Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emphasis on atmosphere. Artists often appear in corpse paint and adopt pseudonyms.
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, featuring double kick and blast beat techniques; minor keys or atonality; abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes; and chromatic chord progressions. The lyrical themes of death metal may include slasher film-style violence, political conflict, religion, nature, philosophy, true crime and science fiction.
Manowar is an American heavy metal band from Auburn, New York. Formed in 1980, the group is known for lyrics based on fantasy and mythology, as well as numerous songs celebrating the genre and its core audience. The band is also known for a loud and emphatic sound. In an interview for MTV in February 2007, bassist Joey DeMaio lamented that "these days, there's a real lack of big, epic metal that is drenched with crushing guitars and choirs and orchestras... so it's nice to be one of the few bands that's actually doing that". In 1984, the band was included in the Guinness Book of World Records for delivering the loudest performance, a record which they have since broken on two occasions. They also hold the world record for the longest heavy metal concert after playing for five hours and 1 minute in Bulgaria in 2008. They also have been known for their slogan "Death to false metal".
Progressive metal is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified guitar-driven sound of the former with the more experimental, cerebral or quasi-classical compositions of the latter.
HammerFall is a Swedish power metal band from Gothenburg. The band was formed in 1993 by ex-Ceremonial Oath guitarist Oscar Dronjak.
Cradle of Filth are an English extreme metal band formed in Suffolk in 1991. The band's musical style evolved originally from black metal to a cleaner and more "produced" amalgam of gothic metal, symphonic metal and other metal genres. Their lyrical themes and imagery are heavily influenced by Gothic literature, poetry, mythology and horror films. The band consists of its founding member, vocalist Dani Filth, drummer Martin 'Marthus' Škaroupka, bassist Daniel Firth, guitarists Marek 'Ashok' Šmerda and Donny Burbage, and keyboardist Zoe Marie Federoff.
A number of heavy metal genres have developed since the emergence of heavy metal during the late 1960s and early 1970s. At times, heavy metal genres may overlap or are difficult to distinguish, but they can be identified by a number of traits. They may differ in terms of instrumentation, tempo, song structure, vocal style, lyrics, guitar playing style, drumming style, and so on.
At the Gates is a Swedish death metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1990. The band was a major progenitor of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal alongside In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. Prior to their first disbandment in 1996, At the Gates released four albums, ending with and including Slaughter of the Soul (1995), which has been seen as a landmark in the mid-1990s Swedish death metal scene as well as being a major inspiration for many metalcore bands. After reuniting for a one-off tour in 2008, the band reformed once again in 2011, and they have since released three more albums: At War with Reality (2014), To Drink from the Night Itself (2018) and The Nightmare of Being (2021).
Extreme metal is a loosely defined umbrella term for a number of related heavy metal music subgenres that have developed since the early 1980s. It has been defined as a "cluster of metal subgenres characterized by sonic, verbal, and visual transgression".
Midnight Syndicate is an American musical duo that has been working primarily in the genre of neoclassical dark ambient music since 1997 and is based in Chardon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
Amon Amarth are a Swedish melodic death metal band from Tumba, formed in 1992. The band take its name from the Sindarin name of Mount Doom, a volcano in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Their lyrics mostly deal with Viking mythology and history, and so they have been sometimes erroneously labeled "Viking metal", although the band prefers the term melodic death metal.
Storm of the Light's Bane is the second full-length album by Swedish black metal band Dissection. It was released on 17 November 1995 by Nuclear Blast. This would be the band's last full-length album before frontman Jon Nödtveidt's 1997 incarceration for the felony murder of Josef ben Meddour. It would not be until 2006 that they would release their third and final album Reinkaos, which was followed by the breakup of the band and Nödtveidt's suicide shortly after. As with the band's debut album, Kristian 'Necrolord' Wåhlin created the artwork.
Blackened death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal that fuses elements of black metal and death metal.
Terrorizer was an extreme music magazine published by Dark Arts Ltd. in the United Kingdom. It was released every four weeks with thirteen issues a year and featured a "Fear Candy" covermount CD, a twice yearly "Fear Candy Unsigned" CD, and a double-sided poster.
Melodic metalcore is a fusion genre, incorporating elements of melodic death metal and metalcore; it has a heavy emphasis on melodic instrumentation, distorted guitar tones, palm muting, double bass drumming, blast beats, metalcore-stylized breakdowns, and vocals that range from aggressive screaming and death growls to clean singing. The genre has seen commercial success for employing a more accessible sound at times compared to other forms of extreme music. Many notable melodic metalcore bands have been influenced by At the Gates and In Flames.
Silent Images is a Malmö-based, Swedish progressive death metal/thrash metal band, and is notable for being the sole extreme metal act from Sweden that solely encompasses musicians of foreign backgrounds, namely Argentina, Bolivia and Singapore. The members’ distinctively broad experiences in Rock, Metal, Jazz and Latin have proved invaluable in adding a unique taste to the band’s sound.
Dungeon synth is a genre of electronic music that merges elements of black metal and dark ambient. The style emerged in the early 1990s, predominantly among members of the second wave black metal scene.
Orbit Culture is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Eksjö, formed in 2013. The band includes vocalist/guitarist Niklas Karlsson, guitarist Richard Hansson, bassist Fredrik Lennartsson, and drummer Christopher Wallerstedt. Former band members are lead guitarist Maximilian Zinsmeister, bassist Christoffer Olsson and drummer Markus Bladh. The band has released four studio albums and four EPs.
