Metal Reviews

I was on Metal Archives reading reviews for Mastodon's Blood Mountain while I waited for the horrific server to let me download salary data so I could do what I am paid to (i.e. analyse this shit).

Anyway a lot of the reviews talked about how much progression this band made and how it's a masterpiece of metal. Interestingly I found the album to be boring and more commerically orientated and devoid of the metal/hardcore bits I actually listened to the first two albums for.

Basically they had become softer.

In the past a lot of people have said the same sort of thing when a band has become softer - examples include Metallica, In Flames, Soilwork, Opeth (barely ever use growl vocals nowadays), Anathema, Katatonia, The Haunted, Anthrax, Machine Head etc. Some people even praised Burzum for turning from Black Metal to Nintendo sound effect ambient shit.

Basically they're praising Metal bands for losing their Metal bits.

If you don't want your Metal bands to be Metal, then you're barking up the wrong tree and should maybe consider looking into some other genres.

But why do many "Metalheads" consider going soft and becoming more commercial/mainstream to be such a good thing?

I listen to Metal cause I want heavy shit. If I want to listen to softer stuff I'll listen to bands that know how to play that sort of stuff and not some ex-Thrash band trying to make some cash.

In my mind musical progression is getting good at what you do and improving your song writing skills.

Seems to me a lot of the bands you listed have gotten tons of shit for going towards a more mainstream sound at different points in their career.

As far as the whole "going soft" thing goes, it depends on the band. Some bands tone it down and do it well and still make good music. Some take a turn for the worse.

It's pretty cynical and misguided to think that these bands all "toned it down" (which they didn't, not all of them) to "make some cash." I hate to sound like Ken, but I sincerely doubt that because a band quote-unquote "goes softer" they'll make any more money than they were before, i.e. not a lot.

In general bands get calmer as they get older, so their music gets softer, even outside of metal (eg Radiohead, Thrice, The Mars Volta). Personally I don't listen to my favourite metal bands for their metal stuff. I listen to them because they make great music and I'd rather they do whatever they want to do, instead of staying metal for the sake of not getting soft.

I totally agree with Orion.

Inside metal circles, these bands have copped far more shit than praise for toning down their sound. It's just the mainstream media that praises them.

My issue in this instance isn't really with the bands getting softer. If they go soft and I don't like they're new stuff I simply won't buy those albums. Simple really.

My issue is that people ranging from fans to journos in extreme mags ala Terrorizer seem to think that metal bands going softer is musical progression.

By this sort of thinking it seems that these people think that Metal is improved by making it softer.

It's progression because they're not making the same album over and over.

Yet if they made a "heavier" album there probably wouldn't be as much praise.

I dunno.

Pantera kept getting a lot heavier with each release in the 90's, and their progression was pretty well recognised by all.

Well, Mastodon have basically turned into a prog rock band, and saying that's not a progression is silly. Opeth, say, incorporate much more proggy and even avant-garde stuff in their albums now than before - progression. I don't know, I agree with Thrashtilldeath that this is from mainstream circles rather than anything - if you will insist on reading Metal-Archives reviews and taking them as some sort of cultural indication of what Metalheads generally think, then I can't help you. Sure, In Flames went rubbish, but The Haunted didn't really change their sound that much, and Opeth and Anathema's latest albums are bloody fantastic.

A prime example for me is Ulver - I consider their post-Nattens output incomparable to the black metal Trilogie, they're pretty much all excellent. Yet they recieved a massive backlash when they released the Metamorphosis EP from the metal community.

I don't mind progression if it leads to music I like, put short. However, if it turned out that the album was worse than their previous efforts (in standard album reviewing terms, not comparing it to the others) I would criticise it, but not the band's decision.

That seems to be everyone's position here, heh.

They get softer because they grow up.

Someone need to tell Tobias Sammet that he's become a softie

Yet they also went softer. There's no denying that.

It might be a progression for the musicians but from a metal perspective it's getting softer.



It's not just Metal Archives but a lot of various metal reviews pages and magazines.

And it is a generalisation that probably applies to a large minority of metalheads.





But isn't In Flames' new stuff a "progression" if we use the same assumption of musical change = progression?

