Im sorry but if you think the above music is on the level of a alice n chains,STP,soundgarden, I feel sorry for you...if the above is the best rock can do these days then its dead as a door nail...
STP , AIC and Soundgarden? Seriously? Dude, c'mon now. Those are not band names that should come up in any serious discussion about rock music. Perhaps Tool, if you're going to mention any 90's band. But even then, apart from the drummer and vocalist they're very sub-par musicians.
The musicians in the bands I mentioned are light years beyond that single finger chord, drop D stuff. The 90's were a horrible, horrible decade for music, period. Everyone forgot how to play their instruments and stocks in flannel hit an all time high. Real music was pushed underground by the money hungry recording industry. I'll assume you were brought up in the 90's, hence your fondness for that time period.
In terms of creativity alone, Pain of Salvation and Opeth are far beyond anything those bands could even hope to comprehend, much less emulate. Both bands are genre defying, blending styles from several different genres of music, be it jazz, rock, metal, blues, pop or folk. Incredibly diverse stuff. While both bands are capable of great virtuosity, the song writing always comes first and foremost. Modern rock is at a creative all time high.
