Is there any good metal anymore?
 

I fell out of love with metal some years ago now and I probably wouldn't recognise many of the acts in Kerrang or Metal Hammer (if they're still going?) these days.

Last metal album I bought was Machine Head's "Unto The Locust" but that's been the only one for many years other than Slayer's output.

So, is there any bands out there that are are actually worth a listen or is it just the same old guff re-hashed?

Over to you, legions...

Anything related to Devin Townsend IMO, although I think it's like asking if anyone makes good waffles anymore

^Seconded. Also, there's a lot of great metal out there, allow me to post some videos for your ears.

Disarmonia Mundi


Mistweaver


Agalloch

Well Yeah, Progressive Metal is one of the more popular subgenres.

I think the more recent metal releases are getting closer to the popular music and rock sound, for example from Stratovarius' latest release "Halcyon Days" which seems to have a lot of the elements of pop in an obvious metal song. Personally I enjoy these newer releases a lot more then the older heavy metal -- anything beats songs about dragons, troll slaying and quests in my opinion.

Is there good popular metal music being produced by young bands? No.

Is the most popular segment of underground metal producing good music? For the most part, no - it's dominated by redundant, flash in the pan bands playing the most en vogue genres, which at this moment is post black metal, progressive noodly noodly metal, and deathcore.

Anyways, I'd avoid Devin Townsend. The best he can approach is fun, but generally speaking his music is overproduced to a degree which is painful.

I'm guessing you're not a huge fan of Power Metal.

Getting back to the OP I think there are still good bands, although most are not very well-known. You get bands like Hammerfall, Powerwolf, Raubtier, etc which I think make good music and they're all newish. It seems that most people think of metal as things like Slipknot, Rammstein these days which is a huge shame.

Of course, you don't get this these days:

Terrible way to speak of an artist with as much talent as Devin. I'm ok with it when people lay their opinion on an artist, but to say his music is overproduced is not even a fair assessment. His way around studio equipment is far better than most that I've heard.

Contemporary metal has been declining in creativity for more than a decade now.
In my opinion one of the last very good metal albums was Toxicity by System of a Down.

I completely disagree. I think the past decade or so has been a bit of a heavy metal golden age honestly. Some examples, two of them from right in your backyard: