When you think of metal, what do you think of? Hair bands from the 80s like Twisted Sister or Ratt or Poison? Weird Brits singing about the devil and other similar things like Ozzy and Iron Maiden and Judas Priest? Nu-metal from the 90s like Korn and Limp Bizkit and Slipknot? The metal-as-fuck bands that the weirdos in high school listened to like Metallica and Slayer and Megadeth?
To me, only the second and fourth ones qualify as metal. That's just what I think so sue me. The first is glammed up pop, though Motley Crüe was close. The third is just....ugh...it's just not my thing so I will leave it there. I grew up on bands from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, more commonly reffered to as NWOBHM by nerds like me. That's Iron Maiden and Priest and and Mötorhead and even Def Leppard before they went pop. Bands like Metallica and Slayer have definite roots in NWOBHM.
That is all to say is that all music is a progression. The good bands are the ones that build on what came before. There is not too much new ground to tread. I joke that every chord progression has been used up. It is just how you use that progression; how you play that riff. Coming up with something completely new and different, at leafs with guitars and drums and amplifiers turned way the hell up is exceedingly difficult.
To me modern metal is no better exemplified than by a band like Pelican and their new album Forever Becoming. It is all instrumentals. A vocalist is not needed here because the music says it all. It is very hard to pull off but a band does not need a singer when the music is as perfect as this is. Metal can be difficult for many to find accessible. Pelican is accessible. Listen to "The Cliff" or "Perpetual Dawn" or "Immutable Dusk," listen to the prettiness in the passages. No band brings together beauty and aggression together better than Pelican. The songs are all sort-of longish, around seven minutes each. They form and twist and spiral within themselves; heavy aggressive passages power into majestic soaring riffs before spiraling back into black twists and turns. I have said again and again, good music is power. Good music grabs you by the throat and says "listen to me!!!" Forever Becoming grabs hold and doesn't let go, it makes you race back to the turntable to flip side over or hurriedly put on the next disc.
I love heavy bands. I love old-school Metallica, I still love Iron Maiden and admire Slayer for staying true to what they do, and for being one of the few bands I actually fear. HA! Metal today is post-metal bands like Pelican and Isis making heavy, melodically brilliant music. Metal is metal-as-fuck bands like High On Fire and Kvelerator keeping thrash alive. Metal is the Sabbath-worshipers like Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats and Black Tusk and Lo-Pan. Metal is the bands like Mastodon and Red Fang and Baroness that bring metal without ignoring pop sensibilities. Metal is bands like In Solitude and Ghost paying tribute to their NWOBHM forbearers. Metal is the doom bands like Windhand and Wolves In The Throne Room making music frightening. And metal is the progressive bands like Opeth and Anathema and Alcest. It is the most interesting genre of music out there because it has so many facets, so many limbs from the enormous trunk. The future of rock is not metal. Rock will always be metal.
Enjoy "Immutable Dusk." The louder the better.
Up next...number two! Georgia has a plethora of amazing metal acts. Here comes my favorite.
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