Metal
Introduction
To define metal is a very difficult task, as it is a very wide and vast genre. This particular site will focus on what I consider to be “true” metal, metal that contains ideals, passion and extremity. Metal’s main ideal relates to nihilism, and with that there are many interpretations of it.
Death Metal
Death metal is a style of metal based on rhythm and percussive, rigid texture. It is generally based on atonal or jazz aesthetics, with blistering speed, low guttural vocals, tremelo picking, and blasting drums. Death metal assures us that that the end is here, and gives us the utmost instrumental technicality while delivering death-inspired messages of nihilism.
Black Metal
Black metal relies on streams of melody and progressions to create minimal, cold and nihilistic atmospheres while assuring us that Christ died for his own sins. Black metal is based on the occult, and is occult in itself. It is aesthetically classical, vocals are screamed, and again it is tremelo picked with blasting drums. While as extreme as death metal, black metal achieves thoughts of nihilism in a much more advance way, and is instrumentally simpler than its death metal counterpart.
Thrash Metal
When fans of heavy metal took the speed and attitude of punk and fused the two together, speed/thrash metal was born. Thrash warns us that the demise of the earth approaches in times of nuclear war, and assaults us with fast tempos and brilliant riffs. Thrash is the basis of all extreme metal today.
Grindcore
The to-the-point attitude of hardcore mixed with aggressive metallic styling of thrash produced grindcore. Grindcore songs are short compositions that blast and literally grind. Politics are generally at the forefront of grindcore, and musically it counters death metal in terms of extremity. Grindcore, however, uses only what is needed to get the point across.
Heavy Metal
The original form of metal, heavy metal started with Black Sabbath, and everything since has essentially been a derivative of them. The heavy metal movement really picked up in the late 70s and made a lasting impression in the 80s. While it is easily the most accessable style of true metal, it captures the essence of metal with it's heavy grooves and hellish aesthetics.
Doom Metal
When heavy metal was starting to evolve into new styles, it had two intial paths - go faster like speed/thrash metal did, or slow down like doom metal did. Doom metal impends on the listener with a massive graviational pull of its own, favouring the lower end of the frequency spectrum. This is the true polar extreme in metal.