Death metal is not for everyone; that's a fact. It's heavy, brutal, fast, and puts one on his nerves.
Throughout the ages, we've been blessed with demonic unapologetic bands who have blessed us with memorable riffs and blast beats, and marked the history of Metal as influencers.
Sadly, we now seem to have modern death metal bands who try and strive so hard to follow the lead of the brutal pioneers, that they kind of forgot how to make a style of their own, and revolutionize this sub-genre even more.
Death metal is blast beats...
Modern metal bands seem to have a poorly arranged idea about death metal. A shallow and generic idea about what makes a song heavy and brutal. Which brought on us a pile of generic songs that promotes the idea that all metal songs sound the same, which -in most cases- are.
If we took a look at what the death metal scenes has produced in the latest decade, we find an unsettling amount of generic blast beats spams; which takes part in the composition of the whole album.
Blast beats are not your every drummer's cup of tea, and many will struggle or fail against, but for a death metal drummer, blast beats are the four chords of the genre.
Distortion means good riffs...
Alongside with generic blast beats spam, modern death metal also seems to suffer from generic riffs.
Modern death metal guitarists tend to believe that an overly distorted and fuzzy guitar sound will cover for the lack of creativity and power put into the riff.
Is it dead?...
Bands like Death, Entombed, Master, Incantation, Immolation, Obituary, Bloodbath, and Vader have set a bar that cannot be match for most modern death metal bands. These bands have pioneered death metal, and still broke the loop, composed well-structured songs -that are not necessarily complex- and managed to be some of the heaviest metal bands in history.
But modern death metal, keeps the hope alive, even if faint. And it refuses to let the genre die, as we keep discovering more and more bands that show promise and potential.
Thursday, January 17, 2019