I sincerely apologize for assuming that most Americans weren’t wound up, pretentious, gay music lovers, my bad.

I think bands should experiment, but on that note, have that one special riff/style/breakdown/vocals/drums/ect. that makes them what they are and what people tend to appreciate.

But I detect the imminent occurence of another “clean vocals are gay” argument coming.

Which is retarded. In both a literal and a metaphorical manner.

PS to your PS: “Homo” by itself means Human. Thats all, not the same as homosexual, see the problem is not caring about what you are saying, because you assume everyone “knows what you mean”. If you don’t think this is important, than you fail to see the importance of words in general, which is completely contradictory to your argument, and beyond that, writing or SPEAKING AT ALL, remember, you’ve been taught everything you think you know.

is your last name Haake?

Well you made it pretty clear with you’re examples, its outstandingly better to experiment. KsE’s new album was lacking any humility, in my opinion, it’s an example of a band, happy(commercially over sonically) with their sound. But that’s not enough…on the other hand, maybe it’s just not my thing.

Yes.

You speak truth sir.

Also – Ulver. Wonderful.

So basically, yes, lots of listeners don’t give the album it’s due diligence.

BUT! A lot of metal kids don’t know how to fucking say it. They invoke principles when not able to simply say “hey, this album has some moments short, some long, of exhilaration, but by the end doesn’t rise up to spectacularity or fall victim to failure. It’s just kinda mediocre.”

It’s the boring fucking truth that some music engages, some doesn’t. And, ironically, the self-titled album by the band Killswitch ENGAGE doesn’t live up to it’s name. Not on principle, but because the songs are rehashing feelings that have already seen the glory days of expression, and now are like tired old floppy-dicked dudes who are living for the past.

I know what you mean about cheesy though, 99.9% of lyrics in any metal band are cheesy, part of the art I guess. Im not too bothered about lyrics unless theyre christian lyrics haha, then I am bothered a lot. Its a bonus if a band has interesting lyrics though

There is a way to change without completely alienating your fanbase. Few bands do this however. You ever notice when a band is about to change their style and they throw in a little bit of the future style in an album before completely throwing it into the style they’re going into? I’ve noticed that THAT particular album always seems to sound better than the past and not nearly as good as the future. Why? Because it was a blended experiment…their “middlepoint”. It was enough to bring in new audiences and it kept their older audience, their cult audience, interested. That is how you do it. You have to have an IDEA, and sometimes a fresh idea combined with good ol’ tradition is what makes a winning formula.

KSE has a format, would I call it a winning format? Maybe not. It sounds like every album is a faded, rework on End of Heartache and there’s only so many times you can wear a pair of socks before a hole forms. They don’t have to go extremely tech-deathcore, but they DO have to spice it up and make some changes. (No, Adam, making two versions of a single with clean vocals/screaming is not change, just cheap.)

Cannibal Corpse has even made changes. Their lyrical content for the most part has stayed the same, but their song construction has changed considerably over the years. Incorporating shifting tempos and more concentrated riffing styles. They didn’t go extremely different and try to incorporate stuff to sell to other people, but they DID make an effort not to be bland, even if the concept of Zombies eating flesh is an old one.

I also would like to get on the Avenged Sevenfold/Mastodon situation.

When avenged sevenfold stopped screaming, it gave off the feeling that they were all about a larger audience based on marketing to what they thought people liked. That and they made a bunch of excuses outright. The fact that the vocalist had a surgery didn’t help the look of the situation either.

When Mastodon stopped screaming, that impression never really comes. It’s sort of like when Ulver stopped doing black metal. It wasn’t to sell into another market. It was moreso doing whatever they wanted to do. They didn’t need to make any excuses. Yeah, some people didn’t like it, but because it had a purpose behind it, a bunch of people got on board and a bunch of older fans stayed on board.

There’s also the thing about bands like Slayer staying the same and bands like Metallica changing.

There’s one thing about being the same, it only works if you do an excellent job of it. Sure, Slayer has had some fuck ups. God Hates Us All and Diabolus in Musica weren’t exactly excellent but Christ Illusion and World Painted Blood were certainly steps in a better direction. World Painted Blood being an excellent example of doing the same thing awesome.

When Metallica changed, it was sort of like falling flat and seemingly not really knowing exactly what they wanted. They had some gems through the poppy era, but really they got more disrespect for straying so far away from Thrash that it got cheesy. Death Magnetic, while I don’t like it, is a MAD step up from St Anger and before. It’s a bit closer to the thrash they were doing, but still holds some of the rockier stuff they were doing load/reload era.