Hello

[folk]

I listen to many kinds of music and from the metal genre I like mostly power metal , I'm from southern Europe, I joined the forum because I'm looking for new and old metal music that I'm not aware of yet

[Arioch]

Hello and welcome! I'm from France

[Serpentboi1992]

https://thundershield.bandcamp.com/album/thundershield if you like power metal, you gotta check out thundershield 🤘

[folk]

Nice to meet you both and thanks for the recommendation

[Nasty_Cabbage]

Hello. I skew a little toward the rawer side of the heavy/power metal myself, but when I do find myself wanting something bombastic you really can't beat the Europeans. American power bands seem to have a hard time shaking off the blues influence.

[Dead1]

I like 1990s/early 2000s power metal (Tad Morose, Angel Dust, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Gamma Ray, Helloween) but the 21st century has seen so many power metal bands either turn to total cheese or become derivative.

[folk]

8 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I like 1990s/early 2000s power metal (Tad Morose, Angel Dust, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Gamma Ray, Helloween) but the 21st century has seen so many power metal bands either turn to total cheese or become derivative.

Music in general has become worse than what it was in the 90s and 00s and I'm sure this is the case for metal music too. I have listen to most of the bands you mentioned, Blind Guardian is my favorite and the album The Dark Ride from Helloween has great songs that I have listen to a lot

9 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Hello. I skew a little toward the rawer side of the heavy/power metal myself, but when I do find myself wanting something bombastic you really can't beat the Europeans. American power bands seem to have a hard time shaking off the blues influence.

You are right about the blues influence in the American music, I have noticed it too, I tend to listen more European bands than American but I also like collaborations from both sides of the Atlantic like Demons and Wizards

[RelentlessOblivion]

Metal’s quality is arguably the same now as it always has been. I.e excellent albums if you know wheook, mediocre if you stay within the large labels.

 

Re power metal Persuader, particularly Evolution Purgatory, sound similar to the more energetic BG songs. Steel Attack’s Diabolic Symphony is well worth hearing too if you dig your power metal on the darker side, some exceptions. Satan’s Host’s By the Hands of the Devil also for dark power metal.e to li

[folk]

20 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Metal’s quality is arguably the same now as it always has been. I.e excellent albums if you know wheook, mediocre if you stay within the large labels.

 

Re power metal Persuader, particularly Evolution Purgatory, sound similar to the more energetic BG songs. Steel Attack’s Diabolic Symphony is well worth hearing too if you dig your power metal on the darker side, some exceptions. Satan’s Host’s By the Hands of the Devil also for dark power metal.e to li

Thanks for the recommendations

[Dead1]

13 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Metal’s quality is arguably the same now as it always has been. I.e excellent albums if you know wheook, mediocre if you stay within the large labels.

 

 

I would disagree but with a bit of context.  Most modern metal albums aren't memorable.  If they were released in 1989 or 1991 they would have been mediocre or just crap.  The underground is oversaturated in third rate increases.

Most of the genres are well exhausted in terms of what can be done.  

I don't hear much memorable stuff being down nowadays in genres I follow closely.

One reason I started that 2010s DM thread is because other than a small number of exceptions, most DM I hear these days is unoriginal, unmemorable, sterile etc.  And despite listening to a couple of albums from those lists, most are indeed unoriginal, unmemorable, sterile.

Thrash, heavy, grind, groove and power metal are the same or even worse. 

 

A lot of it is fine for a one off listen but there's nothing to grab me coming back for 2nds let alone purchasing a CD or record.

 

Just my $0.02.

 

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

12 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

 

I would disagree but with a bit of context.  Most modern metal albums aren't memorable.  If they were released in 1989 or 1991 they would have been mediocre or just crap.  The underground is oversaturated in third rate increases.

Most of the genres are well exhausted in terms of what can be done.  

I don't hear much memorable stuff being down nowadays in genres I follow closely.

One reason I started that 2010s DM thread is because other than a small number of exceptions, most DM I hear these days is unoriginal, unmemorable, sterile etc.  And despite listening to a couple of albums from those lists, most are indeed unoriginal, unmemorable, sterile.

Thrash, heavy, grind, groove and power metal are the same or even worse. 

 

A lot of it is fine for a one off listen but there's nothing to grab me coming back for 2nds let alone purchasing a CD or record.

 

Just my $0.02.

