Heavy Metal Music

Everyday someone, somewhere, has their interest tweaked as what heavy metal has to offer. The list here is for the neophyte, the beginner, one who knows little, or maybe nothing much at all about metal but wants to find out more.

Metal music has a deep, rich, history of life changing material and its catalog can be intimidating when getting started. For the beginner this list may also seem intimidating and exhausting, but you should know that this was tried to be kept at a minimum.

For the seasoned veterans this list may seem, on the other hand, incomplete. Hessians are passionate about their culture, and a list like this one is always cause for debate. However, each album here has had its own unique, essential contribution and the importance of these releases cannot be stressed enough.

Metal, Hessian culture, and its history all started with its music. Here is a guide for any interested beginner. Enjoy the journey.

PROTO METAL/HEAVY METAL ORIGINS

Heavy metal started the whole thing. Evolving out of rock and blues and adding a great share of influence from horror movies soundtracks, therefore connecting its genetic material with European classical music, heavy metal focused on neo-classical romantic themes, and not as much on predictable rock song structures.

Black Sabbath

Most would agree that Black Sabbath is THE most important cornerstone in the formation of metal music, if not the first band in the history of the genre. The essential Sabbath albums include the following:

Some may also include Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and/or Sabotage.

Black Sabbath's approach to music was unlike anything anybody had ever seen before. During the era of the "hippie" and his belief in peace and love changing the world, Sabbath took the listeners to a reality check, showing that life has plenty of darkness in many forms, and instead of ignoring it one should embrace truth even if it's ugly.

The music world was never the same.

Judas Priest

Some may also include "Sin after Sin" and/or "Stained Class".

Judas Priest took the sound of Black Sabbath and combined it with more classical influences - one of their guitarists, Glenn Tipton, had a musical background in piano - , along with some folk and took the tempo of their songs far beyond what was the custom of the time. In this manner they helped inspire what was to be known as The New Wave of British Heavy Metal. This movement, along with Priest, inspired the likes of Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth. Judas Priest's use of dueling lead guitars is a direct link to bands like Iron Maiden and Slayer especially, who use the same approach to this day.

Two of the most representative bands of the NWOBHM are Iron Maiden and Angelwitch

Iron Maiden

Angel Witch

Angelwitch was the first band to take satanism and the occult as one of its main concepts, laying the groundwork for Venom and all future black metal to follow. Their s/t album is essential NWOBHM, and pretty much a cornerstone of the movement.

The following bands are not NWOBHM, but they are early heavy metal acts that are historically important for their aesthetic influence, or simply because they are respected by all succeeding generations of metal to follow.

Motörhead

In Motorhead we have a group that inspired bands across many platforms. It was not uncommon in the early 80's to see punks and headbangers alike wearing Motorhead patches on their jacket of choice. Lemmy's gruff, scratchy voice was one of the starting points in what would later degenerate into the growls of death metal.

Motorhead, being inspired by the punk movement which flourished on the mid-to-late 70s, also played faster than what most people were getting accustomed to, later causing many metal bands to crave even faster playing styles (speed metal is one example here, although Motorhead's influence is practically immeasurable).

Mercyful Fate

Mercyful Fate embraced the Satanic theme, and their singer King Diamond took it on as a lifestyle. King Diamond took the vocal styles found on albums made by bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and extended the approach to create a style known to many Hessians as the "metal crooner".

Musically, Mercyful Fate combined the influences of Priest and Sabbath with progressive and hard rock (the likes of Rainbow and King Crimson) to create one of the first approaches to an operatic/epic style of metal, heavily influenced by European Classical music. Refer to their track "Satan's Fall" from the Melissa album.

Aditionally, King Diamond's makeup, along with artists from bands like Celtic Frost and Sarcofago, inspired the "corpse paint" look later adopted by the second wave of black metal bands.

HARDCORE PUNK

In order to fully understand the next step in the evolution of metal, we need to delve a bit into the Hardcore punk genre. Its influence on metal, especially in the 1980's, is inmense. It's harsh tone, fast power chorded riffs, and brash vocals helped inspire just about every form of extreme metal ever created.

