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11 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Yeah in the 90's metal really exploded into myriad directions. It went underground where it belongs and it flourished in the darkness even as the mainstream music media was trying to tell us all that metal was dead because Nirvana and grunge had killed it stone cold dead. Now and then you'll still hear some people claiming that bands like Metallica & Pantera were the only ones carrying the torch of metal through the dark days of the 90's. But we know that's a bunch of bullshit. In fact there was so much great 90's metal and other heavy music that I'm thinking there won't be a ton of overlap on everyone's lists like there was on the 80's lists.

By 1996-97 it was really hard to get any metal here in Tassie.  Genre felt dead at least to my eyes but that's because it had disappeared from my limited viewpoint - no more metal shirts, you couldn't buy even Iron Maiden in the CD shops  and virtually no one left to listen to metal at high school unlike in 1993 when I started and every 2nd t-shirt was a metal shirt.  Metal Hammer was the last mag you could still buy (or peruse as was my impoverished case) and they were slagging off old metal bands and praising Green Day, Public Enemy and this new bullshit like Korn.

 

And all the big names either didn't play metal anymore or had broken up. 

 

Yeah I know there was a ton of stuff that I started to discover in 1997-98 thanks to early internet and occassionally 3 Hours of Power radio show -  stuff like Dark Tranquillity, In Flames, Children Of Bodom, Iced Earth, Nevermore, Strapping Young Lad, Cryptopsy, Cradle of Filth etc.  

 

Anyway lists are hard and this will probably change by the time I've finished it and also probably forgot some stuff:

 

1980s

Accept - Restless and Wild, Balls To The Wall

Anthrax - Among the Living, State of Euphoria

Annihiator - Alice In Hell

Atheist - Piece of Time

Bathory - Blood Fire Death

Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules

Bolt Thrower - Realms of Chaos

Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness

Cnadlemass - Nightfall

Danzig - Danzig

Exciter - Violence and Force

Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Helloween - Keepers of the Seven Keys I & II

Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden, Number of the Beast, Powerslave

Kreator - Endless Pain, Pleasure to Kill

Megadeth - Peace Sells...But Who's Buying, So Far, So Good...So What

Metal Church - Metal Church, Blessing in Disguise

Metallica- Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets

Motörhead - Ace of Spades, Iron Fist, Another Perfect Day, Orgasmatron

Overkill - Years of Decay

Saxon - Wheels of Steel, Denim and Leather

Sepultura - Beneath the Remains

Slayer - Show No Mercy, Reign In Blood, South of Heaven

Stormtroopers of Death - Speak English of Die

Suicidal Tendencies - How Can I Laugh Tomorrow…When I Can't Even Smile Today

Twisted Sister - Under the Blade, You Can't Stop Rock n Roll, Stay Hungry

Venom - Black Metal, Prime Evil

WASP - WASP

1990s

Alice In Chains - Dirt

Anthrax - Persistence of Time, Sound of White Noise, Volume 8

Arch Enemy - Stigmata

Artillery - By Inheritance

At The Gates - Terminal Spirit Disease

Bathory - Hammerheart

Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side, Nightfall in Middle Earth

Bruce Dickinson - Accident of Birth, Chemical Wedding

Cancer - Death Shall Rise

Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious

Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder

Cradle of Filth - Dusk and Her Embrace, Cruelty and the Beast

Death Angel - Act III

Demons and Wizards - Demons and Wizards

Edge of Santy - Purgatory Afterglow, Crimson

Entombed - Clandestine

Fear Factory - Soul of a New Machine, Obsolete

Guns N Roses - Use Your Illusion I

Iced Earth - Night of the Stormrider, Dark Saga, Something Wicked This Way Comes

In Flames - Jester Race

Machine Head - Burn My Eyes, The More Things Change

Massacre - From Beyond

Megadeth - Rust In Peace, Youthanasia

Morbid Angel - Domination, Formulas Fatal To The Flesh

Nevermore - In Memory, Dreaming Neon Black

Overkill - Horrorscope

Pantera - Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power, Far Beyond Driven, Great Southern Trendkill

