The return of true metal

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[Brewdog]

The return of true metal


Brett Stevens, Houston Metal Music Examiner
December 26, 2011

 
Something interesting happened around 2003. At this point, the black metal community woke up and realized a couple of unsettling things.

First, they suddenly saw that since 1995, nothing much had been happening and the few good bands had been drowned out by a sea of imitators. Second, they recognized that what was replacing the "trve kvlt" black metal was a new form of music that mixed indie rock, shoegaze, emo, post-hardcore, and punk rock with black metal and death metal flavorings.

This was a counterpart to what happened in death metal around the year 2000 when "metalcore," or technical hardcore with death metal stylings, effectively replaced death metal. We now call this "technical death metal" and "melodic death metal" but it has less in common with death metal than breakaway punk bands like Neurosis and Human Remains.

Starting a few years later, the "true metal" movement was born. It exists in several genres, but has grouped heavy metal and speed metal into power metal, pushed death metal and doom metal into the same genre, and in black metal, has barely manifested itself at all. As black metal is the most popular underground metal genre perhaps ever, it will be the last to fall.
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The press is even starting to notice.

Between revivals of classic heavy metal genres and iconic bands' reunion tours, it's clear that a love of tradition still runs deep in aggressive music culture. Metalheads are infamous for their Klingon-like loyalty to the bands and styles they love; many metal heads don't just let their musical tastes inform their listening habits, but everything from their style of dress to their social circles. In 2011, many bands sought to honour these hardcore fans with tours and albums that paid tribute to, and drew inspiration from, respected genre conventions. While still outside the mainstream, aggressive music now has the strength and power of a rich musical heritage all its own, and found success in celebrating that.

The year saw many significant bands reuniting, including the recent announcement that the original Black Sabbath line-up would be writing a new album together and embarking upon a world tour. Anthrax reunited with vocalist Joey Belladonna to record a new album, and thrash's Big Four (Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax) toured together for the first time in their mutual history.

Successful genre revivals, such as thrash and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, continued to thrive. Unlike other genres, metal is not trendy, and to delve into a particular style of metal means to invest in a vast back-catalogue as well as seek out new music. Fans of NWOBHM are just as likely to be listening to old Raven LPs as they are to be enjoying the latest 3 Inches of Blood release. Albums are valued by fans for how much they adhere to the conventions of these beloved genres; to say something sounds exactly like an early example is a form of praise.

It's not so much that true metal is a genre, but a label that bands are applying to their music to say that they are not part of the newer hybrid genre, and that they want to return to the spirit that produced the great music of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. The spirit is what allows bands to create music that carries the power of older metal, say fans, and many fans suggest that the newer music has lost that spirit because it's going in another direction. Whatever the case, the true metal movement is suggesting that metal isn't just a bunch of techniques and tropes, but a gestalt that ties them all together and communicates some kind of union with power and transcendence of the human condition, while more recent metal hybrids have been all about celebrating that human condition.

It should be exciting to watch this pan out.

[Sargon the Terrible]

What a pile of uninformed garbage.

[Joseph Allen]

"'metalcore,' or technical hardcore with death metal stylings, effectively replaced death metal."
Yeah, if you were blinded and deafened by your emo hair swoop and gigantic gauges.

[Lord John]

The writer is at least correct in acknowledging the flood of poor imitators in Black Metal.  Heck, almost every genre I know of is full of really mediocre bands that are indistinguishable from one another.  Finding a new band that really excites you these days is like digging through a sewer to find a $20 note.

[Sargon the Terrible]

Ah, it's always been that way, it's just that now we have instant information and hear about so many more bands.

[metalkingdom]

That's why I personally enjoy metal critics and top 10 lists.It helps me to filter through the hundreds of releases every year.I just purchased the new Inquisition and Avichi records from researching recent end-of-year lists,and boy am I glad I did.

[Dragonchaser]

It's gotten to the point now where even good releases have a certain standard of quality that almost makes them predictable.

