What's on your mind?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

 

 

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.

I see what you're saying man because I grew up in the 70's, the era of the guitar hero. Brian May and EVH did indeed have superb tones as did many other players like SRV or your boy Dime for instance, although Daryll came along a bit later in the 80's. Eddie was a known tone chaser, he had the juice to go to the factory and have them make the amps to his exact specs so he could get the exact set of tones he wanted. That raw high-gain minimal interference tone. Brian May infamously built his own guitar from scratch from a hunk of wood that had formerly been a fireplace mantle as a teenager in the early 60's. He built it to feed back and he added all kinds of various tone switches and it sounds absolutely fucking amazing. 

But fast forward to the present day. We're talking about death metal now. Everyone has their own personal checklist of things they would like to hear in a death metal album. Death metal is a totally different kind of music than the rock Brian and Eddie played back in the 70's and entirely different types of equipment are used. A Peavy 5150 amp that would be perfect for Eddie's bluesey rock and roll tone might not work so well for death metal.

When it comes to death metal I don't crave uniqueness so much as I crave heaviness and filthiness. Even if it sounds a lot like the next guy's heaviness and filthiness. So to me the issue is beefier and heavier and nastier. As far as I can tell you're looking more for uniqueness but also memorabilty and catchiness and some level of accessibility and a certain level of fidelity in the production, and you like to look for that stuff in what we've agreed to call the sub mainstream. Alright fine, so you'll end up with a totally different set of death metal albums than I will because that's not what I'm looking for or where I'm looking for it.

I want nasty putrid cavernous evil disgusting caveman filth from my death metal. We're both using the name "death metal" for the genre in question, but in reality when you break it down we're almost comparing apples and oranges. You and I like very different sounds. There's no shame in being a sub mainsream guy if that's the kind of music you like. I'm not slagging you off for that or saying my death metal is better than yours. Just saying that's just not what does it for me, I'm hunting for the filth.

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

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.

 

The Nordic black metal guys went went for the  thin sound - they were meant to be a throwback to early Sodom, Venom and Bathory and a total denunciation of all mainstream metal including death metal!  Darkthrone had a significantly meatier sound on their first album than their next several  

The Swedish guys actually had decent sound as the Swedish government pumped money into community arts including access to reasonable quality studios.   From what I understand Norway is the same - each year they provide US$2 billion to arts for a population of 5 million people. Social democracy at its best.

 

I mean look at Dismember or Entombed's sound and then later Dark Tranquillity etc.  Big sound and not thin even though they weren't produced by someone of Andy Wallace or Terry Date's  or Colin Richardson's renoun.

 

Swanö or Tägtgren weren't big name producers in mid-late 1990s either.  They were part of a scene that was significantly smaller than it is today and that was commercially dead in the large English speaking markets ala USA and UK. That resurgence only starts slowly in about 1998-99 but doesn't really take full swing until about 2004-05.

 

 

And yes I want memorable metal not cookie cutter clones.  A lot of the stuff you listen to in terms of death metal isn't even that extreme as a lot of older "mainstream" albums by likes of Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation or Deicide circa Legion or Cryptopsy  (20 Bick spin stuff is, i'll give you that.)   Oh and certainly not as filthy as early Autopsy (literally the equivalent of a flowing sewer) or Entombed. 

I've at times been astounded at how melodic some of the stuff you listen to is (and melodic in a cliched way).  

 

Indeed I listen to modern Napalm Death a bit and even though it's "submainstream" it's still a helluva lot more brutal and visceral than a lot of this underground stuff which seems happy to stay in the comfort zone.

 

I like filthy too - as mentioned early Autopsy or Entombed or from a non-death metal side things like Venom, Celtic Frost, early Carcass, Midnight, early Bathory, modern Darkthrone etc.

But you are right  I want there to be more than just generic Death Metal 101 (or Thrash Metal 101 or grind 101 or heavy metal 101).

 

[zackflag]

21 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 A Peavy 5150 amp that would be perfect for Eddie's bluesey rock and roll tone might not work so well for death metal.

Ironically enough, the 5150 has been one of the gold standards for extreme metal guitar amps for basically 30 years now. I own one myself and can attest to it's quality, no distortion pedal required. I guarantee literally dozens, if not hundreds, of your favourite death, black and black death albums have been recorded with this exact amp.

