HEAVY METAL (sometimes referred to simply as metal) is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s.With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion and fast guitar solos. Allmusic declares, "Of all rock & roll's myriad forms, heavy metal is the most extreme in terms of volume, machismo, and theatricality."
POWER METAL is a style of heavy metal music with the aim of evoking an "epic" feel, incorporating characteristics of primarily traditional metal along with thrash metal or speed metal, often within symphonic context. There is some dispute about the term, which can refer to two different, but related styles: one pioneered and largely practiced in North America, and one based in Germany, Italy and Scandinavia. In contemporary usage, "power metal" describes music influenced by or derived from the European variant, with the exception of several American bands that are associated with both power metal and thrash metal.
SPEED METAL is a sub-genre of heavy metal that spawned in the early 1980s and was the direct musical progenitor of thrash metal. When Speed metal first emerged as a genre, it innovatively increased the tempo of the music template set forth by Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple while keeping their melodic ideas. Speed Metal can find its significant beginnings with NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) bands.
THRASH METAL is a subgenre of heavy metal music, one of the extreme metal subgenres that is characterised by its high speed and aggression. The origins of thrash metal are generally traced to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a number of bands began incorporating the sound of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (creating a new genre and developing into a separate movement from punk rock.) This genre is much more aggressive compared to its relative, speed metal. There is often significant crossover from one metal category to another, and the influence of non-metal genres, including classical music and jazz, is not uncommon.
DEATH METAL is an extreme metal subgenre. It is one of the major subgenres of heavy metal, which began as an evolution of thrash metal in the late 1980s. Death metal is usually fast, low, powerful, intense, and played very loudly. The genre is often identified with downtuned rhythm guitars, fast percussion, and dynamic intensity. Blast beats and exceedingly fast drum patterns are frequently used to add to the ferocity of the genre. The vocals are often grunts, snarls, and low gurgles colloquially called death grunts or death growls. Death grunts require use of the throat and guts, unlike traditional singing styles which discourage this technique. Some people consider it an overtone style of singing. Music journalist Chad Bowar notes that, because of the similarity of the vocals to those of the Sesame Street character, the style is sometimes called "Cookie Monster vocals". This term has become commonly used as a show of disdain for the genre. Death metal is known for abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes, as well as extremely fast and complex guitar and drumwork. Death metal may include chromatic chord progressions and a varied song structure without a standard verse-chorus arrangement. These compositions tend to emphasize an ongoing development of themes and motifs. Bands of this genre frequently utilize downtuned and distorted guitars, a downtuned, sometimes distorted bass guitar, and a drum kit almost universally using two bass drums or a double bass drum pedal. Although this is the standard setup, bands have been known to incorporate other instruments such as keyboards and saxophone.Death metal lyrics usually address more violent themes than other forms of metal music (with a few exceptions such as Satanism and Nihilism), often using gruesome metaphors to explore a larger concept. It also involves singing about havling sex with the dead, torturing people or killing people. It is very gross and brutal. The genre, originally an offshoot of thrash metal, was established to celebrate the darker underlying ideas that lay dormant in metal music. The focus on mortality along with the extreme nature of the music likely inspired the naming of this genre.
BLACK METAL is an extreme metal subgenre. It is typically characterized by the use of heavily-distorted guitars, harsh or growled vocals, fast-paced rhythms, and unconventional song structures. The first bands to pioneer the black metal style include Venom, Bathory, Mercyful Fate, and Hellhammer/Celtic Frost. These bands were mostly thrash metal bands that formed the prototype for black metal; they are referred to collectively as the First Wave. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a Second Wave emerged in Norway, including prominent bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone. Although there is no well-defined Third Wave, modern black metal bands have incorporated new musical and lyrical trends into their music. Black metal has been met with considerable hostility from mainstream culture, mainly because of the misanthropic and anti-Judeo-Christian attitude of bands contributing to the genre. Additionally, a few black metal bands have been known to have associations with church burnings, murder, and National Socialism. Black metal is generally seen as an underground form of music, in part because it does not appeal to mainstream tastes and because its musicians often choose to remain obscure.
