Let us define what “metal” itself is. Metal is a musical genre, a kind of rock music, which formed in the early and middle 1970s, mainly in Britain and the USA, and spread all over the world. The typical features of metal are distortion distorted electric guitars, long guitar solos, energetic rhythm, as a rule, six, eight or two measure, lightweight riffs.
Metal is rather various and has a lot of styles (subgenres) beginning from comparatively “soft” (classical heavy metal, power metal) (we leave the “softness” on the conscience of those who first thought it up) up to very “heavy” and difficult for the perception of the unprepared listener (death metal, black metal, grindcore). Different elements are characteristic for different subgenres. For example, vocals range from clean and high in traditional subgenres to growling and screaming of extreme ones; speed, heaviness and complexity also vary. Songs in metal often focus on energetic, masculine themes such as war, historical heroes, sci-fi or horror, but you can also find lyrics on any other topics. Metal music is common in almost all countries, but the biggest scenes were formed in northern Europe (Britain, Scandinavia, Germany) and North America (USA, Canada). In all European countries, there are developed regional scenes, as well as in Brazil, Japan, Mexico and many other non-European countries. In the Middle East, with the exception of Israel and Turkey, heavy rock is less developed because of strict censorship restrictions. Metal fans are called metalheads. Now let’s move directly to the enumeration and brief description of styles, genres, etc., inherent to this type of music. Avant-garde metal – one of the metal trends, which absorbed elements of progressive metal, extreme metal, death metal and other subgenres of metal. It is characterized by a large number of musical experiments with sounds, instruments and the structure of the songs. typical representative of this style is the Swedish band Avatar.
Art Metal – at least, there is an opinion, that the creativity of Queensryche is just art metal…
Black Metal – this style originated in the 1980s as an offshoot of thrash metal. The bands Venom and Bathory are considered to be the pioneers of the style.
Besides the black metal itself, inside this genre we can talk about the following subgenres:
- symphonic black metal
- melodic black metal
- atmospheric black metal
- ambient black metal
- depressive-suicidal black metal
- national socialist black metal
- black metal
- black death metal
- black doom metal
- folk-black metal
- pagan black metal
- christian black metal
- progressive black metal
Viking metal is a kind of metal music based on Scandinavian culture and mythology. Examples are Falkenbach, Gjeldrune, Turisas, Bathory.
Glam metal is a fusion of hard rock and heavy metal, as well as glitter metal. It began in the US in the late 1970s – early 1980s. Such bands as Cinderella, Poison, Faster Pussycat, Bon Jovi and Motley Crue are the bright representatives of these styles.
Gothic Metal is a genre, a kind of metal that combines the viscosity and gloominess of doom metal with the melancholy, musical and artistic techniques of gothic rock. Music of this genre is usually notable for its low or medium tempo, gloomy atmosphere and frequent use of keyboards. Vocals can be clean or extreme, you can find such duets as “Beauty and the Beast” – combination of clean female vocal with male growling. Examples of the performers are Lacuna Coil, Theatre of Tragedy.
Groove Metal – is the subgenre of thrash metal, which appeared in the first half of 1990s. The most notable representatives of this style are Five Finger Death Punch and Texas Hippie Coalition.
Dark Metal – a trend, a sub-style of metal, which first appeared in the late 1980s and formed by 1994. There is not only one style of dark metal. The first albums of this genre can be found in Germany, Brazil, Greece, USA, Switzerland and other countries. Dark Metal is mostly characterized by the combination of elements of aggressive sub-styles of metal music: black, death and doom metal with the occult “ritual” atmosphere. Lyrics, as a rule, refer to the themes of the occult, despair and suicide. In this way, dark metal has adopted a lot of extreme metal.
Desert-rock – actually, this style can’t be called purely “metal”, despite the presence of elements of sludge metal, hard rock and doom metal. The name comes from the Southern California town of Palm Desert.
Doom metal is a style, an extreme sub-genre of metal with a predominance of slow tempos. Both music and lyrics in this genre are meant to express a sense of despair, fear and doom. In this style we can distinguish such subgenres as epic doom metal, death doom metal, funeral doom metal and the already mentioned black doom metal.
Death metal (other variants: death metal, death metal) is an extreme subgenre of metal. Having absorbed the speed and complexity of thrash metal, death metal evolved into a separate subgenre of this genre (sometimes called proto-death), and then into an independent genre in the mid-1980s. Within this genre we can separate such styles as death metal, death thrash, melodic death metal, techno death metal, brutal death metal, brutal satanic death metal, sympho death metal, progressive death metal, death death death metal, deathcore, melodic deathcore, death and roll and deathgrind.
Celtic metal is an offshoot of folk metal that originated in the mid-90s in Ireland. Celtic metal combines the sound of metal and Celtic music. Such bands as Cruachan, Primordial and Waylander are pioneers of the genre. Nowadays the representatives of this genre are not only Irish, but bands from many other countries as well.
Mat-metal (mathematical metal) – the direction of metal, characterized by atonality, complex structure of compositions and usage of non-standard musical sizes.
Matcore – rhythmically complex and dissonant style, originating in metalcore. Neoclassical metal – a fusion of heavy metal and classical music. Oriental Metal/Eastern
Metal is a subgenre of folk metal, which began in the mid-90s in Israel, Singapore and Armenia. The Israeli bands Orphaned Land, Melechesh, Salem, Singapore’s Rudra, and Armenia’s Ayas pioneered the genre. Power Metal is one of the metal genres that emerged in the second half of the 1980s.
The main attributes of the genre are speed, complexity and melodic guitar parts, clean high vocals and backing vocals. Such subgenres as symphonic power metal, progressive power metal, heavy power metal, extreme power metal and melodic power metal are distinguished within this genre.
