My problem with thrash as a genre is that it has some of the most mindlessly elitist fans imaginable. Anything that's slower than Reign In Blood is decried as "too commercial". Arise is claimed to be a pointer towards Roots because there are some slightly more groovy sections added in and it's not (supposedly) as intense as BTR. Perfectly good metal albums like Youthanasia are dismissed as corporate product because they are more mid-tempo. When I was younger I even encountered some people who claimed that Metallica sold out on RTL because Fade To Black was a ballad. I could go on.

I get the impression that a lot of thrash fundamentalists - mainly the older generation - never quite got over how just as the genre peaked critically and commercially with the Clash Of The Titans tour, Metallica put the Black Album out and grunge happened and then the mainstream media and a lot of the metal press lost interest in thrash or moved on to black metal etc. if they wanted something more extreme to focus on. There seems to me to be this weird paranoid and fundamentalist streak running through the genre and its fanbase post 1990 that gatekeeps the genre and most of all just finds endless things to criticise and complain about, particularly when it comes to the output of the Big 4. And then you get attempts to rewrite history and retrospectively fit certain bands and albums into the context of this narrative in ways that just bear no resemblance to reality, leading to ludicrous statements such as the examples given above.

I don't think there are as many of these folks about as there once were, but in the early to mid 2000s this kind of attitude seemed everywhere, and it just really put me off the thrash genre as a whole.

Where the hell did you get this idea from? By that logic, people would despite Ride the Lightning.

I'm exaggerating a little, but I really do get a sense of that kind of attitude at times when it comes to thrash fans.

And Alice In Hell, and Victims of Deception, and Forbidden Evil, and the two first Metal Church records, and Annihilation Principle, and Rust In Peace....

I go on and on with this. The reception to these albums by the broad thrash community/fans really goes against that statement.

I think the "if it's not fast, it sucks!" mindset was more of a product of mid 2000s internet thrash metal douche baggery than something invented by older fans. Said group also perpetuated this obnoxious and insecure "kill all posers and [homophobic slurs]!" attitude.

I've seen Rust In Peace get dismissed as being dumbed down before. I wouldn't agree with that, though I do think it's overrated generally.

I may be basing things too much on my own personal experiences, but the more fundamentalist element of the thrash fanbase gave the black metal elitists a run for their money at times.

As noted above, it was probably more of a 2000s phenomenon.

Rust In Peace?! DUMBED DOWN?! If anything I have seen the other sentiment - that is too polished, too worked on, too technical.

The first three Sabbath albums are my three favorite albums of all time, and are all basically tied in my mind. But with the "gun-to-my-head" scenario I always pick the debut, because to me it is the only one of the three with not one second of filler (I fucking adore that jam in the middle of Warning, and Evil Woman, while noticeably weaker than the other tracks, isn't bad or even boring). But Paranoid has filler in the drum solo and Master of Reality has filler in Orchid (Embryo is pretty fillerish too but it's so short it doesn't matter).



My beef with Volume 4 is the trifecta of mediocrity of Tomorrow's Dream, Changes, and FX right after the killer lead off track. It's kinda funny, my third ever Sabbath album, long before I got Volume 4, was the comp We Sold Our Souls For Rock and Roll, and when I was listening to that like everyday for a month I really enjoyed Tomorrow's Dream as much as pretty much all the other tracks, but once I started getting the studio albums and eschewing the comp, and got to Volume 4 Tomorrow's Dream didn't have an impact on me anymore.

On a non-Sabbath related note..... Battleroar's To Death and Beyond has the best studio rhythm guitar tone since Master of Puppets.

This is a really bad take. The problem thrash has is that everyone wants it to be death and black metal and they don't really understand anything about the genre, its history, or what makes it so good. Thrash's problem isn't its fans; it is the people sitting on the edges of the genre that don't really like it to begin with.

You guys are gonna attack me for this one:

True black metal bands are ones that dedicate themselves to the damn music, not imaginary satanic worship.

I mean I get this mindset, but the most interesting bands for me are often the rawest, craziest ones; not Dimmu or whoever.

This is not mutually exclusive I think - you can both be devoted worshipers of Satan (whatever idea you/the band has of that entity) and focus on the music - my example would be Watain. I do not doubt their religious (because that is what it is really in their case as far as I know) devotion but they are also skilled and focused musicians (their evolution bears this out).

Yeah, I won't deny that the crazy and satanic bands tend to be a lot more intriguing.

I always had the idea Watain would be too polished and clean for my taste in BM. I like old Darkthrone, Beherit, if I'm gonna listen to extreme metal then I'm looking for the extremity really, ya know. But maybe I'll try them.

Agreed on The System Has Failed! Despite me not liking thrash a a genre Megadeth is by far the bands that has been most important to me (shared top spot with Guns N' Roses). This comeback album is amazing. Not a weak track and only one I would say is so-so. I have a hard time ranking the discography but for me the top 3 would probably be The System Has Failed, Countdown to Extinction and Youthanasia.

Watain had different eras and sounds. Check out stuff from different albums - the earlier stuff is more raw and chaotic, later there is more Dissection-type riffage and even later nods to heavy metal/thrash and Bathory.

For sure. I'm mostly talking about the bands that seem to embrace satanism for shock value, or to be part of the scene. If it's legitimately what you believe in, you've got no complaints from me. But the sheer amount of "satanists" in black metal makes me skeptical about what's legitimate.

First post, here goes:

Imperial Doom is better than anything Cannibal Corpse have ever put out /or/ Monstrosity > CC

Blasphemy are crap.

Yeah, thrash metal elitists can be annoying, but from my experience personally, the black metal elitists make the thrash ones look accepting!

This seems like a pretty popular opinion in general. In the late 90s online they seemed cool, but I watched the whole internet seem to turn against them over the 00s and now they've been the poster boys for excess since then. They have a handful of fans here, but in general their flavor of prog metal (much of it, really) hasn't really been in style here.

Agreed.
It's almost like the "Satan" of lots of those BM bands is the same old Mötley Crüe's "Satan" - a patron spirit of drunken party fun and overall stupidity, only the scene's preferred makeup style has changed.

I like Mötley Crüe actually... but some things are damn hard to take seriously.

I guess because I feel they've deleted about 50% of traditional heavy metal bands, just because some mods thought they leaned more towards hard rock, but I don't think so. And metal in the beginning was like that anyway (i.e. Demon, Riot, Anvil, etc.)

Also, what's not metal about Praying Mantis?

It seems to be generally liked on this particular website. But I know Ride the Lightning had its fair share of haters on release, especially because of the appearance of slower ballads like Fade to Black.

I love Dying Fetus as much as the next DM fan, but they have some of the worst vocals in the genre in my opinion.

A lot of more well known bands have something noteworthy and/or iconic about their vocals (Immolation, Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation to name a few), but to me, DF just sounds like they're gurgling cow diarrhea. Even brutal death metal bands don't necessarily have the same ear grating vocals.

Buzz Osborne made Houdini unlistenable with his shitty singing. I legit was gonna give up on trying to listen to Melvins until I started playing 26 Songs instead.

It's one of the greatest albums of the 90's. Cut ya hair, clean your ears out, whatever the fuck you need to do to help your ears work right mate, because Houdini is a fuckin classic.

It sucks.

There's a lot of elitism in metal but I feel like a decent portion of the people complaining about elitists are just annoyed at other people expressing their subjective musical opinions. You don't like [insert commercially successful band]? Elitist! You prefer your thrash metal fast and aggressive? Elitist!

To me, Gallagher _is_ iconic, same as Boman of Demilich...

Warning: instrumental elitists, don’t entry.

Doing vocals is much harder, than playing guitar, bass or drums. At least, going from no ability, to the ability to not sound cringe inducing.

I’m not talking about insane levels of skill. I’m talking about just being able to perform something acceptable. You can actually be ready to play simple stuff, on guitar, bass, or drums, acceptably, easier, and quicker, than you’ll have acceptable vocals.

^There's an interesting fact that might be related to this: in the classical world, a child who's supposed to make a career out of playing an instrument is supposed to start as early as possible, six years old is normal. But "serious" classical singing doesn't really start until about 18, and then the singers are believed to reach their prime in their forties.

The reason why "serious" classical singing doesn't start until you're 18 is mostly because voice changes dramatically through puberty. I got kicked out of the school chorus when my voice changed.

Post prison burzum black metal albums - although most identifies them folk metal ( belus- fallen- umskiptar ) are better than the early ones ( except the first s/t )

What's really to understand past the rise of black and Death tho? Fuckin Vektor? I'd say thrash is more of a relic of a time in the past than Death or black are, and I'm saying this as someone who doesn't really listen to new death or black, it tends to not interest me, but I think it's hard to deny that thrash is a cultural product of the 1980s and It just never really went beyond that in any meaningful and widespread way

Not to say I don't love a lot of Thrash, but yeah that's kind of the feeling I get about it.