[markm]

Interesting reading.....but too many words...as someone less invested without the depth and breadth of some of you who have really studied the history and trends in DM, but as someone who still enjoys DM, I think Dead has some valid points...and I don't always agree on his takes, but overall I'd say, yah, Dead I think you're largely correct. That's why many of us who explore early DM through the mid 90's get thrilled by what they hear-as you say the range and diversity and inspired fresh sounds of the age.  

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Yes the 90's black metal is an entirely different sound than death metal and there is an entirely different set of criteria I use to judge it with. A lot of it in the early 90's was very thin sounding, both by aesthetic design and by trial and error using primitive home recording and production methods. This is why except for Darkthrone who gets a pass for being metal gods, I listen to very little early/mid 90's black metal. I much prefer the beefier and fuller sounds of more recent albums made in the 2000's by bands influenced byl those 90's black metal sounds they grew up listening to, except nowadays the production is better and you can hear what the instruments are playing and if I'm lucky there's often some bottom end added. Because again, you have to understand I basically discovered all 2nd wave black metal from 1990 up through 2006/7 all at the same time and I gravitated to the newer stuff which just sounded better to me. I can respect what they  those Norwegians were doing when they started the 2nd wave back in the late 80's and early 90's and I do listen to the classic Darkthrone albums from that period. But other than that with very few exceptions almost everything black I listen to is post 2000.

[FatherAlabaster]

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

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.

Nope, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of that. Just curious about your cutoff. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of what albums were important to you in making the distinction, and didn't stop to consider external life circumstances. I appreciate the explanation. 

I didn't get into death metal until 1992-93. Took me a little while to accept harsh vocals too, and my taste in them was similarly circumscribed. I felt like it lost the plot in the late 90s when a bunch of the bands I knew started shitting the bed, got into black metal and goth rock/post punk stuff around then, and eventually realized how much I had been missing when I got turned back on to new DM a few years later. I had a Dead1-worthy experience A/Bing albums around 2004 and finding them almost indiscernably homogeneous.

At that point I was pretty close to being one of those guys who thought that death metal died in 199x. Everything new sucked. Tech death in particular set my teeth on edge, but anything with that homogeneous mix just pissed me off. Eventually, being online saved me, hearing good new music outside the box of everything I thought was Wrong With Death Metal Today, and I even hammered on some albums with that terrible modern sound to try and get over my issues. It worked to some extent.

The thing is that when I was listening to death metal in the early 90s (as a young teenager), I loved it but I thought it sounded like shit. I was blasting Privilege Of Evil on my Walkman because it ruled, but it also hurt my ears. Queensryche and Metallica weren't really cutting it for me anymore but fuck if they didn't sound way better. So my initial thought when I heard those clean mixes was, finally, the clarity we've been fighting for. In much the same way, I heard albums like The Bleeding and Slaughter Of The Soul and Once Upon The Cross and I thought, finally, real intelligible songwriting, instead of every album being a mess I have to wade through for the good bits. It was only when I realized how faceless and samey everything was getting that I started really appreciating chaos and inconsistency for its own sake. It's been a constantly evolving process. 

Also can't discount the effects of trying to write and record my own stuff throughout the whole time I've been into metal. I started playing electric guitar nearly 30 years ago and was recording bullshit guitar and keyboard demos on a boombox a year after that. So I guess it felt more personal, something I was a part of. And as I tried to get better as a player, I gravitated towards more complicated music. So hopefully that helps explain why I'm a prog head who likes weird/expressive vocals and turns his nose up (fairly or not) at stuff that seems more off-the-rack.

 

5150 II and the Double and Triple Recs from Mesa were the gold standard for DM for a while. Still both great amps. If I didn't have a VHT (Fryette, not the new company) I would buy a Peavey. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

15 minutes ago, markm said:

Interesting reading.....but too many words...as someone less invested without the depth and breadth of some of you who have really studies this still, but as someone who still enjoys DM, I think Dead has some valid points...and I don't always agree on his takes, but overall I'd say, yah, Dead I think you're largely correct. That's why many of us who explore early DM through the mid 90's get thrilled by what they hear. 

