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And most of these "bands" suck ass. They are a poor representation of heavy metal, and for this article to even imply that they're the successors to Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden is a sacrilege.

Agreed, 100%.

I'm a part-time gigging musician who's played a lot of heavy metal over the last 20 years and I know from experience that the good metal bands from the seventies and early eighties really knew their chops and were masters of their instruments. It's difficult to play much of that music because of its generally challenging nature. Nearly all of this "nu metal" crap is extremely EASY to learn and master and the times I've had the displeasure of playing it I've practically fallen asleep standing up on stage because of it's predictability and simplemindedness. Just drop tune the guitars to low D and bang away one the one beat of every measure. YAWN!!!

The one glaring exception to this rule is the group "Tool". Nobody can play their music well, except them, but while their lyrics tend to be cynical (and disturbing!) they aren't following the same lowbrow "blame America first" fad that other, lesser groups are following.