Does Anyone Here Like Metal Music?

[Rattlehead]

Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax...you get the picture. Who here is a fan?

 

[Toon Master]

Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax...you get the picture. Who here is a fan?

I am. My favorites have to be what you listed and then add Metallica, Black Sabbath, Pantera, Slipknot, Alice in Chains, Sound Garden and Ozzy.

 

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

I love metal, but I'm really picky.

One thing I'm really into is the whole video game metal scene. Have been for several years. I can make recommendations if anyone wants.

 

[Restless]

I do.

Blind Guardian has to be one of my, if not my, favorite band. I love it. I also enjoy Dark Moor (though I think they may have disbanded...?) and Epica. My preference seems to lie towards the bands that create tributes or reference events and literature, but I don't mind others.

 

[King_of_doom]

I mostly love to hear Heavy Metal from Slayer, Ozzy, Judas Priest, Alice Cooper to Led Zeppelin.

 

[Darklordavaitor]

I guess.

Do bands such as Iron Maiden, Agalloch, Isis, Old Man Gloom, Death, Amesoeurs, Judas Priest, Atheist, Mayhem, Sleep, Corrosion of Conformity, Megadeth, Pelican, Dio, Grand Magus, Cynic, Helloween, Acid Bath, Annihilator, Black Sabbath/Heaven & Hell, Burzum, Electric Wizard, Paradise Lost, Amorphis, Mercyful Fate, St Vitus, Metal Church, Scorpions, Neurosis, Jesu, Gris, Baroness, Forgotten Woods, Manilla Road, Kyuss, Heathen, Torche, Altar of Plagues, High on Fire, Children, W.A.S.P., Cult of Luna, Harvey Milk, Austere, Nightwish, Wolves in the Throne Room and Fates Warning count as metal?

If so, then yes, I do like metal music.

 

[Blue Beetle]

Metal: the only genre of music that has spawned more sub-genres of it than there are genres of music.

 

[Nel_Annette]

I guess.

Do bands such as Iron Maiden, Agalloch, Isis, Old Man Gloom, Death, Amesoeurs, Judas Priest, Atheist, Mayhem, Sleep, Corrosion of Conformity, Megadeth, Pelican, Dio, Grand Magus, Cynic, Helloween, Acid Bath, Annihilator, Black Sabbath/Heaven & Hell, Burzum, Electric Wizard, Paradise Lost, Amorphis, Mercyful Fate, St Vitus, Metal Church, Scorpions, Neurosis, Jesu, Gris, Baroness, Forgotten Woods, Manilla Road, Kyuss, Heathen, Torche, Altar of Plagues, High on Fire, Children, W.A.S.P., Cult of Luna, Harvey Milk, Austere, Nightwish, Wolves in the Throne Room and Fates Warning count as metal?

If so, then yes, I do like metal music.

All that and some Opeth and Between The Buried And Me for good measure. My love for prog rock and my love for metal has led to me having plenty of progressive metal in my library.

 

[Storm Eagle]

Metal: the only genre of music that has spawned more sub-genres of it than there are genres of music.

What would those be?

 

[Wonderwall]

For a decade now I've been a metal head at heart. My ipod has lots of different music after dating a musician a few years ago but metal is still the anchor for me.

My friend got me into it when he first got into Metallica, after that I was big into them. He also introduced me to a few other bands like Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Machine Head, Pantera, Slayer, Dio, some Swedish metal as well like Soil Work I believe their names were. My brother's friend introduced me to Rob Zombie, White Zombie, SlipKnot, and a few more as well.

 

[NightSpirit]

Love the music, HATE the fans. Without question the most uptight, self-important, humorless, group of people you'll ever come across. And whoever asked about genres, please don't get anyone started, because debate over proper classification of metal bands is one of the most futile, endless discussions you could be a part of. Metal fans, in fact, are typically far more worried about how to label a given band than they are in judging the quality of said band's music. Oh and if a given band achieves any form of mainstream success, and they're less than 20 years old, don't even dare admit to liking them, because they can't be "real" metal if they're popular (unless they're a classic group like Maiden, Sabbath, Metallica, etc), and you're not a "real" metal fan if you like them.

If I sound frustrated it's because I am. The rigidly segmented fanbase has contributed to the highly diluted sound we hear in the modern era (i.e. late 90's and later). By "diluted", I mean the fact that instead of creating new sounds and evolving the form, everything is an imitation of a "classic" sound, because no one dare go against the "classic" sounds (the way heavy metal "should" sound). And whenever someone does come up with a new sound that is accepted, it's quickly assimilated into it's own category, and if the band ever tries to evolve from it, they're labeled as sellouts or worse. The most creative sound you'll hear today are when bands think they're being ground-breaking by doing genre hybrids (i.e. melo-death, power-thrash, blackened-death, and so on). But even these are tired nowadays, and there's a huge number of bands today that all seem to have this neo-thrash/groove/alternative sound that sounds like a cross between (old) Metallica, Green Day, and Limp Bizkit, that's all power chords and just enough riff-fills to make it sound like metal. I swear to god, it's like every new band I hear sounds exactly like this.

