Bands that are very overrated

I have, I didn't like it. I prefer real sludge like nightstick, sea of deprivation, burning witch, dystopia, grief etc

For years, Nuclear War Now!’s forum has been the haven for life dropout D&D neckbeards searching for some form of friendship and community. But according to website tracking metrics, the site has seen a massive decline in it’s traffic over the past 6 months. While viewership of metal sites can rise and fall unpredictably on metal sites, the above statistic should frighten anyone who cares about keeping their site relevant. Sites with active forums should be doing much better than your the average blog-style metal site, so the numbers above show an unforgivable descent into irrelevancy.

But given that the site is predominantly frequented by war metal fans that have no regard for actual music, the crash in interest also proves something far bigger: war metal, as a sub genre, is in its last days.

This is a welcomed revelation as war metal was the nu metal of black/death metal and was ultimately worthless. With virtually no innovation, creativity, or direction for over 20 years, war metal became the lowest IQ form of extreme metal. The fact that Beherit was more interesting, creative, and musically varied than every single band to follow it throughout the decades to follow is an absolute disgrace to every band that’s followed in their footsteps.

While the surface-level viewer might see war metal as “the most underground/kvlt/extreme/unlistenable of all genres,” the truth is that it was only marketed as such and done so very effectively as the bank account and new production facility of Cali basedboy Yosuke Kanishi will clearly indicate. By offering a product that appears “totally not mainstream haha!” Kanishi was able to efficiently trick kvlt status seeking basement dwellers into mass consumerism using the same marketing tactics as thrift shops. Essentially this created a record label and forum that was ultimately the thrift shop of metal– reissues (refurbished releases) of random bands from 20 years past that could be marketed as super underground when really they were just empty of creativity and technique. By assumingly being “not trendy” war metal became one of the trendiest metal genres of our time and the go to for the metal derivatives of the modern hipster.

“Bu… But war metal is evil!” Really, then why does Nuclear War Now! have an Instagram account?

Musically war metal is a hilarious deception because if you alternate the grooves of their atonal power chord riffs, you’ll get nu metal riffs. Most bands even match the nu metal guitar tuning of A! But war metal fans have no idea they’re listening to nu metal with different drums and vocals because they only care abut the aesthetics. In all reality most of Black Witchery’s riffs were originally on Korn’s Life is Peachy which subconsciously tickles the nostalgia of their fans without them realizing how or why.

It seems really weird and arbitrary that you like sludgy crust like Dystopia, but not Morrow or war metal. All this stuff is very close, so it seems like you're just getting nitpicky about how people do the kind of stuff you supposedly like.

In an age where Von is taking big money for rock star tours, where Blasphemy albums are marketed as vintage thrift shop essentials, and where black metal shows feature 90% war metal bands, any prestige or credibility war metal and it’s original bands once had is gone. War metal fans are the modern equivalent to the JNCO jeans wearing clowns of the 90s. They are the permavirgin autistis of metal that grew from infants that would have been left in the woods to be eaten by wolves in the Pagan times.

Celebrate the death of war metal, repent if you ever liked this garbage, and enjoy some classic war metal riffs below:

youtube.com/watch?v=aTNjNKQGBkI

i havent listened to morrow but i put it on my rym to listen list. I do like war metal, i didnt make that post. (i'm OP)

For me it has to be Fishmans based on my attempts to get through Long Season. Perhaps it is because of the expectations I created through reading about it, but I was hoping the textures would be far more lush and the grooves to be far more varied. But instead it's surprisingly sparse for a dreampop work and surprisingly repetitive for a 35 minute long work (to me at least.)

Nah I think Neurosis are fairly rated. The mode for listening to their approach to metal vs most other metal is quite different though. Most metal is like pop/rock music where the riff serves as this immediate melody to follow that's fun to listen to. Neurosis is closer to ambient music where the focus is to create particular moods through texture. Such is the case for other "atmosludge" bands as well. This being said, Neurosis' earlier material is quite solid as well in terms of delivering that more familiar pop/rock based approach. Overall very consistent through their career.

Nice! I hope you like it.

i get that neurosis is atmospheric but i dont know how you can listen to some guy grunting and doing that monotone vocals over a boring riff for 8 minutes. If its mood music ive never felt that mood

It's not very immediate, and the length of phrases are often deceptively longer than they actually are (i.e. four measures of music is a lot longer in this stuff than like Maiden). As I said, it requires a very different mode of listening from standard metal music, and one I can't do 100% of the time either to be honest. To me this kinda stuff hits the best after doing something tiring like working out, hiking, etc.

>i dont know how you can listen to some guy grunting and doing that monotone vocals over a boring riff for 8 minutes
I can't think of a Neurosis song that's actually the same riff for 8 minutes, there's usually build up, interludes, variation and stuff going on with the synths and rhythm section. Also Scott Kelly is one of the best vocalists in metal and way more emotive than the singers in other atmo sludge bands like Isis, Rosetta, Cult of Luna, etc

Fleetwood Mac. Good Sleep Medicine.