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THE CURIOSITY GUIDE TO AND CULTURE

LACEY ARTEMIS The Art and Culture of Heavy Metal Music aka “I had no idea there was so much more to metal than horns and headbanging!”

\m/

When you ask most people what kind of music they like, they will often say "anything but country, rap, or metal". Sometimes it's just the first two, but there's no denying that metal isn't very popular either.

When I say "metal" I generally mean "music that is heavier than Rock 'n' Roll". Often quite a bit more so. This is obviously subjective (and based on my personal discretion), so not everyone will agree. Depending on when you were born, your definition of what “counts” as heavy or metal can even vary wildly. There's also the issue that older bands won't be as literally 'heavy' on a sonic level, compared to current bands, whether because of production techniques or equipment available at the time, or just modern bands down-tuning several steps.

Most people are generally either "born liking it" or might grow into it later. I kind of fell into it by accident, and figured out that there were elements I naturally liked, and elements I didn't. Many people say that "metal is an acquired taste" and "if it wasn't for the vocals I could enjoy it, but I don't want a guy screaming in my ear". I tend to agree.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

While I am a "metalhead", I mostly enjoy more melodic music. I don't like music super heavy all the time, and I certainly don't like it super light all the time. I found my niche in the under- serviced pocket between and . Some of my favourite bands include: ISIS, Textures, The Ocean, Anup Sastry, (pre-Heritage) , , and Chevelle.

I've made a point to try and find more heavy music without those harsh vocals, and with more melody, so with any luck, my in between preferences will help you find some new bands/songs that you can add to your collection. I will confess that all recommendations in this book are based on my personal music library, so if anything seems inexplicably omitted, it's probably because I'm not familiar with it.

The book breaks down as follows:

Part 1: The Sound Style(s) Part 2: The Visual Style(s) Part 3: The Culture (including covers and parodies) Part 4: Recommendations

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Table of Contents

The Sound(s) Pg 05 The Style(s) Pg 11 The Culture Pg 17 Parodies and Mashups Pg 20 Cover Songs Pg 29 Metal Humour in the Age of the Meme Pg 32 Recommendations (Part 1 - more general) Pg 39 Recommendations (Part 2 - more nitty gritty) Pg 44

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Part 1: The Sound

So if you’re not familiar with metal, I’m going to have to define some terms. I’m mainly going to be focusing on a couple of styles (my favourites) but it might help the uninitiated to see a more comprehensive map:

An incomplete map of metal and it’s various subgenres. Metal has cross-pollinated with virtually every main genre of music in one way or another.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

The Three Overarching Categories I Funnel My Metal Into

Melodic Metal - Tends to be more moderate to fast tempo, punchy, not overly technical, heavy with deep groove, but still melodic. This subgenre is typically the closest that metal gets to being "pop", or radio-friendly. Incorporates sub-genres like Metal, , , and more mainstream metal.

For reference points, here are some well-known metal bands and how they fit:

Metallica is considered "Thrash" metal. is considered "Death" Metal. could be called "Power" Metal.

Post Metal - Tends to be slow to moderate tempo, with a focus on sonic depth. Often instrumental or sparse vocals, usually more simplistic instrumentation. This category incorporates genres like "Doom" and "Stoner" metal.

Black Sabbath would be Doom/Stoner metal.

Progressive Metal - Often more up tempo, more technical, but still melodic and heavy (ie not noodley). Non-standard time signatures, instruments with extra strings. Prog, , Industrial, etc.

Rush is proggy, but prog can get way heavier than Rush! could be called loosely "", though more accurately /.

These are the 3 main categories that I slot music into for my own purposes.

Despite being a "metalhead" there are a lot of popular metal bands/genres that I don't personally care for, and so they won't really be represented in this book.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Here’s an example of modern Post Metal, from the band Pelican.

Despite liking metal (which most people associate with dissonant, chaotic noise), melody is really important to me. I like melody, and I really like melodic heaviness. What do I mean by that?

