Originally Posted by: grizzlymint
I talk with these real extreme metal heads...

About the only bands I've heard them express love for are Killswitch Engage, Unearth, and Dragonforce. Who all are of course metal or metalcore.

You're absolutely right. Anybody who considers Killswitch Engage, Unearth and/or Dragonforce to be "extreme metal" and shuns bands like Black Sabbath and Megadeth, has either never listened to the latter bands or their like, or thinks (as others have mentioned) that metal is concerned purely with image rather than actual music.

Killswitch Engage and Unearth for example, seem to have a songwriting process consisting of using ridiculously aggressive drumming, chuggy, repetitive Drop-C chord progressions and vocals that sound as if the singer's genitalia are caught in a vice, to disguise lyrical themes that would be right at home on a Fall Out Boy song. Dragonforce do something similar, simply cooking up some poorly-written fantasy gibberish, adding blast-beats, shrill vocals and tons of guitar solos, and stirring.

Bands like Megadeth and Black Sabbath, by contrast, write informed and evocative( and gramatically correct) lyrics, and convey them with genuinely considered songwriting and impeccable (or at least competent) musicianship. Even somebody with little or no formal understanding of music would be able to tell that the latter is more articulate music than the former, IMO.

Sorry for the rant...