Have you heard The Haunted's "The Dead Eye." Completely different to previous albums - it's alternative rock.

As for Opeth - they have lost the bits that I liked which is the contrast between Death Metal and prog rock.

Haven't heard much later Anathema.

Which is what this all boils down to. Not everyone likes the same thing, bro, why can't The Haunted experiment with a little melody? They've already won Swedish grammies and stuff for the death/thrash era, it's hardly a sellout. Being 'metal' isn't the same as being 'extreme'.

The Haunted released that particular album when Metalcore was at it's height. Other bands also embraced popular genres at times to sell albums - Slayer, Fear Factory, Sepultura, Overkill, Anthrax bloody even Cryptopsy etc etc.

Mastodon are getting softer the more popular they become. Same thing can be said with Opeth or Megadeth or Metallica or even bands such as Korn.

Music is a product. A product has a certain market and how the product sounds contributes to either expanding the market or keeping it level.

Now looking at three bands, one being Mastodon and one being Cannibal Corpse and the last being In Flames and you can see three models for evolving a heavier band's music to match market expectations.

Mastodon are experiencing increasing popularity. In order to exploit the momentum and expand the market, they are either wittingly or unwittingly getting rid of elements that might be seen as unattractive to the new wider market. These elements are the more abrasive ones.

In essence Mastodon is aiming for a wider market and to do this it needs to increase the appeal of the band. Most people prefer softer music as opposed to abrasive heavier stuff so they're focusing on their softer elements.

This approach has been successful for bands such as Mastodon, but also Metallica in 1991, Megadeth in 1992 and Fear Factory with Obsolete. Metallica's Black album still had the Metallica sound and given the bands increasing popularity on previous songs such as One, wasn't too much of a revolutionary change)

There is a degree of risk in this approach as is witnessed by the decline of many Thrash bands in the 1990's (e.g. Overkill, Testament, even Kreator who went more industrial) as they softened their sound to become more mainstream to cash in on popularity, but the newly arrived grunge trend killed any potential success.

There is a risk of alienating your fan base but if the change is gradual then the fan base is more accepting. Thus you actually increase fan numbers.

I suppose this is the "musical progression" model.

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Cannibal Corpse have from day 1 focused on a niche market with very certain product characteristics. Cannibal Corpse are not interested in wider appeal and have maintained a steady fan base as such who know what to expect from the band.

The band that has exploited this the best is AC/DC who refuse to change and play the same stuff yet have an insanely loyal fan base. Angus Young himself once said: "we've only ever written one album but we keep on changing the title." Many Black and Death Metal bands focus on this marketing model.

This sort of market is pretty risk free once you're established. You never reach the mainstream limelight but you don't need it.

Some bands actually start off arty so can actually progress a lot without actually aiming for popularity. However they fall into this category because their approach is one to attain a stable niche market.

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The In Flames model involves changing one's style for a more mainstream and popular one in a bid to get popular. It's the ultimate in selling out.

This model is highly risky. Unlike the Mastodon or Opeth model where you're slowly becoming more commercial and thus acclimatizing your existing fan base to more softer, mainstream elements, the In Flames model risks alienating your fan base.

Bands that have failed at this include Anthrax (more grunge orientated - never recovered either) and Machine Head (Nu-metal - but got rid of most of these elements when a couple of albums flopped).

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I don't think band members openly think like this. But the behaviour is there.

A lot of the time it's label induced - I remember reading an interview with Prong where they talked about record label pressure to sell out as well as an interview with Bill Steer (Carcass) who said that he was sitting in on a meeting of the head honchos at one of the major extreme music labels (possibly Earache) and that the head honchos were discussing how such and such extreme metal band was improved by hiring a style manager for them etc. It just shows how much influence the labels have.

We like to think that it's art but it's a product and everyone involved wants to make a living from it.

The thing that surprises me is that it seems there are extreme music connoiseurs who prefer it for their fave bands to go softer.

I'm not sure exactly what your point is. You can't say that Opeth and Korn are following similar career patterns or have similar musical goals - Korn now sound as bad as they did on the self-titled, Opeth are a long way away from Orchid.