Paradise Lost - Draconian Times

Pestilence - Testimony of the Ancients

Sacred Reich - The American Way

Sepultura - Arise, Chaos AD

Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

Skyclad - Prince of the Poverty Line

Slayer - Diabolous in Musica

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger

Strapping Young Lad - City

Suicidal Tendencies - Lights, Camera, Revolution

System of a Down - System of a Down

Testament - Low

Vision of Disorder  - Imprint

2000-2009

3 Inches of Blood - Advance and Vanquish

Aborted - Archaic Abbatoir

Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

Bathory - Nordland II

Bloodbath - Resurrection Through Carnage

Bolt Thrower - Those Once Loyal

Cavalera Conspiracy - Infikted

Cradle of Filth - Midian

Darkane  - Insanity

Dark Tranquility - Damage Done

Death Angel - Art of Dying, Killing Season

Dimmu Borgir - Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia

Down - Down II: A Bustle In Your Hedgerow

Entombed - Serpent Saints

Frightmare - Bringing Back The Bloodshed

Gamma Ray - Majestic

Ghoul - Maniaxe

Gorefest - La Muerte

Hatesphere - Bloodred Hatred

High On Fire - Death Is This Communion

Iron Maiden - Brave New World, Dance of Death

Kataklysm - Shadows and Dust, Serenity In Fire

Kreator - Violent Revolution, Enemy of God

Lamb of God - As The Palaces Burn, Ashes of the Wake

Mastodon - Leviathan

Megadeth - Endgame

Motörhead - We Are Motörhead

Nevermore - Dead Heart In A Dead World, Enemies of Reality, This Godless Endeavor

Nile - Back Seeds of Vengeance, In Their Darkened Shrines

Onslaught - Killing Peace

Pantera - Reinventing the Steel

Shadows Fall - Art of Balance

Strapping Young Lad - Strapping Young Lad

The Haunted - ...Made Me Do It, One Kill Wonder, Revolver

Vital Remains - Dechristianize

2010-2022

Accept - Stalingrad

Anthrax - Worship Music

Carcass - Surgical Steel

Cattle Decapitation -Monolith of Inhumanity

Cave In - Heavy Pendulum

Clutch - Psychic Warfare

Death Angel - The Dream Calls For Blood

Enforcer - From Beyond

Havok - Conformicide

Hell - Curse and Chapter

High on Fire - Snakes For The Divine

King Parrot - Dead Set

Lamb of God - VII: Sturm Und Drang

Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun, Emperor of Sand

Midnight - Rebirth By Blasphemy

Napalm Death - Utilitarian

Nosce Teipsum - The Wait

Pig Destroyer - Book Burner

Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

Toxic Holocaust - Primal Future: 2019

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2 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

I did attempt to come up with a list, then I started sorting through my 90s albums and realised I was over 200 deep at the end of 1992 and decided this task is impossible… call me a necromancer coz i’m off to dig up the best albums by year or whatever it was called thread.

Could ya let me know what that thread is called when ya find it Blivvie? Bump it up for me or something. I was looking at the top 100 death metal albums thread yesterday and I started listing albums chronologically starting with Scream Bloody Gore 1987. I made it as far as 2016 last night, but I have like 260 albums listed already. I'll go through and finish doing the last 6 years, but by the time I'm done I figure I'll have well over 300 death metal albums with no prog anywhere in sight.

Then the real fun begins, I'll have to edit it down to maybe not 100 (which would only be like 3 albums per year) but I suppose more than half of them will have to go. Sounds impossible but it's not really, I'll just have to get into that mindset where I can let some stuff go. Gotta keep telling myself it's not like I won't be able to listen to the ones I shitcan anymore, I just don't have room for them all on my list. I can do this because if I'm being honest with myself, even though I've already tried to choose the better ones, some of them are still clearly better than others. 

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Yeah I did, didn't I. This one I'm working on now is just death metal so I think I'll try to get it down close to 100 and put it on that top 100 dm thread. I'll probably still leave it sorted by year though. Seems easier to read it that way with each year's top death metal albums in a separate paragraph. Maybe I'll post '87 through '06 and then go back to work on '07 through the present. I've decided that for me 2007 is the dividing line where the era of "modern" death metal begins. 