For example, Chevelle is a band I highly regard for achieving this balance (particularly on their first few ). They downtune their instruments a few steps lower (despite lead vocalist Pete Loeffler’s higher pitched ), which is not uncommon for modern metal bands (either downtuning or using 7 or 8 string guitars).

They also use what I’ve learned is called a “scoop” EQ, meaning bass and treble kept in and mids “scooped out”. This makes it really punchy and clear (to my ears at least), compared to a lot of typical production which to me feels weakened by mid range muddiness. With Chevelle, the guitars snarl and you can feel the palm mutes.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Here is an example with everything — guitar snarl, deep bass, melody, and heaviness:

Some purists think it’s wrong to down-tune. There’s a refrain of “if you can’t be heavy in standard tuning, then you suck at being heavy”, but I don’t agree.

For one thing, singers all have different ranges and some singers can sing better in keys like A or B. So tuning down to one of these makes sense, and if you like heavy music too, it’s just a bonus. You’re certainly not going to tune UP. Of course some bands do down-tune just to be heavier without needing it for their singer, but that’s not every band.

I’ll talk about some more examples of melodic heaviness, but first here’s some additional background.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

There’s this subgenre called “Djent” (pronounced "Jent" with a hard J ).

It kind of started as a random made up label that stuck. But those who like it and follow the Progressive Metal world will know what you’re talking about. For a bit of a history lesson: “How invented Djent, and Periphery perfected it”.

Djent is right up my alley. Technical, but not overly noodley/weedily, heavy but still melodic, and with clean, tight, punchy production. Often played on 7 or 8 string guitars, so good low end too.

If you want to get an idea of the sound, here’s one of my favourites:

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Let’s look at one more example, perhaps the epitome. Meshuggah, a band who have changed their style over time from more muddy Thrash Metal roots to their current heavy Djent sound that often slows down to hit you extra hard.

Pay attention to the first 2 minutes particularly:

Admittedly even I am not a big fan of the vocals with Meshuggah. I can only imagine what they’d sound like with good clean singing.

Speaking of which, much like there is a contingent of diehard “Djent” fans, there is also a diehard contingent of “harsh vox” fans, and there is even a website (called “No Clean Singing”) for these fans. You won’t find me on that site, but I want to acknowledge it exists, you know, for the purists.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Part 2: The Style(s)

What do you think when you think of a “metalhead”?

My relationship to music has changed over the years. When I was younger, I was definitely listening to music much more than I do now.

Here is me from a past life:

I first got into music originally around 1996/1997 and have joked that to me, that’s basically the cut off point for music I tended to be able to enjoy easily. Anything recorded in ‘95 or since. Anything before that was generally either too slow tempo wise or the production was too rough (even if it was high quality for the time).

I kind of missed out on the trend, and I always felt Nirvana was overrated anyway. My entry into music (and beginning to develop my own tastes) was and hard rock, bands like Finger Eleven, I Mother Earth, Our Lady Peace (the late 90s Canadian Alt-Rock Trifecta).

The funny thing is, when I heard actual honest-to-goodness heavy metal for the first time, I didn’t like it. Mainly because of the vocals, which is the same reason most non-fans don’t like it.

I think one of the first truly “modern metal” albums I ever listened to in its entirety was ’s “Toxicity”. I remember hearing a leaked copy and being really turned off, both by how intense it was, and by the vocals. But eventually I converted and even graduated into next level metal bands (like and Opeth).

Even as a metal fan, I’m not typical. I don’t enjoy every genre and thus I don’t enjoy many of the most “popular” metal bands (such as Slayer, Sabbath, , ). I respect them, but I don’t really listen to them.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

I liked how metal sounded (still do!), but I also liked how a few bands really dug into the visual aspect of the idea. Probably my favourite in that regard was Mudvayne:

Mudvayne, , and Slipknot were all bands similarly known for a highly visual style, that they changed somewhat from to album. I loved the look of Mudvayne’s leader singer (Chad Grey) the most, because at the time blue was my favourite colour, and I was fascinated by his long blue goatee.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Mushroomhead

One of Slipknot’s many incarnations.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Some more artists/musicians whose visual style caught my attention (you might notice a trend):

Christina Scabbia, , Alissa White-Gluz, (RIP), Dominic Cifarelli

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Of course Metal has many more visual styles across genres. Here's a tongue-in-cheek graphical representation.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Metal has gone through several phases, and metal has intermingled with pretty much every other main genre too, leading to some interesting visuals. Some metal albums look very obviously like metal albums, but some don’t.

Here’s a collection of metal album covers that I don’t think necessarily “this is a heavy record”:

Whether it’s Pop Metal, Country (Southern) Metal, Industrial Metal, , Punk Metal (hardcore) or some other strange hybrid, there’s always something to look at with extreme music bands. Often both in their actual appearance, and in their album artwork or stage designs.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Part 3: The Culture

It’s a universal truth, everyone is a little different and something about them will surprise you. All different kinds of people come and create the art they feel inside regardless of how they look on the outside.

Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Tom Araya (Slayer), (), Abbath (Immortal)

Metal isn’t just about how it sounds — that’s obviously a draw — but there’s a lot more to it.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

The documentary “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” covers this aspect, trying to explain why metal heads love their muse (and was followed up by “Global Metal”, which asked metal fans around the globe the same question).

[for lots more documentaries about various shades and stripes of heavy metal, go here]

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Of course, ask 10 metal heads why they like metal/what they like about it and you might get some similar answers, but probably several different ones.

This ebook is my attempt to answer the question for myself somewhat — why do I like metal? Even though I very minimally participate in the culture, I do appreciate certain aspects of it.

People have been surprised to learn that I like metal because I’m a fairly quiet, non-aggressive person, I don’t even swear all that much. But of course, volume, aggression, and swearing are not prerequisites to be a fan of anything.

Here’s another accurate take on the matter:

“I love metal heads, when I mention metal people go crazy because you have to give it up. You never see someone with their shirt off screaming “R&B!” Metal heads are different from any other fan of music. We have like our own symbol [the devil horns hand sign) that means metal. You just [show] that to another metal head and they’re like ‘Indeed.’” -Brian Posehn

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Metal Parodies, Mash Ups, and Covers

Speaking of Brian Posehn, he has a song (co-written by of Anthrax) called “Metal By Numbers” which is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of a string of bands that got popular by writing “cookie cutter metal”.

He also has 2 other related songs: “More Metal Than You”, which is along the lines of the above, and also a metal cover of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Here’s an example of metal parodying itself, via a by :

Remember Mushroomhead from before? Well the band Broken Social Scene decided to poke fun at them in this music video:

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

There are lots of subgenres of metal, some are kind of ridiculous.

Here’s an extremely tongue-in-cheek demonstration of different metal vocal styles (some are not real).

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Metal is known for being an aggressive, and often "angry" style of music, including lyrically.

So what happens when you "soften" metal lyrics? What if there was a way to convert metal lyrics into a polite version? Well, someone has kind of done that.

Meet the Tumblr Blog "Polite Metal Lyrics". It hasn't been updated in a while, but there are many entries to enjoy even so.

Some examples:

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Did you know there was a cartoon about a fictional metal band? Meet : — a cartoon that covers a lot of metal stereotypes and tropes.

Each member of the band is inspired by a real life Metal musician.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Speaking of fictional bands (sort of) there’s a Finnish children’s metal band made up of people in Dinosaur outfits. Yes, really. They’re called — wait for it — Hevisaurus.

Speaking of puppets, famed metaller Devin “Hevy Devy” Townsend created not only a character (Ziltoid the Omniscient), but also a around that character.

Like I said, some metal heads totally get how silly it is and yuck it up.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Mashups

Aside from when metal musicians choose to cross genres, some keen fans have taken it upon themselves to do it another way — by creating mashups.

One of the best is “Psychosocial Baby”, a mashup between Slipknot and… Justin Bieber. You might be surprised how well it works, especially the chorus!