I'm not denying this, even if I think it is a cynical and ultimately futile and self-destructive way of looking at things.



Eh, surely they'd have introduced more usual commercial elements if that was the case? Mastodon have built their career, slowly becoming more and more progressive in style over Leviathan, Blood Mountain, and so on. To say that this is solely down to their desire for fame and fortune is cruel at best.

You can only compare Cannibal Corpse and AC/DC so far - CC are not constantly marketed as the ultimate rock band, are not given high-profile soundtrack slots on the likes of Iron Man, do not have as long a career or as ear-friendly a sound to sustain them.

The issue I ultimately have with all this is that you're taking Getting Ahead In The Music Business For Dummies and trying to apply this to a range of above and under-ground metal bands with varying levels of success - sure, In Flames took a conscious stylistic shift to appeal to more people, but were Opeth really thinking, hey, people dig this progressive metal stuff, we should streamline our acoustic elements and add avant-garde stuff to appeal to the kids? Or, more likely, was it a natural progression born of the band members' well-known prog rock interests and desire to try something new, as opposed to repeating themselves? I can't believe that any band plays Death Metal as part of a long-term plan to become rich and famous. Obviously, Carcass and the Earache bands came under pressure to sell out, because Digby Pearson is (allegedly) a mercurial son-of-a-gun who found himself sitting on potentially a good deal, but is that Carcass' fault?



Such as? Examples of this would be appreciated, because I'm really not sure where you're going with this particular point.

I'd rather a band get softer and make each new album worth listening to rather than being like Cannibal Corpse and almost every other death metal band where once you've heard two of their albums there's no point in getting any more of them.

Point is bands getting softer as they become more popular.




It's not really an ultimately futile and self-destructive way of looking at things. I've found that my life has always improved upon acknowledging the dirty and often dishonest way of the world.

I was more unhappy when I expected good things from people, family, friends, governments, retailiers, bands etc as there was always disappointment.

Expectation of bad performance = pleasant surprises when everything goes well and no disappointment when they fail.

But this is a topic for another thread.




Mastodon's evolution does not seem so slow.

Leviathan broke it big for them and the next album got rid of the heavier elements and was more mainstream.

I'll bet money on if Leviathan was not successful that they would continue with the heavier side of things - i.e. work on the steady, niche market as opposeed to trying to expand into more commercial realms.




Conceptually they are the same though. CC might not make a lot of money but they probably have a stable income from it and the band fills a certain niche. AC/DC's niche is much bigger but the band never moves away from it.

Other examples could include Motorhead, Bolt Thrower and other than a few mistakes, Slayer.







Interestingly enough, Opeth's shift to less DM in its music started when they transferred to Roadrunner.

Roadrunner is notorious as a label that interferes with band's sounds - look at their DM roster in the early 1990's or their Nu-Metal roster in the mid-1990's. In both cases a certain sound was promoted (with DM it was the Morrisound Studio's sound and recorded by Scott Burns) whereas with Nu-Metal it was the bouncy Ross Robinson style.

Roadrunner hasn't had a "sound" since the commercial demise of Nu-Metal but I somehow doubt it gives its artists full independence.



No they don't play to be rich and famous. But they play to fill a role in a niche market. True Black Metal or the original Hardcore scenes are actually the best example of this - it's a type of niche market whereby massive commercial success is frowned upon. Being unknown is actually a product requirement in this instance.

Besides most musicians probably enjoy playing music. If they wanted really good incomes they'd become doctors or mining engineers or lawyers.

Playing it safe in a genre is a good way of making a living from what you enjoy doing. Sure you're not going to be on the cover or Rolling Stone magazine and doing lines of coke off high class hookers asses but at least you'll earn a living from playing what you want.



Go to Metal Archives and you'll see plenty - remember that is an all access site open to the public. Pick up a copy of Terrorizer and you'll see them often espousing bands that have gone "soft." Of course Metal Hammer and that sort prefer their metal to be softer (I remember when their issues had nothing but Greenday, Public Enemy and Marilun Manson )

Thanks for the interesting debate by the way. I enjoy discussing this sort of thing! No offence meant in any of it.