I’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years and listen to all kinds of music.  I started listening to metal at an early age.  As metal evolved the instrumental side pushed the envelope with respect to technical playing.

Back in the day the metal bands on top were Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Anthrax, Metallica, Mega Death, Slayer, just to name a few.  A few things these bands have (had) in common is a decent singer, very melodic vocals and for the most part very good guitarists, orchestrated songs with definite breaks and riffs that are paralleled among the instruments.  I have my favorites and least favorites from the list.  This is late 80s early 90s metal.

Fast forward to the Seattle Sound/Grunge movement.  Metal starts to go underground, i.e. not as main stream as it used to be.  Now you have a bifurcation of the standard metal template into several sub-genres.  Without getting too wordy about these details and to get to the point, metal (as I define it) got heavier, darker, faster (and faster) and for the guitars and drums (and bass too) more technically challenging.  The new metal singer, however, is what turned me off.  Anthrax and Slayer have pretty fast heavy music and yet the vocals of their songs still have melody.  Now it seems that the standard is a low growl.  This turns me off to most of the newer metal bands.

Case in point Decapitated.  When I first heard the beginning of Homo Sum every hair stood up, it’s an exciting song, excellent instrumental.  Then comes the growl and I just want to hear more drums and guitar.  However, the band is good enough for me to have purchased their latest album.  I am not completely disparaging the growlers, but I am comparing this to the classic metal style, which I miss.

Other great bands that push the technical envelope (in my opinion) are:

Dying Fetus (you have to hear their new album Reign Supreme)

Dimmu Borgir

Decapitated

Opeth (doesn’t quite fit the description I provided, they are somewhat progressive and melodic)

copyright 2013 David R Bergman