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

This one is eerily creepy (and good). Two artists you would definitely never expect to hear anywhere within the vicinity of each other — Meshuggah and Lady Gaga with “Bleedarazzi”.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Covers

There’s a band from called Hellsongs. They’re an indie-pop band and they do nothing but indie-pop covers of classic (and some more modern) metal songs. I’ve never been very big on indie pop, but I have to say I really like what they do.

My personal top 5 Hellsongs songs are: 1. Walk () 2. Heaven Can Wait (Iron Maiden) 3. The Evil That Men Do (Iron Maiden) 4. Paranoid () 5. Jump ()

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Their cover of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid never fails to take my breath away in a hauntingly somber way.

Speaking of covers, there’s plenty of those, both by metal bands, and *of* metal songs by non- metal bands. Here are some you can find on to check out, but of course there are many, many more.

Metal covers of non-metal songs

Botch — Rock Lobster (B-52s cover) Disturbed — Shout 2000 (Tears for Fears cover) — Cars (Gary Numan cover) Graveworm — Losing My Religion (REM cover) — West End Girls (Pet Shop Boys cover) — ( cover) Marliyn Manson — Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics cover) Nevermore — (Simon and Garfunkel cover) — Careless Whisper (George Michaels/WHAM cover) Slayer — Inna Godda Davida (Iron Butterfly cover) — The Final Countdown ( cover)

Non-metal covers of metal songs

Andy Rehfeldt — In Your Words (Lamb of God cover — version) The Cardigans — Iron Man (Black Sabbath cover) Emma’s Imagination — Change (in the house of flies) — cover Hellsongs — Entire Discography The Lounge Kittens — Duality (Slipknot cover), Bounce (System of a Down cover), Rollin (Limp Bizkit cover) Luna Lee — Enter Sandman (Metallica cover), played on a Gayageum Mambo Kurt — Engel ( cover) Mardan Music — Trust ( cover) Richard Cheese — Down with (Disturbed), Chop Suey (System of a Down) — Raining Blood (Slayer cover) “Weird Al” Yankovic — The Angry White Boy Polka (covers of various “nu-metal” songs)

(You can also find a lot of other covers by googling “metal song covers”, though admittedly there you’re more likely to get metal versions than covers *of* metal)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

More Covers & Homages

Then there are a few artists who perform covers or homages, that sometimes include metal songs:

Apocalyptica — all cello covers A.V. Club Undercover — various songs Dan Elias-Brevig — aCapella covers Drewcif Stalin — metal covers of various pop songs The Lounge Kittens — have covered a few rock/metal songs Luna Lee — covers of various songs on a Gayageum (traditional Korean instrument) Postmodern Jukebox — lounge/pop covers of various songs Rockabye Baby Saxophone covers — Various artists, various songs Two Cellos (2Cellos) — cello only covers of various songs The Violution — electric violin covers of rock/metal songs VKgoeswild — piano covers

For more, go here.

I hope you’ve come to have a better appreciation for this rough around the edges but still totally goofy at heart style of art. Maybe you just found a few new non-metal cover songs that you dig!

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Metal Humour in the Age of the Meme

Some people do take things too seriously, but many of us recognize the silliness of the forced extremity of Metal.

So Metalheads tend to like heavy music, that’s kind of the point, right? But it can admittedly get silly. To round out the culture section, here’s some metal nerd humour:

The lowest note on a standard tuned 8 string guitar is an F#, which is an octave and a half below middle C.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Scandinavia is well known for their metal, giving way to these jokes:

Scandinavia is known for producing a large amount of .

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Perhaps unless you’re really high and it’s Stoner Metal. That stuff ain’t fast.

Doom/Stoner/Post/ has a reputation for having songs that are *minimum* 10–12 minutes long, there are in fact single songs that are 30–60 minutes long.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

This next one is a pretty inside joke — Black Metal bands are known for their illegible/indecipherable logos. In fact, heavy metal news/satirical fansite MetalSucks.net even has a regular feature — “Completely Unreadable Band Logo of the Week” which primarily features black metal band logos. Here are some examples — there are all actual band logos.

