ALL METAL MUSIC DOES NOT SOUND THE SAME! Part 1
"All metal music sounds the same!" - Countless uninformed fools
1993 was a banner year for my young'in self; up to that point, I was already a music fan but had yet to find that one defining trait, that one identity so many of us cultivate from an early age onward. Then came '93, and the song "99 Ways to Die" by the mighty MEGADETH graced my ears, and I knew right there and then that I'd found my calling, my voice, my sound. From then to now, a good 22 years later, I've continued to embrace the grand, evil, esoteric, destructive, and positive forces the many facets of heavy metal music has bestowed upon me, with its myriad different compositional crafts, emotional outpourings and varying degrees of enjoyment they have provided me. It was loud or quiet, fast or slow, and wicked or blessed, but regardless it was all pure ear candy to me.
But there's one thing that's always gotten my goat no matter how many times I've heard it...the notion that "all metal music sounds the same."
Excuse me whilst I palm my face through the other side of my head...because, well...that is NOT TRUE AT ALL.
...alright...with due respect to folks' point of view and the fact that many who would make that claim tend to not listen to the style at hand, allow me to present a comprehensive list on how far metal music has come over the years since "Black Sabbath" scared the holy hell out of the Flower Power movement, how the sound has changed in accordance to inspiration and points of you, and offer unto ye a few examples of groups within each respective approach, if truly for no other reason than to cut through the miring fog that is the BS notion of it all "sounding the same.". So, if you will indulge me... It all really began with...
ROCK AND ROLL:
(THE BEATLES, THE ROLLING STONES, ELVIS): The original anti-conformity music style, this laid the foundation of other, more nihilistic acts to follow. Electric guitars and bass, bluesy percussion work, and harmonized sermons of free love and PG-rated debauchery were the order of the day, one of the first thumbs in the eyes of society and a traditional way of thinking. The kids were entranced, the parents were appalled, and society and the church tried to step in to no avail. No one knew it would only get worse from here on out.
From there came...
HARD ROCK:
(LED ZEPPELIN, DEEP PURPLE, AEROSMITH)
When rock and roll faded into the sunset, the audience needed something better, more intense, and more worldly. The rock standard sound was then amplified even more to make it louder and more frightening to the square masses; where riffs were big, vocals were louder, and the lyrical content pushed the limits of both patience and lewdness. This style also gave the world the mighty notion of the "guitar solo".
And when that wasn't enough, there was...
PROGRESSIVE ROCK:
(PINK FLOYD, RUSH, HAWKWIND)
For some, the hard rock thing was too simplistic, too elementary-school. So outside elements came into play, from neo-classical music to space-age synths to digitized samples, combined with heavy guitar riffs to create the next logically evolutionary step. Those within the scene had little idea that they were well ahead of their time.
Then, on to...
HEAVY ROCK:
(KISS, RAINBOW, AC/DC)
Just as things looked their bleakest, the hard rock format evolved into an even bigger, louder monster. Distortion, faster tempos and more intensified vocal work came into play even more than before, which opened the door for the next course of action that would change music forever.
Other styles came and went over the years with certain degrees of influence on where heavy music would go over the years (Punk Rock, Goth Rock, early Grindcore, etc.), but 1969 came with a thunderous bang with:
NEW WAVE OF BRITISH HEAVY METAL (NWOBHM):
(BLACK SABBATH, JUDAS PRIEST, IRON MAIDEN)
This is where it all started...when heavy rock became too cumbersome, a group of Brits decided to take it to the next level of heaviness. This is where the "heavy metal" moniker came into play, where the guitar riff was king, distortion was raw, and percussion usage became more bombastic and wild. Evil mythology, society's ills, and bitter violence were first introduced, pushing the limits of lyrical content, which fit the new style like a spiky, leather glove. The guitar solo first introduced in the hard rock scene became the true norm, just faster and more ungainly.
And...
HEAVY METAL: (MANOWAR, DIO, OZZY OSBOURNE)
Once NWOBHM came shooting across the pond, America felt the need to create their own approach, in their own image and fashion. The British sophistication was replaced with American aggression, taking heavy metal into a more nihilistic, powerful direction. Not too far removed from the original 70s roots, it nevertheless paved the way for the more plentiful of American metal offshoots.
