Clean Vocals or Death Growl? (Modern Prog)

They just can't get used to the thought that bands like Meshuggah, MoTW or Opeth are among the most innovative artists around, that they are truly progressive while most of their idols from the past can't come up with anything creative. 

Don't get me wrong, I like prog classics like Genesis or Jethro Tull, but they're CLASSICs, their time has passed - it's obvious that there has to be someone to come up with new ideas and new ways of musical expression. 

But there always has to be a group of haughty prog purists who, paradoxically, don't accept novelties!

That is, if they truly are. I won't comment on MoTW because I haven't heard it but as for the other two, they are making something original but whether they are necessarily amongst the most innovative artists around in a general sense is a matter of debate and surely not set in stone.   And new ways of musical expression - sorry, I don't hear anything that drastically different in terms of expression from 80s and 90s metal overall in either band's music.  And while they may be more original as of the present day than what some washed out prog rock bands from the 70s are up to now, I don't think they are as progressive as KC or Can at their best.  That is just my opinion and since I am a metalhead, you'll find it harder to change mine than of progheads who don't like metal. While I understand that people don't like growls, it doesn't mean it's justified to write off bands with growls so I am with you on that, but let's not infer resentment on that count.  

 

I agree with you. The Exorcist growls detract from the composition; in fact, it's quite cliche at this point. Ozzie and Black Sabbath made ominous music without sounding like the second coming of Froggy the demon toad.

Apart from that, the loudness, aggression and violence was new and exciting in the 80s. Instead of moving on, metal musicians have overspecialized in it and even got fussy over what kind of growls are the best or whatever to the point that it gets sterile and same-sounding.  It's interesting that in the 80s, metal was about pushing the frontiers of extreme-ness and then having done that, in the 90s, they got very concerned about how they are perceived and therefrom began the obsession with technicality in death metal, those so-called opera singers who can barely hold onto wobbly high As and so on and so forth.  I only ever got into metal for how starkly it portrayed the uglier shades of life - I am sure as a "rabid old school extreme metalhead" you know all about that  - but that has somewhere become less important and even 'un-intellectual' in metal, pity!