I see what SouthernTrendkill is talking about in general. Way back when I was a kid, Metallica sounded like noise to me, since I was used to stuff like Guns n Roses, Poison, Bon Jovi, etc. Then I got into thrash, and some of the less melodic death metal bands of the time sounded like noise to me and astonished me with their heaviness. When I was listening to old school death metal, brutal death sounded like super heavy noise to me, as I discovered bands of this style. Even up until somewhat recently, the heaviest, most chaotic, purely rhythmic brutal death/slam sounded very noisy to me and I found it incredibly heavy. But now there is no metal that sounds like noise to me or shocks me with its heaviness. However, I certainly don't think that the heaviest bands aren't heavy.