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25 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I've decided that for me 2007 is the dividing line where the era of "modern" death metal begins. 

Obviously there's no single right answer for this, but what makes 2007 your turning point? I'd put it earlier - maybe the late 90s, with Necrophagist putting out Onset Of Putrefaction; Cannibal Corpse leaving Morrisound for the bone dry recording on Bloodthirst; modern-sounding groups like Cephalic Carnage, Skinless, Anata, and Origin getting started or gaining steam; Bloodbath and Funebrarum forming as self-consciously retro projects; and so many bigger names from the early 90s either treading water, going in a different direction, or breaking up. Definitely by the early 2000s - ubiquitous sterile production, interchangeable vocalists, tech death and deathcore taking off.

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3 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Obviously there's no single right answer for this, but what makes 2007 your turning point? I'd put it earlier - maybe the late 90s, with Necrophagist putting out Onset Of Putrefaction; Cannibal Corpse leaving Morrisound for the bone dry recording on Bloodthirst; modern-sounding groups like Cephalic Carnage, Skinless, Anata, and Origin getting started or gaining steam; Bloodbath and Funebrarum forming as self-consciously retro projects; and so many bigger names from the early 90s either treading water, going in a different direction, or breaking up. Definitely by the early 2000s - ubiquitous sterile production, interchangeable vocalists, tech death and deathcore taking off.

I said 2007 was the dividing line "for me" I wouldn't dream of making it a definitive cutoff for anyone else. Historically I am aware that what you say is correct. I can also clearly see this from my listmaking endeavors last night that the first wave of death metal had all but flatlined by 1997. Checking my notes I actually have 0 death metal albums selected from '97 and only 2 for '98 after posting highs of 14, 19 and 17 albums each for the banner death metal years of '91, '92 and '93 respectively. Starting in '94 I came up with modest single digit totals for each year (except for the goose egg in '97) until finally in 2008 & '09 I had death metal explosions of 17 & 21 albums that I wrote down for my list. It dropped back down to 9 and 11 albums for '10 & '11 then after that it settled into a nice steady mid teens for each year after that. It's not that there were few if any death metal albums released during these years, it's just that I don't have many of whatever was released those years. Now let me explain why this is.

I'm sure you must've already read me explain how my daughter was born in 1990 so I started working two jobs when my wife went on her unpaid maternity leave, and I basically had to stop going to see metal shows regularly at that time. Also they stopped releasing a lot of things on vinyl around that time '91 or '92 and me being a stubborn vinyl holdout at that time who refused to give in to the evil corporations and buy their stupid CD's the result was I cut back drastically on my music purchases. So what happened was I totally missed the birth of the underground and the rise of death metal and black metal in real time in the early 90's. I was just too busy, and I had no live shows, no internet and no friends in the know to point me toward new bands. So I sort of became stuck in an 80's metal and thrash loop.

Then in '94 I went out over the road in the truck for weeks at a time with only a small case holding two dozen cassette tapes for my entertainment and that's basically all I listened to for a few years. The only 'new' music I had picked up by the mid 90's was some early 90's thrash by bands I already knew and trusted, and some mainstream stuff I'd heard on the radio like Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. I just randomly lucked into finding Paradise Lost on vinyl in '92 which became a huge band for me in the 90's. But almost all of my metal cassettes were holdovers from the 80's. Maybe that's why I'm so sick of a lot of 80's metal now. It wasn't until 2004 that I finally decided I needed some new music and I should look into what was happening at that time in the world of metal.

So I literally drove to Tower Records one day on a whim and just started reading all the metal magazine reviews on their rack. And then after a few hours of reading reviews I made a short list of all the strongly positive reviews that sounded the most promising, and then I walked around the store and found as many of those albums as I could. I bought myself my first ever batch of CD's that day, all by bands I had never heard of. It was a good sized haul, maybe 12 or 15 of them.

