Mastering makes/break a metal band

Was revisiting Periphery last week and decided to go down the rabbit hole of more djent bands, primarily focusing on smaller/local bands versus big names.

There are local bands that have some great guitar riffs and all, but the mastering and audio engineering of the band is terrible that makes it hard to listen to. For example, the singer is perhaps a bit too loud than the rest of the instruments, or the guitars is a bit louder on the higher frequencies, etc.

I’m not an audio engineer, but when I listen to very popular band versus smaller bands, I recognize that audio quality difference and it sucks because some of those smaller bands have solid talent but I just cannot listen to it for long without needing to skip.

TLDR: Smaller bands have amazing potential and talent, just wished they could’ve spent more on audio engineering