For my money Atheist is far and away the most interesting. "Classically influenced" perhaps not so much, but they're far beyond mindless chugging and screaming. Try their album Unquestionable Presence.

 

if you can stomach them, there is the group of Ron Jarzombek, Blotted science. I've heard Machinations of dementia (influenced by Schoenberg's twelve tone theory)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinations_of_Dementia

and frankly i think it's horrible, but anyway:

 

I like that Blotted Science thing, it sounds like the kind of thing you'd hear on an old Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) game. My one complaint is that it's too clean, you could program it in a MIDI application and get the same effect.

 

What do you think of Necrophagist?

 

I like em, but their vocals do tend to get in the way a bit.

Seriously, I should kick myself in the face. About 15 years, I was into this kinda stuff or similar to it. Fear Factory was my favorite band in 90's. I guess I went through some changes but I shouldn't forget my roots. Bloody Roots. Sepultura as well.

Haha I know what you mean, sometimes I look back through my old cd's and jam out to some of the stuff I'd pushed aside.
The metal scene is changing a lot too though, a lot more stuff going on in the metal world than 15 years ago, or at least it's much more accessable now what with the internet and such.
Sepultura's old stuff is great. I'm not so much a fan of their later stuff. Morbid Visions and Beneath the Remains are my favorites.

 

Me? Well, I hope you're not looking to me as some beacon of good taste. Anyway, Necrophagist strikes me as very flat and repetitive, and again; too clean. People should not try to be computers.

 

Ironicaly I was just logging on to post some death metal and stumbled upon this new thread along the way.

For my money Atheist is far and away the most interesting. "Classically influenced" perhaps not so much, but they're far beyond mindless chugging and screaming. Try their album Unquestionable Presence.

Props for this. Athiest's old stuff is very good, a bit rough since they obviously struggled a bit to keep such complex compositions together, but still very fun.

if you can stomach them, there is the group of Ron Jarzombek, Blotted science. I've heard Machinations of dementia (influenced by Schoenberg's twelve tone theory)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinations_of_Dementia

and frankly i think it's horrible, but anyway:

You think Blotted Science is horrible? How could you say such a thing? haha I love those guys.

Anyways here's some death metal:

Nile is an "Ancient Egyptian" themed death metal band. Their music is pretty technical, but sometimes it's difficult to hear past the blazingly fast drums. They are also incredibly heavy so I'm not sure that you'll like them but they deserve to be up here.

Vektor are really not death metal, but they're pretty intense and very(in my opinion) classically influenced. Check em out.

Gorod has some pretty classically influenced guitar solos and in this new album they actually implement some clean vocals and more jazzy diverse moments as well.

This is another instrumental band, reccomended to me by a composer I know from Pennsylvania. Very interesting time signature shifts.

This is an instrumental off of Exmortus's album, very fun record to air guitar to. My hands cramp up just pretending to play it. This is the most directly "classically influenced" stuff since they play what is known as "neoclassical death thrash"... if you want to go by labels like that.

 

Props for this. Athiest's old stuff is very good, a bit rough since they obviously struggled a bit to keep such complex compositions together, but still very fun.

I think that's one of the reasons I like them; aside from their inventiveness (at least in the old days) they have fun with what they're doing. It's a far cry from all this overly clean robotic stuff I encounter all too often these days.

 

Oh crap, totally forgot about Opeth. The bands above are more along the lines of borrowing some ideas from classical music. Opeth is a lot more artistic IMO and is one of my favorite bands to date. Here are three songs of theirs (since I'm totally biased towards them) one from their early years, one from their middle years and one, appropreately enough from their later years:

The first track of their first album. Its long, but there's a lot that goes on within those 15 minutes so stick it out.

This is from their third album. It is a concept album about a ghost who is trapped within his spectral world watching the woman he loved as she goes on about her life. This is arguably the heaviest album, but in my opinion also one of the most beautiful and well put together. Less "classical" influence, but very well put together.

This is from their second to latest album. I believe it to be the most well thought out and best executed. It implements aspects of jazz, metal and classical mentalities in a manner which seems to dissolve all of the above and produce a new product. This is the heaviest song on the album and I chose it to show how the death metal aspects can work in a more artistic setting.

Ok... now I'll leave you alone haha.

 

Seriously, I should kick myself in the face. About 15 years, I was into this kinda stuff or similar to it. Fear Factory was my favorite band in 90's. I guess I went through some changes but I shouldn't forget my roots. Bloody Roots. Sepultura as well.

 

You gotta try old At The Gates. They were technical in a really organic, Romantic sort of way.

Their last album was really simple stuff though.

Edit: and Demilich, if you can handle the guttural-ness of it.

 

How about my old band, Psypheria? (In addition to the Bach Fugue theme at the beginning, there are lots of cool neoclassical keyboard bits throughout the piece--even harpsichord!) I'm the guitarist.

 

That was awesome man. Good job.

 

There are no women in this thread.

 

I feel this post should be wittier than it is

 

Where are the female metalheads?!

 

It isn't classical but one of favorite death metal bands to come out recently is Ulcerate. They remind me a lot of Gorguts.

 

Early Children of Bodom, not so much the later stuff.