That is to say, is the creation of new genres dying off, and becoming less common than it was back in the day? I mean, when you look at the history of Metal throughout the 80's & 90's, you have major styles like Thrash, Black, Death Metal, and so on arising and peaking fairly shortly after they were birthed, to the point that it pretty much happened like clockwork back then (and they're still some of the most prominent genres today, to boot). But, if you compare that level of activity to what's been going on in new sub-genres since the turn of the millennium, it feels like fewer styles have had an obvious, all-time peak year since then, to the point that I can't think of any year in the 2010's that saw a similar explosion of activity in any one genre, and a lot of the younger genres like Djent, Blackgaze, or Deathcore seem to be smaller, not that well-regarded in general, or both, and it seems as though legitimate new styles are being created less often than before.

Of course, that isn't to say that Metal itself is dead, it just feels like it's changed, and that the creation of new genres isn't as common as it used to be. Because of this, I think the future of Metal will lie less in new styles, but more in the continued "hybriding" of existing sounds, like the way that Agalloch mixed various elements from Black, Folk, and Post Metal throughout their career to create their own highly unique, super niche-y sound; it may not have resulted in a new genre for other bands to follow in, but who cares? It's still just as interesting to see new bands come up with their own individual sounds. Anyway, what do you guys think about this subject?

We sort of just discussed a variation of this.

https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=135126

I'm struggling to come up with a unique take from what I already mentioned there. To summarize I think the main tentpegs of metal subgenres have already pretty much been driven in by around the turn of the millennium. Anything since then is either a minor evolution, a slightly different rehash, or we collectively decide that it doesn't count as metal because it has too much other stuff going on in it, which might be kind of a problem in terms of the longevity of metal at some point in the future.

As an extreme metal fan, i'll speak from the perspective and field that im familiar with; icelandic black metal and indian warnoise scene have been some of the recent places of innovation. Not outstandigly different, but their influence is already felt across the globe.

I agree, because a lot of the older, bigger genres were about pushing the sound in a relatively "obvious" direction (for lack of a better term"), like the way Thrash was about making Metal super fast and aggressive, or the way that Black Metal was about making it really raw and/or evil, and so on, which made it easier for later bands to imitate, and make them into full-fledged genres.

And that isn't say that bands like Slayer helped to create a bigger genre than Opeth because the latter's songwriting is more "sophisticated" for what it is, and more difficult for others to imitate as a result; I mean, I find a song like "Silent Scream" just as impressive in its style as I do "Bleak", otherwise, we'd have a lot more Thrash bands who got great simply by ripping off Slayer. I just think Thrash got bigger than Progressive Death Metal because the basic principle of playing Metal really fast is a more common sense direction, while there are a lot less Opeth wannabes out there because getting prog-y with Death Metal just seems more counter-intuitive, you know?

Some of it was driven by the urge to be more extreme, faster, slower, heavier, noisier, more technical, more gore and there's may be limits on how far you can push things. The internet may also have changed things re how scenes develop and how quickly trends pop up and are forgotten, I'd assume. There's just so much easily available stuff from around the world now

Also genre boundaries are pretty arbitrary. There is a lot of variation within black and death metal, many of these sounds could just as well have been their own genres.

Do you have any good examples of those Icelandic black metal bands? I'm not familiar with the region's scene, besides Auðn.

Svartidaudi
Mispyrming
Zhrine
Sinmara
Carpe Noctem
Arstidir Iifsins
Wormlust
Nadra
Mannveira

Have fun!

Thanks!

Those are not new genres but new (sort of) developments and scenes of already existing genres. These grow and come to attention on a semi-regular basis at least, but they are not as groundbreaking as to be a new ofshoot and a new subgenre of its own such as black or death metal were back in the 80s. I think this has more or less been the stage at which metal has been for the last 20-ish years, not branching out in large strides but slowly pushing the envelope in the form of variations on a theme into the boundaries of the genre. And I think this will still be the case in the foreseeable future, at least until the tides of popular music as a whole evolve into something that may allow metal to push into new territories once again? I guess only time will tell.

