Best 21st century metal?

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:36 pm

What are your favorites?

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:49 pm

Deathspell Omega -- harrowing, claustrophobic, unreal, menacing, vicious, impenetrable
Meshuggah -- unique, crushing, rhythmically advanced
Car Bomb -- demented, technically unparalleled, adventurous
Abigor (v2) -- insane left-field/avant satanism
Rotten Sound -- perfected the art of deathgrind
Yob -- sweeping, grand, romantic classical meets doom

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:34 pm

Corrupted - the heaviest band. their last album was really nice and weirdly poignant.

Wrnlrd - strange, unsettling black metal. Myrmidon is my favorite album of his, particularly the track "Black Dress".

Xasthur - his early stuff is great atmospheric black metal, his last few albums are amazing. people say it's hipster black metal; they don't know what they're talking about.

Wounded Kings - totally satisfying "traditional" doom metal

Nasum - political death/grind. Helvete and Shift are my favorite albums of theirs.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 4:37 am

These are exactly the kind of responses I was hoping to get. Thanks!
If you guys don't mind, could you put a * next to the bands that don't have that typical growling style singing in them... a lot of otherwise good stuff is almost ruined for me when that comes in... it makes me laugh every time. It just strikes me as silly and juvenile. But I can overlook that if the music is good enough.
And everyone else, keep 'em coming! They don't have to be obscure groups either... I've been living under a rock and I'm just crawling out, so don't assume I know about even the bigger names.

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:03 am

growling can sound pretty different, depending on who's doing it! corrupted have low growls, for example, but they don't sound much like most death metal bands.

a few big names:

khanate - clean hands go foul - like doom metal collided with free jazz. members of khanate also play in sunn O))), who aren't worth the time

earth - the bees made honey in the lion's skull - halfway between doom metal and country western

mayhem - ordo ad chao - the band is a farce, at this point, but this was their best record since 1994

blut aus nord - mort - i suspect this one would be your cup of tea. oozing, melting microtonal black metal

and, not from the 21st century, but essential anyway
gorguts - obscura - extended technique-based death metal

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:52 am

I understand the aversion to growls, but it will limit your exposure to some cutting edge stuff. A lot of bands have gone into a kind of insanely-aggressive realm where regular old "singing" just can't seem to keep up. These days there are tons of bands that have traditional vocals, but more often than not they seem to have a musical eye on the past, rather than the future. That can be a drag IMO.

Check out While Heaven Wept's 2009 masterpiece "Vast Oceans Lachrymose." It's got insanely good "clean" vocals, but just enough modern influence to keep it from sounding kitcschy or retro... it's also just a fantastic, visionary album in every sense.

If you want to hear some pretty amazing, fucked up instrumental stuff check out Loincloth.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:01 am

dfuruta wrote:sunn O)))

I used to work with one of those guys, doing phone canvassing for a non-profit peace org. Gave him a guitar lesson once.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:02 am

I'm willing to overlook the growls, if the music is good enough. But it really does make me laugh, every time.

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:06 am

ubertar wrote:I used to work with one of those guys, doing phone canvassing for a non-profit peace org. Gave him a guitar lesson once.

Ha! From their music, maybe he could use a few more

Snarl 12/8 · Post by **Snarl 12/8** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:56 pm

The true metalheads will probably want to drop a bucket of blood on my head (see other thread I started on diff btwn metal and hard rock for my metal naivete on display), but I've really been enjoying the metallic bits of the new Praxis record. Not sure if there's any "true" metal on there though. Sounds very "hybrid" to me. Buckethead might be too weird for Ozzy, but he's a hell of a guitarist in my book. Funky too.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:23 pm

Listening to Yob's "Grasping Air" right now and digging it. Started off with some really interesting chords, and again I cracked up when the growls came in. I wasn't kidding when I said it happens every time. Once it's there, I get used to it though. I'm using last.fm to check these out... I'll check them all out. I started with them b/c you mentioned a Romantic influence and I've been listening to a lot of stuff from that period lately... Dvorak, Bartok, Schumann, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, etc. My daughter particularly likes "Kovski". I can't say I'm hearing it in Yob, so far, but I like it anyway.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 7:00 pm

Deathspell Omega-- "First Prayer"

There are elements to this I like, but it's too repetitive, and the backwards effect is too apparent, I think.

In theory, I should listen to more than one song apiece for these bands, but there are so many I'm going to do that anyway, at least to begin and narrow them down a bit.

Meshuggah I've already listened to a bit, so I'll skip them for now. Kind of funny that they've got a Yiddish name.

Car Bomb-- "Best Intentions"
Not really digging this one at all. There are a few parts I like, but mostly it's just annoying.

Abigor-- "Scars in the Landscape of God"
Laughing at the growling again. This would have been better as an instrumental. It's not really working for me on that level either, though. The drumming is technically skilled, but not musical at all and distracting from the rest of the music, which isn't doing much for me anyway. Satanism is for middle schoolers (not that I can make out a word of the lyrics).

Rotten Sound-- "Maggots"
The growling started right away, so it didn't come as a surprise like how other bands usually set it up. So no laughter this time. Or maybe I'm getting used to it. Blues based guitar solo-- didn't expect that. No "Maggot Brain" to be sure, though.

OK, so that completes the first round. Yob set the bar high, and none of the others reached it, IMO. Deathspell Omega was probably the next best. JMHO, YMMV. I'll check some more out in the days to come. Thanks again to everyone who posted, and keep 'em coming.

IDQ · Post by **IDQ** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:37 pm

I hesitate to mention this, because I think that people into the type of metal listed above probably don't consider it "real" metal, but...

Last year's Baroness double album - Yellow and Green - is incredible. It indeed less heavy (and presumably less metal) than their earlier efforts. It was my favorite record last year, and it's impressive that it's a double album that is strong ALL THE WAY through.

I share the OP's opinion about the yelling/barking. I just can't take it seriously. I acknowledge that there is nothing inherently invalid about it, I just can't get into it.

Things that I like that are metal-ish would perhaps be described by metal connoisseurs as more hard rock, but I do think there's a difference in the themes of the material and the approach to song structure. As a reference, other bands I like/have liked in this vein are Mastodon, Tool, Isis, Red Fang.

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:46 pm

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.

I think there are a ton of reasons that the atonal/harsh style of vocals has proliferated, but I won't get into it here. However it should be mentioned that both Isis and Mastodon started off in that style, and made a ton of fans, and then went for a more "singing" approach in later years. To uh... let's say debatable effect.

ubertar, good on you for checking out my recommendations. However I should have been more specific about a few things. I'll clarify in a bit.

Spark · Post by **Spark** » Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:07 am

Cult of Luna is probably my favorite metal-ish band of the last decade.

Message Board

Best 21st century metal?

Best 21st century metal?

Who is online