You can probably read at least one, but most of them… good luck!

Which led to this:

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Speaking of genre specific inside jokes:

(no, that is not a real genre)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Recommendations Part 1

Here is my personal 9 favourite metal albums of all time (in alphabetical order):

Anup Sastry Ghost Djent/Progressive Chevelle This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In Melodic/Groove Fables From a Mayfly Melodic/Groove ISIS (no relation to the terror cell) In the Absense of Truth Post Metal Mudvayne L.D. 50 Melodic/Groove The Ocean Precambrian Prog/Post Metal Textures Silhouettes Prog/Groove Portal (not the black metal one) Blood Red Tape Prog/Post Metal The Postman Syndrome Terraforming Prog/Post Metal

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Here’s a playlist of songs I made specifically for this article, for you to check out if you want to try and find a few new bands/songs to get into. It’s not “slow burn” this time, but not all of these songs are fast/super heavy either. This playlist is 99% clean vocals (or vocal-less). Obviously based around my tastes so there are lots of songs that could be on this list if I was more familiar with more genres.

Artist Song Vox Style Aghora Moksha Clean Anthrax I'm Clean Cherri Bomb Raw, Real Clean Chevelle Mixture Cloudkicker The Discovery No vox Tyler's Song Clean Deftones Minerva Clean Clean Devin Townsend Project Supercrush! Clean Disturbed Remember Clean Neither Here nor Missed Mixture Era For a Moment The Fire Clean Going Under Clean Flaw Whole Clean Ghost Brigade Into the Black Light Clean Cloud Connected Clean Clean Intervals Atlas Hour Clean Chrome Clean Khoma Stop Making Speeches Clean Kittie Everything That Could Have Been Clean Lacuna Coil Trip the Darkness Clean Mudvayne Clean Mushroomhead One More Day Clean Nevermore We Disintegrate Clean The Ocean Statherian Clean Opeth The Drapery Falls Mostly Clean Pulse Ultra Build Your Cages Clean Scarlet Sins Let Go Clean Sevendust Clean System of a Down Science Mixture Textures Reaching Home Clean

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

"Slow burn" Playlist. These songs are slower, or take time to build up to the moment where the dam bursts. Ordered alphabetically by artist.

Artist Song Vox Style Anup Sastry Free Fall No vox As I Lay Dying I Never Wanted Mixture Benea Reach Reason Mostly clean Chevelle An Evening with El Diablo Clean The Chronicles of Israfel Laudanum Clean Cloudkicker Ever Thus to Deadbeats No vox Dry Kill Logic Neither Here Nor Missed Clean Empire Shall Fall Awaken Mixture Flaw Best I Am Clean Ghost Brigade Into the Black Light Clean Mistakes Clean If These Trees Could Talk Smoke Stacks No vox In This Moment The Dream Clean ISIS So Did We Mixture Katatonia I Transpire Clean Mixture Kittie In Winter Clean Lacuna Coil My Spirit Clean Made Out of Babies The Major Mostly clean Meshuggah Lethargica Harsh Mudvayne Clean Mushroomhead Our Own Way Clean Nevermore Insignificant Clean The Ocean Orosirian Harsh Opeth A Fair Judgement Clean Pelican Pelican No vox Poison the Well Meeting Again for the First Time Mixture The Postman Syndrome Interpretive Decorating Mostly clean Sevendust Live Again Clean Sinch The Silent Acquiescence of Millions Clean Slipknot Clean Fade Clean Static-X The Trance is the Motion Mixture System of a Down Mr. Jack Mixture Textures Messengers Mostly clean Zozobra Caldera No vox

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Women Behind the Mic

Here's a list dedicated to female singers. It's not all specifically by metal bands, but a lot of these bands are on the harder/darker side of rock. Selections range from soft to harsh.