Discharge

Of all the Hardcore bands, the one that had a more lasting impression in the extreme metal to follow for its aesthetic heritage is definitely Discharge. These british bastards took 70s punk and made it noisier, harsher and more minimalistic than ever, specially in percussion, where a constant, unchanging beat provides the backdrop for the riffs which are more melodic than harmonic. Compare their approach with the best works of black metal bands Immortal and Darkthrone and you'll hear many similarities, although Discharge's influence in metal goes back to the proto-death metal bands of the early 80s (of which we have a section below).

The Exploited

Black Flag

Minor Threat

The Misfits

Misfits front man and songwriter, Glenn Danzig, is a borderline recluse(as far as musicians are concerned) whose angry, romantic occultist, tough guy rebellion is only topped by his songwriting skills when measuring his influence on metal. His band Samhain shed the comic book tendencies of the Misfits and took on a much more serious attitude towards occult driven esoteric music. "November Coming Fire" is the shining Samhain moment.

Glenn then went on to form Danzig, obviously.

SPEED METAL

By the early 80s the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had left its mark on the impressionable metal youth. Mix that with some hardcore influence and speed metal came to be.

Complex palm muted riffs is a trademark of speed metal technique which was adopted by various bands all throughout metal afterwards. Paranoid neurosis and social displeasure are the core of this genre, showing us that the 80s was unique to music in general, but especially for metal. Even though the music transcends time, it also maintains an aura that is specific to the period which cannot be reproduced. In this aspect, it resembles hardcore punk, whose social criticisms and musical approach is also synonymous with the time period it came from. Speed metal's melodic structures though show a maturity and deep understanding of technique brought about by the heavy metal forefathers.

Metallica

Metallica may very well be the iconic band of the entire genre of metal, to the displeasure of many hessians now that the band have been managing to dishonour their own name by just about every action they do since the end of their glory years. Nevertheless, the above albums are essential speed metal and should be known by every student of the genre.

Megadeth

Ex-Metallica member Dave Mustaine's musical foray. If you like technicality in your speed metal, by all means try the above albums out.

Nuclear Assault

Speed metal with the hardcore influence taken to a extreme, even blurring the lines between the genres every now and then. Their "Survive" release is also excellent, but is out of print if I'm not mistaken.

Voivod

Experimental, unusual, and technically unorthodox, Voivod is difficult to place. Of all choices, this category fits best.

In speed metal is where the differences marked by place of procedence are starting to flourish. Therefore, American speed metal like the above mentioned bands have a different sound and approach to the style than the continental Europeans, specially the two following bands, which are faster, meaner and more extreme than their yankee counterparts, making these transitional acts toward the death metal genre.

Kreator

"Pleasure to Kill" in particular is a pivotal moment for speed metal as it's faster, heavier and more evil than anything else done in the subgenre with the exception of Slayer's "Reign in Blood".

Destruction

PROTO DEATH/PROTO BLACK METAL

It wasn't until the late 80s/early 90s that the terms 'death metal' and 'black metal' were widely used terms although they've existed since the early 80s. The following list are releases that influenced both black metal and death metal bands that came later, while they themselves were not universally categorized at the time, but later on.

Hellhammer/Celtic Frost

Celtic Frost emerged from the ashes of Hellhammer, making them almost inseparable when looking back in metal history. Hellhammer used the most primitive of playing styles to create an atmosphere of nihilistic evil. This primitive black metal style would be adopted by hundreds of imitators.

Celtic Frost saw the former Hellhammer musicians mature and go into more imaginative forms of mystic darkness. Here we see a black metal band playing in an almost death metal style. The aesthetics used by both Hellhammer and Celtic Frost made a huge impact on the what was to be the black metal explosion of the early 90s.

Sodom

Notorious German act initially influenced by Discharge. Often times the above album can be found with their "In the Sign of Evil" album, which is also a praiseworthy release.

Possessed

Early San Francisco, California act. "Seven Churches" is regarded in many circles as the first death metal album and not just part of the proto-death era. Any way you wanna see it, this album is a supremely enjoyable effort and can be a very good transition from speed to the more extreme forms of metal.

Sepultura

The most famous band to come out of the Brazilian underground, Sepultura started out playing in style of Hellhammer-meets-Possessed, which is why we have them in this section, even though all albums from "Beneath the Remains" onwards are speed metal.

