The current state of rock/metal

nyarlothothep

I think it's mostly just pop, xfactor and indie nowadays that dominates the mainstream? I wouldn't know, I stopped paying attention to music trends around 2008. In the 60s you had Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones etc, in the 70s Queen, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin et al, the 80s was a bit of a strange period where you had post punk bands and thrash metal but that generic yuppie synth pop sound and glam metal reigned supreme. The 90s had grunge, the early to mid 00s was a bit like the early 80s, a transitionary period with some good bands, you had nu metal (not universally band), one hit wonders like Wheatus, QOTSA, ATDI, Jimmy Eats World, then the rise of the post-punk revival which I didn't like but it was still carrying the torch for 'alternative,' Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Strokes and so forth, as an alternative to the indie/punk thing you had The Mars Volta and even RCHP. But something went wrong, what do the 10s have? It seems like there are no bands that have actually made it properly big that have had a big impact. Also the sound of rock music records has become so depressingly homogenised, I lack the terminology to describe but basically a total absence of reverb, vocals way up from, guitars heavily processed in one particular way, everything overmastered. Everything is being recycled, a band like The Strypes is just Artic Monkeys 2.0 and every garage punk band that's been celebrated by the NME. That just seems to be all there is, most people just don't seem to be into rock anymore?

For all the talk about the internet giving bands a chance to get heard I think it's fragmented music communities, everything has become atomised and niche, there's no common cause to alternative scenes, and music after all isn't just an individualist medium, it's also a communal experience. Or is rock just a dying genre with most of the gaps filled out? Creativity involves originality so I make this assertion from a position of ignorance but when you quantifiably have 60 years of music history to go on and an awareness of every aspect of that history due to the internet and other media it becomes more and more difficult to define something new. If anything good comes of this thread we can recommend new bands and see if rock music/the alternative scene is as good as it once was.

Links234

It's gonna depend on what you like or not, but me? I think there's been some amazing music being made in recent years.

Rammstein's Liebe ist für alle da was incredible, Mastodon's last few albums are amazing, Periphery's second album was a serious step up, Kamelot's Silverthorn might be a bit cheesy for some but I loved it, and on the most extreme side of things Behemoth's The Satanist, Enslaved's Riitiir, Chthonic's Bu-Tik have all been incredible. Devin Townsend just keeps seeming to pump out gold, as does Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree). James LaBrie's solo offerings have been better than anything Dream Theater have been doing in years. I find that an awful lot of music that I listen to now has been very recent indeed.

That's not even thouching on all the Japanese stuff I listen to, but honestly? Japan is just exploding with amazing music. Lynch's Gallows was probably album of the year for me so far.

So to me, I think the state of Rock/Metal is pretty damn healthy.

Links234

Oh, and I forgot to mention Ghost

nyarlothothep

Are there any bands though that have made it which started in the 10s or weren't known in the latter half of the 00s?

Links234

Periphery? Their debut was in 2010 and their second album in 2012. May or may not be your thing though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUltTV3t4OM

Edit: Ghost's debut album was in 2010 too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgzttbutvUc

Mushy

One hit wonders and you name QotSA? A band who have progressively gotten bigger since said hit isnt a one hit wonder!

nyarlothothep

Mushy wrote: »

One hit wonders and you name QotSA? A band who have progressively gotten bigger since said hit isnt a one hit wonder!

No I meant Wheatus. Though QotSA only have one good song, No One Knows haha!

Schwiiing

nyarlothothep wrote: »

No I meant Wheatus. Though QotSA only have one good song, No One Knows haha!

:eek::(:mad:

nyarlothothep

Links234 wrote: »

Periphery? Their debut was in 2010 and their second album in 2012. May or may not be your thing though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUltTV3t4OM

Edit: Ghost's debut album was in 2010 too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgzttbutvUc

Ghost impressed me and requires further listening. No surprises that they're Swedish. In relation to Periphery the production on that song is exactly what I was talking about in the first post, why is it like that? It's not just the mastering? I think it's the way the drums and guitars are EQed/produced?

Links234

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Ghost impressed me and requires further listening. No surprises that they're Swedish. In relation to Periphery the production on that song is exactly what I was talking about in the first post, why is it like that? It's not just the mastering? I think it's the way the drums and guitars are EQed/produced?

Yeah, I think that's the way it was produced, but that's just the sound they were going for. I don't mind the production and I think Periphery are definitely one of the best newer bands to come out of the states, but you know, different folks different tastes. But I do know what you mean, and I generally prefer a bit more meat in the sound, I like to hear the bass.

I mentioned Lynch's Gallows earlier as album of the year for me, (dunno are they a recent enough band for you, their debut album was in 2005), I could listen to that right the way through from start to finish many times over there's not a bad moment on it, and I absolutely love the production on that. But again, might completely be not your thing at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aalb_tET-IQ

nyarlothothep

Links234 wrote: »

Yeah, I think that's the way it was produced, but that's just the sound they were going for. I don't mind the production and I think Periphery are definitely one of the best newer bands to come out of the states, but you know, different folks different tastes. But I do know what you mean, and I generally prefer a bit more meat in the sound, I like to hear the bass.