I think this goes beyond metal and is something that applies to music in general. A guitar is only a guitar at the end of the day and there are only so many ways you can play it. I think the pace of innovation has slowed down in other genres too. People like to cite that there is still a lot of innovation in the realm of electronica well sure there are more things happening there still but also the pace in that world has been slowing down.

People like to blame this on kids being lazy or modern culture etc etc but I think we are just reaching the limits of the western 12 note system. The most interesting and innovative music I've heard in recent years are all fusions of western music with non western. The stuff released by Nyege Nyege tapes for example is just crazy.

Any attempt to bring in some outside influence to metal is instantly slapped with a "not metal" label which highly restricts things. If metal cannot fuse with a genre as sonically and thematically similar as hardcore and remain metal then the options are limited besides inward, navel-gazing elaborations on metal's basic elements--and people have done that already. They've taken it as sonically extreme (slam, death metal, black metal, etc.), as chaotically violent (thrash, grind), as dismally dark (doom), and as triumphantly melodic (trad, power, folk) as they can. There really isn't much else to go.

Who said that metal can't fuse with hardcore? It's weird you imply that since you also mention grind as if it was just another genre like all the others.

I myself am looking forward to the inevitable qawalli/atmo BM fusion record. Nusrat fateh Ali khan meets WITTR. Please someone make it happen.

Al-namrood and Narjahanam aren't too far off

We need metal that evolves past the need for riffs

Riffs are cringe. Aggression is cringe. Suicidal depression is cringe.

The evolution of metal, or at least an entirely new subgenre would have to be what Aphex Twin/Autechre or any artist in the Extratone genre or Microsound subgenres (i.e. Dataplex by Ryoji Ikeda [incredible album] is to festival EDM

would undoubtedly actually own

I think you've summarized it all very well. As you rightly said l on the other discussion, the latest "legitimate" metal subgenres are mixed with non metal elements or are rather experimentations on existing subgenres. There should be something like a big and global "post metal" category for all this subgenres , let's say since nu metal, cause they use metal elements to create something which deviated from the original spirit of the genre.
Sure it's a problem for the longevity of metal, as for every genre of music. But it would make no sense that Sad Wings of Destiny and some band playing psychedelic trap with heavy chugging in the background belong to the same genre. Looking back at music history, this is how genres stop evolving (eventually die) and give birth to new genres.



Exactly this!

This is a weird thread. What was the last "new" subgenre of metal? Post metal has been around since the 90s already... That's 25 years since the last subgenre of metal I can think of. This isn't a new phenomenon.

Blackgaze?

That's not even a real genre, just a sub-sub-genre at best. It's a mix of previous stuff that already existed (post rock, alternative rock and some mild black metal influence), re-packaged for metalhead consumption. Besides, Ulver already did something similar with Capitel I: I Troldskog faren vild back in 1995. Alcest just took that song and replaced the black metal with dream pop. Hardly something new or revolutionary.

Even post metal is a bad example since it could be said it's just a certain sub-subgenre of sludge.


Basically this. I think it's weird to say new genres are "dying off" when the last metal genres are more than 25 years old.

The only thing that I could think of that's being added is the electronic influence but that's almost started around in the 2000's or so but now, it's becoming a bit prominent and that genre also evolved. Many, you could say, are trying to create some sort of an 80's electropop in metal. It isn't going to resonate with many people and it depends on where to draw the line if that stuff is metal or not.

Personally, I don't mind the electronic metal/electropop stuff because that some sort of an evolvement of sorts. I guess, as a whole, when a certain music get a bit popular, there are bands want to interject it with metal and see how that works.

We tried rap and that went horrible (ugh! I don't want to remember any of that shit from back then).

...And I would like to add, the following to that list:
* Cult of Lilith
* Dysthymia
* Helfró
* Nexion
* Nyrst
* Rebirth of Nefast

The longevity, then, would be largely determined on how we decide if something is metal or not metal. And really, the goal posts have been moved back so many times, I don't see why newer generations of metal fans can't do the same.

There's plenty of new styles of extreme music coming out these days. This forum just doesn't like any of it. That is to say, it may not fit neatly into a metal subgenre.

Name a few, please.