Sometime in 1992 the band got abducted and replaced by hipster versions of themselves, so the aforementioned year is where the band ended for all intents and purposes.

Slayer

Aah, Slayer...What can one say of such an act? This band was strange in that they were not quite speed metal (even though the guitar style is firmly rooted into this subgenre of metal) nor purely death metal, but lyrical content and drumming technique would influence just about every technical death metal band to follow.

In their best years, Slayer was quite the mutating band. While "Hell Awaits" shows a distinct Mercyful Fate influence, making songs long and rhythmically varied, "Reign in Blood" owes a lot of its sound to the skate-thrash scene of the early-to-mid 80s, so its style is in the "short songs, fast as hell" vein. "Skate-thrash"? The next section will clarify things to you.

THRASH

Besides speed metal, Hardcore punk inspired a direct link to metal in a genre called "thrash". Thrash used punk structures and fused it with metal riffs, while speed metal basically did the opposite. Combine that with punk's ethics of commentating on everyday life with social analysis and that is how thrash was born. Over time the media created the term "thrash metal", which is actually a term that applied to speed metal bands like Metallica and Megadeth. Let's just say that is was more marketable to call these bands "thrash metal" instead of something "boring" like "speed metal". Thrash, however, is definitely a product of the hardcore punk culture, especially the skate subculture; example: "Thrasher" magazine.

There are many who will argue this point with no regard or caring for metal history; ignore these people. Just remember that it is 'thrash' and not 'thrash metal' because these bands are not metal bands, but aren't held in the standard punk mold either although they evolved out of it.

Some people will use the term "crossover" to designate thrash, inspired by 1987's album by DRI.

DRI

DRI is credited as being the first band to use "blast beats", or snare drum and hi hat beats played in unison and as fast as humanly possible, something that would later be, not only the norm, but expected in extreme metal recordings. DRI's contribution of the blast beat was enormous for metal.

Suicidal Tendencies

Beloved by the skate thrashers of the early 80's, both DRI and Suicidal Tendencies took their hardcore roots and later expanded on that, evolving into something similar to speed metal by the end of the decade.

Amebix

Amebix is sometimes lumped into the "Crustcore" subgenre of Hardcore. This band isn't quite thrash as it includes a more marked metal influence than the above acts, but for the sake of order and not melting your brain with too many designations, we keep it here.

GRINDCORE

What this genre did was take thrash and reduce thrash's minimal, but fast pace, and reduce its structures even more, while picking up the pace even further; the result being an out of control grinding cycle done in a destructive mechanical fury. Grindcore at its best harshly rejects authority and mocks society, very much like the hardcore punk and thrash that came before it.

Napalm Death

Repulsion

Napalm Death and Repulsion are the two bands given credit to the founding of grindcore, although Napalm Death started out as a hardcore band in the early 80s and later adopted a more extreme speed death metal style.

Carcass

Co-founded by a former member of Napalm Death, Carcass is also one of the first ever bands to be based on the concept of lyrical obsession with human organs, diseases, excrements and assorted bits which are generally found "disgusting" by normal people, even though they are parts of nature and of reality that should be cherished. This concept was known as "gore" and this particular band would influence many of the gore obsessed bands to come later.

DEATH METAL

Mocking the morals of modern times, this genre celebrates personal values, or lack thereof, above crowdist beliefs. Total lawless nihilism with a middle finger towards death phobia, death metal provokes the listener to face the ugly side of existance, often using extreme viewpoints. Death metal is very (romantically) anti-heroic and sometimes blantantly valueless while at the same time becoming inspirational in it's brutality.

Like Speed Metal before, but taken to a new level as artistic expression is more developed, there are tremendous differences in sound depending on culture/place of procedence. Therefore, I'll split the death metal bands here presented into two scenes: American and European.

American Death Metal

Immolation

Master

Master is one of the original American Death Metal bands, owing a lot of its sound to hardcore punk bands like Discharge, mixed with some Motörhead, lots of social commentary and angrier sounding than most (or all) hardcore bands. Their "Master" album is also recommended.

Autopsy

A gore obsessed sounding band with a muscular rhythm section, acidic vocals and charm by the ton, this particular outfit was a HUGE influence on the Swedish Death Metal Scene of the late 80s/early 90s, to the point that the sound of most albums made in that place can be traced back to Autopsy's "Severed Survival" album.

