Never took the time to check out these guys, are they that innovative? At least for BM standards?

Written by Unhealer on 15.11.2012 at 20:11

Never took the time to check out these guys, are they that innovative? At least for BM standards?

Innovative? Not really... But their music is imo incredibly strong and confident... and like it was written: Authentic. Which takes you further than being "original" if you ask me.

Check out: Casus Luciferi & Lawless Darkness. They did some very nice things on the latest one... Specially the epic last song.

Written by Unhealer on 15.11.2012 at 20:11

Never took the time to check out these guys, are they that innovative? At least for BM standards?

Haha, innovative? If Dissection had never existed then maybe yeah.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 15.11.2012 at 20:14

Innovative? Not really... But their music is imo incredibly strong and confident... and like it was written: Authentic. Which takes you further than being "original" if you ask me.

You are right, originality and innovation can be two different things. I'll take the suggestions, thanks!

Written by Guest on 15.11.2012 at 20:23

Written by Unhealer on 15.11.2012 at 20:11

Never took the time to check out these guys, are they that innovative? At least for BM standards?

Haha, innovative? If Dissection had never existed then maybe yeah.

Well, now that Set is playing with them,...maybe we will hear some more Dissection based stuff

DOn't know if this is a smart move by the band. Season Of Mist was a great label for them and there they were the biggest band with the most support on the roster whereas they won't be over at Century Media.

Seems about right.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 15.11.2012 at 21:08

DOn't know if this is a smart move by the band. Season Of Mist was a great label for them and there they were the biggest band with the most support on the roster whereas they won't be over at Century Media.

Even bigger than A Life Once Lost, The Contortionist, Cynic, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Mayhem, Misery Index, Morbid Angel, Rotting Christ, Samael or Septicflesh?

Give me give me give me!
Not a man after midnight, but Watain!

Written by psykometal on 16.11.2012 at 06:29

Even bigger than A Life Once Lost, The Contortionist, Misery Index, Samael?

Don't know about the rest but Watain is definitely bigger than all the bands I quoted.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 16.11.2012 at 19:45

Don't know about the rest but Watain is definitely bigger than all the bands I quoted.

Idk about that. The Contortionist is pretty big with this Djent explosion. Samael has been around for a while and popular in multiple genres. You're probably right about Misery Index and ALOL.

Let's check the MS Index...
Mordbid Angel - 54
Mayhem - 86
Septicflesh - 86
Rotting Christ - 101
Samael - 187
Watain - 206
Misery Index - 385
Dillinger - 486
The Contortionist - inactive, 16 fans
ALOL - inactive, 12 fans

Written by psykometal on 16.11.2012 at 19:57
Idk about that. The Contortionist is pretty big with this Djent explosion.

I'm sorry but I simply fail to understand how a band that is basically the leading one of modern black metal is less big that a band from a genre that a year or two ago just developed its teen balls.
Nowdays I would say Samael isn't really relevant which is why I said what I said... I never understood the hype behind Misery Index either. It's great and all but not the same impact as Watain either.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 16.11.2012 at 20:27

I'm sorry but I simply fail to understand how a band that is basically the leading one of modern black metal is less big that a band from a genre that a year or two ago just developed its teen balls.
Nowdays I would say Samael isn't really relevant which is why I said what I said... I never understood the hype behind Misery Index either. It's great and all but not the same impact as Watain either.

Whereas I can't agree more, the fact that djent is a more popular and socially accepted genre than black metal still remains. Personally I'm not a big fan of Samael, djent or Misery Index. Djent has a couple highlights like Vildhjarta and Neosis but in general I'm not a fan of the genre. For me, of all the bands listed, Watain is definitely the best band but that doesn't mean the rest of the metal world agrees. Although them signing to Century Media definitely means that more of the world agrees with you and I than they did a couple years ago, and they will get more notoriety now.

Written by psykometal on 16.11.2012 at 20:41
the fact that djent is a more popular and socially accepted genre than black metal still remains.

That's my cue to leave dude. Even if what you said was right... that still doesn't change how big a band is. Comparing The Contortionist with Watain is enough example.

The only band of "djent" origins that could be seen as bigger (more popular) than the black metal giants is Meshuggah. I'm fairly sure nothing else even comes close. Djent maybe en vogue but I don't see it as a sustainable enterprise to be honest. It's a fad genre that will ceiling before long (if it already hasn't) and its popularity will lull into a more consistent, if not so popular average, unlike black metal which is so well established that I'm sure it will continue to grow. It maybe more socially acceptable (whatever that really means, so is dark ambient but you don't see artists from that realm filling out stadiums) but I'm absolutely sure the term "black metal" is better known than "djent."

Let's use ye olde Last.fm "amount of listeners" stat again. Some of the biggest "djent" bands:

Periphery = 60,000 listeners
TesseracT = 58,000 listeners
The Contortionist - 38,000 listeners

etc.

Watain = 66,000 listeners

And Watain is by far and away from being the most well know black metal band, but it certainly has the potential for massive popularity. Incidentally, many of these djent bands are riding on the deathcore wave (from what I've seen The Contortionist resonates as much with the deathcore crowd as it does the djent, if not more).

As for the Century Media crowd, Watain oust A Life Once Lost, The Contortionist, Misery Index and are on par with Septic Flesh, but the others are bigger.

Written by Guest on 17.11.2012 at 01:51
As for the Century Media crowd, Watain oust A Life Once Lost, The Contortionist, Misery Index and are on par with Septic Flesh, but the others are bigger.

