I feel like I have achieved true metal nirvana since I stopped caring about silly labels. They’re only half useful for finding new stuff anyway. If the music activates my dopamine generators, I like it. The only thing I avoid is gutturals, I don’t want a fucking horror movie creature on the microphone, thank you.
I can’t do the pig squeal sounding screams, but a good heavy vocalist can add so much to the range of emotion. It was an acquired taste for me, though. I had friends trying to show me BTBAM thinking I’d appreciate the complexity, but it took ages for me to really hear everything through the wall of sound. Looking up lyrics helped massively, along with finding bands that blend the heavy and clean vocals so there were spots I could sing along with. I’d love to learn to scream properly so I could belt out some gutturals
Honestly, I used to feel the same way for a long long time. I actually ended up getting into got it all vocals through bands like Svalbard, Brutus, thranenkind and enferens
That led to atmospheric black metal. Now I can enjoy bands like Uada but I have to be in the right mood
As a dedicated metal-type autist for over 15 years I am proud to say I’m not on this list. I am the Ambassador, the Professor, the Diplomat. I welcome any and all into the fold and love to help people find their niche. My personal taste leans towards prog, black, and death but my knowledge runs deep and I love to share it.
Any suggestions for something microtonal? Preferrably polyrhythmic as well.
Check out Blotted Science and Behold…the Arctopus! Anything with Ron Jarzombek (Blotted) and Colin Marston (Behold) should scratch that itch. I don’t have much microtonal in the library but now you’ve got me wanting to dig deeper. I’ll get back to you in a few days!
Otherwise if you’re cool with avant-garde in general I’d also recommend Dodecahedron, Imperial Triumphant, Igorrr, Meshuggah (THE polyrhythm kings), and Unexpect.
Think I’m way pass that point… My current itch scratchers of choice are Maddie Ashman for microtonal, Means End/Chromaform for harmonic, and Car Bomb for rhythmic crazyness. Surprisingly, I haven’t ever given “Behold…the Arctopus!” a serious listen, even though I’ve seen that meme video a long time ago… guess I wasn’t ready for it yet. Thanks for the reminder, will def check them out!
I’m not really into metal, but I dabble a bit because I like great guitar playing in any genre, but I appreciate your stance. I’m like you, but with other genres like Classical, Jazz, Blues, World Music, and Classic Rock. There are a lot of gatekeepers in those genres, and I like to guide noobs past them, and into new music they can love.
Guitar virtuosity is rampant in metal! You should take a look at Tosin Abasi - start with TRAM, then his bandmate Javier’s project Mestís, then his band Animal’s as Leaders’s album The Joy of Motion. TRAM is modern jazz, Mestís is very Spanish influenced, and AAL is one of my favorite bands of all time. All (primarily) instrumental.
CHON and Covet are both chill prog/math-rock with incredible guitar work. I’d recommend CHON’s Newborn Sun EP or Homey LP. Covet’s first two releases, Currents EP and Effloresce, have been my sleeping music every night for a couple years at this point.
I can recommend heavier/harsh stuff as well, but based on your current preferences these are good starting points. Feel free to keep replying or DM if you want more!
Some interesting suggestions! I’ll get to exploring! Thanks brother!
I look like Dad, but I’m a fuckin new guy to metal. To his credit, my best friend got me to appreciate Ozzy, Metallica, and Dio in high school. But it took Dimmu Borgir live in Oslo with the choir and orchestra to finally make harsh vocals click for me. I like thrash, speed, power, melodic, folk, prog, and some select black metal. I try not to support Nazi bands.
Trivium, killswitch (with Howard Jones), and dio are all great. Metallica sucks.
Howard Jones is an incredible vocalist. Have you heard his (not so new anymore) new band Light the Torch?
Little bit of all of these tbh
cant find myself, garbage list obv.
Please rate my ListenBrainz/10
Check out “Rare and Obscure Metal Archives” sometime, very nice
i dont recognize half the words
My taste in metal is pretty much based on how cool it sound while playing dark souls
Nothing is more metal than respecting the right to self-determination and the fun of others. Don’t be close-minded. Enjoy what you enjoy, don’t be a snob, let other people have fun and stop thinking about categories.
Metal peaked with the first three black sabbath albums.
Black Sabbath on Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath is everything you need to know about metal.
^ Classic Metal Purist
Dude, volume 4 is a masterpiece, with the exception of FX, which is just Iommi stoned out his mind and fucking with his pedalboard. There’s a really good rehash of it done by several artists calls Volume 4 Redux.
The New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal is outstanding. Bands like Haunt (Eric Church), Night Demon, witchcraft and Green Lung are all amazing, have solid sized libraries and are great starting points into other stuff
There are also really cool metal bands out there like Panopticon - he combines black metal and bluegrass with strongly anticapitalistic lyrics.
Dude, as someone who moved on from metal after the Black Album (completely pigeonholed classic purist), I’m so amazed you have turned me on to 4 bands all of which I really like on first listen. Thank you so much for giving metal a new lease on life for me! I didn’t know anyone was making really good thrashy stuff like this any more.
Try using gnoosic.com to suggest new artists. Its surprisingly old, but uses an algorithm. The algorithm predates AI by like a decade or something - it’s just someone’s nerdy pet project. It’s recommended me bands that have 25 monthly listeners lol.
Clicking on the ‘listeners also liked’ thing on your streaming service is also a good way to find bands.
Hot take: Most metal is just Classical Music II Electric Bugaloo.
I snorted.
The prog purist makes your point to be honest.
The classic is just a subgenre of dad.
I think that Dad is the casual version of Classic.
What about the nu-metal peeps, where do we fit in?
I would say numetal is having a renaissance, so many cool young bands coming through
We were kicked out long ago. No one talks to us
Is it because we brought Skrillex on stage with us?
If things keep going this way I might just break something tonight.
I feel their hate crawling on my skin, these wounds they will not heal
Boom na da noom na nanema! Da boom na da noom na namena! Da boom na ba noom na namena!
Hold on while I push my fingers into my eyes.
