Most diverse sub genre of metal?!
 

As the title says.

What do you think is the most diverse sub genre of metal? And why?

Alt metal, because what defines the genre is, to an extent, that the music doesn't really fit in other metal sub genres.


And progressive metal. Not all of it sounds like Dream Theater or Periphery. There's a lot of variation, like there should be for a genre with the progressive tag.

I think black metal has seen and will continue to see the most evolution and adaption. It consumes other influences like a monster, taking from them what it sees fit.

90% of prog metal sounds exactly like Dream Theater and Periphery. Most bands are straight up garbage.

Any genre is gonna mainly be filled with lame, uncreative bands, but there's still a lot of bands that have more of a style of their own that I would say are more or less some sort of prog metal. Leprous, Opeth and Madder Mortem, just to name a few that don't do the DT thing or the Periphery thing.

Aight I'll give you Leprous but Opeth are mostly lame too.

You should check out Blue Oyster Cult.

Oh yeah, famed progressive metal/death metal band Blue Oyster Cult.
I've heard about those guys.

Ja, that's 100% where Opeth got their sound, keeping with the trend of self-proclaimed progressive music being derivative as can be.

A 70's hard rock/heavy psych thread would be cool.

They sound like as B.O.C. if you ignore all nuance, maybe.
But why would you do that?

Then there's the matter of Opeth's 3 last albums where they go full on 70's prog worship, but I was thinking of the older albums as being their defining sound.

You seriously don't hear it?

Not really.
Show me an Oyster Cult song that proves that we're not just talking moderate similarities here and there.

I like how it never sounds anything like Opeth except there's guitars.

Fosho

Eh, BOC weren't that good when they were playing prog stuff anyway. Their best stuff is where they just go all out and kick your ass with 70's heavy metal:


Pretty much agree with this, especially just going off of late 80's and 90's examples of the genre.

BÖC aren't metal tho

Metal doesn't even exist, it's all blues.

No, but they had some metal songs imo.

Next Frown is gonna tell me Deftones sound exactly like ELO.

Absolutely no resemblance here right

It's from one of their 3 newest albums. I pointed out in a previous comment that they're different albums that the rest of their discography. With Heritage and up, Opeth went on a 70's prog nostalgia rampage.

By the rest of their discography, are you talking about when they were ripping off Camel?

Haven't heard enough Camel to remember anything, but I highly suspect I wouldn't agree with you at all.

It is a naked ripoff imo.

It's clearly very much a case of how one looks at music and hears it. We seems to be on opposite sides of the planet as far as musical views and ways of listening go.

I probably find that Camel/Opeth comparison to be too reductionist to fit with my view of music. Like when Trollheart dismissed Tori Amos as a Kate Bush ripoff. You can trace a line between the two, but there's miles from there and to being a ripoff.

Listening to a Camel compilation right now. Skipping around, I found one riffy, instrumental section that had a vague Opeth resemblance, but alas, no cigar.

I think you're missing the nuance here.

If it's a question of nuance, they clearly don't sound that much the same, now do they?

Very different aesthetic and even very different tendencies in their compositions and sound choices.

This is could be a track on Mirage.

Well, one song is hardly defining of a bands entire output. It's not exactly a song - or even an album - that I'd classify as the "core" opeth sound. Like, Ozzy has a handful songs that are blatant Beatles worship. Like "Goodbye to Romance", but I'd hardly dismiss his discography as merely ripping off the Beatles.

Something like this is what I'd call full-on Opeth:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rggQNCS8UjM

Obviously old school prog inspired, but that's one thing... and being a blatant ripoff with no expression of one's own is another.

In any case, I'd have to listen to Mirage to see if I agree.

The only difference is the vocals, really. Not to mention that the folk element runs through all of their discography. Maybe the issue with the nuance is that you're ignoring the core and defining by the dressing.

I don't think I would agree with your idea of what merely constitutes "dressing". Maybe? Maybe not?

For example, I'd say that every single artist I like has a sound of his/her/their own.*
And that this is important and would make the artist in question not a ripoff of anyone else to any degree that I'd care about.

But! All things fair, I'm not that familiar with Opeth's discography yet, since I've only just started finally liking them a bit. And I don't know much about Camel. So I'm not necessarily going to disagree in the end. I just wonder what exactly you think of as being the defining elements of a band's art, versus what I'd say it would be.


*maybe a select few exceptions...

Just their general compositional approach, the modernization would be the dressing.

I mean ja I'm being overly dismissive because I don't particularly like Opeth, but they borrow heavily from 70s prog artists, mainly Camel and BOC.

It's a bit like with Tool, where their fans insist too hard on their supposed genius status.

There's some particular chords, chord progression variations and scales that Opeth lean heavily on. I'd be curious if I'd hear them appearing all over the place if I start checking out Camel's albums.

Blackened Psychedelic Drone is even a thing.