This sounds much better than all the avant-garde crap being talked about in this thread.

I hope I never become one of those people, who thinks that catchy, good, listenable music is boring. That sounds depressing.

Innovation is good, if it’s real music, and not lame.

I just discovered Nyrst through an article in 'Zero Tolerance' mag and I really dig them, as well as the others you mention. Apparently it's such a small scene (unsurprisingly as it all evolves around one small city) that it's basically the same people in all the bands, which is very impressive given the variety in approaches and sounds.

I think we saw the glimmer of something new in extreme metal with bands like Portal, Impetuous Ritual, Akhyls, Qrixkuor, Swallowed, Irkallian Oracle and Grave Upheaval. There's definitely a subsect of metal that is very influenced by horror soundtracks and the type of tonal experimentation/oddity that you can only find therein. It definitely has a unique sound to it and yet it almost doesn't have a name.

I'd say it'd be Nightmare Metal

They're still either death or black metal. Just more dissonant and experimental

Every now codified genre was a spin-off/reimagining of something that already existed, so we should be open to including fusions as 'new genres'.

With that in mind, I'm hearing a lot of new bands that fuse hardcore and black metal (see, for example, GRISHKA). This is a fusion that makes sense in so many ways.

I also expect that we'll be seeing a lot more blackened emo (blemo?) bands popping up, along the lines of Këkht Aräkh.

Zhrine is a great example of how incredible closely akin black and death metal can be. If you had played this band for me without any context, I might have honestly described them as more of a death metal band.

the difference between fusions between genres and an actually new genre is that a fusion will always sound like that a fusion. New genres sound familiar but at the same time strikingly different. When I heard Death for the first time as a thrash metal kiddie I knew right away something different was going on. Yet at the same time Death especially the first 3 albums are very thrashy still.

I'd ask the question whether or not other types of music usually have as many sub-genres as metal?

I know that hip-hop/rap has a fair number of styles like east coast, west coast, southern, gangster, etc, and there are tons of different styles of punk, but are there as many sub-genres of jazz, blues, classical, folk, etc as there are of metal?

I think it's possible that metal may actually have more sub-genres than many styles of music, so I don't know how necessary it is that we keep creating more.

I mean we need different STYLES, but every band has its own style that can vary radically from another within the same sub-genre. I'd like to hear something entirely new, but at the same time, I'm not sure that metal needs to keep adding more and more sub-genres to evolve. There is still always plenty of room to do more even within a given sub-genre without it differing to such an extent that it's actually a whole new one.

I think dance music has similar amount of sub genres. And equal amount of gate keeping. Off top of my head:

Disco
EBM
Minimal Techno
Dark wave
Acid Techno
Progressive House
Industrial Dance
Drum n Bass
Jungle
Breakbeat
Psychedelic trance
Gabba
Electro
Gothic dance

So on and so forth. I’m likely missing hundreds of others. Each genre has its own independent scene.

Yeah, I've never known much about electronic music in general but every time I hear about it I'm overwhelmed by the number of styles. I've heard some stuff I really like from some of those sub-genres like electro, breakbeat, speedcore, electronica, dub, illbient, Trip hop, trance, and a few others. Not all of it's "dance music" necessarily, but all sorts of electronic stuff. I'd like to get more into some of it but I never really know where to start.

It’s certainly overwhelming I agree. If seriously interested, PM. Was majorly into that scene in the 90s in NYC - which was the Mecca of the sound at the time - along with Berlin and London. Always happy to pass along some great material from that era!

An ex-girlfriend of mine used to enjoy Sonata Arctica because, in her words, it sounded like 'happy hardcore' - which I understand is a form of dance music.

Great question. For all the macho posturing metal is in many ways music for nerds, so the detailed sub-classification is expected. It certainly feels like we have more sub-genres, but part of that is familiarity bias.

Jazz has been going for 100 years, it certainly has many sub-genres. Classical is not a fair comparison as it extends over a millenium. And both of these are now academic disciplines, that's going to lead to analysis and classification.

On the original topic I think it's all been said. For me metal went heavy -> thrash -> death -> black then everything since then has been (glorious) variations and combinations.