Interesting to hear how music preference has changed over lockdown. I've listened to more instrumental music and very little metal. I yearn for anything that moves me and is communicating something I interpret as real.
Talking of metal, I've recently been enjoying the last Armored Saint album a lot. It has a joyful, uplifting vibe, even though they are a metal band. However, I've almost completely stopped enjoying new metal over the last few years. I often dip into things people talk about on the web and on this board but it very much leaves me cold now.
It's weird and confuses me slightly. I grew up on metal (47 now) and I enjoy most records I enjoyed in the day (inc 'extreme' bands like Slayer, Enslaved, Morbid Angel, etc) but new extreme metal just seems so pointless, joyless unconvincing and a repetition of the past. (Just thought of some exceptions I do enjoy - the heavy bits of Dev's Empath, some of Ihsahn's output)
Now, I know this must mainly be me, but I suspect some of it actually is that metal has stagnated over recent years with few bands having their own identities.
Maybe I was spoiled as a teenager. Me and mine witnessed the birth of thrash, glam, funk, death (and later black) metals. The recent evolutions I can think of are Meshuggah and math metal (eg Dillinger Escape Plan) but they are not remotely new now.