Melodic Metal - is it getting boring now?

[dill_the_devil]

It seems to me that just recently, the metal world is being flooded with legions of melodic metal bands. Generally, they all quote the same influences - In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates, Iron Maiden, etc... and they all sound the bloody same! Sweden is especially guilty of this (although Withering Surface are a damned fine band).

Is anyone else starting to become just a little bored of solos, arpeggios, pick-slides, rhythm-changes and dual-guitar harmonies and beginning to hanker for a return to the less-technical, more brutal days of the eighties death metal and grindcore scenes? Or am I alone in this?

 

[WikkidGurl]

I like them however you are not alone ... I to am still into the 80's death metal. Sometimes less is more.

 

[speed]

I agree that a few too many melodic death metal bands that are just derivatives of At the Gates or Dark Tranquility, etc. Yet, whatabout the other melodic metal- power metal, or whatever one wishes to call it, there are a hell of alot of crappy and mediocre power metal bands, that sing cheesy lyrics, and rip off Strato or Gamma Ray etc. I think the crappy power metal bands are far more annoying, just a personal thought.

 

[Soul Conspiracy]

Personally I can't get enough of all that melodic metal shit

 

[svenske kocken]

Starting to get boring? I think it was getting boring by 1998 already.

 

[dill_the_devil]

Don't get me wrong, Opeth are my favourite band ever and Dark Tranquillity can do no wrong - it's just bands that shamelessly use bands like those above and others as the template for their work and make no effort to rise above the derivate and innovate on those templates. It seems a lot of those bands at the moment are becoming huge on the back of music that has already been made, and that irritates me.
Of course, there are a lot of derivate death metal bands as well, who seem content to rip off old favourites without adding anything new to the formula - but in general, that attitude seems to be most prevalent in the melodic scene at the minute.
As for power metal bands - well, other than Helloween, Iced Earth and a few select others, I don't listen to power metal at all. It all seems way too cheesy for me.

 

[cybernaut]

it should be called Gay-tenburg !!
boring as shit
I saw In flames last year-easilly one of the worst acts I ve ever seen on stage--thank god for beer
dark tranquility are ok though

 

[dill_the_devil]

Originally posted by Hearse
The more there are metal bands the more they sound like each others... its damn hard to make totally "different" music in nowdays.

So I don't get bothered if someband sounds like Opeth or some else, that's just great thing cause I like that type of music. Why should I dislike some band if it sounds like some other band that I think is the best of all and makes music I love? But it still would be better if that music would have some own style in it too. And it usually does.

It's just a matter of how you see/listen things. If you start listening some band and notice some influence of some band, and you get bothered about it. Then you have doomed that band beyond good already, cause you listen it after that, only to find more similaritys to the band they got influenses from. And that starts to annoye you more and more.

for example. If you would have heared band that sounds mostly like Opeth, without ever hearing Opeth before. You would love it, but if you have hearded Opeth before, you just think its a copycat/ripp-off band. (ripp-off) is a nasty word that shoudn't be used, unless the band copy straight riffs from some band, wihtout making that just to tribute to the orginal band.

So people should listen music as music, without prejudice. That is the only way to listen new and all music.

Some excellent points Hearse, and sentiments that I heartily agree with. However, my beef wasn't with bands that are influenced by others but bands that simply rip off others, which are two different things. After all, roots and influences can eventually by traced down the timeline until you find yourself content only with listening to a hairy caveman bang a couple of rocks together.
I don't mind listening to bands who leave their influences open, as long as they inject some creativity into the music as well. And in general, melodic metal these days has become a sanitised, technical-ability obsessed genre lacking in creativity and innovation. Emotion has been replaced with arpeggios, and a bands' abilities today are being judged not by how well they engage the listener (something Opeth, In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and the like can do effortlessly) but by how many dual-guitar harmonies pepper the song. A sad state of affairs, I feel.

 

[Buxter Blay]

I like all of them