Being an old man in my 40's even back then in '04, the harsh growling vocals posed a formidable obstacle that I needed to overcome. I hadn't been expecting that nor was I in any way prepared for that. I had been into some 80's bands that had 'gruff' vocals like Motorhead, Possessed, CF and Sepultura but nothing like the full-on gutteral death growls and Blythecore screaming I was confronted with. It really came as a complete surprise to me that there was no 'singing' to be found on any of these albums. Not even a one. I remember that day very clearly. Nobody had warned me of this and I was fucking distraught that night after listening to at least some of every one of those albums that those idiot reviewers had all steered me wrong.

But then to my surprise it didn't end up taking nearly as long as I thought it would to get over it. A month maybe. Dark Tranquility's Damage Done was the first (and only one) of that first bunch of albums that hooked me, got into my head and actually made me want to go back and listen to it again. If it hadn't been for DT I might still be listening to my Celtic Frost, Overkill, Slayer and Sepultura records to this day. All the rest of the crap I had bought that day turned out to be absolute rotten garbage, which I suppose must be why I just couldn't get into any of it. ButI suppose that's what I get for listening to mainstream metal magazine writers. But I had to start somewhere and in '04 I honestly didn't know where else to start.

I figured out that DT was considered 'melodic death metal' so I started hunting down similar bands on the internet. I traded the rest of that rubbish back into the used record store for pennies on the dollar so I wouldn't have to look at it and be reminded of how much money I had wasted. Can't remember all of the other bands now 18 years later but I remember most of them. Um, Lamb of god, Mudvayne, Trivium, Shadows Fall, Himsa, Deicide, Soilwork, Chimaira, As I Lay Dying, All That Remains...it was a total shit show. But after I got into DT I used the internet to find Hypocrisy and Opeth and Insomnium and Kalmah and Bloodbath and some other bands like that. I found some 90's 'stoner rock' too because I was still an old Sabbath guy at heart. I figured out about Metal Archives and sampling shit on Youtube and about distros and how to order metal CD's online all in 2004/05.

After a couple of years of exploring around the internet I sort of naturally graduated from melodeath and more accessible commercial forms of 'extreme' metal up into some actual death metal. And then once I joined a metal forum in '07/'08 I was introduced to much more 'classic' death metal and Finnish death metal and then of course black metal too. I guess I had needed that melodeath as a bridge to get me where I needed to go, but then when I got to the other side I blew that bridge so I couldn't ever find my way  back. So '07/'08 was when I really started buying an absolute ton of death (and then black) metal, both new releases as well as older 90's stuff I had missed. I was even hunting shit down on EBay paying stupid prices for OOP stuff like The Nocturnal Silence and Far Away From the Sun. I had a lot of catching up to do.

My ex was freaking the fuck out every month when the credit card bill would come. She didn't understand why suddenly I was spending several hundred dollars each and every month on CD's when I had never done anything 'reckless' like that before. And I guess what made her even more upset and confused was that it all just sounded like a lot of really unpleasant noise to her. I guess as a classic rock and pop music fan she just wasn't as motivated as I had been to get past that harsh vocal hurdle.

So to make a long story not quite so painfully long, that's why anything from 2007 on sounds 'modern' to me because I remember discovering all that stuff in real time as new releases. Any death (or black) metal from the 90's and early 2000's all sounds like 'old stuff' to me because I discovered it basically all together at the same time well after the fact. It didn't feel like 'my' music or 'my' bands to me because I hadn't been on board from the beginning and some of those bands had either broken up or had just turned to shit by the time I got around to discovering them. So without proper real time year by year context my brain just lumped all that stuff from 1990 til about 2005 or '06 together.

And even though I do post these lists I make for others to enjoy, I really do make them more for myself to be able to refer back to in the future. So in the context of my personal metal journey, my 2007 dividing line makes perfect sense to me while it wouldn't to you. Even though 99% of the 'modern' death metal I listen to could arguably be described as 'old school' or throwback sounding, obviously I can still tell the difference from the actual legit old school first wave 90's stuff. For the most part (with a few notable exceptions) I do tend to like the newer post '07 stuff better than the older 90's stuff I think, which I know is an unpopular opinion, or at least it is among most of my off the board metalhead friends. But I believe that's mostly because by buying the '07 and later stuff as new releases I feel much more connected to it. But I also totally get why most of the old time death metal connoisseurs and afficionados like yourself who were rabid death metal consumers right from the very beginning in the late 80's generally look at the new vs old stuff debate much differently than I do. And that's cool.

