Drone Metal

When talking about heavy metal music, musical textures are often overlooked. The truth is that textures and atmosphere are huge aspects of doom metal, sludge metal, post metal and black metal that can often mature a band’s sound in surprising ways. Drone metal is a subgenre of heavy metal where textures and atmosphere mean absolutely everything when discussing the quality of the music. It’s a subgenre that is not for everyone, but once it’s understood, it’s hard not to at least appreciate the musicality that goes into it.

Drone metal revolves around sustained or repeated sounds, notes and tones called drones. These drones are made with the electric guitar and often incorporate a large amount of reverb or audio feedback. Songs usually lack much of a rhythm or beat, and are focused on the drawn-out textures created by the drones. Drone metal rarely features vocals, but if it does, the vocals are almost always screamed or deeply growled. 

Drone metal usually shares some common traits with doom metal, sludge metal and post metal, being intense but slow in nature. Therefore, the music usually sounds very dark, dense and claustrophobic.  During live performances, drone metal bands frequently incorporate visual images to go along with the sounds, usually in the form of short films. These visual landscapes often add a sense of psychological depth to the music.

Earth was the first band to pioneer drone metal in the early 1990s. The band was based out of Seattle and took influence from The Melvins along with minimalist musicians of the time. Earth first released music in 1991, but their acclaimed debut album, Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version, was put out in 1993. The entire drone metal scene often looks back to this album as one of drone metal’s crowning achievements and the album served as a sort of bible for later drone metal bands to come. 

On another note, one interesting fact about Earth is that the band’s guitarist, Dylan Carlson, was a very close friend of Kurt Cobain. Therefore, Cobain has recorded vocals which the band has used on the song “Divine and Bright.” Carlson is also known to have bought the gun that Cobain would later use to kill himself, though Carlson did not think that Cobain was ever going to use it in such a way. 

Another major juggernaut of the drone metal scene is Sunn O)))). Experimental musician Stephen O’Malley formed the band as a tribute to Earth. Since then, the band has achieved major success within the heavy metal community, and is today considered to be one of the leaders of the drone metal subgenre.  

Even though drone metal isn’t that popular of a subgenre, it has a very devoted underground following. Bands such as Boris, Corrupted, Nadja and Jesu have helped to sustain the subgenre and have advanced the musicality of drone metal in new and exciting ways.

Neo-classical Metal

It is no secret that some of the world’s best guitarists love to play heavy metal. The genre’s speed, intensity and allowance for technicality make it very appealing to guitarists that feel unchallenged through other musical genres. These musically frustrated guitarists often turn to a subgenre of heavy metal called neo-classical metal as an outlet to express their desire to create extraordinarily technical, guitar-driven heavy metal music. 

Simplistically speaking, neo-classical metal is heavy metal music that takes influence from classical music. Usually, the influences from classical music are expressed through the subgenre’s complex guitar playing. Neo-classical metal is 100% guitar-driven and relies heavily on classically influenced, technical guitar playing. 

Neo-classical metal is the one subgenre of heavy metal that discourages the standard “band” format. Most neo-classical metal is played by guitarists who release the music under their own names, and are accompanied by a basic backing band. Many of these backing bands don’t feature vocalists in an effort to focus more on the captivating guitar work.

Neo-classical heavy metal was pioneered long before the term for the subgenre was coined. The idea of melding classical music with heavy metal can be traced all the way back to 1969 when Jon Lord from Deep Purple composed Concerto For Group and Orchestra. On this release, Deep Purple performed with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to create classically influenced, orchestral rock music. 

The typical version of neo-classical metal was pioneered during the 1970s. Ritchie Blackmore, Uli Jon Roth and Randy Rhoads in particular were some of the world’s best rock guitarists around that time, and their technical playing influenced the development of neo-classical metal immensely.  

It wasn’t until the 1980s that neo-classical metal really began to become popular. With the rise of speed and thrash metal at this time, guitarists became more technically proficient and were able to handle the complexity of neo-classical metal. At the forefront of the scene was Yngwie Malmsteen, who is arguably regarded as the most important neo-classical metal musician of all time. Malmsteen is a Swedish musician who came over to the US in the early 1980s and experienced major success with his solo material. His debut solo album, Rising Force, is considered to be a monumental neo-classical metal album, and was even nominated for a Grammy award. Since his debut, Malmsteen has released many other notable neo-classical metal albums throughout his career, and has helped to give the subgenre a strong following.

Beyond Malmsteen, many other neo-classical metal artists rose to prominence in the 1980s. Some of these artists included Tony Macalpine, Vinnie Moore, Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker and Marty Friedman. Many of them were signed to Shrapnel Records, which was famous for signing neo-classical metal artists throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Today, neo-classical metal is alive and well, though it is not quite as popular as it used to be. There are also many more full bands than there used to be who play or take major influence from the subgenre. DragonForce, Cacophony, Symphony X, Rhapsody of Fire, Children of Bodom, Protest the Hero and The Human Abstract are all famous metal bands today that use the technical guitar playing of neo-classical metal to create modern takes on the once more popular style of music. 

