Modern Metal makes me laugh...

Metal turned into boy bands with fancy haircuts and detuned baritone guitars. Basically a pop production, loaded with samples, sampled drums, all guitars surgically cut. The structures of the songs are all the same: ambient guitar intro coming from the distance, percussive riff A, percussive riff B, sweet singing, breakdown A, sweet singing, breakdown B. It's like listening to Guitar Pro. Literally thousands of such bands. A few new ones show up every day as a recommendation on Youtube. You click on it in hope you'll finally discover something interesting this time, nope, recycled riffs again, you don't hear any difference. It only looks a bit different, it's some other desert behind the band this time. OK, you can occasionaly hear at least an interesting song but it has been a while since I've heard a band that made a good whole album.

There's definitely a ton of metal bands that don't sound like this.

Again, if you can't find it you aren't looking.
 
There's definitely a ton of metal bands that don't sound like this.

Again, if you can't find it you aren't looking.

Trust me, I am looking. I desperately want to be excited by new music but it doesn't happen. And I give every crap a chance.
 
Some fun bands, IMHO, that have released albums in the last five years (not debuted in that time), are Sabaton, and Powerwolf. Both have a gimmick, but their shows are a good time. Also in the power metal arena are bands like Avantasia, that release albums regularly, and I think most of them are pretty solid. For pure power metal cheese, Gloryhammer and Alestorm.

For melodic prog metal, Seventh Wonder is pretty good. Same singer on the last couple of Kamelot albums.


This thread is by the guy that organizes the progpowerusa festival in Atlanta every year. It's his top 50 for 2018. I wouldn't agree with all of it, but if you can't find anything on this list that you like, then I don't know.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/top-50-albums-of-2018.1385599/

Heh...D&D metal. Just me, but I can't listen to that stuff.

Seventh Wonder (first album 14 years ago) and Avantasia (first album 18 years ago) are amazing, but no spring chickens.

I'll take a close look at that list when I have the time. Thanks!
 
Pretty much the same reaction I had. I want to hear vocal melody, not growling. And while I can appreciate the technical difficulty in playing drums and guitars with rapid-fire 1/128 notes at 160 bpm, that sounds like a race to me, not music. But I'm old, and that music wasn't intended to appeal to my demographic. And I suspect most of the people it does appeal to would think the music I like is pure crap.

Ironically there are probably more of us old geezers who still like our old melodic shit then there are youngsters who like this technical rat race stuff. The rock scene is shrinking and there just not that many youngsters who are into this stuff as there were into the melodic stuff when we were younger.

Beta boy bands with auto tune, distortion, and screaming is NOT metal. That’s the least metal thing I’ve ever seen or heard in my life.

Actually, I almost wanted to click away but there was something weirdly funny in this video. The funny autotune vocals, the EDM breakdown. And of course this youtube comment:

Looks like he cloned himself to form a band.

These guys are from Houston and are really good. Their name is Carry the Storm. The guitar player Kelly Fitzsimmons is amazing.


They are not bad. Could be even better if the singer stops doing his screamo yells at the end and if they added a good hook to their music. The musicianship is there, now they only need to improve their songwriting.

I disagree with a lot of the sentiment in this thread, but this is a band I think the guys looking for melody in their metal will dig


One of the better contributions to this thread sofar.
 
This is a little bit like selling a product that looks and behaves exactly like 100+ other similar products and wondering why the career didn't take off.
 
Fundimentally there isn't anything wrong with the music.
what I am tired of is all bands sounding the exact same, within each trend. I couldn't distinguish deathcore bands one from another, metalcore, Djent, and now a "Solo bedroom prog project". Everyone just sounds the same. Within every trend - Same influences, Same guitar tone, same vocals, same riffs, same drum samples... I'm not a fan of autotune and sample replacement.

But of course, there are plenty of good bands that stick out...
I mean, who hates gojira?
 
This is a little bit like selling a product that looks and behaves exactly like 100+ other similar products and wondering why the career didn't take off.

Fundimentally there isn't anything wrong with the music.
what I am tired of is all bands sounding the exact same, within each trend. I couldn't distinguish deathcore bands one from another, metalcore, Djent, and now a "Solo bedroom prog project". Everyone just sounds the same. Within every trend - Same influences, Same guitar tone, same vocals, same riffs, same drum samples... I'm not a fan of autotune and sample replacement.

This is what Glenn Fricker is always ranting about. He's tired about all the bands sounding the same, using the same IR's of the same cab/mic models, all quantesizing their music so its right on the dot, sample replacement of drummers. He wants to hear actual musicians playing again. And I agree with him. I do want to hear actual musicians again. And I am fed up with youtube vids of guitarists jamming along solo to their prog bedroom projects. Or just their solo guitar covers. I wanna hear and see real bands again. Who try to find their own sound instead of wanting to be yet another 'insert one of the millions of metal genres' band. I see way too many adverts of new bands looking for members who want to make music in the style of bands X, Y and Z. Just get together and see what happens. See what gels out of a clash of styles instead of wanting everyone to be the same.

But on the flipside, all the 80's shredders also all sounded the same as well. For every Malmsteen or Gilbert there were a thousand clones who all used the same training methods from the same teachers to all sound the same.
 
I see way too many adverts of new bands looking for members who want to make music in the style of bands X, Y and Z. Just get together and see what happens. See what gels out of a clash of styles instead of wanting everyone to be the same.
Amen!

I'd like to expand this: Even if you have found your style as a band after a couple of years, don't force yourselves to stick to that style. People change over the years, so why not let this influence your music? (It's an ever going conflict in my band, so I know what I'm talking about unfortunately...)
 
Amen!

I'd like to expand this: Even if you have found your style as a band after a couple of years, don't force yourselves to stick to that style. People change over the years, so why not let this influence your music? (It's an ever going conflict in my band, so I know what I'm talking about unfortunately...)

Changing a band's style? That's selling out, man! Gotta stay true to your course, even if it means nobody is coming to your shows. Artistic integrity and stuff.
 
so much grandpa ranting...lol.

I'm 45, almost 46. I love old metal and new metal. I don't care if it's a band playing live or quantized to the nth degree. I can listen to Sabbath or hair metal or Periphery and enjoy it all. I still enjoy new music...of all kinds. I enjoy a good singer or a good screamer. I don't understand dismissing something just because it's different from something we enjoyed in the 70's. Do we really want to hear someone trying to sound like Sabbath in 2019?
 
...But on the flipside, all the 80's shredders also all sounded the same as well. For every Malmsteen or Gilbert there were a thousand clones who all used the same training methods from the same teachers to all sound the same.

I think this phenomenon started showing up with the advent of GIT (which later became MIT). The first few years of GIT produced some phenomenal players in the late '70/early '80s, who then went out and taught that style to a whole raft of players, who then taught it to yet another bunch...ad infinitum. By the middle of the '80s, guitar players were getting harder and harder to tell apart.

...As for more new music in a metal style - Check out the new Devin Townsend album Empath, amazing stuff.

Devin has really caught my attention. I like his work a lot.
 




Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be ANY American metal scene......in the mainstream way at least. However there's a lot of good modern stuff outside the US. I've been listening to this band a lot. Good songs, great playing.......and Tatiana the singer is a magnificent creature to be sure.
 
Devin Townsend is great, both original and technically excellent. I'm an old man yelling a the clouds, mostly as I want to hear innovative new metal, not Black Sabbath clones, neither autotuned clones. And the whole 'devil worship' shock effect is not shocking 2019. Losing your loved one is more shocking.
 
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