Ignoring the fact that music is subjective and you cant really say any music or band is the best, the variety of different genres of metal makes it impossible to say one metal band is the best. They all fall under the genre of metal, but you can't really compare bands like Avantasia to bands like Kronos to bands like Drudkh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuwOYQPr-s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26PhtbUGlQ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzTHCRmyKs

That said, in that particular style Ive always preferred opeth to meshuggah.

Im going with Soulfly for the win!

Would really depend on the definition of 'metal'.

I like old shit like:
Iron Maiden
Ozzy
Metallica
Megadeth
Slayer
Testament etc

to newer bands like:
Lamb of God
Killswitch Engage etc.

Not too keen on the shouty stuff that you can't make out the lyrics but I'm mainly a listener for the guitar work anyway.

Damn straight

Well played Mr. Motion. The Faceless are easily my favorite Death Metal band but personally I prefer my technical metal to be more downtuned and polyrhythmic to extremely fast and sweepy. But the faceless rock my world rest assured. I can't decide whether or not Alkedema or Planetary Duality is better. My love of aliens says Planetary but my love for blast beats says Alkedema. What is a metal lover to do? As for the best of all time thing that was just to provoke a response from all the opinionated people out there into getting exposed to how I felt about Meshuggah at the time. HAHAHA you fell right into my trap! But good to see a lot of Meshuggah lovers out there on the nexus just as well. As a side note i wanna know what Metal means for ya'll. For me its way more than just headbangs and attitude and acts as a catharsis for all the shit I build up inside and that is built up outside to repress and exploit us all. Seriously, I mean I love all sorts of music but no music can take my built up anger and turn into satisfaction. Its pretty great.anyway here's the killer setlist when i saw them in denver this year.
Demiurge
Pravus
Combustion
Glints Collide
Lethargica
Do Not Look Down
The Hurt That Finds You First
Mind's Mirrors
In Death - Is Life
In Death - Is Death
Bleed
New Millennium Cyanide Christ
I Am Colossus
Rational Gaze
Future Breed Machine
Dancers to a Discordant System (my friend told me before the show that they would never play this song live and it happens to be my favorite Meshuggah song, made my year, best show I've ever seen[well, on the dark side, Shpongle on the light side]digression ended)

I'm a Meshuggah fan from way back and I love Special Defects even more. I met them earlier this year which ranks as one of the best experiences of my life.

Other good psy-metal bands are Cynic, Serdce and Alchemist (especially their first couple of albums).

Shit yeah . I've only discovered them in the last year. I basically gave up on contemporary metal in the 1990s when Slayer had done thrash to death and all the new stuff coming out was just too generic for my liking. Some of Mesguggah's tracks are like this for me, too, I have to admit - just a monotonous 'sound' that doesn't say much more than dozens of other similar songs. But it's the gems that aren't like that which make Meshuggah great. For me it's usually the rhythms that do it for me. 4/4 or 6/8 just bore me nowadays - they have been exhausted.

Sol Niger Within I would have to place in my top 5 albums of all time ... possibly on top... nothing has impressed so much since Bitches Brew. (Half the credit for that goes to the brilliant Morgan Ågren though.) I can't wait for the next one.

Anyway - thanks for this thread- I'm looking forward to checking out some of the other bands that have popped up in discussion.

Mushuggah is really hit or miss with me, some albums i love and others do nothing for me. Catch 33 was tits, the last 2 have been really boring.

My vote for best metal band ever would have to be a tie between krallice and agalloch.





Honrable mention, only reason i didn't put them in a three way tie is they aren't nearly as inventive as the above two. WITTR stand on the shoulders of giants like weakling, where agalloch and krallice especially completely reinvented the wheel.



same deal with lantlos, absolutely incredible but heavily influenced by the work of others. They pretty much took black metal, post rock, and shoe-gaze and cherry picked the best elements and wrote this epic album.




other honorable mentions








carcass, emperor, blut aus nord, opeth, at the gates, (old) in flames, Drudkh... i can list a lot of metal bands i hold in higher regard than meshuggah.

Sol Niger Within I would have to place in my top 5 albums of all time ... possibly on top...
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Yep, it's my alltime favourite album. Morgan's drumming definitely makes it extra special as do the lyrics. I've had my fair share of mystical moments listening to it.

I would also very highly recommend Alchemist, an Australian psychedelic/progressive metal band. Their first two albums and last two albums are amazing. Check out their first one here which is quite psychedelic and surreal (and heavy in its own way). I'd say there's almost nothing else like it/them in the history of music. Very trippy music and great lyrics.