And believe it or not sir I actually like the "ubiquitous sterile production" and "interchangeable vocalists" aspects of modern day death metal. Because I don't find the modern production "sterile," I typically find it thicker, beefier and heavier nowadays than it was in the 90's which is a plus for me. Guitar tone is very very important to me as well, probably even moreso than the overall production. Granted I don't really listen to very much major label stuff that gets the pricier fancier production, and what I do listen to is Mp3's not flacs or wavs or CD's. You've seen that I like a lot of fairly lo-fi stuff. 

In addition to the guitar tone, I'm even pickier about how I like the vocals to sound for each of the sub-genres I listen to. I have a friend Ricc with whom I argue about this all the time. He hates the interchagable cookie cutter vocalists and tries to seek out death metal with unique and distinctive vocals that are outside of the expected norm to supplement his collection of 90's death metal. It's also his #1 reason for not really being into any black metal besides maybe Enslaved or Ackercocke. He says all the vocalists sound the same and that ruins it for him.

Me, I'm pretty much the polar opposite. I judge each album on a case by case basis of course, but if you go too far outside the vocal box I'm probably gonna pass on your album. No wacky vocals please. It's why I don't listen to a lot of straight thrash anymore unless you blacken the vocals a bit because 95% of traditional thrash metal vocals make me cringe. I have in my head preconceived notions of what I'd like to hear as the perfect black and death metal vocals (I do have a few different desired variations for each sub-genre) and if a vocalist can execute any of them up to my standards and expectations then I'm in nirvana. Annoying or weird or 'different' vocals is probably my #1 reason for rejecting an album that would otherwise be perfectly acceptable musically. Which saves me some money on albums I won't have to buy, so I guess it's a good thing.

Now I'm sure you were probably reading this last paragraph thinking "man this jackass typifies everything that's wrong with modern death metal fans!" and I can accept that, but I'm just being honest. I like what I like.

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24 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Because I don't find the modern production "sterile,"

I don't think FA means modern as in current year, I think he means modern as in the modern approach...i.e. cleaning everything up until it's spit-polished perfect...and unless you've taken a recent blow to the head, I'm pretty sure that's not you

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18 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I don't think FA means modern as in current year, I think he means modern as in the modern approach...i.e. cleaning everything up until it's spit-polished perfect...and unless you've taken a recent blow to the head, I'm pretty sure that's not you

Yeah I knew what he meant, and that's definitely not me. Which is why I pointed out that I don't listen to very much of that more commercial sounding, major label, super polished, overproduced modern death metal that sounds like greased ass. But I do listen to some of it as it's almost unavoidable to catch at least a little bit of it in your net these days, (remember that Archgoat album that came out a few years back sounding all polished and clean and we were all like WTF were they thinking?) But whatever small amount of it does creep into my listening doesn't really bother me too much. It's not ideal, but at least it sounds heavy. I can live with it since I've also learned to live with all kinds of lo-fi underproduced shit. I'm flexible. In fact if forced to choose I'd still take most of the modern polished production over a lot of the early 90's stuff, because while it was often great music it aslo often had terribly thin production. No bueno. I've been hearing similar complaints for a decade or more from people that think the modern digitally produced 00's stuff just doesn't have the same feel as the analogue 90's stuff did. And they're valid complaints. Personally I think there could be a happy medium somewhere in between low budget 1992 Findeath production and 2020 Relapse or NB production, but I don't make the stuff I just consume it. So I kinda have to pick from what's available. 

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54 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I'm flexible. In fact if forced to choose I'd still take most of the modern polished production over a lot of the early 90's stuff, because while it was often great music it aslo often had terribly thin production.

