That Metal Thread

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Thought I had a fairly good grasp on the more extreme sides of metal, but then a fucking meme-channel goes and post this and I haven't even heard of half the bands...
 
All Cops Are Based said:
New GBK's pretty good. Probably their "worst" album yet (which isn't an insult) but it might be a grower.
A rumor's going around that it uses an electronic drumkit? I can't really tell.
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The comments in the YouTube upload are restoring my faith in metalheads. Gotta remember the virtue signaling woke scolds out trying to cancel Marduk are a minority.
 
Monkey Shoulder said:
Thought I had a fairly good grasp on the more extreme sides of metal, but then a fucking meme-channel goes and post this and I haven't even heard of half the bands...
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zFe9Y6HFysU
Click to expand...
I don't think there is any way to ever have a good grasp on the more extreme sides of metal, because what the hell even is metal?

There's a threshold of musicality for any given person where their tolerance for dissonance ends and "music" just becomes "noise", so a huge number of bands won't even be considered worth listening to by a lot of people.
That's also why I think metal gets a pretty bad reputation, because on the "extreme" sides of metal you reach a point where there is virtually no song structure whatsoever, and if you ask the people who listen to it to describe one thing they like about it they won't be able to because it basically becomes background noise that they insist is good exclusively because it rejects traditional song structure.

Then you wind up with the horseshoe effect where they're no different than those pompous art school soy faggots who play random garbage and claim it's somehow profound and "You just wouldn't get it", again based exclusively on the fact most people won't want to listen to it. This shit sounds barely different than a lot of "extreme metal":

At some point we as a people have to put our foot down and say "No, this is no longer metal, this is just fucking noise. Stop this madness" or it'll just keep drifting further and further into bizarre esoterica until you may as well be listening to really, really loud television static.
Anyways, I won't lie, this one from the video is pretty strange, it's like listening to a TV that keeps flipping between music channels, but I rather like it. It's still got a cohesive musical throughline, which is all I ask for:

I'm well aware of Avenged Sevenfold's reputation, but the above reminds me in spirit of something like A Little Piece of Heaven which is one of my favorite songs by them (this was before the rev died, he was more classically trained. Still they remain legitimately amazing musicians and among my favorite bands, and people don't give them enough credit). It's the touching story of a man who thinks about proposing to his GF but is afraid that she'll reject him, so he murders her, keeps her corpse around and repeatedly has sex with it, then she comes back to life, murders him, they reconcile in the afterlife, come back as undead fiends, get married, then go on a killing spree. I cry every time. Great video too:

The band Between The Buried and Me tends to be a little out there. This isn't their best song, but the video is about murdering women as well:

This is the first song of theirs that caught my attention, mainly due to the saxophone.
 
Jiří "Big Boss" Valter (ROOT) is dead.

He's not.

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Uberpenguin said:
That's also why I think metal gets a pretty bad reputation, because on the "extreme" sides of metal you reach a point where there is virtually no song structure whatsoever, and if you ask the people who listen to it to describe one thing they like about it they won't be able to because it basically becomes background noise that they insist is good exclusively because it rejects traditional song structure.
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I'm fairly sure you could say the same about every genre of music.
If you were to ask me what I like about the last few bands in that video, I'd say the pure agression and madness.
Music in general and metal specifically is about feelings, whatever they may be. Obviously I'm not gonna pretend that there's some sort of deeper meaning hidden in the lyrics and instrumentals of Semen Drenched Slave of the Devil, but you know what, it doesn't have to be.

Anyway I'm drunk and rambling and don't know what I'm talking about.
Metal:
 
Monkey Shoulder said:
I'm fairly sure you could say the same about every genre of music.
If you were to ask me what I like about the last few bands in that video, I'd say the pure agression and madness.
Music in general and metal specifically is about feelings, whatever they may be. Obviously I'm not gonna pretend that there's some sort of deeper meaning hidden in the lyrics and instrumentals of Semen Drenched Slave of the Devil, but you know what, it doesn't have to be.

Anyway I'm drunk and rambling and don't know what I'm talking about.
Metal:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jxXgrR1Rjv8
Click to expand...
It's all good fam. Bethlehem good.
 
Monkey Shoulder said:
I'm fairly sure you could say the same about every genre of music.
If you were to ask me what I like about the last few bands in that video, I'd say the pure agression and madness.
Music in general and metal specifically is about feelings, whatever they may be. Obviously I'm not gonna pretend that there's some sort of deeper meaning hidden in the lyrics and instrumentals of Semen Drenched Slave of the Devil, but you know what, it doesn't have to be.

Anyway I'm drunk and rambling and don't know what I'm talking about.
Metal:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jxXgrR1Rjv8
Click to expand...
Oh for sure, genres like jazz are much more musically snobbish, but I think it's the aggressive and challenging aspects of metal that has a tendency to draw in people looking to prove something. Metal is probably the most antisocial genre.

And I agree it's about emotion, but there's a reason that, for example, outside of incredibly esoteric styles you're virtually always dealing with repeating octaves consisting of 12 semitones in equal temperament: there are certain elements to music that are universally considered pleasing no matter what culture or period you're talking about.
1650847511961.pngAn example that bucks the above rule. These kinds of guitars are used in certain styles of Turkish music
So a person can say "Yes, I enjoy it when people don't tune their instruments", and it's possible they do, but when literally every other group of people going back through history don't, the much more likely option is that the person is into the idea of having untuned instruments and not the actual musical quality.

Of course maybe that's just the nature of dissonance vs. consonance in music: dissonance is more challenging and requires more audience investment but is more interesting, consonance is less challenging but won't provide a lot of interest or stimulation, that fundamental concept applies down to the level of scales and chords in song composition, so a healthier way to look at extreme metal might be as an extension of that concept.

I'd still advocate examining why one likes the things they do because it'll probably help them get more out of it, but in the end I guess all that matters is a person is genuinely getting something out of it. If they aren't sitting there with a frown on their face they shouldn't let some grumpy idiot on the internet who still manages to let himself get annoyed over people liking things he thinks are dumb make them second guess themselves.

I listened through some more Unexpect and honestly I think they're album Fables of The Sleepless Empire is masterpiece tier. They're definitely musically unusual, but they're also clearly an enormously talented band, especially when it comes to composition.
It's also great encountering weird bands because then you can plug them into spotify or pandora and it'll start dredging up all manner of other bizarre stuff.
 
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