It’s 2009. Nearly 2010. Arguably, that’s 30 years since heavy metal musicians began down the path towards extremity.

The beginning of the 80’s marked the melding of the newly formed hardcore punk music, which was gaining popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, and the speed metal sound with which many heavy metal bands had been experimenting. This new sound was dubbed thrash metal, and the age of excess began.

So here we are… 30 years, dozens of countries and a million bands later. We’ve come from up-tempo polka beats and poorly picking power-chords as fast as we thought we could, to 32nd note double bass drumming being a main-stay, and legato swept scales decorating half of our favorite songs… even on bass guitars. We’ve had our periods of growth and we’ve slowed down to progress musically. We’ve withstood the tests of time and managed to better ourselves all the while.

In the early 90’s most death metal fans didn’t care to hear especially technical songs… The mighty Atheist wasn’t even popular until after the group disbanded. They have now in fact regrouped in time to see a slew of precision-minded bands releasing albums that totally eclipse everything they and their contemporaries had ever played, let alone recorded… a dozen years in musicians’ music will do that. At the same time, a dozen years of brutal death metal has lead to less gory lyrics and more intricate songwriting, all the while maintaining the same low-end mix, jarring musicality and guttural vocals. Even thrash metal is more sophisticated than ever before: look at what Kreator and Megadeth have both done this year.

So where does this leave us? Thrash can be pretty, grind can be in-time, and melodic death metal can be whatever it wants? Hardcore subgenres can use blastbeats? Across the board, the answer is yes. As time goes on the lines are fading faster, and different styles of extreme music are becoming even harder to distinguish from one another. One thing is for certain: just as it always was, the virtuous musicians are the ones pushing this music further.

In a December 2007 interview with extreme metal drummer Derek Roddy in Modern Drummer Magazine, Roddy is quoted as saying, “I don’t feel this genre has ever had proper representation. I think you’re going to see a level of maturity develop in this genre in a few years that will impress all drummers. Extreme metal is musician’s music, like fusion and jazz.” While in this instance he’s talking to drummers about drumming, this is an outlook that many share, myself included. Not even two years later we’re seeing almost all extreme metal genres displaying a surprising amount of maturity. If I’d been writing an article like this ten years ago, evaluating the state of our music, I’d probably be preaching about how we all needed to be more progressive and forward-thinking in our song-writing. The fact of the matter is that it’s been happening… and in the past five years the number of bands focused on virtue has grown tremendously.

In every generation we’ve given a nod to our predecessors and done what we could to improve. In every generation we’ve covered new ground and worked through what physical challenges presented themselves. In every generation we’ve matured as musicians. As long as we remember where we’ve come from and where we’ve been, I think the future will be just as bright for every generation to come.