Then I'll give you credit, you've got a higher tolerance for it than I do...I sometimes think Ricc is off his rocker with what he thinks is overproduced, but I'd still take a thinner production over that ultra-sterile, computer processed sound where you can almost hear the binary code underneath

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1 hour ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Then I'll give you credit, you've got a higher tolerance for it than I do...I sometimes think Ricc is off his rocker with what he thinks is overproduced, but I'd still take a thinner production over that ultra-sterile, computer processed sound where you can almost hear the binary code underneath

It's not that I have an unusually high tolerance for it, I think I'm just shielded from a lot of that kind of stuff by my very limited choice of sub-genres. When it comes to new stuff I mostly listen to: retro sounding 2nd wave styled black metal, lo-fi black metal, a smattering of black/thrash or blackened speed, 'old school' styled filthy caveman death metal including lots of caverncore, and some deathy/crusty/grindy type stuff.  That's really about it.

And while most of that shit's been digitally recorded and manipulated as well, it's usually either self-released or on one of the smaller metal specialty kvlt labels like Iron Bonehead, I Voidhanger, Godz of War, 20 Buck Spin or what have you. Those ones don't usually go overboard with the modern polished production. It's not very often I'll go to buy something and find that it's on one of the higher profile labels where they have a little money to spend and I figure it will most likely have received the polished, overproduced and over-compressed treatment. It happens, but it's not like I'm jamming all this progressive artsy death metal and hipster/post black metal and throwback modern traditional metal and mainstream stuff where you would reasonably expect mostly all of it will be overproduced to some extent. Which plays a part in why I mostly avoid all that stuff in the first place.

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25 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Sounds like a new genre to popularize!

 

C'mon old timer. Where have you been...they coined that term like a whole year or so ago 😜

30 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I think I'm just shielded from a lot of that kind of stuff by my very limited choice of sub-genres.

I don't usually run into it myself, but part of the reason I gravitate towards the type of music I do is specifically because I dislike that type of production so much

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8 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Obviously there's no single right answer for this, but what makes 2007 your turning point? I'd put it earlier - maybe the late 90s, with Necrophagist putting out Onset Of Putrefaction; Cannibal Corpse leaving Morrisound for the bone dry recording on Bloodthirst; modern-sounding groups like Cephalic Carnage, Skinless, Anata, and Origin getting started or gaining steam; Bloodbath and Funebrarum forming as self-consciously retro projects; and so many bigger names from the early 90s either treading water, going in a different direction, or breaking up. Definitely by the early 2000s - ubiquitous sterile production, interchangeable vocalists, tech death and deathcore taking off.

 

I would agree with late 1990s being a starting point for that change in death metal:

 

1. "Death" of the first wave of death metal.  Literally the genre got bloated and then went off the cliff by mid 1990s.  

2. Arrival of newer "denser" death metal - really pushed by Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse in first wave.  But the denser production became the norm.  Eventually this became the sterile production of last couple of decades.  

(Also strangely production styles converged with thrash, mainstream black etc.  Literally most metal bands today have the same sound - I call it the Nuclear Blast sound). * 

3. Growth of technicality - stared with Death, Atheist, Cynic and Nocturnus but then expanded on rapidly by bands like Cryptopsy, Necrophagist etc.  Eventually this becomes ultra boring technical death metal of today.  

4.  Impact of Pantera and other groove metal and possibly even nu-metal.  This starts in mid-1990s (eg Napalm Death's Diatribes) but that muscular approach seems inherent to a lot of death today (and thrash) even with bands that predate the 1990s.  Some bands were more overt eg Kataklysm but it's evident in a lot of death.

Personally my favourite period of death metal is 1988-95 - so much variation.  I like new DM too but it just doesn't stick as well due to above factors.

 

 

*I find it mindboggling I can listen to modern Kreator and Carcass and get the same vibe.  Modern Arch Enemy and Testament will fit in with those.    Yet listen to say Extreme Aggression, Symphonies of Sickness, Stigmata and Practice What You Preach ad they're all very very different,

 

Even more amazing - chuck on several modern DM albums in a row from bands that used to be vastly different, yet now are largely interchangeable and blur into each other eg modern Krisiun, Kataklysm, Benediction, Cannibal Corpse and last Morbid Angel album.  

None of them are actually bad albums. They just all have the same sound.  

It's the same in the underground even if they might be going for a more overt old school thrash or death sound.

 

Lots of albums that would be good or even excellent if they existed in a vacuum or if they were released at the dawn of their respective genres.