Death

Considered by many as one of the pivotal bands of the subgenre, although not as good as the above mentioned acts. Still, "Human" and "Scream Bloody Gore" are very recommended efforts.

Massacre

Classic Death Metal from Florida. Simple and to the point.

Obituary

Suffocation

Morbid Angel

Morbid Angel are extremely special in that combining the sound of bands like Slayer, Possessed, Mercyful Fate with lots of classical influence (Mozart, Bach) and some jazz the band created a unique sound, fueled by the quirky songwriting style of guitarist and main composer Trey Azagthoth, thus spawning what could be called a Symphony from the very depths of Hell in their "Blessed are the Sick" album. If anyone wants to deny that there's a significant influence from European Classical music in the sound and concept behind Death Metal, this album should be pointed as main evidence of the opposite.

Their "Altars of Madness" and "Covenant" albums are also heartily recommended.

Deicide

A fast, technical and evil masterpiece of Satanic drama. The best output made by this legendary Florida band.

Atheist

Another band from Florida which took a lot of influence from jazz-fusion, culminating in what could be called the perfect blend between jazz and extreme metal: "Unquestionable Presence".

European Death Metal

The main difference between European DM and its American counterpart would have to be the more melodic approach of the former, in oposition with the rhythmic style of the latter, although bands like Morbid Angel would provide a link between the two, which is the reason why so many European bands took influence from the aforementioned yankee act.

Amorphis

Massacra

French band which explored to exhaustion the rhythmic and progressive styling provided by the previous generation of speed metal, creating songs with a narrative style (i.e. its themes moving in constant change in order to fully show its message once the song/album is over).

Entombed

Dismember

Both Entombed and Dismember are credited for creating the definitive production aesthetic of Swedish DM, or what could alternately be called the "Swedish sound", which can be great or grating depending on who you're talking.

At The Gates

One of the most amazing death metal albums in creation. A very intelligent, complex and consistent album.

BLACK METAL

Probably the darkest of all metal genres, focusing on melody to express the themes presented. Also possibly the most romantic as well, developing a way to promote heroic anti-modern/anti-social poetry with tendencies toward ancient tone and nature worship.

Raw, emotional, and the most provocative music that metal has to offer(when done correctly).

Venom

"Black Metal" by Venom gave the genre its name, and that alone is enough to put this in the list for it's historical contribution. The music on this album is decent; easily Venom's best even though their best isn't all that good.

Of all the bands displayed in this "Black Metal" section, Venom is the most different in style, being a harsher than usual NWOBHM band with a distinct Motörhead influence. They also employed the occult imagery of Angelwitch and took it to a ludicrous extreme (for the time). All of these factors contributed to their differentiation from the rest of the NWOBHM scene and also explain their popularity. The first band to be labeled "Black Metal" and a spiritual influence on many black, death and speed metal acts to follow, Venom is included here for completion purposes.

Bathory

Every single important black metal band to exist after the late 80s gives credit to Bathory as being a major influence. Everything from Quorthon's approach to making Bathory's music, to the aesthetics and all in between, has been taken and expanded upon by later black metal musicians.

Simply put, black metal would NOT have become what it did without Bathory.

Quorthon started out making satanic themed music, later shifting his approach to ancient heroic Scandinavian Viking music. This would spark a sub genre called "Viking Metal", which is very similar to black metal as far as sound, with the difference being as stated above: black metal is usually very satanic, while viking metal focuses on the heroic Viking ancestry (Viking metal bands reside in the Scandinavian areas of the planet and use their ancestry as focus for their antichristian stance as opposed to using satan).

Bathory's influential viking metal albums will be listed below.

Sarcofago

Another influential band to come out of the Brazilian metal underground of the 80s along with above mentioned Sepultura, Sarcofago is the soundtrack to Hell itself. Think of a stripped down version of Slayer's "Hell Awaits", minus the technical display, plus an extra notch of brutal, evil savagery that patched together create a truly inhuman aura.

Norwegian Black Metal

This scene was so important for the development of the subgenre's sound and concept that deserves to be named first among all the other subcategories of BM.

