Best 21st century metal?

[ubertar]

Kinda on the nerdy/prog side, but I've been digging Animals as Leaders' latest album "Weightless" lately. They're all instrumental, so no growling to throw off you old timers.

Before I started this thread, I was checking out metal stuff on last.fm, just whatever they'd throw at me, and noting down the names of groups that caught my interest. Animals as Leaders was at the top of my list. Really interesting guitar playing.

I'll get back to checking out the other recommendations in this thread, but I've found a good source for a lot of 19th and 20th C. Western art music (classical tradition) and I've been listening to that lately. Here's the link:
http://avaxhome.ws/music/classical
There's lots of other stuff on there too worth checking out.
It's really amazing how much music there is in the world, even after all the crap has been filtered out. The amount of crap plus all the mountains of stuff that's technically good but not doing anything uniquely interesting is mind-boggling, so it's essential to have some filters. Life is too short for mediocre music.

[xfmr]

Here are some bands that I am positive that no one else will post:

Oh yeah, barely any growly vocals in any of this

Cire - Wholesale Buyout
http://cire.bandcamp.com/

Lecivius - Microbes
http://lecivius.bandcamp.com/

Kings of Prussia (NOT King of Prussia) - Occurring Before In Time
http://www.reverbnation.com/kingsofprussia

[dave watkins]

i've been enjoying this newer band Deafheaven quite a bit, sort of a post rock / black metal sound. saw them live last year and it was fantastic.

http://deafheavens.bandcamp.com/releases

they also did a split with Bosse De-Nage where they covered mogwai's "cody"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GyIggA4b5w

Bosse De-Nage is also pretty great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFmybUvEy7c

totally understand the whole laughing at the cookie moster vocals thing, sometimes that's part of the fun. i can't take metal 100% seriously.

[dfuruta]

Flenser Records, the label that put out that split, has some pretty good bands. Mastery and Botanist are worth listening to, particularly.

[Spark]

No cookie monster at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuRKRFjm-HA

Their video for 'Wires' is a good one too.

[Jeff White]

Red Fang rules!

I have to say, I also have a problem with the cookie monster vocals. I guess I'm a bit old fashioned when it comes to heavy stuff. I'm into heavy guitars, for sure, but I suppose that my tastes run more "stoner/psych rock/metal" than METAL. With that said, I've been listening to a few things in the past year that kind of fall into this mold. Just saw this instrumental doom metal band from Austin at SXSW called Communion who I really dug the shit out of. Shared a house down there with Fight Amp, who are more hardcore/metal than stoner metal (and also great dudes from here in Philly), Red Fang, Baroness, Mastodon, Dead Meadow, Wooden Shjips, rediscovering the Flower Travelin' Band, early Sabbath, Acid King, and 90s Tool. Also been listening to the last decade worth of Porcupine Tree, which has its moments, but who I definitely do not care for like I did in the 1990s.

Jeff

[dfuruta]

A few things:

there are styles of harsh vocals other than "cookie monster". The low gutteral stuff that you all have a problem with is fairly standard for death metal and some kinds of doom, but is rare in black metal (which generally uses raspy vocals or shrieks) and only comes up some of the time in grindcore. There are lots of ways to scream.

There's plenty of legit extreme metal (as opposed to the trendy stoner/hard rock/post-rock sort of stuff most people in this thread are talking up) without gutteral vocals. But, it seems silly to have such a problem with that one particular thing. Like anything in music, gutteral vocals can be used for different reasons, and sometimes it's necessary to fit with the rest of the band. An old school death metal band with clean vocals is going to sound pretty stupid...

[earth tones]

UNCLE ACID