The Red Chord
with so many technical bands today, these guys are probably the only band i've heard who can truly encompass chaos in their music. Guy's gutteral smoker's vocals add onto the messy riffing and jazzy musicianship making what i can only attribute to a mental patient's nightmare. hell, their second album was based on the singer's experience working for a mental hospital. definately one of, if not my favorite extreme band.
Superjoint Ritual
one of the first really heavy bands i ever heard. while it may have just been a side project for Phil Anselmo, i would listen to Use Once or Destroy over any Pantera record any day. the riffs are at the same time sludgy and thrashing making a sludge/hardcore punk hybrid which throughout the aforementioned album barely lets up in its heaviness. Phil's vocals on here are in my opinion better than he was in Pantera, releasing all sorts of rage and brutality in a way i never thought could have been before.
Cryptopsy
this band takes technicality and calculating their music to such an extreme that i can only be at awe in their prescence. i'm not a stickler for technicality either, but with a band like this, the level in which they craft their songs are astonishing. and while i still am trying to comprehend many of their songs, just trying to figure it out is fun and exciting in itself.
Death
one of the first, and one of the best. Chuck Schuldiner's vision to take heavyness to the nth degree and at the same time up the musicianship and add some experimentation, making a sound and feel that alot of other bands today wished they could be. god bless this band, for without them this music would never be the same.
Behemoth
i'm not that into Black Metal. sometimes it would feel as if some of the bands are more about their image than making good music. still, that doesn't stop me from trying to find some music there that i may like. enter Behemoth. from the vocals, instrumentation and overall sound, this trio can fuck shit up like nobody's business.
Between The Buried And Me
i know, i know, there's plenty of times and songs where they're not extreme, maybe even where they're just soft, but let me tell you. when they get heavy, they get REALLY HEAVY. songs like Sun of Nothing, Alaska, and Ad a Dglgmut can rival many death, black, technical, and overall extreme bands out there.
Necrophagist
i was very surprised when i first heard these guys, in how they not only kept the heaviness and death metal attributes, but crafted their music with such melodicism and precision. you'd imagine that and emphasis on coherant instrumentation would lower the tone of their music to not being as heavy, but surprisingly enough they don't falter.
Napalm Death
while i'm not the biggest grindcore fan and truthfully not a big fan of their earlier records, one thing in this group that really drew me to these guys was one thing. Barney. ****ing. Greenway. i swear to god when i first heard him it sounded like the Apocalypse getting punched in the gut by the fist of God. the rest of the band, especially in that incarnation, really backs it up and themselves bring some kickass riffage and heaviness to the table.
Meshuggah
these guys have formed and perfected a style, and while i do admit, not every song is gold, their more recent work shows a growth and evolution in songwriting which still keeps it's trademark calculated groove while exploring new ground.
Strapping Young Lad
FUCKING. WALL. OF SOUND. not just that, but also Devin Townsend's vocals. this is the only time i feel that i can listen to music so fast and so hard hitting with vocals that are actually clean and coherant. not saying clean vocals are bad, but for this type of music i would never expect to be as into them as i would be for SYL.
i know some of these don't necessarily fit the style, but do feel that many of these bands have extreme enough tendencies to warrant being on the list.
Last edited by Antonio; 01-17-2010 at 04:45 PM.
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