Diving Into The Pit

By: Justin Silk, Contributor

I’m pretty sure every metalhead on Earth has had the following exchange in some way, shape, or form:

Ignorant Listener: What is this garbage you’re listening to?

Me (The Super Kvlt Metalhead): I’m listening to At the Gates. They’re a melodic death metal band.

Ignorant Listener: This is terrible. It’s just a guy screaming into a microphone.

Me (The Super Kvlt Metalhead): It’s not like that at all. It’s heavy metal. It’s a really fast and intense song, and the harsh vocals are necessary to add a powerful tone to the music.


Ignorant Listener: Well it sucks. Real music has singing and is catchy. This isn’t catchy. It’s crap.

And at this point in the discussion, there is a standstill. The “Ignorant Listener” doesn’t understand the appeal of this heavy music, and thereby will refuse to listen to any argument as to why some might find it enjoyable. There are a lot of people like that who simply don’t enjoy harsh vocals, and that’s fine, but for many metalheads around the world, those harsh vocals help to add a new level of intensity to the compellingly vicious music.

Just because a listener doesn’t enjoy harsh vocals (which may consist of screaming, shouting, growling, howling, shrieking, or other experimental styles), doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy heavy metal. It’s a common misconception that all heavy metal music has to be dark, fast, and scary. That’s not the case at all though. In fact, there are many heavy metal bands that wouldn’t dare use harsh vocals, and there are many that also wouldn’t dare to even play fast music.

Heavy metal is a vast genre of music that is always growing in experimentalism. There are so many subgenres of heavy metal and it may be surprising to inexperienced listeners to learn what kinds of bands are actually considered to be a part of the genre.

“Into The Pit: A Metal Blog” is designed to educate readers and listeners alike about the various subgenres of heavy metal music. A different subgenre will be discussed each week, resulting in what could serve as a sort of “heavy metal bible” for those learning about the genre. Each post will consist of a subgenre’s description, history, most popular bands and current activity.

I hope that with this blog, ACRN can better educate music enthusiasts about the amazing world of heavy metal music around them.

So to start things off, below are a few different examples of some the world’s most interesting (but not necessarily the most popular) heavy metal acts. This is just for fun and to show the diversity of the genre. Tune in next week for the discussion of the first heavy metal subgenre!

"Desert Urbania" - Unexpect


"Anthropocentric" - The Ocean


"Scream of the Butterfly" - Acid Bath


"Annubis" - Septic Flesh-


"Twilight Tavern" - Ensiferum


"Into the Painted Grey" - Agalloch