Artist Song Vox Style Johnny Hollow Nova Heart Clean (Janine White)

The Gathering These Good People Clean ()

Hellsongs Walk Clean (Harriet Ohlsson)

Devin Townsend Project Bend it Like Bender Clean (Anneke van Giersbergen)

Dirty Little Rabbits Hello Clean (Stella Katsoudas)

Poe Haunted Clean (Anne Danielewski)

Rayna Descent Clean

Dead Sara Test on My Patience Clean (Emily Armstrong)

In This Moment Her Kiss Mostly clean ()

Stolen Babies So Close Clean (Dominique Lenore Persi)

Chelsea Wolfe Carrion Flowers Clean

Garbage Push It Clean (Shirley Manson)

Tapping the Vein Butterfly Clean (Heather Thompson)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Made out of Babies Buffalo Mixture ()

Scarling City Noise Clean ()

Die Mannequin Do It Or Die Clean ("Care Failure" / Caroline Kawa)

Guano Apes Maria Clean (Sandra Nasic)

Cherri Bomb Raw, Real Clean (Julia Pierce)

Skunk Anansie Selling Jesus Clean ("Skin" / Deborah Dyer)

Delain Invidia Clean ()

Lacuna Coil Clean ()

Auf Der Maur Followed the Waves Clean (Melissa Auf Der Maur)

Senser Adrenaline Clean (Kerstin Haigh)

Flyleaf I'm So Sick Clean (Lacey Sturm)

Era for a Moment The Fire Clean (Shelby Carcio)

Aghora Atmas Heave Clean (Diana Serra)

Kittie In Winter Clean (Morgan Lander) Mares of Thrace Mandible Harsh (Therese Lanz)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Recommendations Part 2 - More Nitty Gritty

For this section I'm using the very loose rating scale:

* Limited clean vocals but really good and vocals/music worth it in the end (IMO) ** Roughly half the singing is clean *** Most of the vocals are clean (~75%), with some screaming or growling at times **** All singing is clean with the possible rare exception / non-prominent bit [IMO = in my opinion]

The way I've chosen to lay this for example:

Band Rating Albums of note Associated acts Opeth **

So Opeth is given a rating of **, because roughly half the vocals in their music are clean. I would include them in this guide because significant portions of their music are quite melodic with good singing. You just have to find the songs with those clean parts.

Band Rating Albums of note Associated acts Lacuna Coil * ****

Another example would be Lacuna Coil, who would get a rating of **** because there is essentially no screaming or growling in their music. They could be considered "heavy alternative", but they are commonly designated as "".

An * next to a band or song denotes female vocals (which aren't very common in heavy music, but I seek them out)

A lowercase i in brackets next to an artist name denotes that the band (or album) are instrumental.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Melodic Metal

Categorized as: mid-high tempo, heavy but melodic, usually not overly technical.

Band Rating Album(s) of Note Associated Acts (RIP) ** Invitation to the dance * ** Self-Titled, The Nexus As I Lay Dying ** An Ocean Between Us BoyHitsCar *** Self-Titled * Sempiternal, There is a hell believe me I've seen it

Chevelle *** This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In, **** Termination Bliss, Night Electric Night Deftones *** Addicted Palms Delain * **** April Rain Devin Townsend *** , Ziltoid Disturbed *** The Sickness The Empire Shall Fall ** Killswitch Engage Era for a Moment * **** Realize Fair to Midland *** Arrows and Anchors Flaw *** Through the Eyes Ghost Brigade ** Guided by Fire Hail the Villain (RIP) *** Population: Declining In This Moment * ** Beautiful Tragedy (harder) The Dream (poppier) Katatonia *** The Great Cold Distance Killswitch Engage ** The End of Heartache The Empire Shall Fall Kittie * ** Until the End, Funeral for Yesterday ** Kypck ("Kursk") ** Cherno Lacuna Coil * **** Karmacode, Lamb of God ** Wrath Mudvayne ** L.D.50, Lost and Found

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Mushroomhead ** XX, XIII Nevermore ** Dead Heart in a Dead World, , Onesidezero *** Is this room getting smaller? Poison the Well ** You Come Before You *** Tonight the stars revolt! Pulse Ultra **** Headspace Sevendust *** Home, Animosity Call Me No One Slipknot ** ** The Ride Majestic System of a Down ** Toxicity, Steal this Album Scars on Broadway, Serart Torche **** Meanderthal Warrel Dane **** Praises to the Warmachine Nevermore Zozobra * Harmonic Tremors, Bird of Prey

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

"Post Metal" (Doom/Stoner)

Categorized as slow to mid tempo, more experimental but not overly technical, typically sparse vocals. A focus on sonic depth.

