Metal Reviews

After the late eighties the subgenres of metal had gone their respective paths, with black and death carving and diverging even more into smaller niches until today. When all is said and done which subgenre do you believe has contributed to the growth or atrophy of metal as a whole. Which if not black and death do you believe has garnered it's own formidable amount of influence in the scene, and what do you think it's influence will be in the next sound of the music.

I'd not say a genre but rather the period 1980-82. Could be summed up as:

NWOBHM + Motorhead + Venom + Discharge + Hellhammer.

This influenced every single major genre including Power, Thrash, Death and Black Metal as well as Grindcore.



As for future influence I have no idea. Metal seems to be stagnant/established and is retreading old pathways. Look at the resurgence of Thrash Metal or all the Black Sabbath worshippers.

Hard question. The most revolutionary genre has to be black metal as it has pushed the most boundaries and incorporated the most extreme elements. The most influential is a whole other question though.

Probably black metal. Even today it's still constantly evolving. There was a time when I thought the old school norwegian stuff was the end all be all of the genre, but honestly I like most modern black metal just as much or in some cases even more (Krallice for instance).

I mean every genre has some experimentation going on with it but Black Metal seems to be over flowing with new sounds and creativity.

Altar of Plagues is a great new black metal band.

Yeah, black metal, for the aforementioned reasons.

Easy, thrash.

Most of the music you guys love nowadays all stems from early 80s power/thrash.

He did say 'after the late eighties' in the opening post. So, Black Metal.

After 1980's? It becomes irrelevant.

In my opinion last majorl evolution was Melodic Death Metal in about 1993 (Carcass' Heartwork) - 1995 (At The Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity).

Since then it's all been rather stable and things have been about minor mixing of subgenres.

Ridiculous.

I mean, if you're being ridiculous about it, the most revolutionary moment in metal was when King Crimson put out 21st Century Schizoid Man in '69 and nothing since matches up to it, including the invention of melodic death by bands playing Entombed with choruses or however the hell it happened. Clearly, metal is an ever-evolving genre, and just because to you personally nothing that has been released since they split the atom and invented speed metal is impressive doesn't mean that it isn't. The moment The Meads Of Asphodel decided to cover Louis Armstrong deserves mention in this thread as much as Slayer deciding to cover Judas Priest.

Metal is evolutionary and has been evolving since 1995.

The specific subject is "Most revolutionary subgenre of metal." Not much revolutionary has happened since the early 1990's.

So it's overall stable.

Look at the major genres:

Thrash Metal - it's actually devolved from the Deathy Thrash (e.g. The Haunted, Witchery) back to 1980's.

Death Metal - vast majority of bands are still Cannibal Corpse/Deicide/Morbid Angel/Suffocation clones. Only evolutions have been extremely technical DM (which did start in the late 1980's anyway) and melodic DM.

Power Metal - still stuck about 1995 (i.e. crunchy Power Metal ala Helloween circa Time of the Oath or Blind Guardian).

Grindcore - still sounding like Napalm Death, early Carcass or Brutal Truth.

Black Metal - most evolution of all the genres. However nothing has been as revolutionary as stuff released in the early 1990's.

There's been a lot of throwbacks to older genres - how many bands today are doing the whole Black Sabbath worship or trying to sound like Slayer or Exodus or Nuclear Assault?


Look at the genre as a whole and not just "OMG Anaal Nakrath covered Louis Armstrong" - after all Megadeth covered Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots" in 1985!

No, you stop looking at genres as a whole! You're ignoring the many individual examples of why you're wrong, and just using the same argument as you do with race - a lot do, therefore all do. If you don't see the little things as revolutionary, you're bound to just see a big morass of meh - metalheads don't accept the common fallacy that their genre all sounds the same, and are willing to dive in and explore, to go from band to band, to experience joy and pleasant surprise and wonder like real human beings! Stop to smell the flowers sometime, Dead1, they're not the plastic plants you assume they are.

I do smell the flowers and I do keep an open mind to new music.

Up to a few years ago, I used to listen to dozens of new bands a month (joys of being a radio presenter). Most of these were complete unknowns and still are.