And gatekeeping I find is usually a pretty lame critique of something anyway, it's like so what? Is my life really any different cuz some dipshit thinks Watchtower is far too wacky of a band to mosh to? I don't give a fuck.

And I never get the thing about Arise, yeah its clearly a Thrash album, a pretty good one mind you, but with the benefit of hindsight, you can tell more non metal influences were starting to creep in, that's just kind of pretty apparent and I find complaining about that is more elitist than anything in the first post because in reality they were slowly getting more groovy and declining with each album up to roots, and it's like do you really need to be that protective of fucking Arise of all albums, it's a good album, Beneath the Remains is better, fucking Coma of Souls is better, Rust in Peace is better, so I don't really get that being a hill to die on, and I saw a whole thread about that, so that's my thoughts

- The Angel and the Gambler is really cool song. Yes, it is far too long, but I really like it.
- St. Anger's main problem is the sound and length of songs. If they were shorter, it would be great album.
- Disconnect is one of Megadeth's best songs.
- Vol. 4 is not even in the top 10 Black Sabbath albums.
- Inferno is Motorhead's best album by far.
- Bruce Dickinson's last 3 solo albums are better than anything by Iron Maiden in the past 20 years
- A Grand Declaration of War is a masterpiece.
- The Glorious Burden is great album with bunch of fantastic songs + Ripper sounds awesome.
- Traced In Air is more fun to listen than Focus.
- Helloween are creativly dead since Gambling With the Devil and Gamma Ray don't have a single album that deserves full listen from start to end.
- Opeth's prog phase's main problem is not lack of growls but really boring and uninspired songwriting.

Yes, I think so to. Many instruments are made to that it's at least easier to get a nice pitch. With your voice it is only up to the person singing. There is no way to tune a voice except practice, practice and practice. And besides that to sound really good you have to have some physical requirements. In the case of a guitar player one can always get better gear, cooler effects etc. But a vocalist (usually) needs something else, something physical.



GDoW is a masterpiece. Very much agreed.

I also like TGB. I think Ripper makes that album to be honest. It's a little bit uneven but pretty cool. That said I only really listened to what I later realized was CD1 so I'm not at all familiar with the Gettysburg Trilogy.

Death metal is probably my favorite metal genre, and I listen to a lot of it

But I think most death growls are embarassing and terrible. There are definitely some really good death growlers out there, but for the most part they're pretty bad.

Like I feel like a lot of vocalists just don't have a very powerful or authentic sounding growl, but they just do it anyway because it's expected in the genre. Try anything else if you're no good at it seriously.

I think we can all agree on this one. As a prog rock lover, those albums are just bland and boring.

Edit: typo.

Kinda depends on the song or album, but yeah. It gets kinda boring in their newer music. There are gems in each of those albums though. "Cusp of Eternity", "Dignity", and "Sorceress" are some of my favorite songs right now.

Downright kicked? That's harsh

The voice does change, but the _larynx_ mutation per se primarily becomes a problem for lower voices - mostly male ones. Not only, but mostly.

The bigger issue is that, as you know, classical singing means unamplified intense singing, and so it involves coordinating many "invisible" muscles in basically the whole body (the whole torso, neck and head for sure) to optimise the sound production - and different body parts develop at different rates, plus this coordination depends on minute sensations, which can _all_ change rapidly through puberty, growth spurts and all. So basically things you learnt about singing when you're five become obsolete because the whole body is "new".

With instruments we play with our hands, we have the advantage of seeing the hands, and the hands are also biologically designated to be sensitive and dexterous (there's a huge part of the brain that specifically "maps" the hands). While hands do grow and change, it's a more "localised" process.

However, I don't really know if we really need fewer practice hours to get proficient with an instrument rather than our voices, supposing we have a good teacher in both cases. Why the teacher thing... An instrument is probably much easier to learn by yourself than singing (because we can see our hands and hear us playing but we don't see all the things that make up our voices plus we don't really hear our voices the way the others do). So in a non-classical context, where almost everyone is self-taught, less time for an instrument might be true. Or not. I remember reading about guitarists who practice for several hours every day, but not singers