Sub-genres

Thrash metal was born in the early-80's in New York City, but it flourished in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sound is characterized by break-neck tempos, numerous palm-muted guitar riffs, and most-often lyrics about banging your head. The most notable bands are Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Exodus, Testament, and Dark Angel. Thrash has been enjoying a bit of a comeback lately with younger bands like Municipal Waste.

 

Commonly referred to as "flower metal," power metal is best-described as NWOBHM's fancy effiminent brother. Most power metal bands hail from European countries like Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc. and focus their sound on soaring melodies and fantasy lyrics. Notable bands include Helloween, Edguy, Stratovarius, and Gamma Ray. Power metal singers like to wear open-chested frilly shirts on stage to comment their leather pants. American bands such as Iced Earth took the power metal genre and injected a dose of thrash metal to give it a little more "oomph."

 

Death metal is perhaps the most critically-panned sub-genre of metal, right next to black metal. Most people can't handle the highly-distorted guitars, the bludgeoning double-bass-pedaled drums, and the guttural growled vocals. Obviously an acquired taste, there are some genuinely talented musicians hiding in this sub-genre. Lyrics mostly deal with death, murder, death, guts, death, and killing. Tipper Gore routinely spoke out against the lyrics of death metal bands, but most people realize that it is just a form of entertainment, sort of like watching a horror movie. Notable bands include Morbid Angel, Dismember, Entombed, Immolation, Cannibal Corpse, and Vital Remains.

 

Black metal may even be more of an acquired taste than death metal. I'm not exactly sure how black metal came about; there's a huge debate over where it came from, but I think it was just a bunch of Norwegians who were pissed off about being cold all the time that wanted to express their emotions. It is a trend amongst black metal bands to try to see who can have the worst album production as most black metal albums sound like they were recorded through someone's 1989 AT&T answering machine. Some of the bigger bands have discovered the wonders of modern production techniques, but they are typically labeled as sell-outs by the elite black metal fans that troll the internet. It's also worth mention that members of black metal bands like to kill each other and burn churches. With all that said, I like a lot of it. Notable bands include Mayhem, Burzum, Immortal, Gorgoroth, 1349, and Destroyer 666.

 

Last updated: March 11, 2009