W.A.S.P.
Things started out strong enough, but for others out there, more had to be done. So what could have happened when early metal fused with the angst of early punk? Well, you get...
THRASH METAL:
(METALLICA, SLAYER, EXODUS) The unholy fusion of traditional heavy metal and British punk. Metal music became louder, heavier, and angrier than before, trashing ear drums and hotel rooms alike. It seems thrash metal's sole purpose was to piss off anyone who wasn't metal, which included parents, religious folk, and the government, where tales of nuclear war, the killing of poseurs, and Satanic dominance ruled supreme. For some, the apocalypse was truly nigh. Guitar solos here would become even louder, faster, and more wild in approach. Later, the "crossover" genre took the punk and hardcore end of things into overdrive, simplifying thrash for the sake of Cockneyed angst.
But while thrash bands were kings on the West Coast, the upper crust of "heavy" music presented us with…...
GLAM ROCK:
(MOTLEY CRUE, POISON, WARRANT) The anti-thrash movement, which focused more on lewdness and perversity than the wicked ills of reality. Metallic in its broadest sense, glam rock nonetheless proved vital as a rock-derived distraction, and more than a few glam acts were well-receivedrecieved by the traditional and thrash metal audiences. However, this would be the first "phase" style, and would burn out due to overindulgenceover-indulgence of both bands and narcotics.
Glam and thrash ruled the American soil for many a year, while in Europe something awfully similar to the latter, only with more hints of gloss and sophistication, came to be...
SPEED METAL:
(MEGADETH, KREATOR, RUNNING WILD) The little brother offshoot of thrash metal, which took thrash's riffs and power and made them faster and more melodic. Formed primarily in Germany (with only a few American acts), but with at least one foot in the Bay Area scene, speed metal acts took to sophistication as opposed to aggression, where the guitar solo was given more face-time, and more aggressively warfaring tales instead of kicking ass and taking names abounded. In the end it was more influential to a number of European metal styles than American.
But, if speed metal wasn't fast enough for you, there was...
SHRED:
(CACOPHONY, STEVE VAI, YNGVIE MALMSTEEN) The bastard offshoot of the thrash/speed metal scene. When metal wasn't fast enough, a group of guitar wizards and wunderkinds put riffs and vocals on the backburner in turn for speed-of-light guitar solos that took part in every end of the spectrum, from subtle to overkill. Though short-lived, shred proved that the limits of guitar playing could very well be pushed into places people never thought it could go.
The 80s were truly aflame with more riffs and solos than ayour body could handle. But alas, the affluence of the decade did lead to overkill and burnout before it was all squelched under a sense of Gen-Y-fueled angst and negativity, an emotionally dour turn of events that presented the general public with
GRUNGE ROCK:
(SOUNDGARDEN, ALICE IN CHAINS, NIRVANA) As the 1980s came to a close and thrash and glam metal were fizzling out, the American music public looked for the next big thing. What came next was a more truncated distorted rock/metal format that focused more on a dirty atmosphere and bitter, downtrodden lyrical content. Seattle's grunge scene kicked thrash metal to the curb and became the baby of big-time labels and fans. Not necessarily metal music, grunge would have nevertheless not exist had it not been for metal's due influence (certain grunge acts played a form of metal music at early points in their careers).
As well as…
ALTERNATIVE/FUNK ROCK/METAL:
(FAITH NO MORE, THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, PRIMUS) The 90s were a time of experimentation with the rock and metal formats. Not settling down to one specific sound or style, the alternative scene came to be...a world where anything was possible, and genres changed song-by-song; rapping, slam-style vocals, distorted power chords and rhythmic, almost tribal percussion tore through the miasma of grunge and into the hearts and ears of an eager, hungry audience.
