What is the heaviest you comfortably listen to?

[Downunderwonder]

When Metallica turned into a bunch of ''soft sellout hippies'' that's when I find them listenable.

[Graham]

I mostly listen to music that is under the extreme metal umbrella (post-hardcore, mathcore, grindcore, black metal, post-metal, metal-core, death metal, sludge, doom), so pretty heavy I'd say.

For example the last five albums I bought were by Terrorizer, Godflesh, Neurosis, Din Of Celestial Birds and Greg Puciato.

I'm not sure if today is a Bandcamp Friday or not, but I'm planning on buying albums by Cave In, Botch and The Armed

Edited June 4, 2021 by Graham

[Kirky]

I'm not a metal fan, it all seems a bit fake to me, lots of dressing up and posing.  And the music is usually formulaic and frankly a bit weak.  For "heavy" music, by which I mean challenging and sometimes even disturbing, I'd listen to Suicide, the Birthday Party (particularly the Junkyard album) and something like Scott Walker's soundtrack to Childhood Of A Leader - that's very chilling .

I appreciate I'm probably in a minority here .

[bartelby]

5 minutes ago, Kirky said:

 the Birthday Party (particularly the Junkyard album

Good shout!

[christhammer666]

there is no  "to heavy" for me. currently listening to scour

[ubit]

I remember Slipknot when they first appeared on our tv screens. I thought they were funny and never took them seriously. I bought my mate one of their cd's as a laugh for his 40th. Now I have all of their albums and I absolutely love them. My tastes have changed so much over the years. every genre that I dismissed has now become listenable to me. I find that I pretty much like everything apart from a few exceptions which have been addressed in other threads.

[Leonard Smalls]

I can cope with challenging music, in fact I prefer music to be interesting and not too formulaic (unless of course, it's The Funk), but I find most metal to be a bit too much by-numbers. They've all got the same fonts for the band logos, songs are usually about some sort of horror imagery, then there's the  annoying constant double bass drum like a road drill, there's sometimes a melodic vocal followed by bizarre growling and the same sounds for guitars - it's all just a bit identikit.

I've got nothing against any of those bits in isolation, with occasional use, but when every song by every band could have been done by any other band in the genre, I say PLEASE DO SOMETHING JUST A BIT DIFFERENT!!!! I mean, I like Girlband, Rolo Tomassi, CTL DRP and other bands that use lots of guitar noise, even growling, but that's because they're individual and not just blind followers of the flock...

 

[ubit]

6 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

there's sometimes a melodic vocal followed by bizarre growling and the same sounds for guitars - it's all just a bit identikit.

What you mean like this? I like this.

 

This must take some vocal dexterity.

 

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by ubit

[jazzyvee]

Rammestein.

[Fozza]

3 hours ago, Graham said:

I mostly listen to music that is under the extreme metal umbrella (post-hardcore, mathcore, grindcore, black metal, post-metal, metal-core, death metal, sludge, doom), so pretty heavy I'd say.

For example the last five albums I bought were by Terrorizer, Godflesh, Neurosis, Din Of Celestial Birds and Greg Puciato.

I'm not sure if today is a Bandcamp Friday or not, but I'm planning on buying albums by Cave In, Botch and The Armed

That's the stuff I've been listening to for the past few weeks. All pretty new to me. For example, I listened to this yesterday.

G̲orguts̲ - Obs̲c̲ura (1998) [Full Album] HQ - YouTube

So, yeah, pretty heavy!

 

[Noisyjon]

Slipknot is about my limit too.
Saw them at the o2 back in Jan 2020 and they were full on!

[Woodinblack]

5 minutes ago, ubit said:

What you mean like this? I like this.

Yep like that. Sounded like a promising song and then.. oh well, next.

I guess people must like it as it is really common.

5 minutes ago, ubit said:

This must take some vocal dexterity.

Synchronised swimming takes some dexterity. Don't want to watch that either

 

[Barking Spiders]

1 hour ago, Kirky said:

I'm not a metal fan, it all seems a bit fake to me, lots of dressing up and posing.  And the music is usually formulaic and frankly a bit weak.  For "heavy" music, by which I mean challenging and sometimes even disturbing, I'd listen to Suicide, the Birthday Party (particularly the Junkyard album) and something like Scott Walker's soundtrack to Childhood Of A Leader - that's very chilling .

I appreciate I'm probably in a minority here .

Some metal bands indeed praps make up for the lack of good music by dressing up but there's those like Lamb of God and Gojira who don't dress up or have gimmicks. Heck, there's not even one (visible) tattoo in Gojira! In one previous post LOG and Fiver Finger Death Punch were lumped together. No! While LOG are mighty, hyper aggressive and and don't do sappy ballads or whine about how hard they've been done by, FFDP are the natural heir to Limp Bizkit, except that Ivan bloke is an even bigger tool than Fred Durst. FFDP are fkin awful. Their lyrics are among the worst in any genre. 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Barking Spiders

[Leonard Smalls]

11 minutes ago, ubit said:

What you mean like this? I like this.

While it undoubtedly takes skill, the melodic bit could be one off many bands and the growly bit is like a comedy interlude. It's like you can only be metal if you do the silly growling!

[Barking Spiders]

34 minutes ago, ubit said:

I remember Slipknot when they first appeared on our tv screens. I thought they were funny and never took them seriously. I bought my mate one of their cd's as a laugh for his 40th. Now I have all of their albums and I absolutely love them. My tastes have changed so much over the years. every genre that I dismissed has now become listenable to me. I find that I pretty much like everything apart from a few exceptions which have been addressed in other threads.