Band Rating Album(s) of Note Associated Acts Author and Punisher (i) **** Drone Machines Ghost Brigade ** Guided by Fire If these trees could talk (i) **** Self-Titled ** Valley of Smoke Irepress (i) **** Sol Eye Sea I ISIS ** Panopticon, In the Absence of Palms Truth Julie Christmas * ** The Bad Wife Made out of Babies Kypck ("Kursk") ** Cherno Made out of Babies (RIP) ** The Ruiner Julie Christmas * The Mire ** Volume II November's Doom ** The Novella Reservoir Opeth ** Blackwater Park Palms *** Self-Titled Deftones Pelican (i) **** Australasia

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Progressive/Technical Metal

Typically mid to high tempo, intricate instrumentation, technical prowess, non-standard time signatures. Focused experimentation.

Band Rating Album(s) of Note Associated Acts Aghora (RIP) **** Formless Amaranthe * ** Self-Titled, The Nexus Anup Sastry (i) **** Ghost Skyharbor Benea Reach * Alleviat Beyon-D-Lusion (RIP) * **** Intuispection The Chronicles of Israfel **** Starborn: Tome I Pulse Ultra Cloudkicker (i) **** The Discovery, The Map is Not the Territory Deely (i) **** Unframed Disillusion *** Gloria Disturbed *** The Sickness The Empire Shall Fall ** Killswitch Engage Fair to Midland *** Arrows and Anchors Jeff Loomis (i) **** Zero Order Phase Nevermore **** Themata Killswitch Engage ** The End of Heartache This Empire Shall Fall Lamb of God * Wrath Nevermore *** Jeff Loomis, Warrel Dane Onesidezero *** Is this room getting smaller? The Ocean Collective ** Precambrian Periphery ** Self-Titled has an instrumental version Pomegranate Tiger (i) **** Entities The Postman Syndrome *** Terraforming ** Grind the Ocean Sinch *** Self-titled Skyharbor **** Guiding Lights Anup Sastry Static-X ** Wisconsin Death Trip, Start a Pighammer War Stemage (i) **** Instrumental Metroid game music covers TesseracT **** One

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TesseracT Altered State (has an instrumental version) Textures ** Silhouettes, Duality Tool **** Tre Watson (i) **** Lexicon of the Human Subconscious Walking Across Jupiter (i) **** Scent Zu (i) **** Carboniferous

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Instrumental Metal

Sometimes you just want to put on a jam and get some work done, you're not looking to karaoke. When that time comes, here are your choices.

Band Style Album(s) of Note Anup Sastry Prog Ghost Author and Punisher Stoner/Doom Cloudkicker Melodic/Prog The Discovery, The Map is Not the Territory Deely Prog Unframed If these trees could talk Melodic Self titled Irepress Sonter/Doom Sol Eye Sea I Jeff Loomis Prog Zero Order Phase Pelican Stoner/Doom Australasia Periphery Prog Self-Titled album also released instrumentally Pomegranate Tiger Prog Entities Stemage Prog Tesseract Prog Altered State (instrumental version) Tre Watson Prog Lexicon of the Human Subconscious Walking Across Jupiter Prog Scent Zu Prog Carboniferous