DOOM METAL is a form of heavy metal that emerged as a recognized metal sub-genre in the early/mid-1980s. Doom metal is heavier and slower than other metal genres. Lyrics play a very important role in this genre, and are traditionally rife with pessimism, evoking an atmosphere of darkness, despair and misery. Musically, doom metal is strongly influenced by the early work of Black Sabbath. A number of early Black Sabbath tracks, such as "Black Sabbath" are often considered embryonic or prototypical doom metal songs. Many of the tracks on their third album Master of Reality (released in 1971) seem to have more in common with what today is seen as doom metal, with tracks such as "Sweet Leaf", "Into The Void", and "Children of the Grave" that featured Tony Iommi's guitar and Geezer Butler's bass tuned down to C# for heavier riffing and reduced string tension for Iommi's previously injured fingers. However Black Sabbath was not the only influence- many doom metal bands started up only a few years after Black Sabbath's debut, some of whom hailed from countries that had not yet seen the rise of Black Sabbath's popularity.
MELODIC DEATH METAL, (also referred to as Gothenburg metal, melodeath, Scandinavian metal, and post-death) is a subgenre of death metal. Originally the genre combined the harmony style and groove melodies of Heavy metal with the thrashing, harsh sound of death metal and thrash metal. Later the genre evolved through many influences and evolutions, a notable evolution in the genre being the addition of keyboards. Melodic death metal contains more melodic guitar riffs, solos, and acoustic guitar work than death metal. It also contains more understandable lyrics as well as coherent singing along with traditional death grunt vocals. The song structures are generally more progressive, using diverse themes throughout the songs.
PROGRESSIVE METAL is a sub genre of heavy metal music which blends the powerful, guitar-driven sound of metal with the complex compositional structures, odd time signatures, and intricate instrumental playing of progressive rock. Some progressive metal bands are also influenced by jazz fusion music. Like progressive rock songs, progressive metal songs are usually much longer than standard rock songs, and songs are often thematically linked in concept albums. As a result, progressive metal is rarely heard on mainstream radio and video programs.
GRINDCORE, often shortened to grind, is an evolution of crust punk, most commonly associated with death metal, a very different, though similarly extreme, style of music. Grindcore is characterized by heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars often showing crust punk-influenced riffs, blast beats by drummers, short songs, and a vocal style consisting of growls and higher-pitched vocals, often similar to those found in black metal. Lyrical concepts range from social and political issues to gore and horror to humor.
FOLK METAL is a diverse collection of music, encompassing a wide variety of different styles and approaches. As the name suggests, the one common ground between folk metal bands is a shared interest in fusing heavy metal music with elements of folk music.
GOTHIC METAL is a genre of heavy metal music that originated during the mid 1990s in Europe as an outgrowth of doom-death, a fusion genre of doom metal and death metal. The definition of gothic metal is commonly debated amongst fans and the media; older fans and musicians have a firm concept of the genre and its characteristics, having been around for its conception, and having strict ideas of what bands pertain to the genre. Newer fans reject this categorization as limiting, useless, or wrong, often claiming bands are gothic metal that do not meet the criteria of the older fans. Gothic metal is commonly characterized lyrically by either one of two distinct characteristics: dual vocalists (growls and female vocals) or a single vocalist with a low, operatic tone. Instrumentation is heavily based on the use of modern keyboards and distorted guitars with varying tempos and rather complex compositions. Gothic metal tends to take influence from the doom metal, black metal, and death metal subgenres of Heavy metal for its composition. The heavily synthesized styles of their melody and rhythm ideas in its guitar riffs often cause the music to be aggressive and fast paced like death metal, while sometimes the sound is slow and heavy like doom metal.
VIKING METAL is a cross-genre reference usually used to describe the lyrical and thematic elements of bands rather than the music itself. The bands associated with Viking metal cover a broad range of musical genres and influences, such as folk metal, thrash metal, death metal, black metal, and power metal.
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