I mentioned Lynch's Gallows earlier as album of the year for me, (dunno are they a recent enough band for you, their debut album was in 2005), I could listen to that right the way through from start to finish many times over there's not a bad moment on it, and I absolutely love the production on that. But again, might completely be not your thing at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aalb_tET-IQ

I quite like that song by Ghost, it's got more of an evil/creepy atmosphere than any Mayhem song in that while they're not going "hail Satan rargh!" they're expressing a much more disturbing theme of the wolf in sheep's clothing with the choir and the sense of jubilation, it evokes the Nuremberg rallies or any mass gathering where people put their critical thought on hold and worship a priest of ideology whether that ideology is good or bad (usually bad). In relation to Lynch, they have that overproduced, synthetic sound.

Links234

See I think Ghost have more of a tongue-in-cheek, hammer horror vibe. Don't know about Lynch sounding synthetic though, they sound fantastic to me

Mr. CooL ICE

I find myself sounding like an old man when I talk about music, but I will always believe that the 60s and 70s were the best periods and it will be next to impossible to top what came from then.

Up until the last few years, I listened to a lot of death metal, thrash metal, prog metal/rock and NY-style HC. Never quite 'got' black metal or metalcore. However, I felt very jaded by the sheer amount of new bands that always seemed to stick to a template by seemingly having a checklist of features that every song must have, followed by crisp, clean overproduction. It seemed like extreme metal suddenly became safe.

The last few years, I've started listening to more stoner, doom and sludge bands. Because the style of music worships tone, volume and distortion rather than excellent musicianship, records cannot be clean and overproduced. Even if these genres are played/recorded in a 'safe' manner, they don't really lose their balls and end up sounding like 60s/70s revivalist bands, which suits my tastes perfectly. Because these genres are still relatively new to me, I am constantly discovering both new and old bands and am being impressed by what I find.

I can't say if the state of rock/metal is better or worse than it has ever been, but I can safely say that with the way it is, I don't see myself suddenly wearing slippers and dressing gown while listening to country and western any time soon.

nyarlothothep

LordChessington wrote: »

I find myself sounding like an old man when I talk about music, but I will always believe that the 60s and 70s were the best periods and it will be next to impossible to top what came from then.

Up until the last few years, I listened to a lot of death metal, thrash metal, prog metal/rock and NY-style HC. Never quite 'got' black metal or metalcore. However, I felt very jaded by the sheer amount of new bands that always seemed to stick to a template by seemingly having a checklist of features that every song must have, followed by crisp, clean overproduction. It seemed like extreme metal suddenly became safe.

The last few years, I've started listening to more stoner, doom and sludge bands. Because the style of music worships tone, volume and distortion rather than excellent musicianship, records cannot be clean and overproduced. Even if these genres are played/recorded in a 'safe' manner, they don't really lose their balls and end up sounding like 60s/70s revivalist bands, which suits my tastes perfectly. Because these genres are still relatively new to me, I am constantly discovering both new and old bands and am being impressed by what I find.

I can't say if the state of rock/metal is better or worse than it has ever been, but I can safely say that with the way it is, I don't see myself suddenly wearing slippers and dressing gown while listening to country and western any time soon.

Black metal was great for giving two fingers to the music industry and the whole culture of professionalism in terms of recording quality. I like the dyi ethos and the lack of technical sophistication of the recording/mixing, there is an energy, uniqueness and creativity there that isn't matched by overproduced metal. I read on youtube about the Pearl Jam Ten album that we're lacking a Kurt Cobain of our generation, ok fair enough you could argue that it's simplistic or whatever but I think there's a point to that. We don't have era defining bands, its all supressed by the flooding of the charts with crap and also I think most people these days do in fact listen to the equivalent of country and western. A lot of rock, in particular indie rock, is as safe as country and western. And there is a dominance of this yodelling singing, this uh-oh, uh-oh-oh type melody that features in every mobile phone ad with skippy rhythms and a ukulele or banjo, this is what's popular nowadays? Are we living in an era of country and western?

nyarlothothep

Following the very good discovery of Ghost does anyone have any more rock/metal recommendations for bands in the 10s?

GLaDOS

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Following the very good discovery of Ghost does anyone have any more rock/metal recommendations for bands in the 10s?

Not well known, but these guys kick ass, especially live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZtfts0dQEI

Links234

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Black metal was great for giving two fingers to the music industry and the whole culture of professionalism in terms of recording quality. I like the dyi ethos and the lack of technical sophistication of the recording/mixing, there is an energy, uniqueness and creativity there that isn't matched by overproduced metal.

I used to listen to quite a lot of black metal, but quite honestly I think it's a genre that stagnated fast. You had some incredible bands emerging, like Emperor, but there was so many bands who were focused more on trying to be 'true' black metal, being grim and sounding raw, and it just became a parody of itself. The black metal bands who were doing more interesting things were often criticized for not being 'true' enough. Treating bad production as a virtue was just trying to replicate the sound of what came before. I mean, what would it be like if every metal album post-1988 all tried to sound like ...And Justice For All?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think everything should be really polished and clean sounding production wise, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas has an atmosphere to that album that makes it an absolute classic. Music can sometimes lose a lot of character if it's too polished, but too many bands took it way too far in the other direction, and end up with music that's let down with muddled production, sounding thin, weak and poor. Maybe that's why I prefer Death Metal

For example, not a new band at all, but I do love Hate's sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPcnp-bg_JI

rockbeast

Links234 wrote: »

For example, not a new band at all, but I do love Hate's sound:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPcnp-bg_JI

Wiesławscy Brothers produced it - don't know anything about them but the sound is great - rhythm guitar sounds like a sweet razor!

Some great Polish (death) metal happening - think I caught a few bands at The Pint before