 

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6 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Awe shit, another news post I must have missed. It was probably while I was getting my hip replaced, which was just after the knee replacement.

Be sure to let us know when the penile pump is scheduled to be installed Kuke.

12 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Lots of albums that would be good or even excellent if they existed in a vacuum or if they were released at the dawn of their respective genres.

I guess this is my point. These are still good or sometimes excellent albums even though they don't exist in a vacuum and might be derivative of what has come before. They're good for people coming in new to the genre. So esentially if someone is discovering 15 or 20 or 25 years of death metal all at the same time because either they're too young, or for whatever reason they just weren't there to experience it at the dawn of said genre back in 1987, then for them all the old albums and all the new albums are on even footing with one another. When I first got heavily into death metal in the mid oughts I didn't give bands like Deicide or Morbid Angel or Obituary or Death or Suffocation any more weight or reverance than any of the newer shit that was coming out in '05 or '06 or '07. It was all the same to me because I had no frame of reference for the established masters. So I simply gravitated toward what sounded the best to me at that time as a n00b which was mostly the newer stuff. I've since come to love and respect a lot of the older 90's stuff too, but the 2000's and even 2010's stuff will allways be my main death metal interest. People who were there 35 years ago for Scream Bloody Gore and saw the dawn of the genre unfold in real time naturally will have a much different perspective than the newer fans.

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5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

And believe it or not sir I actually like the "ubiquitous sterile production" and "interchangeable vocalists" aspects of modern day death metal. Because I don't find the modern production "sterile," I typically find it thicker, beefier and heavier nowadays than it was in the 90's which is a plus for me. Guitar tone is very very important to me as well, probably even moreso than the overall production. Granted I don't really listen to very much major label stuff that gets the pricier fancier production, and what I do listen to is Mp3's not flacs or wavs or CD's. You've seen that I like a lot of fairly lo-fi stuff. 

In addition to the guitar tone, I'm even pickier about how I like the vocals to sound for each of the sub-genres I listen to. I have a friend Ricc with whom I argue about this all the time. He hates the interchagable cookie cutter vocalists and tries to seek out death metal with unique and distinctive vocals that are outside of the expected norm to supplement his collection of 90's death metal. It's also his #1 reason for not really being into any black metal besides maybe Enslaved or Ackercocke. He says all the vocalists sound the same and that ruins it for him.

Me, I'm pretty much the polar opposite. I judge each album on a case by case basis of course, but if you go too far outside the vocal box I'm probably gonna pass on your album. No wacky vocals please. It's why I don't listen to a lot of straight thrash anymore unless you blacken the vocals a bit because 95% of traditional thrash metal vocals make me cringe. I have in my head preconceived notions of what I'd like to hear as the perfect black and death metal vocals (I do have a few different desired variations for each sub-genre) and if a vocalist can execute any of them up to my standards and expectations then I'm in nirvana. Annoying or weird or 'different' vocals is probably my #1 reason for rejecting an album that would otherwise be perfectly acceptable musically. Which saves me some money on albums I won't have to buy, so I guess it's a good thing.

Now I'm sure you were probably reading this last paragraph thinking "man this jackass typifies everything that's wrong with modern death metal fans!" and I can accept that, but I'm just being honest. I like what I like.

 

 

The issue isn't the more muscular, beefier or heavier.  The issue is it all sounds the same and has no vibe or soul of its own.

Back in the "old days" each producer had a signature style and very often bands or musicians had signature sound as did studios themselves due to acoustics and equipment or combos of equipment.  So you had all these things acting together to create things that sounded unique. Essentially each album was a bespoke work of art even if it sounded terrible.

In some cases musicians had bespoke equipment eg Brian May's famous Red Special.  This happened in metal as well eg Anders from At The Gates had a bespoke speaker cabinet to get that sound on Slaughter of the Sound.  And some times certain types of equipment helped define the sound eg Stockholm Death Metal and HM-2 distortion pedal.

Hence Metallica + Flemming Rasmussen + Sweet Silence Studios + Cliff Burton is a vastly different proposition sound wise to Metallica + Mike Clink/Rasmussen + One on One Studios + Jason Nested, let alone Metallica + Bob Rock + One on One /Little Mountain Sound + Jason Newsted.