Experimental (Avant-Garde) Metal

This week we are going to be getting a bit experimental. That’s right! It’s time to talk about experimental metal, also known as avant-garde metal. The terms “experimental metal” and “avant-garde metal” are usually interchangeable with fans of the subgenre, and each band of the subgenre has a preference of how they wish to be described. For the sake of the blog post, I will simply refer to the subgenre as experimental metal. 

Experimental metal is basically the subgenre for bands that no one knows how to describe. Metal bands that use unusual sounds, instruments, song structures and/or playing techniques all are labeled as experimental metal bands because they don’t fall into any other subgenre. Progressive metal bands also use unusual song structures and playing techniques, which may cause confusion about how they should be labeled. It’s important to keep in mind that progressive metal bands always use standard heavy metal instrumentation and that they rely more on technicality than real experimentation. The difference between the subgenres is huge and anyone who has experience listening to them both can easily identify how a band should be labeled. 

It’s fairly unclear where experimental metal originated from, but the subgenre definitely made its first appearance in the 1990s. Bands such as Neurosis, Boris, Earth, Maudlin of the Well and Sunn O))) all started to experiment with conventional heavy metal music, which led to the formation of many experimental metal groups. Some other notorious experimental metal acts include Ulver, Arcturus, Unexpect, Fantomas, Sigh, The Ocean, Diablo Swing Orchestra and Dog Fashion Disco.

In recent years, experimental metal has become more popular than ever before. Record labels such as The End Records, Hydra Head Records, Southern Lord Records, Profound Lore Records and Misanthropy Records are all known for releasing notorious modern experimental metal records. The internet has really popularized the idea of experimenting with normal heavy metal standards, and now there is a large niche of fans of the experimental metal subgenre. The future of experimental metal is a bright one with limitless possibilities. 

Gothic Metal

Disclaimer: After reading this blog post, if you decide that you enjoy gothic metal, you are REQUIRED to dress like this. I’m serious.

Gothic metal is the fusion of doom metal and gothic rock. It started as an outgrowth of the death/doom music scene, which formed as a result of doom metal bands experimenting with the deep growling and double-kick drumming of death metal. We will talk about death/doom at a later time, as it is not considered to be a major heavy metal subgenre (it's more of a specific type of doom metal).

Musically speaking, gothic metal is all about the atmosphere surrounding the music. Gothic metal is always dark in nature, and often centers on slow and crushing guitar riffs. Vocals may vary in nature, but clean and sorrowful vocals are particularly common in this subgenre. Female vocalists are also frequently found in gothic metal bands, and some bands even use both male and female vocalists. The lyrics of gothic metal songs are usually melodramatic in nature and focus on gloomy topics.  

The term “gothic” has been associated with heavy metal since the early days of Black Sabbath, whose debut album is regarded to be a direct influence on gothic metal. The subgenre didn’t really exist gothic rock had been established as a genre of music in the early 1990s. Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema were regarded as the leaders of early gothic metal music, with the name of the subgenre being partially derived from Paradise Lost’s second album, Gothic. These three bands were known as the “Peaceville Three” since they were all signed to Peaceville Records and were pioneers of death/doom. As their music developed, all three bands began to move into gothic metal territory.

Outside of the “Peaceville Three,” the only other major pioneer of the subgenre was Type O Negative, which was the brainchild of the legendary Peter Steele. The group’s third album, Bloody Kisses, earned the band popularity and is now considered to be a landmark gothic and doom metal record. Type O Negative continued to dabble in gothic metal throughout its career and helped to develop the subgenre’s depth until Peter Steele’s recent untimely death. 

In recent years, gothic metal has gained much mainstream popularity. Bands such as Evanescence, Lacuna Coil and HIM have taken gothic metal and given it a more melodic sound that has attracted major attention. Many of these bands took influence from Paradise Lost’s Draconian Times, which was known as the first major commercial-sounding gothic metal release.

Meanwhile, other bands have experimented with the subgenre and achieved commercial success based on their obscure hybrids. Nightwish has combined gothic metal with symphonic metal, and has managed to become one of the most successful gothic metal bands of all time. Cradle of Filth combined gothic metal with symphonic metal and black metal in order to create a style of music that is wholly original and received positively by fans of gothic metal music. 

Gothic metal is a style of music that has a worldwide following, and has proven itself to be a subgenre of many different shades that are conversely commercial and underground in nature. As time goes on, gothic metal should continue to develop further as new bands arise and experiment with the subgenre’s limitations.