Controversial opinions on metal

So what would you two say about this track?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EPbLxMesxg

edit: ... thrashy? Not "pure" death metal? :lol:

I honestly want your opinion on this BurgerBoy.

It's kinda thrashy I guess but if anything it falls into the too-primitive-to-classify category. I wouldn't necessarily hesitate to call it "pure" either though, because it doesn't sound thrash derived as much as Hellhammer/Celtic Frost-derived. Along those same lines, Obituary has a lot of stuff that was basically established riffing-wise by '83/'84 without having any obvious connection to thrash. That is in clear contrast to 90s Death, who went from a very primal sound to one full of choppy thrash-influenced riffing.
 
Crappy? Agreed. Generic? Not so much. They were practically the first real "tech-death" band. I'm not talking about early technically inclined death metal like Death, Suffocation and Atheist ... im talking about the latter "tech-death" sound which we hear more often today, which they pretty much spawned.

That is very true you do have a point there. Generic may not have been the word I was looking for but you have to admit that even bands that have been imitated to death still maintained their own distinguishable sound with various nuances in their music despite years of countless knockoffs. Megadeth is a good example. Necrophagist's sound hasn't been very endearing over the years. I think they've been surpassed by enough bands to become completely irrelevant.
 
Pantera pretty much blows, aside from a few songs.

Don't really feel like debating it with fanboys, just stating it.
 
I find technical death metal to be really forgettable music. I wont go into my normal tirade on it, but there's very few bands I can stomach listening to in the genre. I feel like it takes the parts of death metal i like and strips them from the sound. It tends to rob the music if its heaviness and any noticeable atmosphere.
 
I find technical death metal to be really forgettable music. I wont go into my normal tirade on it, but there's very few bands I can stomach listening to in the genre. I feel like it takes the parts of death metal i like and strips them from the sound. It tends to rob the music if its heaviness and any noticeable atmosphere.

Thats true but I feel like i like it cause they just pour out all of their talent and put into one epic sounding monster I don't think that made any sense but that's what I think...
 
Pretty much all the best tech-death/"technically inclined death metal" is glorified tech-thrash anyways, with the occasional exception of a Nespithe or a Todessehnsucht. People like to say that trad and thrash were dead by the early 90s, but in reality almost all old-school metal was viciously murdered around the same time, and og tech-death's demise by the hands of brutal wank-death is one of the best examples.
 
Pretty much all the best tech-death/"technically inclined death metal" is glorified tech-thrash anyways

lololo.

edit: "OG tech-death" never demised ... Atheist, Gorguts, Pestilence etc are all still releasing albums along the lines of their earlier work and sound almost nothing like "tech-death". It's just that "tech-death" kind of blew up and gained a lot more popularity with Necrophagist, that's why there are far more "tech-death" bands today. And there was never really more than a handful of technical death metal bands in the early days anyway.


edit: So Spawn of Possession, one of the best examples of tech-death, is glorified tech-thrash? :lol::lol:
 
Ok HB I do have to take exception to that one. Do you mind explaining that claim? Do you have any examples, maybe some videos or something because that just sounds ridiculous to me.
 
lololo.

edit: "OG tech-death" never demised ... Atheist, Gorguts, Pestilence etc are all still releasing albums along the lines of their earlier work and sound almost nothing like "tech-death". It's just that "tech-death" kind of blew up and gained a lot more popularity with Necrophagist, that's why there are far more "tech-death" bands today. And there was never really more than a handful of technical death metal bands in the early days anyway.


edit: So Spawn of Possession, one of the best examples of tech-death, is glorified tech-thrash? :lol::lol:

Atheist is about as thrashy as it gets in supposed-death metal, and by Elements they were playing progressive metal with minimal death or thrash riffs. The Erosion of Sanity is tech-death-proper in my book, but you're kidding yourself if you think anything they did after is in that style (I mean, I've only heard a few songs from Coloured Sands, but what I have heard is more describable as dissonant wavy experideath that would be more easily compared to something like a death metal DSO). Pestilence never released a tech-death album; Spheres is jazzy, but more or less thrashy progressive metal, and albums like Doctrine are basically groove metal.

To add on, you had Cynic also abandoning death metal by 1993, Death continuously streamlining their sound moving away from death metal, and others like Nocturnus and Hellwitch (that were always thrashy) dropping off the map to just do the odd EP or full-length. This implosion continued in the underground as well, with Carbonized, Disharmonic Orchestra, etc almost leaving metal entirely, other Roadrunner and Nuclear Blast acts quickly fading like Afflicted and Disincarnate, etc etc I could go on. This all happened by about 1994, the same year thrash is considered to have died.

What that left was the new breed of Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Necrophagist, etc to fill the gap, completely eschewing the previous reliance on thrash metal qualities. Spawn of Possession is obviously modern new-wank one of the offspring of that movement.
 
