Ah, you’re definitely on the prog / technical death side of the spectrum then, which is what the article completely ignores unfortunately. All those bands are a

Ah, you’re definitely on the prog / technical death side of the spectrum then, which is what the article completely ignores unfortunately. All those bands are among the more technically proficient that the genre has to offer. I can only get into them to the extent I can get into someone playing a bunch of etudes and suites as a demonstration of raw ability. Granted, there’s some pieces that are real tough to stay together in classical (every other Stravinsky piece comes to mind) but metal will always be like jazz in that it’s all about a representative of each instrument or part rather than the raw power of many as a tour de force. I just tune out the vocals and unless you have some really awful vocals or something seriously crazy like from the likes of Regurgitate it doesn’t really register in my memory. This isn’t to say that doing extreme vocals doesn’t take any form of talent but trained singers in opera have been putting their vocal cords to the limits in other ways that are impressive, just more conventionally recognized.