Yes!!! Thank you!!! My thoughts EXACTLY!!!
Steve is such a monster on bass. His work with Death is so amazing. One of the best on the fretless. His bass lines SHOULD be upfront in every mix, he’s so damn good. This was also what made Death such a fantastic band; Chuck knew the importance of every instrument in the band.
IMO, …AJFA wasn’t an example of what was happening in the industry - it was a combination of James and Lars not processing a tragedy very well, not knowing how to mix very well, and being given too much control of the final mix.
What other examples are there to indicate that it was an industry thing? Appetite for Destruction was same time era and genre - Duff was never pushed into the background. Nirvana certainly had noticeable bass (OK, not “metal”, but “heavy” music). Rage? Alice in Chains? Jane’s Addiction? I wouldn’t say any had muted bass… (these are the late-80’s/early-90’s bands I can think of right now)
Of course not every band is “bass forward”, but I don’t think there was some epidemic of producers deciding to remove it… Unless it was something going on in specifically in the sub-genres of metal that I didn’t really pay attention to…
And they have said they weren’t specifically turning the bass down on Justice. James wanted to keep boosting his guitar, which made Lars want to boost his drums, which made James want to boost his guitar, which made Lars…
Ultimately James and Lars just put their own instruments way higher in the mix than they needed to be. And then Jason was largely just doubling James’s parts, so there wasn’t much “different” in his register to cut through.