A Good Starting Point

Peter Wichers is the founder and original guitarist of Soilwork, which I previously mentioned.  He left a while back after they did 250 shows in a year.  Anyway, he's pretty much a genius.  His new side project with label Nuclear Blast is called 'Nuclear Blast All-Stars: Out of the Dark.'  Wichers wrote everything, produced everything, and played all the guitars.  He also got Soilwork's Dirk Verbeuren and ex-Soilwork Henry Ranta to play drums.  The really awesome part is that each of the 11 tracks on his album feature a different vocalist.  Some of the more noteworthy ones are Anders Friden of In Flames, Jari Maenpaa of Wintersun, and Bjorn Strid of Soilwork.  The fact that every song has a different vocalist makes the album very diverse, as each song plays off the vocalist's strengths, and Wichers' creativity keeps all the music from sounding the same.  Definitely worth checking out, and if you like a particular song you can look up the vocalist and start listening to that band.  This is a good album to pick up if you're looking for a bunch of new bands at once.  You can pick the sound you like and proceed from there.  But you should like it all, or you suck.  

A Favorite

I'm going to give you a treat.  

I'm going to talk about a fantastic band, so that you can get a good idea early on of what good music is.  

This band is none other than Soilwork, a melodic death metal band from Sweden.  Melodic death is by far the best subgenre out there, as it can have anything from melodic lead guitar and solos, ambient backing keyboards, and melodic vocals.  Occasionally a band will have all three.  Soilwork is one such band.  Amazing harsh vocals and even better clean choruses, heavy rhythm guitar supplemented by incredibly melodic solos and impressive drums all combine to make a band better than 98% of whatever shit you listen to.  Show me some lame Indie vocalist, and I'll show you vocalist Bjorn Strid, who can break him in half.  Remember, the ability of one band to kick another's ass is part of what makes them so awesome.  The lameness of non-metal music is reflected by the people who play it.