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camjr01
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat May 26, 2018 10:34 pm
Posts: 134
Location: Test Location
PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2020 12:47 am 
 

This title is super probably super confusing because I'm not sure if I can concisely word this but it's easy to explain. I've noticed a lot that whenever bands try to get brutal, they oftentimes shed all other redeeming qualities. The more brutal the bands get, the worse of a problem this becomes. This is a HUGE problem specifically in genres like deathgrind, goregrind, grindcore, brutal death, slam, and other genres going for a brutal sound. Lots of these bands have forsaken melodies, atmosphere, groove, songwriting, and all the other things in pursuit of sonic aggression. There are a bunch of notable exceptions- 7 H Target has experimental drumming, Analepsy has a great sense of groove and atmospheric, Cerebral Bore is almost melodic with a great sense of groove and atmosphere- but you have to filter through so much trash to get to bands like these. I'm asking- what's the most brutal music you've heard that would still be good if the brutality weren't important? Also, while I place a special emphasis on no one particular genre I mentioned, I would like to find at least one deathgrind band and one goregrind band in this thread because I haven't found one band I liked in those genres before.
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Unity
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:42 pm
Posts: 1886
Location: Portugal
PostPosted: Fri Dec 25, 2020 12:21 pm 
 

Not metal, but Slipknot's "Iowa" has this problem. The music is too brutal and extreme and doesn't let the melodies "breathe". Even the band admitted it.
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Gravetemplar
Metal freak

Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:08 am
Posts: 4653
Location: Antarctica
PostPosted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 9:18 pm 
 

Teitanblood - Death is "brutal" (as in "one of the most extreme and intense albums ever recorded") and it's an incredible album from start to finish. Not sure if that's what you're looking for, I'm a bit confused by this topic.

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Zerberus
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 4:29 pm
Posts: 2325
Location: Denmark
PostPosted: Mon Dec 28, 2020 4:36 pm 
 

I feel like this is a huge problem with many grindcore bands.
Too many focus too much on speed, and too little on the mosh groove.

Nasum, Wormrot, Nausea, Phobia, Internal Rot, Whoresnation and similar do it well, but these were never the fastest grindcore bands either.
I think a band like Insect Warfare is the best example of a band that perfectly captures the balance between playing fast, crazy shit and also adhering to an underlying groove.

But I feel like a lot of grindcore bands get caught up in that trap of focusing on writing fast music. A lot of Rotten Sound's output is amazing, but on their later stuff I feel like they've been using speed as a songwriting crutch.
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manson the unikorn
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2016 7:22 pm
Posts: 5
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:35 am 
 

I think I get what you mean. There's a tendency to push as much stuff together as possible when you get into grind territory. I remember back in high school showing some Infant Annihilator track to my guitar playing bud and his response was perfect: "I won't deny there's a lot of talent in there. But that talent is worthless without finesse."

They're a relatively well known band, but nobody's brought them up so I thought I would: Cattle Decapitation immediately came to mind for me when reading your question. I've always seen people refer to them as "deathgrind", though I think that the more the band has aged, the more they've leaned into the death part rather than the grind part. For example the 1996 demo "Ten Torments of the Damned" only has three tracks over 1 minute and none over 2. Meanwhile they've got a 9 minute track on their latest one. They've got a lot of brutality packed up in all their releases, but they're always doing new stuff, experimenting with new styles. The vocalist denies it, but they even have some really cool clean (or at least sung) vocals from Monolith of Inhumanity on. (He says that it's "pitched screaming", but especially since Death Atlas came out in 2019, I truly beg to differ lol)

For a more obscure flair, there's a Russian band called ByoNoiseGenerator. Sadly, they aren't very good about letting their music "breathe" Unity put it (perfect phrasing btw!), but they actually use a saxophone pretty consistently throughout their latest grindcore LP Neuromechanica. Thought you (or someone) might find that interesting.

I'd also take a look at MA's genre list and look for stuff that have "technical" with grindcore or deathgrind. I usually find those bands to have more consistent "underlying groove", like Zerberus put it.
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hakarl
Metel fraek

Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:41 pm
Posts: 8817
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2021 8:36 am 
 

Cryptopsy were brilliant at this. None So Vile is obviously fucking nasty and brutal as anything, but it's packed full of excellent riffs and catchy songwriting. I love imagining what it would sound like played by an orchestra.
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pressingtoplead13
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:05 pm
Posts: 740
PostPosted: Wed May 05, 2021 5:57 pm 
 

I think their are plenty of bands/albums that could fall under this. I mean Suffocation, Disgorge(CA), Defeated Sanity, and Cattle Decapitation probably all could fall under this banner although my guess is most people probably already know all of them. If those bands arent quite brutal enough or underground enough for your liking try this underground gem.

Abysmal Torment - Epoc of Methodic Carnage. I feel like this album is insanely brutal but it has plenty of catchy hooks and memorable guitar riffs and some very entertaining drum work. The vocalist is pretty monotonous but he's atleast competent at doing some low nasty gurgles.

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