yes

It's also not conducive for originality these days. People decide to start up a death metal band in the style of blah blah, or a black metal band in the style of blah. There's too much history the temptation to imitate it is too great and means that no one has their own identity any more.

A discussion starts. It has promise; content, even.

For example: "What bands made better albums at a time later in their careers?"

It reaches an apex and people find clear examples in the old school bands.

For example: Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Deceased and Megadeth.

And then in comes a stream of people, shambling and hiding behind their bullet belts and vest jackets, etc. who mention bands no one except a niche-clique cares about.

For example: "Oh, definitely CHRIST INSERTION and NECROBOMBAST. Maybe DOG OF THE APOCALYPSE. Yeah, that's the ticket."

It seems to me that's what crushes metal in general. Everyone must participate, and for that reason, they invent importance to music that is irrelevant drivel in the big picture.

Outside of the niche-clique, no one cares about your local bands, your novelties, and flavor of the week. This stuff is a self-referential group selling stuff to themselves. It reminds me of how the Western nations are now structured around a "consumer" population that seems oblivious to the fact that, outside of our fat-lazy prole-ocracies, Kesha and Jodi Piccoult are worthless drivel.

Exactly the reason why it's so impossible to discuss anything properly on the metal archives forum...I still lurk there though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVHRvnCTZGA&feature=youtu.be

Seems to just be similar production to the most recent effort. I will probably get hold of this simply because the Purressence of Primitive Forests was a disappointment for me.

The way I read it he wasn't even really attacking the kind of people that frequent this forum. There's the liberal, all inclusive view he's espousing, and there's the metalhead meat heads, uneducated and masculine, which he seems to be attacking, and then there's anus, which is neither of these things.

I notice Metal Archives has joined in. For what it's worth, striking does brint this to a lot of people's attention who would otherwise have just ignored it at the bottom of a list of headlines. Aside from raising awareness this seems to be a total gimmick.

Another thought. Pretty much all the bands mentioned started out in a farely familiar style. Gorguts, Voivod, even Summoning's first was only a hint at the direction they would later take offering farely standard black metal. I remember Luc Lemay of Gorguts saying that this is often a necessary first step for any truly original artist. Beethoven started out sounding like Hadyn before he honed his own sound.

The problem seems to be that a band will find a unique sound and others will think 'we're going to play innovatitive music in the style of x blended with y'. This is just a contradiction. Either you end up playing innovative music or you immitate; the choice is yours but don't lie about what you're doing. Reading interviews from seminal bands one can see that they simply played the music that they loved and let it grow naturally into something unique. There's too much forcing it going.

And once these bands reach that creative peak they fizzle out because they too try to do the exact same thing again, rather than going back to the drawing board and letting things come naturally.

I would also agree that the music press is somewhat to blame. The excessive labelling leads to artists picking and choosing their own style (brand) and pushing that and nothing else.

I'm interested in certain widely listened to albums in the metal community, the influence of which has yet to be inherited, or may never be fully inherited. I can make this idea clearer by explaining what it isn't. For instance, Suffocation are probably the most imitated band in death metal, and for good or ill, their style has been fully assimilated into the hearts and minds of metallers the world over.

Atheist, despite being unique, have had their influence fully assimilated into the style of death metal despite there not being any band that I can think of who play it with the same competency that early Atheist showed.

The same can be said for both black metal and viking metal Bathory. Both styles were taken to another level by the Norwegians and others and Bathory's influence seems to have run its course so to speak.

Here are some examples of what I am talking about. Feel free to suggest others:

Obscura, Dimension Hatross, Hvis Lyset tar Oss, Minus Morgul and Dol Guldor (maybe).

Take Dimension Hatross. Gorguts, Immolation and Atheist are all obvious successes to Voivod amongst others, but I still feel that metal has failed to fully take notice of the unique approach to the genre that Voivod had. And I think one of the reasons was the period in which it was released, when the focus was shifting from a predominantly 1980s style speed metal to the death metal of the early 1990s.  

Hvis Lyset Tar Oss effectively killed black metal outright by raising the bar to a level that no one else could reach including Varg himself.

Summoning are debatable. I do not think the world needs more bands playing like them, but I do not feel that their ideas have been taken by others and transformed into something new in the same way that the Norwegian heavy weights have been.

So why has their message not been heard? Is it even a bad thing? Maybe these albums stand as proud anomalies, with only a few antecedents explaining their origin and no worthy successors.