For my money they are just about the best live band going.  Corey Taylor is a very charismatic frontman. The whole band is charismatic. I have all their albums though I wouldn't put Iowa at the top. Subliminal Verses gets the nod over that.

[paul_5]

Slayer and occasionally Lamb of God, not really found anything else up that end the spectrum that really tickles my fancy.

[Fishfacefour]

1 hour ago, Kirky said:

  For "heavy" music, by which I mean challenging and sometimes even disturbing, I'd listen to Suicide, the Birthday Party (particularly the Junkyard album) and something like Scott Walker's soundtrack to Childhood Of A Leader - that's very chilling .

I appreciate I'm probably in a minority here .

Pretty much all of the later Scott Walker stuff is heavier and more terrifying than most other music. It's not something you can put on as background music. Even his 60s classic period stuff has a certain weight in the orchestration that hints at what's to come. 

[AndyTravis]

I always have and always will love the Deftones.

The wife and kids were out yesterday and I had their recent (ish) album “Gore” on at a hefty tilt…

They came back in and Jen said “ooh trav, he sounds in pain - and it’s too loud”.

But I like old heavy too - she’ll happily listen to Metallica and that kind of stuff, just think Chino’s screaming isn’t her cup of tea.

Although I spotted The Disturbed on her Spotify playlist.

[Jonesy]

I'm into slower heavy stuff with a bit of a groove like eyehategod, crowbar and high on fire. I guess anything that's doom/sludge with a bit of swing that is a progression from Sabbath I'd be a fan of.

I don't think it has to be fast with screaming vocals to be heavy for me, a couple of the heaviest tunes I've heard live were from Soundgarden and Melvin's, but I wouldn't call them heavy bands. 4th of July by Soundgarden is one of my all time favourites...

 

 

[bartelby]

12 minutes ago, Fishfacefour said:

Pretty much all of the later Scott Walker stuff is heavier and more terrifying than most other music. It's not something you can put on as background music. Even his 60s classic period stuff has a certain weight in the orchestration that hints at what's to come. 

On Apple music there's a nice bit in the blurb for The Drift album:
"in the past eleven years has released just two solo albums – this one and 1995’s Tilt.Both are challenging works that require the listener to suspend their beliefs in what a song should do. You do not hum these tunes. You do not tap your foot to these beats. Preferably, you sit in a comfortable chair in a dark room and let the slowly unfolding drama overtake you."

This was my introduction to non Walker Brothers Scott Walker:

 

[Dapper Bandit]

7 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

I can cope with challenging music, in fact I prefer music to be interesting and not too formulaic (unless of course, it's The Funk), but I find most metal to be a bit too much by-numbers. They've all got the same fonts for the band logos, songs are usually about some sort of horror imagery, then there's the  annoying constant double bass drum like a road drill, there's sometimes a melodic vocal followed by bizarre growling and the same sounds for guitars - it's all just a bit identikit.

I've got nothing against any of those bits in isolation, with occasional use, but when every song by every band could have been done by any other band in the genre, I say PLEASE DO SOMETHING JUST A BIT DIFFERENT!!!! I mean, I like Girlband, Rolo Tomassi, CTL DRP and other bands that use lots of guitar noise, even growling, but that's because they're individual and not just blind followers of the flock...

 

I, having spent an enormous chunk of my existence kicking around the cloisters of the extremely broad church that is heavy metal, can only agree. My favourite metal bands seem to be the weirdos that other metal fans I've spoken to have recoiled from in horror! For example:

Sigh. An oddball Japanese black metal band that have taken a Zorn-ian approach to composition, although more long form than Naked City. Their Imaginary Sonicscape album is quite frankly the great black metal/psychedelic rock album you never knew you wanted! 

Maudlin of the Well / Kayo Dot: another band that presents as metal with a kaleidoscopic range of influences that has veered from very metal through to prog-synth-pop by way of post rock and modern classical music.

Painkiller: free jazz / dub / grind power trio that blew my young mind and made an awful lot of extreme metal seem dull and conservative.

[Stub Mandrel]

19 hours ago, ubit said:

Just how heavy are your tastes? I don't mean quite liking but where you can comfortably listen to all of their music. Also where does this stop? Who goes too far?

Does not compute)£(^"%&()*+_*%&!!!!!!

It's only sound coming out of a speaker. There are a few things I can't handle (basically Edith Piaf, K-Pop and other teenage-girl-oriented pop).

Some of the less well done 'extreme' metal fails because it reaches the level of self-parody and makes me laugh, rather than not being able to cope.

I am an 'album oriented listener' who enjoys listening to a curated (to use a very in-vogue term) collection of music, but when I do I enjoy some light and shade. Some of the music you refer to feels boring, rather than relentless.

Personally I think something like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 20th Century Schizoid Man are 'heavier' because of their use of dynamics.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Stub Mandrel

[MacDaddy]

18 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

Wagner can be wearing, à la longue. 

 

 

10 Awesome pieces of Classical music for metalheads:

https://loudwire.com/10-awesome-pieces-of-classical-music-for-metalheads/

[Woodinblack]

3 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I am an 'album oriented listener' who enjoys listening to a curated (to use a very in-vogue term)

I would  just say that I am not able to take in any more information someone says after they have used the word 'Curated'.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

16 hours ago, MHMSWC#03 said:

Also Decapitated and Necrophagist. Forget it, I'll be here all day.

I'm a big fan of Rectal Mucilage and Snotty Hanky.

🙂