Overwhelmingly most people you'll talk to will agree with him that the 90's death metal especially from '89 to '93 or maybe '94 was the golden age of death metal never to be surpassed or even equalled. And believe me I do love a lot of those records myself. But I just love the newer stuff more. Especially the black/death stuff. It's a preference. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

30 minutes ago, zackflag said:

Ironically enough, the 5150 has been one of the gold standards for extreme metal guitar amps for basically 30 years now. I own one myself and can attest to it's quality, no distortion pedal required. I guarantee literally dozens, if not hundreds, of your favourite death, black and black death albums have been recorded with this exact amp.

I stand corrected. I had no idea Eddie Van Halen's amp which debuted in 1992 would also be the gold standard for death metal. Just Googled best amps for death metal and it gave me the Peavy 6505 and 5150. Apparently Marshalls are considered shit for death metal. So now I know.

[AlSymerz]

15 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I stand corrected.

Well sit down, you make the place look messy!

 

Bloody banks! "Your call is important to us but we're busy so please allow 2-3 working days for us to call you back"

Bastards obviously don't work the same days I do. Bet I wouldn't get too far trying the same shit on them next time they ask for money from me.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

For me it’s a bit different, death metal wasn’t something I really explored right up until I joined this place, and even then it took about a year for me to even consider looking into the genre. I primarily started with the 90s death metal so even though I wasn’t there for the origins of that sound I feel more connected to it than 2000s for 2010s death metal. 

 

Then there’s The influence Death had on my own guitar playing. I can appreciate some of the more modern bands like Ulcerate and enjoy their music, but there’s nothing from that style I want to incorporate into my own sound.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

9 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

For me it’s a bit different, death metal wasn’t something I really explored right up until I joined this place, and even then it took about a year for me to even consider looking into the genre. I primarily started with the 90s death metal so even though I wasn’t there for the origins of that sound I feel more connected to it than 2000s for 2010s death metal. 

 

Then there’s The influence Death had on my own guitar playing. I can appreciate some of the more modern bands like Ulcerate and enjoy their music, but there’s nothing from that style I want to incorporate into my own sound.

There is something to be said for what you hear first. Once you've developed a connection with something it's hard to not see it as the better thing. I've noticed that as well and it's hard to go against that bias you've formed even when you're conscious that you're doing it.

12 hours ago, Dead1 said:

 

The Nordic black metal guys went went for the  thin sound - they were meant to be a throwback to early Sodom, Venom and Bathory and a total denunciation of all mainstream metal including death metal!  Darkthrone had a significantly meatier sound on their first album than their next several  

The Swedish guys actually had decent sound as the Swedish government pumped money into community arts including access to reasonable quality studios.   From what I understand Norway is the same - each year they provide US$2 billion to arts for a population of 5 million people. Social democracy at its best.

 

I mean look at Dismember or Entombed's sound and then later Dark Tranquillity etc.  Big sound and not thin even though they weren't produced by someone of Andy Wallace or Terry Date's  or Colin Richardson's renoun.

 

Swanö or Tägtgren weren't big name producers in mid-late 1990s either.  They were part of a scene that was significantly smaller than it is today and that was commercially dead in the large English speaking markets ala USA and UK. That resurgence only starts slowly in about 1998-99 but doesn't really take full swing until about 2004-05.

 

 

And yes I want memorable metal not cookie cutter clones.  A lot of the stuff you listen to in terms of death metal isn't even that extreme as a lot of older "mainstream" albums by likes of Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation or Deicide circa Legion or Cryptopsy  (20 Bick spin stuff is, i'll give you that.)   Oh and certainly not as filthy as early Autopsy (literally the equivalent of a flowing sewer) or Entombed. 

I've at times been astounded at how melodic some of the stuff you listen to is (and melodic in a cliched way).  

 

Indeed I listen to modern Napalm Death a bit and even though it's "submainstream" it's still a helluva lot more brutal and visceral than a lot of this underground stuff which seems happy to stay in the comfort zone.

 

I like filthy too - as mentioned early Autopsy or Entombed or from a non-death metal side things like Venom, Celtic Frost, early Carcass, Midnight, early Bathory, modern Darkthrone etc.

But you are right  I want there to be more than just generic Death Metal 101 (or Thrash Metal 101 or grind 101 or heavy metal 101).

 

Seems maybe we could be defining certain words like "extreme" "brutal" "filthy" and "memorable" slighly differently. It's like we're saying we like and want mostly the same things, but then we gravitate toward entirely different bands.

Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, Deicide and Cryptopsy have never been among my favorite death metal bands. Other than maybe a little Suffocation every now and then I don't really listen to any of those others at all. Main reason I guess is that I don't find their music memorable.

I've known people who love these bands, and others who don't really listen to them either. I could be missing something because I haven't studied all their albums in depth, but I have to think what sets them apart is blinding speed. They're all what I think of as blasty bands. Like Hate Eternal. Some people think of all that pummeling blastiness as "extreme" and "brutal" and get quite pumped up when even just talking about it. While others of us aren't nearly as fond of it. I can respect those bands' playing ability and all but I haven't found most of the albums I've heard from those kinds of blasty bands to be particularly memorable or interesting. To me they're just blasty. And that bores me.

Cryptopsy moreso than those other 3 is also quite chaotic. Which could make for some memorable songs I guess, but chaotic doesn't work for me. I listen to 0 death metal bands that get described as chaotic. So even though I do own None So Vile I haven't listened to it in many years.

I don't believe that when you slow the bpm down a little that necessarily has to take away from the heaviness. It can sometimes I suppose, but it doesn't have to. And for sure some of the death metal I do listen to can get pretty fast like that at times, but not generally as a rule. There does seem to be an entire cohort of death metal fans out there who have some level of disdain for the more midpaced stuff. I've definitely seen the word 'midpaced' used pejoritavely. Some people don't find midpaced metal as extreme or brutal, they think it sounds lame and weak and boring and accuse it of chugging along "in the comfort zone." Some people feel that metal played at a faster tempo is always going to be objectively better and heavier than midpaced metal. I disagree of course, but seems to me that's really a matter of taste more than anything. 

You mention you're surprised at how melodic some of the music I listen to can be. As far as melody goes I'll assume that's the black metal you're talking about. I do listen to a lot of what's considered melodic black metal. I do really like melody. A lot. Just don't like a lot of vocal melody, I want the melody to be provided by the guitars. I like melodic black metal to have really raw throat-shredding vocals. And it's usually pretty fast. It's the combination of melody and viciousness that makes that music so attractive to me. But I also listen to a lot of black metal that's not all that melodic. I like a lot of different kinds of black metal. Not all black metal is outstanding, some of it's shit. But nothing on this earth is better to me than the best black metal.

You mention Autopsy as sounding filthy like an 'open sewer' and I think we can probably agree that Autopsy are the grandfathers of filthy death metal. I do have their first 2 albums as well as Macabre Eternal in my rotation. Other Autopsy albums get played less. Thing is for me, filthy death metal also needs to have an evil component. I don't think that even enters into the equation for you. Modern day filthy death metal typically sounds more evil than those early Autopsy albums and so I like that better. But still I will concede that most of the filthy death metal I hear these days certainly owes at least some small debt to Autopsy. But I believe the Autopsy filth formula has definitely been much improved upon in more recent years. Because as much as I like them, I still think those first 2 albums' productions could have been a lot beefier. That's total blasphemy to some I'm sure, but that's how I feel. I always did think if there could have had a band that combined equal parts Autopsy with Obituary, that probably would have been my favorite early 90's American death metal band.

But 90's American death metal can sit its ass down and take a back seat. When it comes to early 90's death I prefer to listen to the Finnish bands. I love them because they were raw and filthy. Finland is the 90's dm sweet spot for me. I don't listen to many of the Florida bands from that time period very much these days (except for Obituary who gets a decent amount of play around here, and of course early Death, and maybe a few other specific albums by Massacre and Brutality and Discarnate) as compared to the Finns and also the Dutch and the Swedes and the Swiss and other mostly northern European bands who are my 90's death metal bread and butter. So understand that when I'm talking about that whole period of early 90's death metal these are the sounds I have playing in my head, not Deicide or Cannibal or Morbid Angel.

The early Finns generally speaking didn't have nearly as good production as the Swedes or of course all that Morrisound stuff from Tampa FLA, which is what I believe most people think of first when you say early 90's death metal. This could partly explain why we talk around in circles so much. When I say early 90's death metal production was often a bit thin and left a lot to be desired I'm talking about bands like Demigod and Depravity and Convulse and Crematory and Fester and Funebre not Cannibal or Deicide or even Dismember or Entombed and most of the Swedish bands who as you say got govt grants for the arts.

