Talkingbackwards, you DO realize that those are quite literally THE WORST the genre has to offer, right?
Yes, but because of your insistence that I tend to gravitate towards distinctly 80s shit, with your repeated "just stick with prog" or "Halford" comments, that's the kind of stuff that came to mind. I absolutely do not like that at all, although I did go through a brief phase A LONG TIME AGO where I listened to a lot of bands that sounded like that; trying to actually find something to enjoy.
As far as power metal goes, I honestly don't even know how to answer that. Of the "power metal bands" that I think I've listened to, the only ones that I particularly cared for were from the US. But do you know why? Because they tend to be a lot heavier, and a hell of a lot darker than the majority of Flower Metal crap from Europe. In all honesty, I can't even really name more than maybe two "power metal" bands right now that I like, and I don't even know if they really are power metal bands with how many other styles they've incorporated and how they've changed through the years. The same two bands that were just recently mentioned again: Iced Earth and Nevermore. Iced Earth was more of a thrash band starting out though, and Nevermore's first album and EP were closer to power metal, but then they quickly shifted way off course starting with Politics. Get this; I didn't even hear Sanctuary until three years after listening to Nevermore. I wasn't even sure that it was actually the same vocalist either, or that he wasn't using some kind of studio tricks. When I heard both of the Sanctuary albums, I thought "Wow, that's kind of cool", but I greatly prefer his vocal style with Nevermore, by far.
What the hell is Blind Guardian? Because to me, that's definitely power metal, but they too started out as more of a thrash band. And hell, I don't even really like more than three of their albums all that much. What is Demon's and Wizards?
If there are polyrhythms, contratempi, jazzy interludes, odd time signatures, and just overly technical stuff, guess what? It's progressive metal. So yes, djent, tech death, progressive death, etc. is all under the umbrella of "progressive metal" because they all dabble into prog at least a little bit. Anciients is a prime example of how a stoner doom band can be very prog but still be listenable to my ears. What I've been saying until now is that you tend to like everything with a prog touch. You gravitate towards more progressive-sounding bands because you obviously derive pleasure from complex and complicated music. I tend to shy away from that style because it bores me. I feel that the songwriting is rarely up there with the musicianship.
Fine, I go cuckoo for progressive metal, although that term is almost exclusively used for bands of the Dream Theater archetype, and something like Opeth is specifically called progressive-death. Yeah, it IS "progressive metal", but it's a subgenre, and I consider them to be distinctly different. If progressive simply means a variety of styles within a song, then yep, that's definitely what my favorite style is. What I don't care for is musical mastrubation though. Showing off doesn't impress me in the slightest.
Uh, no. No no no no no. Warrel has a very distinct, unique voice. It's flat and it's very atypical of even metal singers and it's very polarizing. Some people like it and others can't stand it. It has nothing to do with it not being extreme, it has to do with how some people hear a flat, clean vocalist. It works for him because it's his style, but for some people it's just annoying because they dislike flat singers. Most of those people tend to be big into prog and power metal where the singers are all perfect all the time and everything's tuned to E.
While I'm sure that's true for some people, I know for a fact that it isn't the only reason for everyone. Most of the time whenever I've seen the vocals criticized, someone will say crap like "those gay ass power metal vocals don't fit at all" and "if only the vocal were HEAVIER".
BTW, do you play a musical instrument or sing? I'm not saying that you can't relate unless you're a musician, but when you play music and know how music works, your opinions and understanding of music changes drastically...sometimes irrevocably ruining what you love.
I've been playing bass since '91, and my best friend since '89 plays guitar and sings. His biggest influences were Sebastian Bach, Geoff Tate and Bruce Dickinson though.
Plus, you tried to use this years ago for similar validation.
That's because it's Mikael fucking Akerfeldt. He's basically the Pavarotti of death metal. You're comparing a literal one in a billion with dimes a dozen.
If your criteria is mainly comprehension with death growling, you should try Morbid Angel's Domination album. David Vincent has a very clear death growl. It's nothing compared to the eight wonder of the world that is the voice of Mikael Akerfeldt but it's very clear.
I totally agree with this. This is exactly my problem. Opeth was also pretty much my "gateway" into more extreme styles of music (quite a few years before Opeth was "cool"). While I had heard plenty of bands years before them, I just couldn't get into them at all. I almost couldn't even get into Opeth either, but they suddenly just clicked. You mentioned taking music and just having it playing in the background or whatever. That's exactly how my transition from "not getting it" to "loving the hell out of this" happened, and every since then, Akerfeldt has pretty much been the standard for me. So I guess that's why most everything else has been so unsatisfactory.
Also, for all of the bands with more extreme vocals that I've listened to over the years, and as much as I absolutely love their earlier albums...I literally cringe at In Flames vocals. I mean, I've gotten used to them, but fuck. I just cannot like them at all. I don't know what it is about his voice, but it always makes me think of a sobbing witch or something.
