Honestly I tend to think of black metal as the more innovative of the two as well especially in regard to how far artists push the sound and include influences from other genres, including ones that later took root in death metal (symphonic black metal was firmly established long before the current breed of symphonic death metal bands for example). 

It's a fair point but I do think that you are generalising somewhat. Black metal as a whole has mostly moved on from all that. Sure you do get bands that are just out there trying to be as true or kvlt as they can (some of which I do think are good but most don't interest me - I have one Darkthrone album which has always been enough), but a lot of newer black metal bands look like fairly ordinary people and are usually the one's pushing the genre forward and making the most interesting albums. 

This is what the band who made my highest rated black metal album on my 2015 looks like for example:

Black metal is one of the genres I cannot stand. The vocals is one thing (ruin everything for me) and the second is the autistic, shitty songwriting. I am talking about the early 90s Norwegian scene and what followed obviously, not the 80s black metal (the satanic bands).

Regarding vocals, it's the deal breaker. I have no idea what the appeal is. I like extreme vocals as much as the next man (give me vincent, Tardy, Hoffman, Schuldiner, Mille, Schmier etc) but I want passion and aggression, heaviness that means business. When the vocals are something else, like "desperate" or "howling" or some frozen emotion or some shit, it just sounds like SHIT to my ears. And it usually ruins any good music that might be there. 

As far as autistic, shitty songwriting goes, I mean repetitious, tragically bad recorded "riffs" with "atmosphere" (what we used to call a shitty demo turned out to be grim and evil in the 90s, fancy that) with the aforementioned shitty vocals on top. I find this kind of music pure garbage and for the life of me I never managed to get in the proper mood and understand what the horde of black metal fans actually find in it. 

There are VERY few exceptions (usually songs) but nothing that I think is perfect as it is.

So, yeah, death metal! :P

Winterhorde: Prog black metal. This is just one song. The full album needs to be experienced for the full effect.

Fen: Atmospheric black metal. Fen are one of the ABM groups that don't lack for aggression in their music. 

Carach Angren: symphonic black metal. Corpse-painted which you'll have to take with a grain of salt, but some of the genre's most intelligible vocals. 

Hail Spirit Noir: Psych black metal, one of the more unique bands I've found in the last few years.

Vattnet Viskar: sludge influenced black metal. The vocals on this album often sound more like those used in early Mastodon.

Myrkur: black metal with primarily clean vocals.

Immortal: thrashy black metal (later stuff only).

Mesarthim: spacey, ambient, electronic kind of black metal.

Saille: melodic/symphonic black metal.

You may enjoy Melechesh, they have some thrash and middle-eastern stylings and are very riff-driven. Here's one of my favorites, it's an instrumental but that riff is so powerful:

 

And another favorite of mine:

Glad someone else is trve, Bon Jovi and Limp Bizkit will always be my favorite metal bands!

Bon Jovi so sucks! Poison, Nelson and Warrant forever! You're right Limp Bizket is the best band EVER!

I have no interest in staring a flame war, just being honest about my opinion. I do see your point regarding black metal's variety, however my starting point is the second wave of the early 90s and all the major, significant bands, like Burzum, Mayhem, Emperor, Immortal, Darkthrone, etc. it's not like I picked a niche or sub-sub-genre of black metal and generalized from there, I actually base my opinion on the giants of the whole genre. Deathcore is like an offshoot of an offshoot. What I am talking about is the equivalent of Death, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Deicide and Entombed, you know? 

Just really not my cup of tea.

Time Signature wrote: I prefer glam metal and nu metal, the only true types of metal!

Thank you for your insightful contribution.

The guy was especially pissed that I had the gall to give a higher rating to Within Temptation. 

This was of course an absolute one off incident. I've never personally encountered anywhere near the same level of hostility from a black metal diehard before or since. Not that I've gone looking for it. There was a reason that I got off of the bigger sites that I frequented when I was first discovering metal and internet idiots, as Cat puts it, was exactly that reason. 

Nice to see that Panopticon album is getting some love around here as well. I've really been digging that album lately. Unfortunately it seems that physical copies are already hard to find.