But all was not lost amongst the distortiophiles out there, for brewing in both the mainstream and underground scenes were…
GROOVE METAL:
(PANTERA, WHITE ZOMBIE, SEPULTURA)
What some consider the next step (but to some, devolution) from the older thrash scene, which tooks its riffs and power and punched up the danceability factor. Smooth operator performances that were mildly heavy became the general norm, if only as a distraction from the overwhelming grunge era. Giving the next generation of American kids a scene all their own, groove metal was shunned from traditional metal society as a red-headed bastard child, metal made mainstream, though a few bands of its ilk would leak its way into the hearts and ears of the "true metal" crowd.
And, more frighteningly:
DEATH METAL: (CANNIBAL CORPSE, MORBID ANGEL, DEICIDE)
With the demise of thrash and the rise of grunge and groove metal, the seething metal underground needed something faster and more powerfully violent than the weak-kneed Bay Area movement. So a group of Floridians (and New Yorkers) took the thrash riff and morphed it into something far more sinister and apocalyptic than even the heaviest thrashers ever thought possible. Twisted, chaotic guitar chords combined with machine-gun style "blast beat" drum work and deep, inhuman gurgling growls paved the way for the "death metal" movement, named as such due to its lyrical content primarily being about the destruction of religion and the various ways people can die or be killed. Death metallers created some of the most intense and ear-unpleasing anthems of metaldom, and, thanks to the likes of the labels Roadrunner and Earache, rose to the status of kings during the 1990s.
That was just in America, though...as the 90s continued to blossom and fade, Europe was still going strong with their own respective morphing of loud and ungainly sounds...
DOOM METAL:
(MY DYING BRIDE, KATATONIA, ANATHEMA)
Taking the depressive end of early goth rock into a slower, more stomach-churning crawl, the doom metal giants bludgeoned their listeners with cascades of sludgey grinding riffs and vitriolic growls, espousing hymns of depression and lost love the likes of which were last seen in a black-clad high school kid's journal. The early 90s would be its heyday, when as years would pass the doom scene would collapse, and its surviving groups either attempting to stick to their guns or evolved into something much stranger than anyone in the listening public could have perceivedpercieved.
And, best of all, when death metal wasn't enough for a number of frost-bitten youths out there (myselfe included)...
BLACK METAL:
(IMMORTAL, EMPEROR, DARKTHRONE)
As death metal reigned supreme in the American swamps, there was something evil being born in the frozen wilderness of Scandinavia. A group of angry Norwegian kids took the death metal style by the horns and turned it into something more wicked and violent. The same fast tempos and ripping guitar riffs tore through simplistic recording means, only darker, colder, and more nihilistic than before, with new elements added which included keyboards, more precise blast beating drums, and demonic screams and violent Satanism replacing primal growls and murderous hymns. Black metal was more than a musical style; it was a way of life, where its denizens stalked the countryside with black leather, medieval weapons, and corpsepaint, commiting murder, grave violations, and church arsons to prove that Satan still existed.
And yet, despite all the rumblings and diabolical violence, move yourself one country East and you will have'll've found a wellspring of catchy and bouncy hooks with…...
MELODIC DEATH METAL:
(HYPOCRISY, DARK TRANQUILLITY, AMON AMARTH)( A strange little scene that erupted not long into the black metal scene's rise to prominenceprominance. Swedish in approach, the melodic death metal bands took proper death metal vocal work and combined them with easier-on-the-ears riffing into a more digestibledigestable format. From blackened folky rhythms to progressive tandems, the Swedes proved the be masters of the melody, to be heavy as well as catchy, and most of the earlier bands enjoyed longevity with their musical meanderings.
As well as...
GOTHENBURG DEATH METAL:
(IN FLAMES, SOILWORK, DARKANE) Taking melodic death metal a step further, the Gothenburg scene tore through early IRON MAIDEN riffs with the wild abandon of speed metal fronted by black metal's raspy approach. Twin guitar leads and upbeat tempos and melodies carried its primary bands into dominance during its early years, but as time would progress the inundation of countless second and third tier acts would prove the genre's downfall. Those who remained stayed true to their roots, but moved on to differing, more mainstream-approachable methods.
Whew! ...well...that was more than plenty to take in, if I may say so. For those still interested in learning more, do sit back and await the next installment. Trust me, there's still plenty to go through...
And with that, I bid ye adieu, and turn the volume up to 11.