As to "whiskey voice", my initial imagined identification would be of Lemmy from Motorhead (RIP). A fifth of Jack Daniels a day makes the phrase authentic.
To each his own, bud. I mean, inspiration has its mysteries, but what's "aesthetic"? If there were a standard, then I would say it would be a precursor to some other standard. In both a temporal and cultural sense 60's hippy flower power music was the precursor to death metal.
But if the referent is to death metal, I can relate that I have found the devoted fans can be quite critical of singers within the genre. For instance, I mentioned to a Chris Barnes fan that I liked the new Cannibal Corpse better than the old, and he went off that it's not the same and that it sucked ass. A young Russian fellow, who wore all the gear one can imagined, including a necro-erotic T-shirt and tattoos, calmly delineated to me the standards by which death metal can be judged in its own sphere, breaking up the various sub-genres with intellectual grace. I did mention a Pazuzu movie connection, but he never heard of that, so...
And then we have:
Aesthetics, inspiration, popularization...
As to Opeth, I actually like the older stuff better with its mix of folk and grind voicings - the newer stuff has too much bass, though it's not bad.
I thought this was a harem. There is no finality in a harem. But I am fine with non-exclusivity. Just got back off the "twin flame" merry-go-round again myself (comets, and such) - so don't feel bad.
