Thoughts on newer metal tones....?

It all sounds the same to me. But, it's not my bag. It does feel effortless to play with those tones though, when you are used to low/no gain playing and beating the dogshit out your strings.
 
Its all very "Clean". This is just my opinion and Im sure plenty will disagree, and thats fine, but its like its...."metal"....but its not "heavy"....I struggle to listen to it..it seems like theres a lot of feigned anger (over what?!).

Its like revenge of the betas...I cant...
 
Devin said:
Been enjoying the toane of this album lately

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Nice find, Transcending Obscurity Records rules. All kinds of filthy underground treasures to find there.
Gonna hit that album right meow. Devin never disappoints….
 
The music and guitar sounds fine. This vocal style a lot of people are using sucks in my subjective view.
It reminds me of most rap. The same mediocre performance with little emotional substance. Trained parrots or seals come to mind.
 
It’s cool . The actual times get fucked with because many bsbds like archetechs ruin their tone with the samples and keyboards so loud .though spirit box has a boring buried tone . Most new bands do have shit tone I must admit . But I like architects
 
japetus said:
It all sounds the same to me. But, it's not my bag. It does feel effortless to play with those tones though, when you are used to low/no gain playing and beating the dogshit out your strings.
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I don't like it, never have. Killswitch kinda started this kind of genre, (maybe Shadows Fall a little, and a few others). The yelling and screaming and clean vocals thing never worked for me. I do like Killswitch, but preferred Howard's vocals. Still not a band I listen to alot.
 
The guitar tones (bass and drums as well) are fine although quite generic. This is basically the fault of the production. This was also the case in the 80's too. There were only a few bands back in the day that had truly original tones and/or production.
I just don't really like the vocals much at all. It's tiring. Yeah and the angry for no reason thing too. Also, most(not all) modern "metal" bands wear as much makeup as Poisen, have choreographed movements like any boy band and are basically following the trends.
Mastodon has pretty much consistently had killer guitar tones on each record with the tones on their last album being fucking killer. Their tone is different enough, playing is different enough and their production is different enough.
Jinjer has some killer tones without the makeup, elaborate costumes or choreography.
Not really metal, but Tool is consistently killer in those categories too.
 
bubbastain said:
The guitar tones (bass and drums as well) are fine although quite generic. This is basically the fault of the production. This was also the case in the 80's too. There were only a few bands back in the day that had truly original tones and/or production.
I just don't really like the vocals much at all. It's tiring. Yeah and the angry for no reason thing too. Also, most(not all) modern "metal" bands wear as much makeup as Poisen, have choreographed movements like any boy band and are basically following the trends.
Mastodon has pretty much consistently had killer guitar tones on each record with the tones on their last album being fucking killer. Their tone is different enough, playing is different enough and their production is different enough.
Jinjer has some killer tones without the makeup, elaborate costumes or choreography.
Not really metal, but Tool is consistently killer in those categories too.
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I can’t quite get into Mastodon (couple of songs I dig but no albums), but I do love that they have natural sounding drums on their albums, plus he is such a great, unique player.
 
I respect people's opinion if they don't like it. But I think there is some great music out there. And it's no different than it was back in the 80's and 90's. We have to search for it and weed through. Being spoon fed we'll only hear what is recommended on streaming or what's "popular" similar to the radio or MTV back in the day.

For every band that kicked ass in the 80's there were a dozen or more that were clones, posers, crappy, etc...however you want to describe it. Similar to how modern metal is described.

Here are a couple I like that may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Deathwhite is kinda slow doomish, but I LOVE the guitar tones.


Frozen Crown is good power metal. Fairly new tune.


Axenstar is a power metal band that I've always liked. Never got any traction. Came out with a new album last year.


Eluveitie is a cool mix of metal with some traditional folk instruments. They have some cool tunes, this is their new one
 
Not for everyone but this is new:





@bubbastain - great points on Mastodon :yes:

@napalmdeath - Just saw Killswitch last night. Still love those guys but I too like Howards voice a bit better than Jesse's. :dunno:




 
I'll agree that modern productions are generic, too polished and compressed. It just seems hypocritical coming from a forum full of people chasing the same IIC+ and JCM 800 tones lol
 
Just like at any point in history, 1-5% of everything is awesome, different, and inspiring.

Also, it’s cool that for bands that have some good ideas but next to no money or ability to dial tone, they now have resources in reach which will allow them to put those good ideas to tape without sounding like a dumpster fire recorded from the other end of a tunnel.

Having said that, the majority of tones recently, and not just the tones but the riffs and arrangements and meticulously rehearsed Cookie Monster vocals (wow aw man how cool and tough and totally mean and demonic they sound a hyuck hyuck haha amiright fellas?) are just boring and done to death. Also this might be an old man yelling at clouds thing, but worse than boring and done to death, everything feels safe and sanitized as well. It does seem like the majority of bands today look like they’re filled with the kind of people who have never lived actual lives or have anything to say, but rather they seem like people who listen to metal and want to participate in it too, so they spend just enough time away from buying funko pops and pretending to be a social justice activists which they think means “reposting political memes on twitter” (how stunning and brave) for them to buy just enough prepackaged modeler patches and drum samples to record 10 seconds of guitar and copy paste their way through a whole song and sound totally pro man, exactly the same as everybody else. It’s just exhausting. Fake aggression, fake anger, the same riffs you've heard a thousand times before, screamed exactly on queue, pristine copy pasted guitars and overly produced everything else.

In other words, nothing new, 95% of everything is crap just like it’s always been, but these days the crap is homogenized crap, which means it’s not even unique or interesting crap.

Alright, I’ll ask the nurse to help me transition from my walker to my chair. It’s time for my nap.
 
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