Mayhem

In case you aren't familiar with the whirlwind that happened to this band back in the early 90s, a whirlwind that intrigues and amazes many folk to this day, here are the facts, and quick overview of what one should know:

Back in the 80s Mayhem started putting out music, and their guitarist Euronymous was instrumental in founding the Norwegian black metal scene which would spearhead the 'second wave' of black metal. The bands that would be most important in the second wave were Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, Darkthrone, Immortal, Enslaved, and Gorgoroth. Some of these band's members were close friends and some were not, but all had a connection with each other in some form or another.

Mayhem's second vocalist Dead, committed suicide in 1991. Instead of being a devastating event, this would seem to fuel the youngsters in their daily lives. No longer was there just extreme music being made, but now extreme actions were being taken. Several hundred year old churches were burned to the ground throughout Norway, and people like Samoth from Emperor would serve jail time for acts of arson. Faust, drummer of Emperor at the time, would end up in prison for several years for committing murder.

The biggest event though, was the murder of Euronymous by Burzum creator Varg Vikernes. I will not go into the "why's" or the various theories out there, but the murder was the ending point of what was the peak of extremity in the Norwegian black metal scene of the early 90s.

These events have cast such a shadow that it is imperative to at least know the basics of what happened, because historically it is worth knowing so one can get a bigger picture of what the Norwegian black metallers were up to at the time, and what their motivations were.

One thing is for sure, they were sick of weakness that metal was starting to show, and they wanted to prove that there were bands out there that needed to be taken seriously.

Out of the numerous albums released by Mayhem, "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" is not only the best, but absolutely sums up the grand vision that Euronymous claimed to have. Brilliant piece of work.

Another release that is of interest is the "Live In Leipzig" album, one of the rare Mayhem recordings with Dead on vocals.

Burzum

Burzum created dark ambient black metal better than most, and these albums stand up over time better than most. Beyond genius.

Burzum mastermind Varg Vikernes is still serving his prison sentence for the murder of Euronymous. (as of this writing)

Darkthrone

Bathory worshipping Darkthrone scrapped their death metal roots and adopted a raw, primitive, hateful black metal style. Their early works are some of the best metal ever recorded.

No strangers to controversy themselves, Darkthrone received heat for putting "Norsk Arsk Black Metal" on the back cover of Transilvanian Hunger, which translates to "Norwegian Aryan Black Metal". To further add fuel to the fire, they stated in a press release that anyone who criticized the album should be "patronized for their obvious Jewish behavior". What was meant as a smartass remark was taken literally by the press/public. It's a stigma that follows them to this day.

Emperor

ITNE is tremendously epic in scope and above average musically. Keyboards are used a plenty in this work, in fact, Black Metal is the subgenre that used this instrument more prolifically.

The above album is the only one worth having by this band, excepting the "Emperor/Wrath of the Tyrant" demo compilation, which is also worthy of your time.

Immortal

The soundtrack to an unforgiving northern winterstorm, Immortal is the epitome of Romantic black metal.

Gorgoroth

Following the steps of Immortal, Gorgoroth in these albums created Romantic pieces with an epic touch, so of course they are recommended.

Ildjarn

Ildjarn are primitive, minimalistic, extremely simple and to the point Black Metal that despite all of these factors (or perhaps, because of them) create an ambience of sometimes pure anger and hatred, and at others induce a reflective mood and appreciation for nature and its creatures.

Finnish Black Metal

Beherit

Beherit is raw and primitive, yet clever in design and tremendously naturalistic in concept, asserting a vision and values system that goes beyond the binary belief in "good" and "evil" inherent in christian religions and all its derived creeds.

Greek Black Metal

Rotting Christ

Thy Mighty Contract, released 1993

Necromantia

Varathron

Greek black metal bands are noted for their heavy metal-like sense of melody. Instead of going fast as all hell like norwegian bands usually do, greek bands prefer to use midpaced tempos to emphasize their intellectual, contemplative approach.

Black Legions (French Black Metal)

Mutiilation

Belketre/Vlad Tepes

French bands usually take the raw approach to the extreme, sometimes producing painfully deafening records full of a profoundly melancholic aura. If you ever think about leaving this world applying the DIY approach, I can't think of better music to carry through.