Pirate Metal – as can be seen from the name, the theme of the songs of the bands, working in this style, is entirely dedicated to the sea pirates of the past and everything, connected with them.
Pagan Metal is the style of metal, which exploits the elements of paganism. Within this style we can distinguish Slavic pagan metal (Temnozor, Arkona, Alkonost, Butterfly Temple), Baltic pagan metal (Poccolus, Obtest) and Indian pagan metal. Post-metal is a genre that is a mixture of such genres as post-rock and metal, rooted in progressive rock and industrial. The genre is mainly characterized by a distorted guitar sound familiar to metal, a dark atmosphere, a gradual evolution of song structure and minimal vocal expressiveness.
Progressive Metal is a style of metal based on progressive rock which includes complex compositional structures, bizarre musical sizes and intriguing techniques of playing musical instruments. The high level of professionalism of the musicians is often combined with the lyrical in the form of conceptual epic lyrics, the result of which are quite long songs and concept albums.
Symphonic Metal – a style that seamlessly combines metal and symphonic orchestral music. The brightest representatives of this style are Therion, Epica, Within’ Temptation. Sludge Metal is an extreme style of music which combines elements of doom metal and hardcore punk. Within this genre the styles of southern sludge and stoner sludge are distinguished.
Speed metal is a genre, one of the directions of metal, which is located at the intersection of traditional heavy metal, thrash metal and power metal. Speed metal became an important stage in the development of metal music, but it never evolved into an independent movement with its own aesthetics and separate fandom. As a rule, not all bands can be referred to this genre, but some albums and songs of different bands, which are also playing thrash, power or heavy metal. Speed metal is characterized by a fairly high speed of execution (more than the “classic” heavy metal). The speed metal genre is characterized by the high tempo and short solo guitar parts between the verse. The vocals in speed metal are usually more aggressive than in heavy metal, they can be husky and with splitting of the ligaments (screaming), as well as low and high-pitched falsetto.
Stoner metal is a style, which is characterized by slow or medium-tempo music with low-tuned guitars and bass. It includes elements of psychedelic rock, blues rock, and doom metal with repetitive guitar riffs. Stoner rock emerged in the early 1990s from the work of the California band Kuyss. The style had a big influence on many bands such as Metallica (on the albums Load, Reload), Soundgarden, Corrosion of Conformity, etc. This is a musical genre in metal which had given rise to the extreme varieties of metal. It is characterized by a fairly high speed of execution, more hardness of the punchy, fast rhythmical figures (riffs) performed in a low range of frequencies compared to classical heavy metal, and aggression together with technical, choppy, flailing, high-speed style of guitar solos in a high range of frequencies and bass guitar tremolo. The vocal lines often dissonant with the instrumental texture, although in general the vocal manner, though quite forced and expressive (often there are quite low, manly voices), cannot be called anti-musical. The lyrics often abound in attempts to criticize the social order, often related to various manifestations of social injustice. The lyrics often use crude means of language, which partially overlap and are close to thrash metal and hardcore. Within the genre, there is also crossover thrash, which is either a form of thrash metal or hardcore punk, which has influenced each other or is a mixture of them. Folk metal is the genre of metal, which absorbed elements of folk music. Besides separated from it Celtic metal and oriental metal, we should mention such its subgenres as medieval metal, Latin folk metal, Slavic folk metal, Nordic folk metal, American folk metal, German folk metal and the so-called “battle metal”.
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music, the first and original direction of metal. Usually this word is called “classic” metal as it was created in the 1970s by such bands as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. Sometimes “heavy metal” abroad is referred to as all metal in general, and its original form is called “traditional heavy metal” or “classic metal”.
Industrial Metal – a related musical genre which emerged in the late 1980s in the United States and Western Europe at the junction of mutual influence of different currents of post-industrial on the one hand, heavy and thrash metal on the other hand and hardcore-punk on the third. The most significant artists who have had an influence on the formation of the genre are considered to be Ministry, Godflesh and KMFDM.
To the specific features of this genre we can mention the use of “metal” riffs, “industrial” synthesizers and sequencer, very distorted guitars and vocals with distortion effects (although in some cases we can also hear some clean sound). Within it we can consider such sub-styles as industrial thrash, industrial black metal and industrial death metal.
Grunge metal is a sub-style of alt-rock that evolved from hardcore punk and heavy metal in the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, primarily Seattle, and nearby cities. In addition to all of these styles and genres, the following styles of metal should also be mentioned:
- alternative metal
- metalcore
- nu-metalcore
- melodic-metalcore
- metal-hardcore
- electronikor
- nu-metal
- funk-metal
- funk-core (American band Mordred is considered the forebear of this genre)
- rap metal and rapcore
- hardcore Christian metal (typical representative of it is Holy Moses)
- drone metal trance metal (Rage Of Light)
- psycho thrash (Overkill, Voivod)
- “alcoholic” metal (Tancard, Beermuda)
- nintendocore
- power-violence
- jazz metal
- christcore or Christian metalcore
- warp metal (the music of these bands (HMKids, Blood Soul) is fully dedicated to the Warhammer 40000 universe) “diesel” metal (Kruger)
- horror-metal (Sledgehammer)
- slime-metal
- cello metal (Apocalyptica)
- progressive detcore
- sympho-childcore
- downtempo-detcor
- techno-detcor
- death-jazz-metal
- punk metal
- cyber-metal
Phew! You can really go nuts from all that. And if we count the number of styles and genres, then you know what figure we get? 130! And if we take hard rock, heavy rock’n’roll and heavy blues (although these genres have little to do with metal), we get three more additional styles.