 

But that was also the case in the early 2000s, the 90’s, the 80s, we’ve always had to wade through the crap to find diamonds in the rough. That was kind of my point, and taste is subjective as we see all the time here.

 

[Dead1]

Actually in the 1980s and 1990s the scene was much much smaller.  Most true crap stayed in the garage or didn't progress past demos recorded on cassette players (except Vio-Lence) because they couldn't afford the studio time let alone access distribution systems.

 

Today internet allows anyone to record a "professional album" and distribute it globally.

So you didn't have to look deep to get quality.  Death, Morbid Angel, Carcass or Slayer, Kreator or Death Angel or Napalm Death were all churning out good albums.  They were underground for the day but quickly fit into what I call "submainstream" ie music just below mainstream consciousness.

There were some good bands in the underground too but they're actually quite few.  I mean death metal got oversaturated with a few hundred bands, whereas today there's thousands!

 

The mid-late 1990s metal scene was even smaller than the 1989-93 period with the genre collapsing (no, I don't think numetal was metal). Literally nearly all the 1980s bands sold out or mainly broke up.

So you really had to dig to get these but note there was no mainstream or submainstream left (save Pantera) in those days.  But as soon as you hit some fleck of gold, it was pretty good stuff eg Dark Tranquility or Nevermore or Cryptopsy.

Agree on 2000s already getting oversaturated - I near lost my love of metal cause I was hosting a 3 hour radio show and got sick of trawling through hundreds of underground and submainstream albums to find something new that was interesting.

 

Today the sub-mainstream is crap ie Nuclear Blast/Century Media but polished to mainstream levels - given the vagaries of modern music market they are now they go for safe easy cash flow releases. 

Even stuff I enjoy ala Enforced doesn't really have the same level song writing and memorability of 1980s.

 

A lot of the underground is the same eg try to find say 5 memorable albums in this lot:

https://www.youtube.com/@NWOOSTM/videos

 

There still is good music out there but given number of bands it's difficult to find them.  It's a chore actually

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

I was just coming to basically say that, but Blivvie has beaten me to it. Most albums suck now, most of 'em sucked then, that's nothing new. There are a lot more albums released these days so it's possible that the percentage of good ones to bad could be a bit lower overall. But still it's pretty clear that the majority of us have no trouble finding a fair number new bands/albums that please us each year.

I personally think the 2010's was the best decade for death metal. (and for black metal as well) Not saying that all these more recent 21st century abums are perfect or without flaws, and it's true the modern digital production can leave a lot to be desired, especially on most major label stuff. (avoid major labels) But the production on most death metal albums has always left a lot to be desired even back in the 90's, and many of those older albums had all kinds of other problems and imperfections as well. The truly superior albums in any era have always represented the very tip of the iceberg.

I really think you (Deadovic) have over-inflated the quality of some of these older "classic" albums in your mind and have become predisposed to not like newer stuff simply because it's newer and more derivative and you detest the modern production. Which means a new album would have to be like three times as good as an older one just to crack your roatation these days.

Fair enough if that's how you feel, we all have our own specific taste in death metal that's unique to ourseves. But I really think you're asking too much from and being a bit hard on some of these contemporary upstart bands whose only crime was being born too late to get in on all the original early 90's action when all these extreme metal sub-genres were new, fresh and exciting and were enjoying their hey-days. If you're seeking and possibly even demanding absolute perfection, if your bar is honestly set that impossibly high, then it's no wonder you're probably never going to find much if anything "worthy" that can clear it.

51 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

So you didn't have to look deep to get quality.  Death, Morbid Angel, Carcass or Slayer, Kreator or Death Angel or Napalm Death were all churning out good albums.  They were underground for the day but quickly fit into what I call "submainstream" ie music just below mainstream consciousness.

There were some good bands in the underground too but they're actually quite few. 

There still is good music out there but given number of bands it's difficult to find them. It's a chore actually

Aside from Napalm Death and early Slayer (first 4 albums only) I don't think any of those bands you just listed represent anything even remotely approaching the best in their sub-genres. Particularly Morbid Angel can lick my balls. That's why these debates are so difficult, we all have such vasty different taste in what we think is good and bad. 

With few exceptions, lesser known underground shit is always going to be better than mainstream or sub-mainstream stuff. It just is. Or to put it another way, the best a sub-genre has to offer will almost never be delivered by a mainstream band. 