No question that the Florida bands' albums generally sounded much better back then. No surprise either that the sub-mainstream 90's stuff you cited like Sepultura and Machine Head and White Zombie and SYL and Nevermore sounded even better still. I wish I liked some of those bands' music more than I do so I could get in on the fun with you but unfortunately I just don't. I used to like Nevermore quite a bit actually but I find the high pitched vocals keep me away these days. Warrel Dane was absolutely a fantastic and very talented singer, but that's not my thing these days.

I really think that if some of those early Finnish death metal bands could have had better production they would have been much more widely known and appreciated. Much better and more memorable music afaic than most of that brutal blasty pummeling Florida stuff. But like I always say in the end it's really just all a matter of taste.

I know it's late over there, nearly 3am and you work in an office so you're undoubtedly sleeping right now. But when you get to work and log on and see this I wanna say thanks dude for all the in-depth convo last night. I know it might seem to some like we're arguing, but I don't think we are, I look at this as an interesting discussion. I enjoyed this chance to go deeper into some of these subjects that most people don't have the interest for nor the desire to type all these paragraphs. I even typed this one out for the last 2 hours entirely with my thumbs on my phone which is now down just under 50% so I guess I'll throw it on the charger now and go downstairs and make my 1pm 'morning' coffee.

[SurgicalBrute]

38 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

When I say early 90's death metal production was often a bit thin and left a lot to be desired I'm talking about bands like Demigod and Depravity and Convulse and Crematory and Fester and Funebre

Honestly don't find the production on any of those albums to be particularly thin. Demigod especially, seemed to have a pretty meaty sound on Slumber. For me, when I hear the words "thin production", my first thought goes towards an immediate comparison against typical black metal production...if it's thicker than that, by my standards it's not thin

[GoatmasterGeneral]

9 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Honestly don't find the production on any of those albums to be particularly thin. Demigod especially, seemed to have a pretty meaty sound on Slumber. For me, when I hear the words "thin production", my first thought goes towards an immediate comparison against typical black metal production...if it's thicker than that, by my standards it's not thin

 

Fair enough brother. And I do agree that the production on albums like Slumber or WWG or MoID or CotS is more than adequate to be able to fully enjoy listening to them. (otherwise I wouldn't like them so much) I'm just saying as someone who listens to an abundance of more 'modern' death metal primarily from the 2010's & late oughts, that when I go back and listen to some early 90's Finnish stuff like I've done today, I immediately notice the difference and it can be jarring at first until you can become aclimated to it. And the first thing that pops into my mind on these occasions is not "oh wow this sounds wonderfully organic and analogue and uncompressed" what I'm thinking is that it sounds noticeably thinner and less clear with less separation between the instruments than the contemorary stuff which is on balance considerably fuller and denser and clearer.

So I guess this makes me the weirdo dumbass freakazoid outlier who actually prefers the modern day death metal production. I've been listening to people bitch about all this shitty modern death metal production for 15 years now (from our old friend Doctor Metal to our current pal Bay Area Ricc and of course our inimitable Tasmanian Devil Deadly Deadovic) but I'm just not hearing it.

Of course I do run across some bands often on semi-major labels whose production can get overdone and their albums can be overly compressed and brickwalled and that's unfortunate. But that doesn't describe most of what I'm listening to. Most of the modern death metal I'm hearing I guess from the lower profile bands sounds perfectly fine to me. It's nice and full & heavy. I do find now and then that even some of my generally smaller label stuff can still sometimes be compressed just a bit too much, and I understand why digitally looping things like guitar and drum parts instead of playing the whole song manually is not an improvement over the old ways. But overall I'm pretty happy with the sound of most of the modern death metal I'm listening to that's usually of the evil filthy variety. I do feel that it's a marked improvement over the early 90's Finndeath production. I also understand that's not the consensus opinion.

[SurgicalBrute]

59 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Most of the modern death metal I'm hearing I guess from the lower profile bands sounds perfectly fine to me.

On that I totally agree. While it varies from release to release, I'm not bothered by the production from stuff I'd find on labels like Hell's Headbangers, Dark Descent, etc. When I hear "modern production" my mind goes to what I mentioned before...the kind of production they'd use on melodeath, techdeath, or "modern" death metal bands (The kind of stuff that Bierne is usually into with those damn clicky drums). I don't consider a lot of the current wave of cavernous, osdm bands to really have a "modern" production

[FatherAlabaster]

I have to say death metal mixes have gotten a lot more varied and better overall in the past few years, to my ears. I still hear albums that grind my gears sometimes, but everything seems a lot more flexible now, like more people are making artistic choices rather than just fighting for clarity and loudness or jumping on sonic trends. My favorite mix wizard right now is probably Jaime Gomez Arellano of Orgone Studios. 

