Your compressor might be flattening your chugs.

Heavy guitars come off the amp already squashed. Put a compressor on them with a fast attack and you squash them again, and the chugs turn into a wall of mush.

Slow the attack down to around 50 ms and the compressor does the opposite. The pick attack gets through untouched, then the compressor clamps the body of the note behind it. The front of every chug jumps out.

Same riff, same loudness, before and after: 3.6 dB more punch, measured as the peak level over the average level (crest factor).

Next: Thin drums? Compress a copy.