Heavy/Noisy/Experimental artists doing good accessible/melodic stuff

Horrible title to this thread, but hope it makes sense.

Since Mars Volta have decided to go full-on yacht rock and Maroon 5 on their latest album, please post some examples of good, accessible and melodic material made by heavy, noisy or experimental artists.

I’m interested in artists that kept some of their original identity whilst integrating melody and trying to write “songs”. For example:

  • Cave In, Antenna

A great album pop-rock crammed with tunes and experimentation. It was guaranteed to upset the fans of both their blistering metalcore masterpiece Until Your Heart Stops and its proggier follow-up Jupiter. Still brilliant though.

  • Leaves Turn Inside You by Unwound

Unwound started off as a noisy amalgamation of Sonic Youth and Black Flag. However, their final album LTIY is full of melody, albeit filtered through strange tunings, synths, mellotrons and studio effects, creating an almost autumnal post-rock feel. Whilst more melodic and “song-like” than anything they’d done before, it still sounds like nothing else.

Another example would be Can, who are famous for pushing the sonic envelope with tape-loops and side-long jams, but also able to write more straightforward but still engaging tunes like “She Brings the Rain”.

Let’s see some more examples!

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Busy morning but great great thread idea, have a feeling I’m going to get a ton of new discoveries out of this.

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Yeah Antenna is the best example. Think I mentioned it in the Mars Volta thread itself

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Shudder to Think: noisy Dischord band to satin shirt wearing…something rockers, finally culminating in Craig Wedren doing the soundtrack to Road Trip.

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I guess he’s always sort of straddled the two things you’ve mentioned but Oneohtrix Point Never’s newish out-and-out pop stuff is gorgeous

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Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Infinte Granite goes even further re accessibility but I don’t really care for it so there

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Pianos Become The Teeth - Drift

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Loved that Shudder To Think album back in the day.

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I still love it! If I remember rightly, Geoff Buckley was in awe of his voice, which is saying something!

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Swans spring to mind.

Such a great track!

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Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestite

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I think the final culmination is Craig Wedren leading sound based meditation sessions on Youtube during Lockdown.

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Incredible, I had no idea!

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