In no area is this more evident than vocals. Now, laypersons might argue that there never were any good metal vocalists, they've always just growled/screamed/etc. And while there's obvious exceptions to this - truly great by any standard, nigh-operatic singers like Ronnie Dio, Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Peter Steele (Type O Negative), and I'm sure there's several others I can't think of right now, these types are pretty rare. But even beneath that level, there were a lot of vocalists throughout the 80s and the early part of the 90s that I'd consider great "metal" vocalists, such as James Hetfield (Metallica), Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Tom Araya (Slayer), Rob Zombie, Phil Anselmo (Pantera), and many others. It used to be that, unless you were a death metal band, you had to have at least SOME ability and presence as a vocalist to sing for a metal band. This was the rule, not the exception for a long time. Today, unfortunately, metal vocals have been pretty much standardized to all sound like a cross between the death-growl and Fred Durst (or, just the death growl). And yes, I'm sure there's plenty of Power Metal bands out there that still use clean vocals for their Middle-Earth ballads and whatnot, but it used to be that you didn't have to be a clean vocalist to be a good metal vocalist. I mean Tom Araya almost never sang with a melody, but he had a power and menace to his voice that was far more sinister than any idiotic death growl you'd hear. And he sang in a way that you could actually understand most of the lyrics. Listen to "Angel of Death" to hear what I mean. When that bridge kicks in and he starts unapologetically and amorally describing Mengle's holocaust experiments, that's more "brutal" and vicious than any song by any death metal vocalist I've ever heard. Unfortunately today most vocalist seem to be content in seeing how loud they can growl.

 

[FatPete]

I actually substituted for slayer drums at the Capitol Theatre in New Jersey in 1987, it was an awesome show that also had raven and wasp playing.

 

[BonyT]

I'm not usually too much of a metal guy--which will probably make the band I'm going to name seem strange: On recommendation of a friend I recently tried Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. I don't know a thing about the jungle of metal genres and subgenres some of you referred to, but I'm told Maylene is considered metalcore, which as I understand it is a kind of fusion of extreme metal and hardcore punk. All I can tell you about what that might mean is that Maylene makes most metal I've ever heard sound almost soft-rockish by comparison. But the real kicker is, the band members are from the south, and they somehow wed that ultra-hard metalcore and their own Bluegrass (yeah--Bluegrass) roots, which yields a highly compelling, unusually soulful sound for such hard music; and that soul-richness is deepened by surprisingly intelligent lyrics. It's been a real surprise for me--but as I said, I'm not all that well-versed in metal.

 

[FatPete]

I'm not usually too much of a metal guy--which will probably make the band I'm going to name seem strange: On recommendation of a friend I recently tried Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. I don't know a thing about the jungle of metal genres and subgenres some of you referred to, but I'm told Maylene is considered metalcore, which as I understand it is a kind of fusion of extreme metal and hardcore punk. All I can tell you about what that might mean is that Maylene makes most metal I've ever heard sound almost soft-rockish by comparison. But the real kicker is, the band members are from the south, and they somehow wed that ultra-hard metalcore and their own Bluegrass (yeah--Bluegrass) roots, which yields a highly compelling, unusually soulful sound for such hard music; and that soul-richness is deepened by surprisingly intelligent lyrics. It's been a real surprise for me--but as I said, I'm not all that well-versed in metal.

I recently listened to them and they were pretty good.

 

[powergate92]

Metal Music is my favorite Music. I like Dio, Rainbow, Accept, KISS, Scorpions, Quiet Riot, AC/DC, Twisted Sister, Dokken, Guns N' Roses, Lizzy Borden, Grim Reaper, and more.

 

[Sdpman]

Metal 4 Ever

Anything form classics like Sabbath. Maiden to the new breed like Lamb of God, Opeth, Pelican, High on Fire, etc...

 

[Totally_Insaney]

I ove a lot of different kinds of metal. I like Rainbow, Dio, Yngwie Malmsteen, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Finntroll, Dethklok, Cannibal Corpse, Guns N Roses, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Mastodon, AC/DC, Motley Crue, etc. There are probably more but those are some of my favorite bands. Most of my all-time favorite bands are in there. Except Queen and Hendrix and stuff.

 

[Desensitized]

I like the genre, but I like Doom, Classic, Thrash, and Sludge the most of all. The other 'sub genres' aren't really for me. Being that I'm more of a general fan of Rock n Roll that's probably why my tastes skew that way.

Love the music, HATE the fans. Without question the most uptight, self-important, humorless, group of people you'll ever come across.

I don't know, I still think indie fans hold that crown. One look at Pitchfork is all you really need.

 

[Hanshotfirst1138]

In moderation. Love some of the more complex stuff like progressive metal-Symphonic X, Dream Theater, Queensryche. Early thrash Metallica and Megadeth I can handle, and being the geek that I am, I find some dragons-and-knights power metal to be fun. It's not the kind of thing I can sit and listen to for hours on end by any stretch, but a bit of Sabbath or Motorhead to power me up and get read for work is fun for a bit. It's fun to blast a metal song while driving down the freeway, but after 20 minutes or so, it can all start to sound the same. All good things in moderation. There's a whole subculture surrounding metal (like punk) that simply doesn't click with me.

Alice in Chains, Sound Garden

Wouldn't that be grunge?

 

[Wonderwall]

Wouldn't that be grunge?

They're part of that but they both incorporated heavy metal in their sound.