There are a selective few metal bands I enjoy out there and even they suffer from the same drawbacks from time to time. It might be the same as indie music (which by the way you seem to stereotype heavily as well) in that a lot of the well-known bands are very similar in structure, but with more exploration, better work can be found.

But thus far, I can’t see any of that showing up. And I hate to mass label it, but so far everything I have heard has either been classic rock, colloquially called “metal” because there was a guitar solo in it, or modern day metal that thinks that screaming, reverberating arpeggio solos and growling are the only two things anyone should ever do in order to make a song sound “heavy”.

I’d be really eager to hear something labeled as “metal” that actually took a new approach for once. If the vagueness of that descriptive term was applied to the music itself, there might be more innovation in the genre. Something other than pounding double bass and overmixed guitars. And I mean, there’s no doubt it exists. It’s probably just hard to find, just like good pop music or good rock. It just doesn’t seem to exist in the mind of the popular fan.

But other than that i completely agree with you