Rock and metal suggestions?

What made me love Wayne's World was the characters. I could relate to them. I liked their music, liked their choice in women, and the spaced out humor (I always did wonder myself about the replacement in Bewitched) was pretty much the way I was when the movie came out.

I was reading some of the posts critical of music today. But what about today's rock and metal?

I need some help in trying to navigate today's rock and metal. I am an old school metal/rock fan, stuck in the 80s and early 90s. When I casually listen to metal, I only listen to stuff from the 80s. I listened to one band that some website declared putting out the "metal album of the year." Listening to it, and I couldn't help but think it sucked. No structure, just shouting and out of control guitar playing. Almost a combination of death metal and punk.

I mean, if you listened to and swore by Metallica's early catalog (Kill Em All, Ride the Lightning, Masters of Puppets) and any other of the more popular "thrash" bands, how can anybody listen to any of the metal today? It doesn't break any new ground to me. It might "define" this generation, but it is not quality.

So can anybody suggest something I can check out that would make me re-consider?