I never understood the love for MegaDeath or Metallica. At least Metallica sounds like they hit puberty when they sing though.

Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Led Zep is more my thing. Oh, and I loved Ministry back when they were an industrial death metal band. It says something about a band when their Live album was from a prison tour.

I didn't expect you to like a lot of these bands tyranical lol. You have good taste, much like mine. i never understood the love for Metalica either, but I do love Megadeth.

I love Maiden, Sabbath and Led Zep. Actually Black Sabbath and Led zepelin were from my city

Megadeth as a collective > Metallica as a collective

Metallica at their best > Megadeth at their best

Well I was lucky enough to see Megadeth as well as lamb of god on the Second Gigantour back in 2006 and while I enjoyed the show overall (Deth and Opeth were great), as far as Lamb of God goes I was not impressed. I though perhaps the've improved since then but I've listened to several tracks from their new album and the less I say about that the better.

You are right that I do prefer musical harmony in my music, this largely due to me coming from a progressive background, but that's not to say I don't appreciate dissonance as I love the Rite of Spring. Although there are alot of new bands that are fantastic (Evile are a great example of the thrash revival scene) most of them are people who can't understand how to write true heavy music so they tune in Drop C and just yell incomprehensibly. I might have been able to repect their experiments which dissonance and stop-start progressions if only bands like Atheist hadn't been doing it years earlier and far superior.

Really like the new stuff, given the diversity of what the genre now has. Definitely enjoy the melodic side of heavy metal with bands like War of Ages.

@ZZetaAlec

haha...its so hard for me to argue pro new metal bands cause I used to think exactly like you. I used to love epic guitar soloing and operatic inspired vocals. I've been playing guitar for 9 years now and some of my influences are Freedman, Scolnick, Malmsteen...etc...very classical influenced music.

4 years ago, I would be the first to argue that slipknot, lamb of god, machine head, chimaira...are grabage. After all they can't solo like the great bands of the past and thier vocals are muddy and rarely clean. Worst of all, they don't make 8 minute epic songs but tend to stick to the 4 minute -verse,chorus,verse,chorus,breakdown/solo, chorus format.

However something changed in my tastes since. Slowly bands like Blind Guardian, Hammerfall, Symphony X, Metalium etc started to bore me. It started to seem like all these bands are just repeating the same shit over and over.

At the same time I started listening to newer stuff like shadows fall and Lamb of God and this music seemed much more interesting. They had the influences of the past but were doing something new with it, rather than doing the same 3 songs over and over. They also seem to be incorporating anger in their music a lot better. When I'm pissed after work or whenever, I prefer hearing a 4 minute song that gets down to it rather than a 10 minute song that takes 8 minutes to get going and get to the juicy stuff.

Today I listen to all kinds of metal and all kinds of music. If I want great vocal lines, I will pick up a christina agulera CD. If I want to hear 10 minute solos, I will listen to Joe Satriani. However when I am stuck in traffic, or getting bitched at at work...I definetly preffer Lamb of God and Slipknot over Sonata Artica and Iron Maiden.

Thats the thing...a lot of these new bands could rape and destroy a lot of their influences when it comes to "talent". Like drummers for slipknot, Daath and chimaira are absolutely the best drummers in the business, no questions asked.  When you see them live, you have no other choice that to admire in awe. Guitar players too...the slipknot guitarists could shred with the best of them. But the new bands are not about that "solo" thing. Its more about playing as a band...one sound... rather than have musical highlights per instrument. If you don't like the songwriting, I understand that. But talent is there...

I'll pretend you didn't mention linkin park :P

 Subjective:

I think that one thing people forget about old metal is the fact that, of all the bands, were the most inventive.

I mean, how difficult do you think it was to coax a good 'metal' song out 35 years ago out of old equipment? And get something that is irrevocably 'metal'?

Thats why I think that, for the genre, Children of the Grave by Sabbath is the quientessential metal song for me:

Between the thrashy, gallopped open-C# notes, the drumming, and the lyrics, it's a fantastic song. Throw in the fact that it's 38 years old this year, and was one of the first that was heavily downtuned (something not emulated for decades), and it's far ahead of it's time.

I saw them perform children of the grave live in 2005. You really appreciate that song live, it is like hearing it fresh.