I didn't mean "heavy metal" as in simply doro and judas priest, but really all forms of metal. Again, with System they have distorted guitars, heavy drums, etc. but there is something about the sound that makes them not metal. But i'm just elitist and love ranting.
Today it's just a pain in the ass. Too many bands, too many sub-genres and sub-sub-genres. It makes for a huge mess and really tedious. "we're not blackened death/thrash, we're thrashened tech-black death" and all sorts of ridiculous shit
Hey, it's metal. There's good metal and bad metal. That's it as far as I care.
SOAD is not metal...not at all...they just aren't.