99% of them were generic but some were more proficient than others. Most were shit. 1% were real head turners. (It's kinda like women)


By the way evolution is not bad. For example, Arsis' take on Melodic DM with "A Celebration of Guilt was evolutionary but it was a great new take on the genre.

Or Ghoul who sound like Carcass meets Thrash but they wrote some awesome songs. Or The Haunted who wrote some excellent Deathy Thrash on their first four albums.

Or Mastodon's first two albums - they were quite out there.

Nothing wrong with evolution.


But I don't think there have been any albums of the revolutionary calibre of say The Number of The Beast or Reign In Blood or Altairs of Madness for many a year now.

what

I still think you're looking at it in the wrong way. View these revolutionary moments of yours as milestones in a journey rather than unassailable fortresses whose like wilt never be 'spied again. Does it matter exactly what revolutionary step RiB took, when Killing Technology followed a year later and is by far the better album?

+1.

Most women (men if you're a women or gay) are usually average looking with a mix of external features that can be described as beautiful or ugly or average. Many are ugly. However a small percentage of women (men) are absolutely stunning.

Talking about external looks only and looking from an average perspective.





Thing is I've never said that those are unassailable fortresses nor that current efforts are diminised because they're not revolutionary.

Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny was revolutionary. I can't stand it.

In fact I think that every album by the very non-revolutionary Metal Church shits all over anything Judas Priest has ever done.

But I am not going to deny that Judas Priest revolutionised Metal.





It's irrelevant. Reign In Blood is revolutionary in that some elements of it had such massive appeal that it influenced a change in the way music is made on a relatively large scale.


Killing Technology may be a better album (in your opinion) but it's not as influential nor has it changed the way music is made.

For what it's worth I prefer Atheist over the revolutionary Death and Malevolent Creation over the revolutionary Deicide and Cannibal Corpse and I much prefer Artillery's By Inheritance than the albums released by Slayer, Metallica and Anthrax around the same time.

So in many cases, I find the less revolutionary albums to be better than the revolutionary ones.

But you cannot deny the revolutionary one's their due.

I've read this several times and still have no idea what the fuck you're trying to say. My best guess - are you telling me that some women are attractive by conventional standards and some are not? And then trying to tie that into metal bands, by saying that some are 'good' and some are 'not'?



I'm not. I'm saying that your definition of 'revolutionary' is too narrow. Really this thread is daft because some flower child could wander in here and mention Hammerfall's debut is revolutionary, and we'd all have to agree because it's all opinion anyway and chances are they could make a good case for it since local flower children are clever people.

Sure, there are certain 'big' albums in metal that are classics and that were very influential and should be hailed as such, but assigning some arbitrary limit as to when these can be considered 'revolutionary' will obviously mean that you dismiss a lot of good, genuinely revolutionary music. You could just as easily say Thrash doesn't count because people were playing fast before that, not revolutionary.

Ultimately the problem is this set of silly boundaries placed on what is good/progressive in metal, and what is not good/regressive. Who says Atheist are less revolutionary than Death? Did Death have samba influence I've missed? Who says Artillery were a less revolutionary band than Anthrax? You can make arguments in favour of one or the other, and fine. At the end of the day, I listen to music for my own enjoyment, and nothing else matters, and I hope that's true for all reading.

I'm a little drunk btw, so if this isn't making sense don't worry.

Yes that is exactly what I was saying..




Actually you seem to be saying revolutionary is anything you like.

So Artillery's By Inheritance is more revolutionary than Kill Em All or Reign In Blood simply because I like it more.




Who's dismissing it?

And it doesn't have to be big bands - Repulsion (Napalm Death, Carcass etc took their lead from these guys) and Hellhammer were revolutionary but were not big bands by any stretch of the imagination.

Possessed are exactly huge either but were revolutionary.






Regressive isn't bad either. Evile and Bonded By Blood are technically regressive but I enjoy both of them.

Good is mere opinion. As stated I think Judas Priest are shit. Many think they're great.





Totally agree 100%




On a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning? Don't you people work?
We

Wacky simplistic arguments aside: (metal is like teh wimminz because some is good and some bad)



Noooo, I'm saying that you're ignoring the revolutionary aspects of By Inheritance just because more people talk about KEA/RIB. And yes, drinking during the week, the American dream made real.