Secular hot takes

Pethead wrote:I can do whatever I want!

Pethead wrote:Post-UA Megadeth is good—but not great.

Black Rider wrote:Vapor Trails by Rush is a top three album for them.

Pethead wrote:Pantera was overrated. Not terrible by any means, but overrated. Dimebag was a great talent, though.

And don’t give me that “THEY KEPT METAL ALIVE IN THE 90S!!!!” stuff. Metal never died. Metal doesn’t need to be mainstream to be great.

Pethead wrote:

StevenCressler wrote:

Black Rider wrote:Dave and Marty were the best guitar duo in thrash and in most of all metal.

Can't really argue with that. While I prefer Metallica overall, Megadeth does have better guitar playing. Riff-wise, not sure, but solo-wise, yes.

I prefer Metallica’s riffing style, but Dave and Marty are insane together. RiP is a masterpiece.

Airola wrote:

StevenCressler wrote:

Black Rider wrote:No nu metal is better than good thrash.

Some songs on there (like Jet Pilot) are very fast, even though I still wouldn't call them thrash. Btw, have you heard much of Toxicity?

I see SOAD as a crossover nu-metal thrash band. Or at least Toxicity is a nu-metal thrash crossover album. I don't know any other "nu-metal" band that has even close the amount of thrash drumming and thrash riffs Toxicity has. They rarely have any parts like that.

I would probably call SOAD more like an avantgarde metal band as it's not really that much nu-metal either. As far as I recall the only real 100% nu-metal moment in the Toxicity album is in the song X starting at 1:20. That's the style of nu-metal I don't care at all and is probably my least liked part of the whole album. The rest of the song is a weird hybrid of doom, alternative, thrash, hardcore punk.

Science, by the way, is lyrically pretty interesting as it's a secular metal band being anti-science and pro-spirituality. That was very rare around that time with scientism and new atheism on the rise. Some say Serj is just pretending to be a "bad preacher" who is mocking science and that it should be taken ironically as people still seem to think that a metal artist can't be spiritual, but he has explained his spiritual beliefs a bit in different interviews. He dislikes the word God, but likes to use the word Creator and the line "spirit moves through all things" instead to describe God. He seems to be one of those whose spiritual beliefs are a mixture of different religions including Christianity, and definitely believes in a creator and a soul. So the lyrics of Science are actually to be taken at face value instead of an ironic mockery of religion. While he is not an actual Christian he still seems to appreciate Christianity because of its history in Armenia and keeping Armenians together and preserving the Armenian culture when all sorts of other religions were hostile towards Armenia. In any case around the time Toxicity was released it was pretty rare for any secular metal band to be critical towards science or that they have any spiritual/religious beliefs.

Jet Pilot is one of my favorites on that album. The chorus reminds me of the fast thrash part between the verse and chorus in Tourniquet's Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance. And Science reminds me of Tourniquet's Restoring the Locust Years.

If Tourniquet would've continued with the sound and style of the new tracks on The Collected Works (Perfect Night for a Hanging & The Hand Trembler) and combined that to the Crawl to China songs like Proprioception (minus the blues intro and outro), Tire Kicking and Stumblefoot, it would've been close to what System of a Down have done.
It's really not that far off to compare SOAD with Tourniquet. They have some of the same melodic sensibilities Tourniquet had and same type of attention to heavy thrashy groove.

Black Rider wrote:

Pethead wrote:Post-UA Megadeth is good—but not great.

It has great songs sprinkled in. Blows modern Metallica away.

StevenCressler wrote:

Black Rider wrote:

Pethead wrote:Post-UA Megadeth is good—but not great.

It has great songs sprinkled in. Blows modern Metallica away.

Haven't heard too much of modern Deth, but I will say I like Hardwired, really like 72 Seasons, and love Death Magnetic. I could see the newer Deth being better, but I highly doubt it blows it away.

Pethead wrote:The best post-UA Deth tune is either Headcrusher or Black Swan.

seth wrote:

StevenCressler wrote:

Black Rider wrote:

Pethead wrote:Post-UA Megadeth is good—but not great.

It has great songs sprinkled in. Blows modern Metallica away.

Haven't heard too much of modern Deth, but I will say I like Hardwired, really like 72 Seasons, and love Death Magnetic. I could see the newer Deth being better, but I highly doubt it blows it away.

Listen to Dogs of Chernobyl (from latest album), it absolutely blows any modern Metallica away. As do a lot of newer Megadeth songs