How Loud Is Modern Metal in 2026?

In this video Thomas analyzes Spotify’s “All New Metal” playlist and measures the loudness, peak levels, clipping, and true peaks of recent metal releases. We will look at: Average LUFS levels Peak limiting and clipping Inter-sample peaks Why metal is mastered so loud How limiting affects kick drums, snares, and guitars ▶️ Hear examples of limiter side effects:    • Is Your Limiter Hurting Your Mix? (4 Sound...   We (Sofia & Thomas) have made a small vault with our own free & paid guides and tools for those who want to dive deeper. There you can find our Guide to Limiting mentioned in the video. 👉 https://vault.masteringexplained.com/ 💚 Sofia & Thomas --------------- Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 1:17 How the loudness was measured 1:47 New metal loudness results 3:05 Peak levels and waveform density 4:36 Kick drums and limiting 7:06 Snare drum and limiting 8:34 The loudest track in the playlist 10:39 Clipping and inter-sample peaks 12:54 Loudness normalization and peak levels 13:48 How does it actually sound? 15:40 Hearing limiter side effects