Tastes:
I feel at this point this section is a little redundant, but I’ll keep it brief:
1. I like music that emotes. More specifically, music that stirs up intense emotions. Could be just really beautiful tunes, or something intense and powerful. But sounding sterile and lifeless and lacking in emotion is the quickest way to bore me.
2. I don’t like stuff that sounds “generic”. The definition of this probably varies, but unless you’re doing a well-established sound especially well, it’s highly likely you won’t catch my interest without some element that makes your music stand out. Generic prog metal, generic black metal, literally anything neo-prog, post-rock, post-metal, or especially power metal tends to bore me as there are so many bands in these genres just recycling other bands’ sounds with absolutely no new twist.
3. Technicality is important but I also don’t like mindless wankery. Animals As Leaders blows. Music that exists to show off blows. Long strings of solos are less interesting than instrumental passages of instruments playing off each other in cool ways.
4. Most importantly, I need some melody. Be it a catchy chorus, a sticky guitar hook, some really groovy basslines, whatever, but I don’t want shrill electronic noises or tuneless death/black/sludge metal songs that are either nonstop dissonant noodling or boring sludgy chugging. These elements both have their places as contrast to melodic moments, but they should rarely if ever be the main feature of a song.
I like metal the most, clearly. Pretty much open to most genres of metal, but I don’t really like sludge metal, thrash metal, deathcore, or djent, aside from the kind of stuff I already mentioned above. Black metal has been a favorite in recent years as has the more melodic side of technical death metal. I’ve also been on a post-hardcore kick for about a year and a half. And as ever bands with progressive tendencies tend to be my favorite as they more often than not require a lot of the above mentioned elements to be present. You’re free to challenge my tastes if you want but I’ve had plenty of years and plenty of roulettes to really hone in on the kind of stuff I like and at this point any risk you take is your own liability.
To be more specific, as this roulette is metal-only, here are my preferences for what I’d ideally prefer to be sent:
• Most looking for: GOOD prog metal (no djent)
• Other good choices: atmospheric black metal, post-hardcore
• It depends: death metal, other black metal, post-metal
• Probably not: power metal, folk metal, metalcore & other -core genres, djent, "classic" heavy metal
• Very not: thrash metal, doom metal, sludge metal, nu-metal, industrial metal
• If it's not listed here it's safe to assume it's under "probably not" unless I missed something really obvious
Since I understand submission choices may be limited, if it rocks hard enough that it could be considered metal by a reasonable stretch, I’ll allow it, but know that you would be sending something outside the scope of what I’m looking for here.