You're literally the only person I know that thinks Pestilence has gone back to playing music that resembles their earlier output in any form, so lol.

Putting it more simply, I believe the term tech-death as broadly used should be split into four categories...

1) Old-school tech/prog-death, consisting of albums that predominantly feature death metal riffs, with little or no obvious influence from any of the major tech-thrash acts (examples: The Erosion of Sanity, Nespithe, the first two At the Gates albums, the first two Atrocity albums, maybe Cadaver's ...In Pains, parts of Deicide's Legion)

2) Old-school tech/prog-"death", consisting of albums that may feature death metal vocals and may have come from a scene generally associated with death metal, but feature an equal or greater amount of thrash riffs and otherwise take after death metal in little more than tuning and certain aesthetic qualities (the first two Atheist albums, Cynic's demo material, Thresholds, Spheres, the first Hieronymus Bosch album, a lot of post-Spiritual Healing Death)

3) Progressive alt-extreme metal, consisting of albums that once played death metal or grindcore, usually of a progressive variant, but stripping away most/any distinguishable death metal characteristics, usually in favor of non-metal influences (Focus, Pleasuredome, Disharmonization, mid/late-90s Sadist)

4) New-school tech/prog-death, basically beginning with the Suffocation sound and going from there as bands began incorporating a high amount of blasting, sweep-picking, further down-tuning, some tech-y breakdowns, etc (Spawn of Possession, Cryptopsy, Origin, Necrophagist, blahblahblah)

Now, granted, that doesn't fully cover every band or album, and there is some stuff that skirts the border of two or more, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the tech-death of today has little semblance of the early stuff that is usually most heavily praised, with the exception of the occasional Gory Blister or whatever rehashing Individual Thought Patterns. To say "wtf man? My homies in Spawn of Possession are still keeping it sweep" is basically as meaningful as pointing to groove metal in the middle of the 90s as proof of thrash's continued existence.
 
Pestilence never played technical death metal? :lol: :lol:

Also, their last two albums dont remind you of Testimony and Spheres? Are those two not included when speaking of their earlier work? What about Obscura from Gorguts, is that album not one of their earlier works? Off course they are, so i dont know why you keep trying to single out albums that you're trying to unsuccessfully prove your point with.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/pestilence/testimony_of_the_ancients/
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/pestilence/spheres/
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/pestilence/obsideo/

Take your time and read a few of those reviews, even better, try listening to those albums again and say they arent technically inclined death metal. Or maybe after you've read a few of those reviews you'll see that your're probably one of the only people who thinks that their last two albums have completely strayed away from their earlier sound .. and clearly, i dont need to explain to you again which albums im talking about when referring to their earlier sound right? What, did you think i meant Doctrine and Obsideo sound like Consuming Impulse or MM? :lol:

Once again, so many wrongs here that my head is literally about to blow up ... but i'll just stick to #4. You are so wrong here that it's not even funny. Breeding the Spawn(for example) sounds muuuuuuuch closer to The Erosion of Sanity then it does to Onset of Putrefaction, Noctambulent, Antithesis etc. Also, Luc has stated numerous time that Suffocation were one of the biggest influences for the band when they were writing/recording The Erosion of Sanity. And honestly, if you think Necrophagist sound closely similar to Suffo and Cryptopsy, then brother, you need to get your fucking ears checked.

Technical death metal 2.0, "tech-death" or whatever the fuck else we might call it started with Necrophagist, not Suffocation bro. Suffo are one of the original technical death metal bands. We all know that they are/were one of the most influential and innovative death metal bands of all time, so it sounds pretty ridiculous to referr to them as "new school tech-death" when they are basically one of the pioneers of the original sound.
 
Testimony of the Ancients is generally kinda straight-forward, just with the occasional pretty guitar solo or keyboard flair. Don't know where you hear tech-death in it.

Obscura is one of those that doesn't fit neatly into any of the four categories, but at the very least it certainly isn't remotely old-school, and I wouldn't exactly call it an earlier work either (prior to the new one, the five year gap provided a nice boundary between it and the first two). I mean, it's one of a few albums that is often labeled "avant-garde" that people don't laugh at for being a gimmick.

Yeah, other bands took what Suffocation did further, but my point is that they more or less started it. If you want you could lump them into both categories 1 and 4; they started the bridge from old- to new-school. Necrophagist went into full-on flashy excess, but strip that away and at the core they still come from the "brutal" tech-death wing.
 
I'm sorry but Atheist is a poor example for your argument HB. I have no clue where you hear thrash metal on Piece of Time or anywhere on any of there albums for that matter. And just because Kelly Shaefer's vocals aren't of the brutal variety doesn't lump them into the tech thrash group by default either. And sure Elements isn't exactly a death metal album but it was after they progressed their on the last two albums and was meant to experimental in nature anyways. So it isn't really fair to use that album as a genre definer.