what's the good metal now?

[$harkToootth]

I agree with your thoughts too. I like to listen to some tech death riffs but then I'll just be like "Yeah let me play 'Teenage Kicks' on guitar and call it a day"

[goroth]

I love tech death, but hate most of the stuff that comes out under the tech death banner. It's just too quantised, too quadruple tracked and time aligned. Most of the last Gorguts album/EP was single takes. And man, that record grooves hard. If you listen stupidly closely you can hear mistakes, but that just makes it more killer. I wish there was more tech recorded that way. But regardless, I still found a few albums I dug this year. Artificial Brain was a real grower. Gotta check my playlists and see what other skronky shit I've listened to this year.

[$harkToootth]

I typically enjoy ARTIFICIAL BRAIN. I know I've mentioned multiple times DEATH is one of my favorite bands and they laid a lot of the ground work for tech death, yet Chuck's riffs are manageable.

[goroth]

Yeah, there's gotta be riffs. I can't do the sweep sweep breeeee fest stuff.

[$harkToootth]

I forgot what piece of journalism it was but I once read criticism for a tech death album where it was written, "Not enough sweeps".
Give me a fucking break Michael!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Aq00yJSxo
"We need to practice sweeps everyday Michael"
"I don't believe in sweeps..."
"Bullshit...one minute you just stop believing in sweeps?!"
"A lot can happen...you can enjoy power chords"
"WELL THEN YOU'RE NOT A TECH DEATH GUY CAUSE THAT'S WHAT TECH DEATH IS ALL ABOUT...SWEEPS"
"OKAY!!!"
"NO...IT'S NOT OKAY!!!"

[odontophobia]

Yeah, there's gotta be riffs. I can't do the sweep sweep breeeee fest stuff.

I can handle sweep picking when it isn’t just endless sweeps over drop c power chord chugs endlessly for each and every song.

Most things with “breakdowns and sweeps” can rot in a dumpster.

[goroth]

For sure - don't get me wrong, I love sweeps. Love breakdowns too. I just hate music that's all "bro, bro, sweep the breakdown!". Kind of redundant to say so, because who likes that shit?

[John Matrix]

This is the best album of 2017. Old school vibes, great songwriting, HOOKS. Fuck.


https://malokarpatan.bandcamp.com/

[Dapper Bandit]

With all the quantising in modern metal and most obviously in modern tech death, surely this has reached the point where everything sounds the same to even die hard fans of the genre? I'm thinking back to the death metal crash of the mid 90's (where death metal brokers were throwing themselves out of their office windows on Wall Street) where everyone was produced at Morrisound and 70 bands a year released the same album?

On None So Vile, Cryptopsy are playing some very technical stuff but they actually go out of time with each other (Flo's blasting speeds up and slows down underneath everything, Lord Worm comes in early on some parts) but it is still rad as fuck because this is the sound of a band playing at the absolute limit of their abilities.

Now you've got tech metal bands writing their albums on Guitar Pro and recording them by firing the midi straight into their DAWs. Which has all the artistic integrity of releasing a CD where the various members simply read out the chord changes of the songs track by track.

Not strictly metal but I would always recommend Gridlink as my kinda-current, kinda-metal pick. Slightly less recent picks would be Keelhaul, Discordance Axis, Mourning Beloveth, Portal.

[odontophobia]

With all the quantising in modern metal and most obviously in modern tech death, surely this has reached the point where everything sounds the same to even die hard fans of the genre? I'm thinking back to the death metal crash of the mid 90's (where death metal brokers were throwing themselves out of their office windows on Wall Street) where everyone was produced at Morrisound and 70 bands a year released the same album?

On None So Vile, Cryptopsy are playing some very technical stuff but they actually go out of time with each other (Flo's blasting speeds up and slows down underneath everything, Lord Worm comes in early on some parts) but it is still rad as fuck because this is the sound of a band playing at the absolute limit of their abilities.

Now you've got tech metal bands writing their albums on Guitar Pro and recording them by firing the midi straight into their DAWs. Which has all the artistic integrity of releasing a CD where the various members simply read out the chord changes of the songs track by track.

Not strictly metal but I would always recommend Gridlink as my kinda-current, kinda-metal pick. Slightly less recent picks would be Keelhaul, Discordance Axis, Mourning Beloveth, Portal.

There’s plenty of metal out there that’s not doing the current, trendy, tech death thing though.

Also the above linked Bandcamp album is dope.

[goroth]

Gridlink are rad.
I agree with Dapper Bandit that there is a shit ton of overproduced shit.
And I agree with O-Phobe that there is a lot of great stuff out there that isn't