Death metal and technicality

I prfer regular death metal but an exception has been Nile, they've amazed me with their music and haven't lost any brutality in the process, but I understand a lot of tech death bands won't sound as brutal as Nile, it just depends on the outlook of the band as to what they want in their music.
 
i agree with henrik, but i guess that there are others new bands, and others old bands that came back and didn't forget their structure...

PUNGENT STENCH, OBITUARY, UNLEASHED, and others have come back and i hope new bandswith the same idea...

but i like PSYCROPTIC, NECROPHAGIST and others, and i don't know what we can expect

k srsly its not necessary to always put bands in caps k thnks.
 
to me, what good is being technical if all your riffs suck. It's like being a really good painter and no ideas of your own to paint. 'Artistic' structuring doesn't redeem your music to me. Every under-ager is nutting in their pants over how prog Opeth are, and how technical Meshuggah are, and how some other twat tunes his guitar or what time-signatures another uses, but mixing 5 kinds of shit together still just smells like shit to me.
 
to me, what good is being technical if all your riffs suck. It's like being a really good painter and no ideas of your own to paint. 'Artistic' structuring doesn't redeem your music to me. Every under-ager is nutting in their pants over how prog Opeth are, and how technical Meshuggah are, and how some other twat tunes his guitar or what time-signatures another uses, but mixing 5 kinds of shit together still just smells like shit to me.

plenty of bands in the genre have great riffs, I am not sure which bands you are referring to
 
I'm not a newcomer to death metal by any means, but lately I've been listening a lot to this genre, for instance Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Decapitated and Blood Red Throne. I find this genre very interesting, but there is a thing that bothers me to some extent. When listening to later Cryptopsy and Decapitated, for instance, I feel that some of the "flow" of the music has been replaced with rather pointless technical riffs. Of course, technical musicianship is not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel that some of these über-technical riffs tend to be quite boring, and these riffs give me absolutely nothing.

Is death metal becoming more and more stagnant? I find that there were less "pointless" riffs in older death metal. A lot of the bands went for simplicity instead of too much technicality (is that even a word?). Cryptopsy's "Blasphemy Made Flesh" and "None So Vile" are favourites of mine, mainly because they manage to combine technical musicianship without losing intensity and without ruining the song's structures. Of course, there are interesting, creative bands in today's scene, like Decapitated (even though they are a bit over-the-top sometimes), Vital Remains, Vehemence and Nile. What do you think about the future face of death metal - is the genre becoming more stagnant, and do the bands throw in pointless guitar-masturbating to fill a record?
I think it's really more about personal taste. For example, I myself get almost nothing out of the typical riff you hear in old school death metal.
 
Something I don't get:

There are people that hate The Sound of Perseverance, calling it "technical wankery." This blows my mind... It's become a trend to hate anything technical nowadays. I mean, the term "technical wankery" can be relevant to many bands, but to Death's last effort? Come on now! Technicality is bad when it takes away from the music, and good when it adds something interesting and something to leave you in awe. TSoP is amazingly melodic, awe-inspiring, and entices so many different emotions such as anger, fear, depression etc. And the technicality just ads something interesting and adds to the longevity and shock affect of the album. Amongst the death metal listeners, it's really become a fad to hate anything technical, imo.
 
Something I don't get:

There are people that hate The Sound of Perseverance, calling it "technical wankery." This blows my mind... It's become a trend to hate anything technical nowadays. I mean, the term "technical wankery" can be relevant to many bands, but to Death's last effort? Come on now! Technicality is bad when it takes away from the music, and good when it adds something interesting and something to leave you in awe. TSoP is amazingly melodic, awe-inspiring, and entices so many different emotions such as anger, fear, depression etc. And the technicality just ads something interesting and adds to the longevity and shock affect of the album. Amongst the death metal listeners, it's really become a fad to hate anything technical, imo.

that album is intensely emotional, I can't imagine how anybody could call it "technical wankery".

TBH I love both tech death and old school death - I love the atmosphere of bands like immolation and bolt thrower, but I also love the creativity and the brilliance of bands like atheist

the key in tech death is to find bands that play with some feeling, as well having some riffs that flow beautifully from one to another
 
im a death fan and i think tsop is clearly their weakest effort. its average, at best, because it sounds so disjointed and like chuck was constantly trying to justify guitar solos, seemingly unlinked riffs and gave absolutely no thought to logical composition. whilst there are good riffs, interesting leads and some exceptional drum work, overall the album feels forced, sounds boring and is basically an overexecution of guitar skill (i.e. technical wankery).
 
I don't know, TSoP is my 2nd favourite Death album after Scream Bloody Gore. It seems to me to be the clear prototype for Control Denied in some sense, in that it fuses a jazzy type of metal while trying to edge away from atypical death metal.

Anyhoo - I don't mind tech-death, but to be honest, I think that when the technicality becomes an exercise in and of itself rather than being an integral part of a good song, then it becomes a joke. I like death metal songs that I can remember for longer than it takes the song to actually play - and to be honest most of the more brutal / tech death metal albums I have had to review over the last year or so are pretty much forgotten the moment I switch them off.

That isn't to say that all old skool sounding death metal is worthy, however. Increasing numbers of old skool influenced discs are verging on the absolutely fucking average, imo.

Bottom line: ? I don't care how technical DM is, as long as the song is good.
 
The guys in Cynic were great musicians but I don't really like Focus, and like almost everybody I can't stand the vocals.
 
atheist - unquestionable presence and death - TSOP are the 2 greatest tech death albums ever IMO

I am really puzzled by that thread cythraul, because something is in chorus/verse form, it is pop music? does that mean slayer, early metallica,judas priest, and iron maiden are all pop bands? (this question is not really intended at you)
 
im a death fan and i think tsop is clearly their weakest effort. its average, at best, because it sounds so disjointed and like chuck was constantly trying to justify guitar solos, seemingly unlinked riffs and gave absolutely no thought to logical composition. whilst there are good riffs, interesting leads and some exceptional drum work, overall the album feels forced, sounds boring and is basically an overexecution of guitar skill (i.e. technical wankery).

Good job! Should keep the 'technical wankery' skeptics quiet for a while.

I like Cynic - Focus. The processed vocals don't bother me at all, it lends a detached feel to it all.
 
I like the fact that someone pointed out spawn of possession and psycroptic in this thread. As far as technical death metal goes, and pretty much death metal in general, it has progressed about as far as it can... in America. We are the world's superpower maybe, but we suck at making death metal. I am sick of hearing about Cryptopsy and Suffocation when there is Quo Vadis, Gorod, Anata, Spawn of Possession, Psycroptic, Necrophagist and hosts of others that American bands cannot touch. I'm not going to stand on a soapbox as to why I hate my country's metal, but I will say that anyone who thinks metal in general has progressed as far as it can should listen to the conductor's departure and leading vision (two amazing technical albums put out last year by Anata and Gorod respectively) and stand corrected.