Seven Days of Black Sabbath, Pt. 8

Nigel Tufnel’s amps went to 11. Metal weeks go to 8.

Now that I’ve proven my premise, let’s juxtapose this week’s “subgenres” of metal, and a few others, just for fun. A heavy metal primer, if you will. While it may be “all just noise,” to the educated ear it doesn’t “all sound the same.”

Doom Metal (Candlemass, Electric Wizard, Sleep, High on Fire, Windhand): Slow and sludgy, but with edge and attitude. Like if the guys in Deep Purple were mean drunks who smoked a bongful of Quaaludes. (See also: Stoner Metal, Sludge Metal)

Thrash Metal (Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, Death Angel, Havok, Exodus): Yeah, I left out Metallica. They haven’t been thrash since 1990. Fight me. Metal at a frantic pace. Megadeth originally billed themselves as “The World’s State-of-the-Art Speed Metal Band.” I had the t-shirt to prove it.

Nu Metal (Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Deftones, Coal Chamber): Metal blended with a variety of other elements, including hip-hop, alternative rock, etc. Something of a catch-all term for the popular metal from the mid- to late-90’s and early 2000’s. Anthrax more or less gave birth to “rap metal” with “I’m the Man” and their “Bring The Noise” collaboration with Public Enemy, though the Beastie Boys wet their toes with Slayer’s Kerry King providing the guitar on “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn.” Credit to Faith No More’s “Epic” for bringing it to the mainstream.

Power Metal (Blind Guardian, Nightwish, Dragonforce, HammerFall): Big, demonstrative, symphonic, chorus-y metal. If they made a Dungeons and Dragons movie, the soundtrack would be Power Metal. Come to think of it, I might not have slept through the Lord of the Rings movies had there been more Power Metal.

Grunge (Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, The Melvins, Tad, Nirvana): Most Deadsplinters probably understand that grunge was more of an approach or an attitude than a musical style. Grunge was in some ways closer to punk, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto actually left Soundgarden because he wanted to stay truer to the punk elements. Nevertheless, you can undeniably hear the low, muddy influence of Black Sabbath in much of grunge.

Metalcore (Killswitch Engage, The Ghost Inside, Stick to Your Guns, While She Sleeps, Hatebreed): When you see “-core” in the label, it implies an influence from hardcore punk, mainly harsh, (more or less) staccato, screamy-yelly vocals. The “metal” in this case denotes a more metal approach to the instrumentation. Many latter-day Metalcore bands incorporate some melody in parts of the lyrics, particularly the chorus. “Skatecore” and “Mallcore” are sometimes applied as derogatory labels to bands that appeal to the angsty, edgy teenyboppers who hang out at Hot Topic. (See also: Deathcore, Grindcore, Mathcore)

Death Metal (Death, Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus): Thrash Metal taken a little further. Vocals are often gutteral, with morbid lyrics. Precision riffs and runs on the guitar, “extra” double-kick drums and heavy on the “blast beats” (kinda like glorified, extended drum rolls).

Progressive Metal (Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Protest the Hero, Opeth, Symphony X): A lot of overt musical wanking, but metal. Like if Rush and Slayer and the Dixie Dregs and Lamb of God had a grandchild. With notable exceptions, clean, operatic vocals from a guy who probably could have gone pretty far on American Idol.

Black Metal (Mayhem, Immortal, Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Satyricon, Venom, Celtic Frost): Treble-y, double-picked guitars with lots of distortion; tortured, shrieky, almost reptilian-sounding vocals; often characterized by lo-fi production. (See also: Blackened Death Metal)

Glam Metal (Dokken, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue): Some of the bands that you now remember as “hair metal.” I’d say several of these weren’t really metal, but that might make me a genre snob. A lot of them were more hard rock than metal, but at least they were mostly pretty and probably had more girls at their shows than Exodus or Ozzy (Brad Gillis literally left Ozzy’s band to form Night Ranger and get more girls). Glam was as much a look as anything, but the L.A. bands had a pretty identifiable sound.

Industrial Metal (Rammstein, Ministry, Fear Factory, Nine Inch Nails): Metal melded with industrial elements, such as patterned synth riffs, with a cadence that reminds you of a factory production line.

There are more, of course, and plenty of argument about which bands belong where (“But Lemmy, what about Djent?!”), but there comes a point when throwing around oddly specific labels says more about the labeler than it does about the music. Nevertheless, these, I submit, are the bastard children and stepchildren of Black Sabbath.