[ExNoctemNacimur]

Metalcore is trash.  A fusion genre of two completely different genres does not equal good music.  I, myself, just snapped my last metalcore CDs in half (they're so bad I'm not going to let someone else suffer by selling them, and I bought these about three weeks ago), thus cutting me off from the rest of the Dubai "metalhead" community.  It's true, there doesn't appear to be a lot of black metal left, and when people think (these "metalheads" that I used to hang around with) "Duh hey isn't Black Veil Brides black metal?  They got black in their name", something needs to be done, but when people here listen to the Aske EP and think that it is a load  of garbarge then some stuff is up.  Also, my death metal band had to split up due to lack of interest, it's embarrassing playing music in front of a metal club crowd featuring seven people who hate your guts, and are waiting for the nu-"metal" act that follow you  .  I think it's sad that that stuff is happening, and that interest in Dubai for true metal is dying.  At least you can get Opeth and Children of Bodom in record shops here.

Funny story - when I asked the shopkeeper to order De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas so I could buy it, he told me that he wasn't even sure the album existed.  Later, he told me that I'm the first guy in the entire country to buy that album from any record shop.  That's sad.

[ExNoctemNacimur]

Also, I just want to point out an error - there is absolutely NO SUCH THING AS TECHNICAL HARDCORE.  What is that?  The only hardcore is hardcore punk, the junky -core genres, and the melodic hardcore stuff that if I mention Sargon will ban me for mentioning punk again.  Well, there are more things, but that just about covers it.  Technical hardcore my . . . never mind.

[MetalMike]

Metalcore is trash.  A fusion genre of two completely different genres does not equal good music.  I, myself, just snapped my last metalcore CDs in half (they're so bad I'm not going to let someone else suffer by selling them, and I bought these about three weeks ago), thus cutting me off from the rest of the Dubai "metalhead" community.  It's true, there doesn't appear to be a lot of black metal left, and when people think (these "metalheads" that I used to hang around with) "Duh hey isn't Black Veil Brides black metal?  They got black in their name", something needs to be done, but when people here listen to the Aske EP and think that it is a load  of garbarge then some stuff is up.  Also, my death metal band had to split up due to lack of interest, it's embarrassing playing music in front of a metal club crowd featuring seven people who hate your guts, and are waiting for the nu-"metal" act that follow you  .  I think it's sad that that stuff is happening, and that interest in Dubai for true metal is dying.  At least you can get Opeth and Children of Bodom in record shops here.

Funny story - when I asked the shopkeeper to order De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas so I could buy it, he told me that he wasn't even sure the album existed.  Later, he told me that I'm the first guy in the entire country to buy that album from any record shop.  That's sad.

That's actually not funny.  What is funny is that a shopkeeper knows which albums have been bought by every other person at every other record store in the country.

[ExNoctemNacimur]

In the United Arab Emirates (it's not terrorist land), Virgin Megastores literally have a monopoly over all other entertainment businesses in the country.  The other six shops in the Dubai emirate have very very close ties to the megastore, so that's how the guy knew I was the first guy to purchase it

And I was being sarcastic about the funny bit.  It's really sad that I'll never find someone who likes black metal in this country, and all the guys who are like "oh yes I am into extreme undergroundy music stuff" can't even stand Opeth, which is upsetting

[bj_waters]

All of the technical faults of the original article aside, I generally agree with what he's trying to say.  I personally believe that there has been a kind of subtle revival of metal in general.  Not only are classic giants coming back together, even obscure NWOBHM bands are reuniting and doing stuff.  Then we have the handfuls of new waves, like the recent explosion of thrash over the past four or five years, as well as other new bands trying to sound like traditional heavy metal.  Some of this might have to do with the fact that I've been into metal about five years, but I really think that it's slowly been growing bigger, and not in a "becoming mainstream" way.  I think a lot of it has to do with the internet obviously, but I think that the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games were catalysts as well.  I don't know, really, but I've been having this feeling that it's getting bigger somehow.  Maybe it's because all of the underground communities reach out to each other, it just feels big without it being Lady Gaga or whatever.