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Song Recommendations * = female vocals Band Song Album Aghora * Atmas Heave Formless Moksha Formless Tempting Time Self-Titled Ka$cade Anup Sastry Freefall Lion Limitless Ghost As I Lay Dying I Never Wanted An Ocean Between Us BoyHitsCar I'm a Cloud Self-Titled Chevelle Saferwaters Vena Sera The Clincher This type of thinking... The Chronicles of Israfel Starborn Part III: On a forever road Starborn: Tome I Cloudkicker The Discovery The Discovery Ever thus to deadbeats The map is not the territory Seattle Fade DeathStars Blitzkrieg Termination Bliss Deftones Digital Bath, Minerva, Diamond From different albums Eyes, Cherry Waves Delain * Invidia April Rain Devin Townsend Supercrush! * Addicted! Disturbed The Sickness Remember Believe The Empire Shall Fall Awaken, Voices as Weapons Volume I Era for a Moment * The Fire, Calling You Realize Fair to Midland Golden Parachutes Arrows and Anchors Tall tales taste like sour grapes Fables of a Mayfly Flaw Only the Strong Through the Eyes Ghost Brigade Into the Blacklight Isolation Songs Rails at the River Guided by Fire Hail the Villain Mission Control Population: Declining Intronaut Above Valley of Smoke In This Moment * Beautiful Tragedy Beautiful Tragedy Her Kiss The Dream ISIS In Fiction Panopticon Holy Tears In the Absence of Truth

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Karnivool Themata Themata Katatonia Soil's Song The Great Cold Distance Chrome Last fair deal gone down Killswitch Engage The End of Heartache The End of Heartache My Last Serenade Alive or Just Breathing Kittie * Until the End Until the End Funeral for Yesterday Funeral for Yesterday In Winter Oracle Korn Freak on a Leash Follow the Leader Here to Stay Lacuna Coil * Our Truth Karmacode (cover) Karmacode Made out of Babies * The Major The Ruiner Mudvayne Happy? Lost and Found Fall into sleep Lost and Found Mushroomhead Nowhere to Go XIII The New Cult King XX Nevermore The Heart Collector Dead heart in a dead world Final Product This godless endeavor The Ocean Collective Statherian Precambrian/Proterozoic Firmament Heliocentric Onesidezero Tapwater Is this room getting smaller? Opeth The Drapery Falls Blackwater Park A Fair Judgment Deliverance Palms Future Warrior Self-Titled Poison the Well Meeting again for the first time You come before you The Realist You come before you Pelican Drought Australasia Angel Tears Australasia Periphery Racecar Periphery Pomegranate Tiger Stars Entities The Postman Syndrome Unfamiliar Ceiling Terraforming Interpretive Decorating Terraforming Powerman 5000 The Son of X-51 Tonight the Stars Revolt Pulse Ultra Build Your Cages Headspace Sevendust Trust Animosity Licking Cream * Home

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

Sinch Tabula Rasa Self-Titled The Silent Acquiescence of Millions Slipknot Left Behind, Duality, Dead Different albums Memories Static-X Cold Machine My Damnation System of a Down Forest Toxicity Streamline Steal this Album TesseracT Proxy Altered State (instrumental v) Lament One Textures Awake Silhouettes Messengers Silhouettes Reaching Home Duality Tool Lateralus Lateralus Aenima Walking Across Jupiter Right to Life Scent Warrel Dane Lucretia my reflection Zozobra Levitator Harmonic Tremors Zu Carbon/Beata Viscera Carboniferous

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

And there you have it.

I hope you've now gained a better understanding and appreciation of metal culture, and maybe even found some new music to enjoy!

If you enjoyed this guide, please consider checking out some of my other guides at www.curiosityguides.com.

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)

About the Author

Lacey Artemis is a perpetually curious, creatively inclined social introvert and morning person. She founded the Curiosity Guides Series in 2015.

Aside from writing, Lacey is also an artist, musician, photographer, model, and more.

Her other interests include hockey, riding her bike, video and board games, and coming up with creative DIY solutions to random problems.

Lacey currently lives in Toronto, Canada.

You can find her online at: https://www.artemiscreates.com https://www.twitter.com/artemis_creates https://www.instagram.com/artemis_creates

The Curiosity Guide to Heavy Metal Music and Culture (www.curosityguides.com)