Band recommendations for a workmate?

Got a guy at work who's a bit curious about metal. He's into proggy stuff already, so I directed him to Prog Archives. He's also after some recommendations in the "synthwave/darksynth/synthmetal" (his words) area, which I know next to nothing about. I could recommend Deafheaven, but beyond that I'm stuck.

The only band I can think of atm that comes close to that description is maybe Dope Stars Inc.?

I was just talking to him today. Another friend had suggested Avenged Sevenfold, so he's trying them for a bit. Agalloch might be a bit of a stretch just yet.

UMUR wrote: Well Avenged Sevenfold doesn´t sound anything like what you suggested in your original post, but personally I like their City of Evil album. That album is a winner in my book.

Edited by UMUR - 13 Sep 2022 at 1:24pm

BitterJalapeno wrote: Mastodon's Crack the Skye should be a reasonably easy going introduction to accessible proggy metal with a touch of the heavier side thrown in for good measure. That was one of my introductions to anything heavier than Iron Maiden or nu metal and was definitely an important stage in getting into some of the furthest extremities of metal.

Yeah and I discovered Metallica...and Justice for All

If he likes Cult of Luna already there's hundreds of atmosludge bands

People often ask me what I listen to, and I find it really difficult to explain, if they don´t already have a pretty vast understanding of heavy metal and it´s many subgenres. If I said grind, death, thrash, and doom in here, most of you would already know just about where my preferences lie, although all those subgenres also have subgenres of their own, but at least you´d have a basic understanding of it. People at work and other random people I run into don´t have the understanding that heavy metal is anything else than the big bands they know, and even artists like Volbeat, Metallica, and Guns´n´Roses sound like noise to some people . How could I even start to explain to them that there is a world of difference between an artist like Metallica and say for example an artists like Napalm Death. To them it most likely will sound like noise no matter what I put on , so I´ve given up explaining to non-metal heads what I listen to. Only those showing a genuine interest are worth spending time on. The rest...oh well they don´t know what they are missing, and most are incapable of understanding.