Which is funny as I don't find Linkin Park "abrasive" at all.
SunnO))) are a "Drone Doom" band, just noise to me not the same as Cathedral or Crowbar who really are a heavy band (in all senses of the word back in the 1990's) or Down...
They might be "heavy" but they're more "heavy" to a full on doom fanboy than to a metalhead.
Pantera weren't death metal, which was your point. </pedantics>
I'm fully aware of what metal is, as much as I love a few other styles, I live for metal.
It's part of my DNA, it's what gets me up in the morning (that an a sudden urge to pi**)
Archives consider Sunn metal, they are the leading authority on metal and genre debate.
Just because you don't find Linkin Park abrasive, does not mean that someone else doesn't.
My father likes Pain of Salvation, who play progressive rock/metal but he isn't interested in say Slipknot (not metal), the sounds are on different levels, it is a different kind of intensity.
I can put on some Pelican, no problem, as soon as I play, say Alesana (not that I would, but that is beside the point), he'll say to turn that **** off, and they are most certainly not metal.
Before you try argue that that was never part of the conversation, AFI were a big part of that Screamo scene, and they are very mainstream (and not metal), while, say, Pain of Salvation are very much metal, but don't elicit the same kind of reaction. Each individual is different.
My point was never that Pantera were death metal, I have no idea how you gathered that. My point was that not all metal is like Pantera, or like Deicide, not that they are one and the same.
And what I meant by that was, you can't judge all metal based on one or two artists, the genre has a plethora of sub-genres, more then any other style of music, and they are completely night and day. To take two well known examples, My Dying Bride and Cannibal Corpse.
Metal is heavy, it is one of the defining points, but it isn't always loud, it can be soothing, just because your tastes/idea of metal is something more along the lines of death metal/thrash, doesn't mean that softer, more melodic styles of metal are not metal, or that I made a mute point.