Controversial opinions on metal

[requiem]

I think there's a very palpable, tangible, difference in the entire atmosphere and emotional thrust of black metal to thrash metal, and this lies at the core of my experientially based preferences.

When I mention genres I'm talking Platonic forms here, because of course we can all point to bands that are on different points of the spectrum between the two genres and we can all point to riff structures and approaches that the two genres share. Nevertheless, with that in mind it's very easy for me to say that I love black metal but tend to be indifferent towards most thrash that I hear.

So despite being forms of metal that contain many of the same ingredients, I think there are chasms of difference that I personally observe while listening to the two genres. My endorphin rush is triggered so much more easily by one genre (black metal) over the other (thrash metal). This is obviously a subjective and personal circumstance, possibly augmented by my love of dark aesthetics, European history, nature and forestry as well as antithetical idealogical viewpoints.

But like I say, there are plenty of thrash albums that I love too.

There's an Italian restaurant near where I live and they serve pizza and pasta. I love pizza and like pasta. So I tend to order pizza 90% of the time I'm there. That seems to me an apt enough analogy for my personal valuing of black metal and thrash.

 

[The Ozzman]

if you don't like don't burn the witch you are poseur gay black jewish and metrosexual imho

So that would make me Slash then?

 

[no country for old wainds]

admit you like that song oz

everyone likes that song

just admit it

 

[Satanstoenail]

This obviously isn't my opinion, but can people who don't like Rob Halford's voice talk about why exactly they don't like it? That's an opinon that I've seen here before, including recently, but not one that I have an easy time understanding if the people who hold it enjoy traditional metal. This is especially true in reference to Halford in the 1970s.

Maiden were among the first metal bands I ever got into back in the eighties. I remember being exposed to Priest around the same time and immediately being turned off by Halford's vocals. His high range stuff has this thinness that always irritated me. Dickinson is obviously a lesser vocalist technically but the sound of his voice was always far preferable to me. Most of the other classic vocalists like Ozzy and Dio had voices that were technically not as good as Halford's but they were more emotive or powerful or dare I say soulful. I'm not a huge trad metal fan by the way. I do enjoy some seventies Priest though, Sin After Sin and Rocka Rolla are in my collection and get semi-regular spins.

In the 80's being a Slayer fan meant you loved Death Metal, the lines were more blurred. Now you meet "Death Metal fanatics" that don't even like Slayer.

Nah if you liked Slayer in the eighties it meant you liked thrash. A lot of people couldn't go the extra step to growled vocals and more brutality.

 

[CiG]

Nah if you liked Slayer in the eighties it meant you liked thrash. A lot of people couldn't go the extra step to growled vocals and more brutality.

No you're wrong there, I can show you an interview with Entombed where Niklas Andersson says that Reign In Blood is the best Death Metal record.

At 5:11.



What I'm saying is, the lines were much more blurred, especially with Death Metal which wasn't really a defined genre at that point. It's the kind of thing expressed in almost every Nunslaughter interview I've read where they want to make music that comes from the days when everything was less sectioned, everything was Death Metal if it was heavy and fast and evil enough.

 

[Krow]

I know an old thrasher from Arizona in the the 80s and he couldn't deal with death metal. He even has a story about hearing Tomb of the Mutilated in the early 90s and said it was too much for him. He knew a lot of lesser know thrash and crossover too from our talks so I don't believe he was talking shit.

He's probably wearing a slayer shirt right now.

 

[Omni]

I don't think that every metalhead in the 1980s had the same opinions as one another. I'm certain that there were people who enjoyed Slayer that did not like death metal and vice versa.

 

[CiG]

No but a case can very easily be made to prove that sentiments over Death Metal, Black Metal and Thrash Metal were not so cut-and-dry in the 1980's. Anybody familiar with the intellectual antics of Fenriz knows this.

 

[Baroque]

There's some 80's crossover song, I think by SOD or DRI where they refer to Slayer as a death metal band also.

 

[Krow]

Running Wild and Helloween were part of a split called "Death Metal." Obviously though no one could tell the difference in them and Slayer and Death.

 

[CiG]

Wasn't Hellhammer also on that or was that something different?

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Nah if you liked Slayer in the eighties it meant you liked thrash. A lot of people couldn't go the extra step to growled vocals and more brutality.

.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I remember being exposed to Priest around the same time and immediately being turned off by Halford's vocals. His high range stuff has this thinness that always irritated me. Dickinson is obviously a lesser vocalist technically but the sound of his voice was always far preferable to me. Most of the other classic vocalists like Ozzy and Dio had voices that were technically not as good as Halford's but they were more emotive or powerful or dare I say soulful. I'm not a huge trad metal fan by the way. I do enjoy some seventies Priest though, Sin After Sin and Rocka Rolla are in my collection and get semi-regular spins.

i get this idea that the most technically perfect vocalists can sometimes be soulless, but i much prefer the clean purity and outrageous range of halford to the strained, affected, samey emoting of dickinson (who i much prefer on his solo records for whatever reason), and i think halford's superb at teasing out the soulfulness of the music even if you can't always find it in the voice itself. i never found dio that soulful either, there's something about his tone that's kinda self-absorbed and domineering, keeps me at a distance even while i admire his insane talent (i'm aware this is a weird opinion).

long story short, i'd take ozzy over all of them in a heartbeat.

 

[Baroque]

Nah if you liked Slayer in the eighties it meant you liked thrash. A lot of people couldn't go the extra step to growled vocals and more brutality.

I agree. I think back when death metal was starting out though, Slayer was sort of a gateway between thrash and death, because the lyrics were more brutal and the music had a heavier mood than a lot of other mainstream thrash. I can see why people might've lumped them in with death metal at a time when death hadn't fully established a separate identity yet. They're the closest thing to death metal of the big 4 at least.

 

[CiG]

Reign In Blood, riff-wise, is quintessential to the development of Death Metal.

 

[Omni]

I don't think that anyone's denying that Slayer is a big influence on death metal, but I definitely don't think that they are death metal. It is true that Reign in Blood is an important album to the death metal genre but there are also many differences between Slayer and even the earliest death metal acts. I can't agree with anyone who calls them death metal based on those differences.

Slayer was clearly part of thrash metal history and one of the early forerunners of the extreme side of the genre. It's only natural that the formative bands of death metal would seek to emulate their unbridled aggression and formidable musical abilities while trying to push even further into extreme music.

 

[CiG]

That's not the point, at all.

 

[Satanstoenail]

No you're wrong there, I can show you an interview with Entombed where Niklas Andersson says that Reign In Blood is the best Death Metal record.

Actually, he says that Raining Blood is the best Death Metal song ever written and he's making reference to the earlier part of the interview where they're talking about influence.

What I'm saying is, the lines were much more blurred, especially with Death Metal which wasn't really a defined genre at that point. It's the kind of thing expressed in almost every Nunslaughter interview I've read where they want to make music that comes from the days when everything was less sectioned, everything was Death Metal if it was heavy and fast and evil enough.

Just because death metal wasn't fully established until the late eighties doesn't mean that everyone was just calling random thrash bands death metal. Even more extreme thrash with screamed vocals was never referred to as death metal. Death metal was death metal if it was heavy and fast and evil enough to be death metal.

long story short, i'd take ozzy over all of them in a heartbeat.

I can totally agree with you there.

 

[Omni]

That's not the point, at all.

Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that you were the master of this topic and that all posts must specifically be in response to you and can't be a general opinion relevant to the discussion at hand. I probably overlooked that because the topic predates your membership by several years, despite your need to reply to every post in it.

 

[no country for old wainds]

^probably the most omni post i've ever read