Yes it is a chore, but it's a fun chore. 

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I was just coming to basically say that, but Blivvie has beaten me to it. Most albums suck now, most of 'em sucked then, that's nothing new. There are a lot more albums released these days so it's possible that the percentage of good ones to bad could be a bit lower overall. But still it's pretty clear that the majority of us have no trouble finding a fair number new bands/albums that please us each year.

I personally think the 2010's was the best decade for death metal. (and for black metal as well) Not saying that all these more recent 21st century abums are perfect or without flaws, and it's true the modern digital production can leave a lot to be desired, especially on most major label stuff. (avoid major labels) But the production on most death metal albums has always left a lot to be desired even back in the 90's, and many of those older albums had all kinds of other problems and imperfections as well. The truly superior albums in any era have always represented the very tip of the iceberg.

I really think you (Deadovic) have over-inflated the quality of some of these older "classic" albums in your mind and have become predisposed to not like newer stuff simply because it's newer and more derivative and you detest the modern production. Which means a new album would have to be like three times as good as an older one just to crack your roatation these days.

Fair enough if that's how you feel, we all have our own specific taste in death metal that's unique to ourseves. But I really think you're asking too much from and being a bit hard on some of these contemporary upstart bands whose only crime was being born too late to get in on all the original early 90's action when all these extreme metal sub-genres were new, fresh and exciting and were enjoying their hey-days. If you're seeking and possibly even demanding absolute perfection, if your bar is honestly set that impossibly high, then it's no wonder you're probably never going to find much if anything "worthy" that can clear it.

Aside from Napalm Death and early Slayer (first 4 albums only) I don't think any of those bands you just listed represent anything even remotely approaching the best in their sub-genres. That's why these debates are so difficult, we all have such vasty different taste in what we think is good and bad. 

With few exceptions, lesser known underground shit is always going to be better than mainstream or sub-mainstream stuff. It just is. Or to put it another way, the best a sub-genre has to offer will almost never be delivered by a mainstream band. 

 

Here's the rub - I have listened to modern stuff a lot be it new stuff from old bands like Vader or Carcass or Iron Maiden  newer bands ala Dead Congregation, Undeath or Gatecreeper or Eternal Champion or tryinng to get bands like Sumerlands, Crystal Viper and Haunt (🤢 )

 

The new guys and old guys doing new stuff just don't write music that sticks in my head like say Morbid Angel or Carcass (favourite album being Symphonies of Sickness) or Slayer or classic Iron Maiden.

And when it comes to stuff that might be less musically memorable but more focused on aggression the new guys lack the raucous energy of the 1980-90s guys.  It's not just production, it's how they play too.  The modern guys sound too relaxed - too much dope, too many hamburgers, too much time spent in comfy chairs in front of screens, and too comfortable. 

They have no hunger and seem to rely mainly on comfortable well worn tropes.  Most of them are just happy playing the same old shit.  

You listen to From Enslavement to Obliteration or Slowly We Rot or Leprosy or Persecution Mania and these guys sound like they want to destroy the world with their music. 

It's why I am attracted to the more hardcore side of thrash, speed and death these days.  They get playing like your life matters.

 

The production doesn't help either - very often the heavy chunkiness of modern metal creates a cozy lazy cushion, even for stuff like cavernous DM.  Or it sounds like plastic shit (eg most things Nuclear Blast).

 

And to be fair the memorability of older songs is more than just production.  When new bands cover old classics, those classics stand out more than their own songs.

Oh and it gets worse with power and heavy metal.  Every single power metal band is playing one of half a dozen exhausted tropes which they then over polish to the nth degree.

And most of the heavy/power metal acts just don't how to write energetic yet memorable songs.  Your average heavy metal modern band doesn't even write songs as good as filler tracks by Iron Maiden or Helloween or Accept at their best in the 1980s. 

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Particularly Morbid Angel can lick my balls.

You might hate Morbid Angel but that's a far better emotional response that I get from most modern metal which is essentially nothing as it blurs into the background.

 

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 Yes it is a chore, but it's a fun chore. 

Fuck no.  Dunno about you but my life is busy as hell.  Some days I don't even get one hour to listen to music.  I really don't have time to trawl through say last two weeks worth of mediocre releases on New Wave Of Old School Thrash Metal (20+ albums) just to end up thinking "I really should have just chucked on some Slayer for my thrash fix.".