Fo shizzle mah nizzle? I totally thought they were bigger than Samael. Huh.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 17.11.2012 at 02:23


Fo shizzle mah nizzle? I totally thought they were bigger than Samael. Huh.

Samel is somehow on 155,000 listeners, which I too find baffling.

Written by Guest on 17.11.2012 at 01:51

(whatever that really means, so is dark ambient but you don't see artists from that realm filling out stadiums) but I'm absolutely sure the term "black metal" is better known than "djent."

By socially acceptable I mean that society (or at least the part of society that is open to accepting harsher forms of music) is more likely to accept djent for it's cleaner more accessible sound, imagery and lyrical content as opposed to black metal's harsher, evil/sinister and oft times satanic imagery and lyrical content.

Quote:

Let's use ye olde Last.fm "amount of listeners" stat again. Some of the biggest "djent" bands:

Periphery = 60,000 listeners
TesseracT = 58,000 listeners
The Contortionist - 38,000 listeners

etc.

Watain = 66,000 listeners

As for Last.fm listeners, something else to keep in mind with those comparisons, Watain released their debut album in 2000 whereas those djent bands didn't start releasing material and "creating a fad genre" until 2010/11. So Watain has had 12 years to amass that number of fans yet some of those djent bands have amassed almost a comparable amount of fans in only about 2 years. The real thing that would have to be compared if we had access to it was merch and ticket sales for djent concerts vs black metal concerts in the last few years.

If you do another last.fm comparison of black metal vs a "fad genre", like metalcore (which many consider djent to be a subgenre of), metalcore has been around a lot less than black metal but if you compare one of (if not) the biggest most commercially successful black metal bands (Dimmu Borgir) to one of the oldest and most commercially successful metalcore bands (Killswitch Engage)...KsE exceeds Dimmu by over 2x as many listeners.

I do agree though that djent will level out, if it hasn't already. And I'm done, just couldn't help play the devil's advocate on that last.fm bit but we're getting way off topic. Congrats to Watain, can't wait to hear the next album!

Written by psykometal on 17.11.2012 at 04:35

By socially acceptable I mean that society (or at least the part of society that is open to accepting harsher forms of music) is more likely to accept djent for it's cleaner more accessible sound, imagery and lyrical content as opposed to black metal's harsher, evil/sinister and oft times satanic imagery and lyrical content.

To be honest I don't think it's even an issue. Djent will never reach the larger populace, certainly not like black metal did back during its most controversial time in the early 90s etc.

Quote:

As for Last.fm listeners, something else to keep in mind with those comparisons, Watain released their debut album in 2000 whereas those djent bands didn't start releasing material and "creating a fad genre" until 2010/11. So Watain has had 12 years to amass that number of fans yet some of those djent bands have amassed almost a comparable amount of fans in only about 2 years. The real thing that would have to be compared if we had access to it was merch and ticket sales for djent concerts vs black metal concerts in the last few years.

If you do another last.fm comparison of black metal vs a "fad genre", like metalcore (which many consider djent to be a subgenre of), metalcore has been around a lot less than black metal but if you compare one of (if not) the biggest most commercially successful black metal bands (Dimmu Borgir) to one of the oldest and most commercially successful metalcore bands (Killswitch Engage)...KsE exceeds Dimmu by over 2x as many listeners.

Watain didn't have the benefit of internet proliferation like the djent scene has had to push a mass kind of agenda and it's also true, djent has had a burgeoning level of popularity in the last year few years, but unlike metalcore, I don't think we're going to be seeing it flooding MTV and the mainstream. I distinctly recall KSE's Alive or Just Breathing singles on MTV2, and that was in the relatively (well, very) early stages of the metalcore craze. I think if Djent were going to hit those highs it would have done so by now. From what I can tell deathcore seems to be far more popular than djent. (Emmure have over 200,000 listeners some-fucking-how, TesseracT have been around as long and have a quarter of that which really shows the gap between the popularity)

And I don't know who considers djent to be a subset of metalcore. That's patently insane. Djent's origins are quite clear (Meshuggah obviously). And seeing as most djent is some form or another of progressive metal I don't really see how it can be linked to metalcore.

Written by Guest on 17.11.2012 at 04:52

And I don't know who considers djent to be a subset of metalcore. That's patently insane. Djent's origins are quite clear (Meshuggah obviously). And seeing as most djent is some form or another of progressive metal I don't really see how it can be linked to metalcore.

I don't know how either but I see it all the time in YouTube comments and I've even seen it on MS a few times as well. Personally I'm all for just calling the whole "genre" Progressive Math metal. Maybe even going so far as to differentiate between softer ones like Tesseract as just Progressive Math metal and the harsher ones like Vildhjarta as Progressive Extreme Math metal (like how CoB is tagged as Extreme Power metal).

Written by psykometal on 17.11.2012 at 05:15

I don't know how either but I see it all the time in YouTube comments and I've even seen it on MS a few times as well. Personally I'm all for just calling the whole "genre" Progressive Math metal. Maybe even going so far as to differentiate between softer ones like Tesseract as just Progressive Math metal and the harsher ones like Vildhjarta as Progressive Extreme Math metal (like how CoB is tagged as Extreme Power metal).

That's pretty much how I see it. A lot of it seems to take influence from the ambient electronic field so I often tag that on somewhere.