Straying from the path and why it's good

The picture above is of the band Deafheaven (whose album Sunbather I reviewed here) and they have recently been convicted of a major crime, a crime punishable by a lifetime of ridicule and being mocked relentlessly. What did they do wrong? What kind of heinous crime was committed on their part to justify punishing them with such a sentence?

They fused black metal with post-hardcore.

 Yes, that's right. They "embellished" the pure evil exterior of black metal by, first of all, forgoing the corpsepaint, but that's the least of their offenses. They imbue black metal with dreamy atmospheric guitars (that are sometimes clean! Blasphemy!) and uplifting melodies (gasp!) that one would not be surprised to find on a record by Japanese screamo band Envy. So, they do all of this in spite of the fact that black metal needs to be "trve" and "kvlt" and represent all that the Fallen One has deemed to be worthy? A major offense indeed. Or is it?

Basically I'm all for progression and I can't stand stagnation, so, obviously, Deafheaven gets a big thumbs-up from me. I absolutely loved Sunbather and the unorthodox approach the band took in crafting it, and I find it a bit lame that people will dislike the album not because they dislike the post-hardcore sound, which is perfectly fine, but purely because it's not traditional "trve" black metal, and those people are certainly out there. Sunbather in all of its pink and yellow packaged glory will form some detractors without a doubt, but if they all want to look at this band with sticks up their asses, I'm not going to stop them. The detractors who knock the band entirely because of how dissimilar they are to, say, Darkthrone, are obviously being very closed-minded, perhaps ignorant, but because I probably can't change any of their minds and it wouldn't be progressive to get into arguments with them over a topic as relatively unimportant as musical taste, I'm going to leave these people alone and let them have their opinions.

Basically, straying from the path and breaking away from the rigid structures imposed upon bands of certain genres is a good thing. It's a way for any style to stay alive and relevant over time and it keeps things exciting for musicheads who don't fall under the "jaded and hardcore" category who are still mourning the loss of Emperor and Nihilist, for example. What Deafheaven did for black metal on Sunbather makes me hungry for more black metal fusion, hell, I'd even welcome black metal/country fusion if it ever came up. Until then, I'd say to you all to embrace evolution and change in your favorite musical styles, if the progression is natural and logical (unlike, say, a fusion of death metal and dubstep that's totally "not" cashing in an a fad) the results might please you.

But what do you think? Is Deafheaven's mixture of genres convincing to you? Should genres like black metal and death metal be tampered with at all? Why or why not? Leave your comments below.