Metal Reviews

As with any style of music a band's level of consistency depends on varying things, however what do you believe the secret behind the relative consistency of output by bands such as Sodom, Darkthrone, and Vader in bm and dm? Is it the mere level of consistency of their sound, or do you think it is solely the fact they've been around a while? What do you think prevents them from deteriorating overall, and do you think bands that have been around for decades can continue in the more extreme subgenres?

Don't change your style. No Load. No Endorama. No Host. No Risk. Just play what you can best and the fans want.

Umm those are all thrash albums.

Lasting over the years in black and death is an interesting phenomena because you either have incredible variety, like Mayhem and Darkthrone, or consistency near to the point of predictable, like Behemoth and Bolt Thrower. Mix of talent and fans but more talented bands with more fans burn out quickly just as well. I want to say it's more just luck than anything.

Rehash the same material over and over again so people can claim you are " kvlt ".

There is an element of truth in this; but I think that it's more in the realm of consistency in terms of the outcome of albums. Unless you are mid-era Marduk tritely grabbing riffings and recycling them, or Unleashed who have only recently blossomed into a powerful act, such an assessment isn't applicable for all bands.

It's a hard one.

I cannot think of any bands that have been consistently interesting without changing key components of their sound (e.g. Morbid Angel, Edge of Sanity, Carcass, Atheist) and even then failure's are plentiful.

The no change school is not good either as that results in monotonous albums (e.g. Cannibal Corpse).

I think the key ingredients are:

1. Have a unique sound (e.g. Carcass or Kataklysm or whatever).

2. Have your initial sound and song writing style diverse enough to be able to include elements of other genres without people screaming "sell out" - Kataklysm and Edge of Sanity really come to mind.

3. Focus on song writing as opposed to focusing on brutality (DM) or bleakness/kvltness (BM).

4. Keep an open mind as to time signatures - blasting at a million kilometres per hour for a whole album is tedious.

5. Do not abandon your roots (or sellout).

6. Do not give into commercial pressures.

As for Black Metal - switch to Death Metal/Punk/Psychadelic/Thrash/Doom/Industrial.

(On a serious note this happens a lot - Zyklon, Behemoth, Dark Throne, Satyricon, Emperor, Nachtmystium, Dimmu Borgir etc).

Making sure no-one in your band has access to a shotgun.

I don't think you guys realize that mid-90's plus 80's Thrash equals no record deal. It's real nice to say "never sell out" and there are certainly those that gave in to certain concessions a little too enthusiastically, but I can't blame Kreator, for example for their decisions.

Sometimes the record business hands you a raw deal where the decision is to make a few mediocre albums out of your expertise and wait for the fad to be over with to continue making stuff in the same vein, or lose your deal, sell nothing and get called a poser for leaving the scene for years when you get labeled "difficult" and essentially blacklisted.

I know you guys think that every metal band has some sort of secret autonomy to release what they please in the studio, but that just isn't true. When you sell insane numbers you may get that, but Kreator, Destruction, et al have to feed themselves too. Being a professional means you do what it takes to pay the bills because you can't make a living any other way. People are lucky a number of these bands put out anything. Instead we have people bitching that the Thrash records they made were too commercial sounding because labels can't market "Fuck you, It's metal."

Fit this into Death or Black Metal any way you will. It's all thrash to me.

Devotion to SATAN

Yes. This too.

Very good point Adveser.

Indeed you had bands like Anthrax dumping more 80's esque singers and getting more grunge friendly ones (i.e. John Bush) to maintain their record deal or Testament taking on a more Groove with Growl vocals approach or Kreator doing badly conceived industrial. Even Metallica and Megadeth went hard rock.

It's why one should only do music as a fun thing and get a real job/qualification in order to be able to maintain an income whilst still playing the music you love.

"Selling out" is really just earning a living.

There are enough underground labels that support true metal that there is no need for going "commercial" to get signed.

There is not much market value at all in thrash / black / death metal, and I have a hard time believeing that any self-respecting artist in those genres are in it for the money.

That's what a day job is for.

Death metal and Black metal are both difficult genres to break into. There are hundreds of bands out there who all sound exactly the same as one another clamouring for record deals. To gain listeners, you have to do something new to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Once you've got those initial fans, it's only a matter of keeping them by releasing new albums which are really just remixes of the old ones. Add a couple new hooks and a few catchy riffs to inflate your fanbase, and you're set.

These guys are conversing about semi-underground, I think. Big difference, it seems.

Even so.
The thread is about black / death metal, and there are labels dedicated to black / death willing to allow bands within these genres to maintain their artistic integrity .

Agreed. But expecting Adveser to have any clue about black/death seems rather optimistic.

Of course. I think everyone sees my point.

Even the underground bands that went from not giving a fuck what anyone thought might have had their day in the sun and wanted to stay there. I think most musicians have that attitude, but maintain a line they won't cross. It's easy not to care when 200 people are fans, but when it blows up into 20,000 or whatever, you wanna keep your spot. I wouldn't lose my deal over not delivering a single they can promote. It's pretty difficult to find that line. Changing the entire sound and songwriting structure of the music goes too far, but refusing the simplest of requests despite your own career is foolish. You have to pick your spots especially when it is someone elses money and ass on the line too. Labels of any size don't typically like people in a position that they are unlikely to see any royalties anyway and have no investment in the distribution calling any shots when sales are concerned. That is what the producer is for and the good records show that the producer can make everyone happy. The ball can swing the other way too. Season of Myst probably rejects Black Metal albums for being too commercial sounding too knowing it will be reviewed poorly for it. Most of this shit is in the details of micromanaging the album's production and a lot of people will think it's a much bigger deal than it is.

Personally, I like to make music that uses really dynamic production that spans the whole range of a CDs upper limits, but if the label wants most of the highs rolled off and the levels squashed so it sounds thick and heavy. You can't walk away over stupid shit like that or refusing to resolve a hanging melody in a song at the producer's insistence.

Progressing. Every good extreme metal band that started in the early 90's progressed their sound and didn't write the same album over and over. They progressed musically as musicians and weren't afraid to change.

Yeah.
Well, anyway, I think that staying true and loyal to your audience and yourself ('heads are among the most fanatically devoted audiences out there) over a span of years goes a long way towards a long lasting career.
Metal is made by metalheads for metalheads, basically it is a bunch of dudes making the music they want to hear.
I'm not a big expert on death metal, but originally black metal was not something that was meant to be shared with the masses, whiich is just as well as I am sure that to 90% of the population, it makes no sense at all.
As for production, well, the intentionally lo-fi mixing is done in the vein of tradition (black metal is very conservative, doncha know) and to stay loyal to it's roots. The labels associated with this genre know this obviously.
Combining these aspects with enough variation in composition to keep it from getting stale is the key, IMO.

How art ought to be.