Death metal is already one of the most brutal forms of music known to man, but what happens when you turn it up to eleven? You get brutal death metal, which can only be described as death metal going on a steroid-fueled rage while somehow keeping to the highly technical ‘holy hell does that dude have six fingers on one hand?’ instrumentation that the subgenre is known for. And yes, “brutal” is more than just an adjective.
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What Is Brutal Death Metal?
by Snake van Skull on December 9, 2011
What Is Power Metal?
by Snake van Skull on December 1, 2011
Imagine yourself in the middle of a war ripped straight from the pages of a Tolkien-esque high fantasy novel. Blood and fire surround you. The sharp sound of steel hitting steel rings in your ears. Dragons sweep the skies overhead, laying waste to the ground below. In your head, you hear drums. A lone guitar plays a scorching riff, and a second joins it in melody. Somewhere, someone starts to sing a song.
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What Is Melodic Death Metal?
by Snake van Skull on December 1, 2011
Melodic death metal is exactly what the label says: it’s death metal with melodies. It’s still far more brutal than most other forms of music but with an injection of the old school guitar harmonies and melodies that heavily characterized the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, or NWOBHM. This subgenre of heavy metal blew up in a big way during the mid-90s thanks to the emergence of bands that formed the backbone of the then-burgeoning Gothenburg scene. Melodic death metal — or “melodeath” — is still largely an underground phenomenon compared to what we see and hear on commercial TV and radio, but enough metalheads swear by it that it’s now considered as one of the bigger, albeit heavily debated, subgenres of heavy metal music.
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What Is Symphonic Metal?
by Snake van Skull on December 1, 2011
Fusing heavy metal with instruments and other musical elements from classical music may appear to be an unholy amalgamation at first glance, but it’s not actually as strange as one may think. In fact, there are way too many bands from equally diverse subsets of the heavy metal music family that use symphonic elements in their songs that symphonic metal can be considered more of a song-specific label than a distinct heavy metal subgenre.
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What Is Glam Metal?
by Snake van Skull on November 29, 2011
Ah, Glam Metal. You can call it Hair Metal, Pop Metal, or Unmetal but this unwanted bastard child of heavy metal music is here to stay. Enjoying a revival even through recent summer festivals with Poison, Mötley Crue, and New York Dolls as the top-billed acts. But please, if there really is a god, please don’t let the glam metal fashion make a revival too. Seal it shut in the 80s along with neon spandex and scrungies.
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What Is Speed Metal?
by Snake van Skull on November 29, 2011
Speed metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that depending on who you ask can either be the granddaddy of thrash metal or just it’ solder half brother. But in the messy gene pool of heavy metal, wherein sub-genres borrow and/or are influenced by elements from its fellow genres (whether they admit it or not), I won’t be surprised if speed metal is both grandpa and older half brother to thrash.
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What Is Death Metal?
by Snake van Skull on November 29, 2011
Death Metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that gives us an idea of what the Grim Reaper would have on his iPod’s playlist. Death metal is known for its fast and breakneck speed guitars that sound very raw with their heavy distortion. While the lyrics complement this with themes that are considered taboo, not just in songs but in everyday conversation, such as wanting to rip a person’s guts out with a big ass machete, sacrifice them on the altar, and eat them for dinner.
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Depressive Black Metal: Blacker Than Black
by Snake van Skull on November 28, 2011
Fast tempos, distorted guitars, unrelenting drum beats — these characteristics can be used to describe pretty much the entire heavy metal music genre, but once you add in a healthy dose of lyrics and vocals that rage against organized religion and a smattering of brutalistic props and themes as well as raw violence, then you’re starting to move to the subgenre called black metal.
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Is There Such a Thing As Epic Metal?
by Snake van Skull on November 2, 2011
I have always wondered what the hell epic metal is. Or if there really is such as thing. I mean epic is a goddamn big word. I only refer to the most epic things as being epic. For this reason I decided to go on a quest. A quest to find out if there really is such a thing as epic metal and what it is that makes it so epic. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Many obstacles would cross my way such as differing opinions, biases, and quite frankly just good old musical preference. Let me show you what I found out about epic metal.
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What Is Black Metal?
by Snake van Skull on November 2, 2011
It would be easy to say that black metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that has often been associated with burning churches and cannibalism. But that would be the easy way of answering what black metal really means. It’s about being different therefore unwanted. But at the same time doesn’t really have the need to be accepted. This is very much what black metal is at its core. Greatly expressed through the scary costumes, the corpse makeup, the guttural vocals, the themes it explores, and the bands that play them.
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