Maybe I need to retire the word "modern" for that sound I hate. The mix style is becoming more and more dated. Or maybe it's all postmodern now.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

9 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

On that I totally agree. While it varies from release to release, I'm not bothered by the production from stuff I'd find on labels like Hell's Headbangers, Dark Descent, etc. When I hear "modern production" my mind goes to what I mentioned before...the kind of production they'd use on melodeath, techdeath, or "modern" death metal bands (The kind of stuff that Bierne is usually into with those damn clicky drums). I don't consider a lot of the current wave of cavernous, osdm bands to really have a "modern" production

Ooohhh I see. Yeah when I hear those damn clickety drums I can't click the X fast enough. Beam me up Scotty! I have a zero tolerance policy for that shit. Since I don't listen to any of that stuff unless I stumble into a video by accident not knowing, I forget that this is probably what most people mean by "modern death metal." I just use the term to mean death metal that's been released in the last 10 or 15 years. And my idea of death metal is old school meat & potatoes or deathgrind filth and cavernous Incantation clones. None of this techy, djenty or proggy nonsense. I guess after hunting for new music for so long I've gotten so good at zeroing in on what I know I like that I can sometimes start to forget that this other crap even exists.

[FatherAlabaster]

Also on my mind: Cats, the saga continues. We just adopted a very shy but sweet tortoiseshell-tabby-calico. She's about a year and a half old, rescued from a kill shelter. She still hides most of the time but has started warming up to us. Even got her to hang out with me on the couch a little bit. It feels too soon for me, I still miss our recently deceased cat a ton, but she needed a home and my wife is thrilled to have a healthy feline to shower with affection.

Meanwhile our sick old girl keeps getting a bit sicker. We're doing what we can to keep her comfortable, and we'll most likely arrange a home euthanasia sometime soon. Fucking bummed about that.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

That sucks man. Waiting for the right time to let them go is just the worst. There's never a right time. Glad your wife likes the new cat though. I can remember my late wife in bed crying and distraught for 8 straight days when our cat died. Almost makes you afraid to get another pet.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Really sorry to hear that FA, that’s definitely the hardest decision any pet owner faces. At least you’re new feline friend has a loving home.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Currently on my mind? Is it easier to downpick or alternate pick these runs in Crystal Mountain? Feels like I am being thrown off my rhythm when I alternate, but getting them up to speed seems pretty hard otherwise. Ah guitarist problems

[Sardonicist]

I sold my guitars a decade ago. Now am I abusing red wine because I spent too long sitting in myself with myself or because I am just an alcoholic? 

Edit, it doesn't matter, I don't care. 

[RelentlessOblivion]

Can’t help you with that one, whiskey was my drink of choice when I was wallowing in self pity… Seriously though I hope if things are that bad for you you’ve got someone to talk to, we all need a little help sometimes.

[Sardonicist]

Bad for me, I didn't say anything was bad for me, there can't be anything bad for me when I don't exist. 

I am talking about how fucking boring pure awareness is. Being omnipresent when there is no such thing as space, being omniscient when there is no such thing as knowledge and being omnipotent when there is nothing to exert power over. When it is all one, there is nothing. 

[Sardonicist]

I mean my lizard brain is screaming "Fuck Off Non-Dualism". But also... there is no evidence of non-dualism, apart from I can only be in only one place at a time (but I can't be certain that this place exists), I cannot know anything and I definitely have no power. 

[FatherAlabaster]

I drove down to Brooklyn on Saturday for a quick trip to see some friends and meet my buddy's fiancee. His band played a set at some little popup show in Tompkins Square Park yesterday, and as I was watching, it dawned on me that it was the first live metal I've seen since Covid hit. Fuck. The park really delivered, there was a solid handful of crazies. One lady was twerking and doing splits right in front of the band, kept trying to grab the mic, took a 2 liter bottle of soda from someone and poured it down the front of her shirt while she pissed herself. I miss the city a bunch.