American Black Metal - USBM

Profanatica

Demoncy

Absu

American bands owe a lot of their sound to the previous generation of death metal, albeit with a more stripped-down and primitive, less technical approach, coupled with some of the most blasphemously antichristian lyrics ever made in the case of Profanatica.

Absu is different from the above definition in that they didn't have a single approach throughout their careers, starting as a Death Metal band and then going into the Black Metal route, heavily influenced by the proto-death/black generation and adding an epic flair of their own, as is the case with the above albums.

Viking Metal

Basically a sub-genre' of black metal, viking metal takes the rich history of the ancients and uses that as influence for an anti modern stance instead of using the metaphor of satan.

Again we find the highly influential Bathory, who literally invented this subgenre with these epic, imaginative releases. An absolute classic set of releases.

Enslaved

ASSORTED GENRES AND INFLUENCES - DOOM METAL

Early Heavy metal sparked a genre called 'doom metal', whose artists took Black Sabbath in particular to heart. The term 'doom' was adopted because of the downtuned, (sometimes)slow dirgy playing style; it gives the listener the feeling of doom. Some of the better ones include:

Candlemass

Witchfinder General

Cathedral

St. Vitus

ASSORTED GENRES AND INFLUENCES - PROGRESSIVE ROCK

Back in the late 60's and 1970's there were, in addition to heavy metal bands, a few other groups that had a big impact on later day metal. Kiss was one, but you can read about them elsewhere.

Another was Led Zeppelin; the occult like tendencies and existential ponderings they explored separated them from other rock bands of the era.

A personal favorite though, was progressive band King Crimson. Oddball Robert Fripp took jazz improv and mixed it with surreal rock guitar and romantic themes to create an unpredictable blur of musical genius.

King Crimson

Well folks, there you have it. Starting with these albums will give any aspiring headbanger a strong foundation in the culture of metal.

I would like to thank ANUS.com and Hessian.org for their dedication and contribution to everything metal. These sites help people every single day, including myself.

Please send all comments to nameless.heretic@gmail.com. I know there's many great albums not on this list, and although I can't include everything, suggestions will be considered and a "runners-up" page may be put together in the future. Thanks for reading!

- List originally made by Nameless Heretic. Extra stuff added by Trauco.

Heavy Metal Music Theory

Metal music is an affirmation of the power inherent in nature and its amoral, antisocial aspects, and through viewing the associated aspects of what society fears -- death, disease, horror, terror and war -- it brings to light that which society suppresses in an attempt to find a truth beyond social mechanisms that for metalheads have proven futile.

The sound of metal more than lyrics affirms this tendency. Using power chords, formed from the first and fifth notes of the diatonic scale (with optional octave doubling of the first note), metal songs are created without an inherent major or minor harmony, which leaves only rhythm and melody. This is perfect for making explosive songs in a narrative format, where the band goes beyond verse/chorus to use motifs that evolve over the course of a song, taking the listener on an existential journey in which learning occurs, much as happens in a Wagnerian opera or church hymn.

Where most music represents a deviation from harmony and then a return to it by the same mechanism by which it was escaped, metal -- with its harmony built in through the inherent fullness of a I-V chord -- goes beyond a simple pattern of loss and recovery to take alternate routes from disharmony to unity. Its thunderous power chords, containing both I and V, are the alpha and omega of the conventional I-IV-V pattern and thus require a different determiner of direction, which encourages the type of phrasal riffing originally used by Black Sabbath as well as the riff codices of death metal bands.

Aesthetically, this has been complemented by generations seeking greater extremity in vocal styles, distortion, bassiness, rhythm technique, imagery, costume and body modifications. Complemented by lyrics that at first simply warned of negative conclusions ("Satan laughing spreads his wings," from Black Sabbath's "War Pigs," unites mythical evil with actual, normalized evil inherent to the foundations of our mundane existence, "radical evil" as referred to by Kantian Paul Ricoeur) and later described them in full detail as a means of making real concepts denied by the mainstream press and socialized population, metal eventually diverged into advocacy of some of the most extreme forms of curtailing human denial and individual excess. Do metal bands wish evil? No, but they are beyond the denial of potentially evil consequences because simple people wish to entirely avoid the category of "evil," negative, bad, death, chaos, etc.