Christian Rock/Alternate Metal/Rock/Metal - New Bands?

[Maddolis]

Yeah their music is appealing just as Justin Beiber's music is appealing, it doesn't make it any good.
And yeah, death metal is pretty well clarified, look it up on wikipedia.
Christian Rock is basically just mainstream rock with lyrics based on promoting Christianity- it's not a real subgenre of music, the "Christian" in "Christian Rock" is really just an adjective. For example, I'd say the band Trouble are doom metal, but someone may call them 'Christian metal' or 'Christian doom metal' because their lyrics are based on Christianity.

Heavy metal covers all metal subgenres.
While Avenged Sevenfold started out as a shitty metalcore band, they have evolved to a shitty hard rock band- their simple song structures being the main thing that differentiates their music from being heavy metal, moreso than the level or their distortion or the complexity and speed of their drumming.
Bullet For My Valentine, however, are a heavy metal band. I'm not calling them pop, though they are a commercial (and shitty) metal band.

The "heaviness" of a particular band has no say whatsoever in how decent they are as a band. The three songs I posted earlier are all relatively light (no heavier than BFMV), yet have qualities about them that aren't (or weren't) typical, basic and trendy- and on top of that (note: not a result of), they're technically noteworthy.
Again you're eluding to all death metal being the same and talking shit on the entire subgenre- first off, guitar solos in straight forward death metal are rare, so it's no wonder you wouldn't hear any. Secondly, if you can't appreciate harsh vocals at this point in time, then don't bother listening to the music- but don't talk shit on extreme subgenres of music (death metal, black metal, thrash and so on) if you don't have the intellectual foundation to back up your points. While there are some boring, by-the-book death metal bands out there (as there are in every single genre of music), there's also a great deal of quality out there- in terms of musical intricacy (song structure, harmonies, riffs etc) requiring technical proficiency.
Sure, to get as big as A7X are, they need to be doing something right- and they are. They're doing the same "right" thing that Justin Beiber, Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys and N-SYNC were doing, except perhaps better because they (as far as I know) write their own music. This would usually mean that I'd have more respect for them as a result- yet when they claim to be "heavy metal" and end up being poster boys for popular metal instead of rightful kings like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden or Judas Priest, they get a lot of hate. Slipknot get hate for the exact same reason, except they (despite me disliking them) put more thought into A7X and actually have some talent.

Perhaps in a metaphor that you'd easily understand, imagine the first piece of rap music you heard was Vanilla Ice, and then assumed all rap was Vanilla Ice's ... whatever he does. Now imagine you're a rap fan and somebody's talking to you about how they love rap, and recommending the newest Vanilla Ice album.