Which Loss Is Harder For A Death Metal Band To Overcome?

Really interested in hearing the replies.

I’m assuming the vocalist. The voice is a very delicate and finicky instrument. It can give out easily with death metal. Not to mention, not everyone has a cool voice. To find a guy like Bret Hoffmann (R.I.P.) from Malevolent Creation that had style and character to his voice isn’t easy. Most death metal voices are cookie cutter crap.

I'd say the song writer is key for any band of any genre. Anything else could be changed out. Take Morbid Angel for example... Every person in that band has been replaced other than Trey & they've not altered their sound that much. They even added other guitarists here & there, but Trey has always written the bulk of the material.

Songwriting only matters if the band is worth a damn to begin with. If a band has a legacy and a big cult following like Cannibal Corpse, they need a guy like Alex Webster to keep things consistent. If they lost him, it would be noticeable. Unfortunately most bands are garage level amateurs.

mc666 wrote:

I'd say the song writer is key for any band of any genre. Anything else could be changed out. Take Morbid Angel for example... Every person in that band has been replaced other than Trey & they've not altered their sound that much. They even added other guitarists here & there, but Trey has always written the bulk of the material.

Would you say Illud Divinum Insanus and have much in common with Altars of Madness, Blessed are the Sick, and Covenant?

GrandNational wrote:

mc666 wrote:

I'd say the song writer is key for any band of any genre. Anything else could be changed out. Take Morbid Angel for example... Every person in that band has been replaced other than Trey & they've not altered their sound that much. They even added other guitarists here & there, but Trey has always written the bulk of the material.

Would you say Illud Divinum Insanus and have much in common with Altars of Madness, Blessed are the Sick, and Covenant?

Parts of it, yes very much so. I'd say half of the album is very much classic MA. The other half sounds too White Zombie influenced. Songs like Radikult, Too Extreme, etc. Trey has thrown in experimental songs since the second album, only this time it bombed. They basically followed a Celtic Frost path, perhaps to a lesser extreme.

I would think whoever is the main songwriter would be the worst loss.

The song writer would be the key loss for a band.

nevermore wrote:

I would think whoever is the main songwriter would be the worst loss.

Same.

The answer is songwriter for any genre.

I would say songwriter.

At face value, songwriter. Though circumstances could make it otherwise?

For example, they could get a better one after the fact?

One of the options should have been "hair"

Lari wrote:

One of the options should have been "hair"

  Awesome 

For the older bands, let's add the little pill for ED