obsessive9119
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Obviously “artistically relevant” is highly subjective. Metal is incredibly broad, and there has been a lot of flat out fantastic stuff released in the last 5 years.
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Metal with good sound - is there any?
- Thread starter Aries
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Fidji
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Always happy to learn about new good music - shoot some and thanks in advance.
My point is - if someone would do “Best 50 Metal Albums of All Time” 95% of them would be rather old, than new and I think that it would be broad fan and critics consensus about it. Of course there is lot of good stuff coming out - but is it BETTER than anything before? Is it better than Reign in Blood, Master of Puppets, Screaming for Vengeance? Is metal having the same cultural relevance as 30-40 years ago?
Not stopping me looking forward to Iron Maiden gig in couple of weeks ;-).
EDIT: adding Sepultura Ratamahatta to the fold, just for the sheer energy and fun
DJBonoBobo
Major Contributor
Igorrr sounds pretty good, i really liked the Spirituality & Distortion album.
Also i agree to Blood Incantation, that was a cool listen.
In general though, after listening to metal for 25 years and chasing good sound for 30 years i think it is just not worth it. It always sounded compressed, limited, unbalanced. Even with perfect headphones like the DCA Stealth. Honestly, Gojira, Tool, Dethklok, Rammstein, Meshuggah, Metallica all sound mediocre at best to me.
Also i agree to Blood Incantation, that was a cool listen.
In general though, after listening to metal for 25 years and chasing good sound for 30 years i think it is just not worth it. It always sounded compressed, limited, unbalanced. Even with perfect headphones like the DCA Stealth. Honestly, Gojira, Tool, Dethklok, Rammstein, Meshuggah, Metallica all sound mediocre at best to me.
While I don't agree with that, it still isn't necessarily a problem. We have great recordings from the late 70s, so 20 year old recordings can sound great.
Certainly don't agree with that, but interesting perspective. If you listen to the playlist I shared, does it sound unbalanced and mediocre in general?
obsessive9119
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Here are some of my favs from last year:
Julie Christmas - Ridiculous and Full of Blood
Opeth - The Last Will and Testament
Thou - Umbilical
Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
Houle - Ciel Cendre et Misère Noire
Hamferð - Men Guðs hond er sterk
DVNE - Voidkind
But that’s true of anything that has been around a while. Top 50 books of all time would be lucky to have anything written this century.
Possibly not in that genre, but there’s tons of interesting stuff going on in newer subgenres. It really depends what you’re in to. No one is going to sound like a better Metallica than Metallica (even Metallica themselves).
The last live metal I saw was The Ocean, who are also well worth checking out.
I saw Ghost live the other day, one of the best live shows I've been to in a really long while. Both the music and the show itself.
DJBonoBobo
Major Contributor
I don't use Spotify, but i'll give it a try maybe. The ones i know from your playlist surely are among the better sounding metal records.
What i mean is, i always searched for something magical in there, but some day i realized it is just not that good and i was expecting too much.
Fidji
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Is it better than Blackwater Park? And that is my whole point - if I want to hear Opeth at its best, I have elsewhere to look.
BTW - I was pleasantly surprised by BR audio quality, but not feeling the urge to listen to it anytime soon.
obsessive9119
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Does everything have to be optimised? Does it matter if it’s the best, or just if you enjoy it?
(And no, it’s not Blackwater Park, but what is?)
Philbo King
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These guys sound pretty good to me.
Disclaimer: One of them is my nephew
Disclaimer: One of them is my nephew
whereisbrian
Active Member
Excellent album, I didn't know it, thanks for the recommendation. Really very well recorded.
Since Metal is a genre that excels in extremes; extremes of distortion, complexity, volume, emotion etc., it's difficult to judge what sounds 'good'. How to tell the difference from a bad sounding performance recorded well from a good sounding performance recorded badly? Some quite excellent contemporary 'metal' albums, from an aural perspective, are little more than modulated pink noise. I'm always a bit wary of judging a recording (of any genre) to sound 'good' or 'bad'. My only criterion is do I want to hear it again ...
I've never considered myself much of a 'Metalhead', but being of an age where my formative musical tastes were heavily informed by Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Groundhogs, Hawkwind, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Pink Fairies when they were new and interesting, my biases are probably for a sound somewhat reminiscent of early 70s 'Heavy Rock'. Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are really 'good' sounding albums to me in different ways. As is Deep Purple's Machine Head regardless of what you think of Smoke on the Water the 'rolling truck stones thing' and 'a few old beds' sure sounds fine to me.
For me, (Heavy) Metal proper started with Blackmore's Rainbow in the mid 70s. But the first Rainbow albums sounded like they were recorded in a toilet and were pretty naff yet the contemporaneous Sex Pistols sounded fantastic and Punk in general was much more interesting. So I lost interest in anything Metal for several decades.
For some contemporary stuff that I enjoy (whether you consider it metal or not) I would suggest:
Flickering Resonance - Pelican
The Film - Sumac & Moor Mother
Langt, langt Vekk - Kanaan
Death Hilarious - Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
Muuntautuja - Oranssi Pazuzu
Ilion - Slift
I have probably recorded half a dozen "metal" bands including the death variety... In short and rough terms the expectation for dynamics is cut accross by the need for vast amounts of heavy distortion both in bass and guitar. Distortion of that magnitude is by nature heavily compressed.. its often full on clipping after all! A distorted bass will flood the lower midrange with harmonics and guitars fill the rest. Often guitars are multi tracked too for slight natural chorus effect.
The tracks where volume, guitars and distortion drop down often sound dynamic all of a sudden... Usualy those dynamics exist all through the track but only become apparent when given room.
Mixing of these tracks to every band members satisfaction is almost impossible. Not my favourite genre as i feel more suble use of harmonic saturation yealds more satisfying results... and more perceived dynamics to boot.
The tracks where volume, guitars and distortion drop down often sound dynamic all of a sudden... Usualy those dynamics exist all through the track but only become apparent when given room.
Mixing of these tracks to every band members satisfaction is almost impossible. Not my favourite genre as i feel more suble use of harmonic saturation yealds more satisfying results... and more perceived dynamics to boot.
Considering the widespread availability and use of things like Ableton, Pro Tools and the like, one wonders how common truly poor contemporary recording quality is. Those things have no doubt caused the closure of the really dreadfully bad recording studios, leaving only high quality ones still to exist. Also should have driven a convergence of sorts to much higher quality recording.
So for metal the issue these days isn't sounding like early Misfits records, it's driven by the music itself as elucidated directly above this post.
So for metal the issue these days isn't sounding like early Misfits records, it's driven by the music itself as elucidated directly above this post.
Not much of a metal fan but not a hater ether, like what I like. My son went through a phase, played his guitar and bass with some friends in our garage and metal was all the rage. They copied a lot of stuff. Anyway, I just searched the KFJC review database with "heavy metal" and got 9 pages of short reviews. So knock yourself out and find some new stuff. Note: The term heavy may bring some false starts.
Robin L
Master Contributor
As far as I can tell metal requires massive amounts of distortion. That precludes "good sound" as far as I'm concerned.
Then again, I've never been a fan, so my opinion really doesn't count anyway.
Then again, I've never been a fan, so my opinion really doesn't count anyway.
Just because individual instruments have distortion effects doesn't mean the overall sound itself is / has to be distorted.
Opeth's Watershed and Ghost Reveries albums are their best sounding ones. Here are some example tracks:
And here'a fun clip from Drumeo:
And here'a fun clip from Drumeo:
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