This is my opinion on what makes metal not only good, but worth of the term "metal".
Metal originated as a form of rebellion toward both the popular rock bands and society in general. I won't trace specific bands, but I'm sure everybody would agree that was Black Sabbath's intent. If you don't think Black Sabbath was the frist real metal band, you're retarded. Anyway, as time progressed certain bands would come along and do something to rebel against popular forms of metal (and probably society . . . metal usually rebels against society as a general rule). Metallica and Slayer (for example) rebelled against the ever-so-popular hair bands of the 80's. Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Death, etc. rebelled against the growing popularity of thrash. They were also trying to take metal to new levels of extremity. Mayhem and Darkthrone were rebelling against the growing popularity of American death metal. They wanted to prove that Deicide was all talk, in essence.
As far as I'm concerned, the most "metal" bands around today are the bands like Today is the Day, Isis, Phantomsmasher, Watchmaker, Goatsblood, etc. These bands are doing everything in their power to push metal and extremity in new directions. They are rebelling against the weak and predictable approach that bands like Arch Enemy and Zyklon are taking with their music. I'm not saying that Arch Enemy and Zyklon aren't metal. They just don't represent what metal was originally meant to be.
Now just beacuse somebody does something different doesn't make them more metal than the next band. Whether not the differentness of a band is good is up to opinion . . . just like whether a band is "metal" or not.
Metal originated as a form of rebellion toward both the popular rock bands and society in general. I won't trace specific bands, but I'm sure everybody would agree that was Black Sabbath's intent. If you don't think Black Sabbath was the frist real metal band, you're retarded. Anyway, as time progressed certain bands would come along and do something to rebel against popular forms of metal (and probably society . . . metal usually rebels against society as a general rule). Metallica and Slayer (for example) rebelled against the ever-so-popular hair bands of the 80's. Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Death, etc. rebelled against the growing popularity of thrash. They were also trying to take metal to new levels of extremity. Mayhem and Darkthrone were rebelling against the growing popularity of American death metal. They wanted to prove that Deicide was all talk, in essence.
As far as I'm concerned, the most "metal" bands around today are the bands like Today is the Day, Isis, Phantomsmasher, Watchmaker, Goatsblood, etc. These bands are doing everything in their power to push metal and extremity in new directions. They are rebelling against the weak and predictable approach that bands like Arch Enemy and Zyklon are taking with their music. I'm not saying that Arch Enemy and Zyklon aren't metal. They just don't represent what metal was originally meant to be.
Now just beacuse somebody does something different doesn't make them more metal than the next band. Whether not the differentness of a band is good is up to opinion . . . just like whether a band is "metal" or not.