Alternative Metal

This week on “Into the Pit: A Metal Blog,” we are going to discuss what it means to be an alternative metal band. Alternative metal is an interesting term and very broad in scope.

Alternative metal was a term that was thrown around during the 1980s to describe certain bands that were hard to categorize into a heavy metal subgenre. However, alternative metal didn’t become a legitimate subgenre until the 1990s. Alternative metal bands are generally characterized by their use of heavy guitar riffs, unconventional sounds and somewhat experimental approaches to music. In the 1990s, alternative metal consisted of well-known groups such as Helmet, Rage Against the Machine, Primus, Faith No More, Tool and White Zombie.

Usually in each blog entry after I mention some important bands in a subgenre, I go on to talk about them each in depth. It’s hard for me to do that this week though because of alternative metal’s nature. There are so many influential alternative metal bands and that is because of the broadness of the subgenre.

Recently, alternative metal has been a term that has been thrown around kind of carelessly. It is very common for a band to be categorized as an alternative metal band just because they make use of heavy guitar riffs. This has been a very recent trend and because of this there has been a huge overlap between post-grunge and alternative metal music.

Beyond that, many bands are simply categorized as alternative metal because they bend the rules of heavy metal music. Take the band Tool for example. Their style of heavy metal is unlike any other band in the genre. They take a completely different approach to writing music, and by themselves could be considered an entirely different subgenre from anything else that came before them. However, because their style was so abstract and unique, they were simply thrown into the alternative metal category because no one else could think of a term to use to classify their sound. 

This lenient nature is an important characteristic of alternative metal, but it becomes a problem when talking about the subgenre as a whole. Alternative metal includes so many different types of bands, but that is what makes the subgenre unique. It’s a place for bands that don’t belong, and also for bands who just manage to scrape the heavy metal genre of rock music.

That being said, it is still my job to talk a little bit about specific alternative metal bands, so I will do just that. Tool is a very important alternative metal band because of their use of odd time signatures and interesting song complexities. Their music is very experimental, artistic and emotional, and since their inception, they have influenced countless other rock bands. 

Rage Against the Machine was one of the first metal bands to use rap-styled vocals. This helped to inspire the development of nu metal, which is the subgenre we will discuss in depth next week. The band also carried a strong political influence with their lyrics, which was fairly uncommon for most metal bands of the time.

Faith No More also messed around with rapping vocals as well as other experimental styles. Along with Primus, they experimented with the idea of combining heavy metal and funk rock, though Primus did this to a much greater extent. Still, Faith No More greatly inspired the nu metal movement that would come later in the 1990s, and their experimental music influenced countless other bands to take obscure musical directions with their music.

Helmet is a band that is often overlooked by many metalheads. The truth of the matter is, Helmet was a very influential metal band. Their album Meantime was completely unique upon its release. It inspired nu metal as well as metal bands that made use of noise rock elements. Helmet combined many different heavy metal techniques to form a strong sound that influenced many bands forming at the time. 

The last very important alternative metal band of the 1990s was White Zombie, led by their well-known mastermind, Rob Zombie. Their fantastical themes and bizarre image was very unique at the time, and their last two records are well-known by metalheads everywhere. Rob Zombie later continued White Zombie’s musical style through his solo work, though his solo work was never quite able to top White Zombie’s masterfully written, rugged, monstrous metal masterpieces. 

Alternative metal is a broad term, but it’s a very important subgenre in heavy metal. Some of the most creative and fascinating metal bands of all time are a part of the alternative metal subgenre. For this reason, it is a subgenre that simply demands exploration.