in 18 when they started, Worm (US) early 20's, Blood Incantion guys were all early 20's when they started 2011, and now they're one of the largest, most respected death metal bands in the underground. There's growth, you just need to look

[Dead1]

4 hours ago, Sheol said:

Yeah, but I'm guessing you're talking about the loval Tasmanian scene? I can imagine that the mentality and audience support for metal is a bit different on an island that neighbours another much larger landmass. I'm guessing many 20 somethings move to study abroad, and those who stay might not be metalheads to begin with. Just guessing here.

There are tons of new bands releasing things everyday in every genre of metal and many of them are indeed young. Maybe not teenagers, but def in their 20's. I mean, Tribulation was in 18 when they started, Worm (US) early 20's, Blood Incantion guys were all early 20's when they started 2011, and now they're one of the largest, most respected death metal bands in the underground. There's growth, you just need to look

Was talking purely about Tassie scene.

 

There used to be a healthy scene but the number of active bands has collapsed.  As a friend of mine who is in one of only two remaining active metal band in Launceston (populatipn 70,000+) there are not enough bands to warrant holding gigs too often.  There are vorutqlly no really active bands in any other part of the state save Gape snd Psycroptic  in Hobart 

 

Hard rock scene is even worse - both are dead with no active bands despite there used to being over jalf a dozen active hard rock bands in the city at any one time.

[v-metalman]

Sorry, but I do not understand - perhaps because English is not my native language - or because I am not informed about it...What is "Tassie scene"?

In generel, there a lot Bands of all kinds, as Sheol wrote, also Hard Rock, Rock and Roll...but you are talking about Tassie scene - you are talking about ...what?

[FatherAlabaster]

3 minutes ago, v-metalman said:

Sorry, but I do not understand - perhaps because English is not my native language - or because I am not informed about it...What is "Tassie scene"?

In generel, there a lot Bands of all kinds, as Sheol wrote, also Hard Rock, Rock and Roll...but you are talking about Tassie scene - you are talking about ...what?

Tassie is short for the island of Tasmania, which is south of mainland Australia.

[v-metalman]

Oh, thank you!...so my post was inappropriate...I thought Dead1 was talking in general...now I see, he starts with "Local scene...".

Thanks!

[AlSymerz]

Tassie is the place on the other side of the big moat at the bottom of Australia. All the residents are inbred and have two heads. Only the ones that can swim strongly escape and the tide takes their second head if they reach the mainland.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Amanda Palmer - Map of Tasmania

if it gets too bushy you can trim

[AlSymerz]

Or invite someone else in to do the yard work.

[Sheol]

13 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Amanda Palmer - Map of Tasmania

if it gets too bushy you can trim

I can see why Neil Gaiman married her, she's cool as hell.

[singhkamleshh01]

I found a great recommendation for Dead but he will probably trash it. Have to pull that up and post it, but it had a blend of Pantera, AiC and others, done pretty well. 

 

vidmate  mobdro

[SurgicalBrute]

Next time use reverse psychology and say it's terrible. If nothing else, he'll force himself to enjoy it just to be contrarian 😁

[RelentlessOblivion]

I’ll be the 1st to admit I’m far from up to date with the new releases But from what I’ve heard modern metal is far from dying out.I suppose it reay depends what you’re looking for, and what you interpret as being modern. Vektor and Black Fast are doing good things with their own versions of modern blackened thrash, and I’m sure most death metal fans are familiar with Grave Miasma and Ulcerate. I guess my point is there’s always something interesting going on, it just takes more work to find these days.

[AlSymerz]

With the number of bands claiming they are doing 'old school' metal new school stuff must be dead

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

Honestly I think the old-school claim is mostly marketing. Unless you’re blatantly ripping off what’s gone before of course which is always boring.

[AlSymerz]

For sure, but I also think it's a consumer driven marketing. Look at the numbers of people who say things like "I haven't listen to 'X' since the 80's", or "'Y' hasn't released a good album since their sophomore album 30 years ago," or just simply, "That genre has been dead since the 90's". Whether people actually want it today or not they are saying they liked old school stuff better. It goes for nearly every genre and it's a conversation played out every day on forums across the world. Why wouldn't labels and bands market themselves in the old school group in the hope that some of those older fans pick them up.

There is a YT channel titled "Old School Thrash Metal" or something like that. 90% of the bands might have some elements of the 80's thrash metal scene but they certainly aren't all old school, they also aren't all thrash and they aren't all very good, but jumping on an established marketing wagon doesn't hurt.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

It does make sense however I’m weary of people complaining that nothing new or interesting is happening in modern metal, then in the next sentence deepthroating their favourite new band that is imitating older bands.

[SurgicalBrute]

3 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Honestly I think the old-school claim is mostly marketing

Not entirely...I mean, it's definitely getting slapped onto every genre these days, so I don't completely disagree, but "old-school" death metal actually did serve a purpose. There are a fair number of death metal bands out there, like Aeon or Abysmal Dawn who aren't technical enough to reasonably be called tech-death, but they do have a noticeably cleaner, more precise (i.e. modern) approach to their music and their production...not to mention those damn clicky drums that sound like a kid with a baseball card tied in the spokes of his bike wheel. So when the whole retro-death metal trend was really starting to get moving around '09 or '10, you needed some way to differentiate between the two approaches

[GoatmasterGeneral]

13 hours ago, singhkamleshh01 said:

I found a great recommendation for Dead but he will probably trash it. Have to pull that up and post it, but it had a blend of Pantera, AiC and others, done pretty well. 

Deadovic trashes everything, it's kinda become his signature. Don't take it personally.

 

While I do use it myself, I think 'modern metal' is a much dumber phrase than 'old school.'

[AlSymerz]

3 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

It does make sense however I’m weary of people complaining that nothing new or interesting is happening in modern metal, then in the next sentence deepthroating their favourite new band that is imitating older bands.

Anyone deepthroating any band ought to be laughed at

 

 

Old metal = rusty

Modern metal = soft

Future metal = plastic