 

Of course many other names stick out in metaldom - Martin Birch, Peter Tagtgren, Dan Swano, Andy Sneap, Colin Richardson, Scott Burns, Harris Johns, Ross Robinson, Terry Date, Fredrick Nordstrom.  Similarly there are many notable studios - Morrisound, Music Lab, Sweet Silence, Studio Fredman, or even Impulse Studios where stuff like Venom and Tygers of Pan-tang were recorded.

 

 

Today you have Protools or rip offs and Drum Kit From Hell and rip offs.  You can record something that sounds "professional: (even "professional" lo-fi).  But 95% of the time it sounds generic, mechanical and sterile. 

 

Computers take the art out of things and replace it with machine level precision and replicable results.  

 

----

Interesting you mention guitar tone.  That is largely interchangeable too these days. Unique guitar tone is largely gone.

And nothing beats the guitar tone (or creativity) of Eddie Van Halen and Brian May had.  Even a Maiden fan boy like me with two feet in thrash and death can't deny those guys 1970s guys were probably the pinnacle of distorted guitar playing.

Still my favourite guitar tone ever:

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

And while most of that shit's been digitally recorded and manipulated as well, it's usually either self-released or on one of the smaller metal specialty kvlt labels like Iron Bonehead, I Voidhanger, Godz of War, 20 Buck Spin or what have you. 

I enjoy a fair bit of 20 Buck Spin material but their production is generic.  

 

 

Oh as for 1990s production being thin, I beg to differ.  I still think 1990s is pinnacle of production in some regards:

 

Some examples (not discussing musical style but rather sound):

 

Colin Richardson in his hey day:

 

 

Terry Date (one of my favourite producers):

 

 

Andy Wallace

 

 

Neil Kernon

 

Devin Townsend

 

47 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Be sure to let us know when the penile pump is scheduled to be installed Kuke.

I guess this is my point. These are still good or sometimes excellent albums even though they don't exist in a vacuum and might be derivative of what has come before. They're good for people coming in new to the genre. So esentially if someone is discovering 15 or 20 or 25 years of death metal all at the same time because either they're too young, or for whatever reason they just weren't there to experience it at the dawn of said genre back in 1987, then for them all the old albums and all the new albums are on even footing with one another. When I first got heavily into death metal in the mid oughts I didn't give bands like Deicide or Morbid Angel or Obituary or Death or Suffocation any more weight or reverance than any of the newer shit that was coming out in '05 or '06 or '07. It was all the same to me because I had no frame of reference for the established masters. So I simply gravitated toward what sounded the best to me at that time as a n00b which was mostly the newer stuff. I've since come to love and respect a lot of the older 90's stuff too, but the 2000's and even 2010's stuff will allways be my main death metal interest. People who were there 35 years ago for Scream Bloody Gore and saw the dawn of the genre unfold in real time naturally will have a much different perspective than the newer fans.

 

I wasn't around in 1987 when Scream Bloody Gore came out and I really got into DM at the turn of the century (1999).  

 

I just found I preferred the older stuff to the newer stuff at the time.  Indeed in the mid oughts I started to get sick of generic modern death metal because there was so much flooding the market already then.  I did a weekly 3 hour radio show and we were playing all this underground stuff that all sounded essentially the same.  It became a total chore.

 

Even to this day I recoil at thought of trawling through 10-20 generic underground death/thrash/grind albums.

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Oh as for 1990s production being thin, I beg to differ.  I still think 1990s is pinnacle of production in some regards:

Some examples (not discussing musical style but rather sound):

Well obviously not all 90's production was thin! They certainly had the technology and the know how to make records sound pretty good by the 90's. But you can't use more commercial bands on real labels like those 5 as examples because those aren't the kind of bands I'm talking about. I'm talking about the unknown European and Nordic death and black metal bands that didn't get signed to big labels and didn't have money for Colin Richardson or Swanö or Tägtgren any other big name producer. The little unknown bands that produced their records on shoestring budgets didn't often get the sounds they heard in their heads when they actually went in and laid down the tracks on tape.

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