NOTE: Before anyone posts, I intend to discuss bands, either in demos, EPs or a full length album, stylistically founded as Metal before completely abandoning their original sound for something completely different (for the sake of keeping a consistent theme, the music should at least be guitar-driven rock music rather than two ambient releases). Conversely, bands stylistically founded on something else (it could be Punk, folk, et cetera) only to change their sound to Metal are welcome. DO NOT discuss bands that suddenly jump on trends and then revert to their original style as it is thoroughly counterintuitive to the intended discussion.

Saccara is a curious band. Stylistically, they began as a comedic Thrash Metal band (unfortunately, there are no songs on YouTube which I can link to for reference ), releasing two demos (one of which bears the goofy title Ketchup Metal) and their debut Urbi et Orbi. From what I know (lyrics for the first few releases aren't printed and I speak not a word of German), they mused about sex, alcohol, drugs, et cetera, in a highly juvenile manner. Then, they reformed as a Rock Against Communism band, taking hints from Oi! and Punk, with an odd riff here and there hearkening to their early years. Subsequent albums would continue to depart from the original style as the band forayed further into RAC. As you can imagine, much of the band's latter discography drew the attention of German authorities, and most of their albums have been banned. Gigi later formed another band called In Tyrannos, which is certainly a return to Saccara's roots as a Thrash band, but with political lyrics honed from Gigi's years in RAC-era Saccara.

There are probably many others, but which ones pique your interest?

Beherit, Anathema, Metallica, Samael - all obvious choices here.

Eh, Beherit had two ambient albums before breaking up, but their stylistic change was temporal, as the band returned to Metal upon reformation. On the other hand, Ulver is a completely different story.

I was trawling the archives earlier today when I remembered the existence of one Xysma, an early Finnish death metal/grindcore band. They transitioned into a classic rock/heavy metal style after a few years, from what I've heard, and were apparently imitated by a bunch of other bands. The best example here would probably be Amorphis, who went from death-doom to modern rock, with some prog/psychedelia in between.

Morgoth from Germany went through a similar evolution, ending their career with "Feel Sorry for the Fanatic", which is apparently a grungy alt-rock album.

From what I understand, it's actually more of an "industrial metal" album, though I have never really been a big Morgoth fan so I don't know for sure.

I heard Atrocity really messed up after they released a couple old school tech death metal albums. I heard one of them, it was pretty cool, but I'm not sure what their more recent work sounds like.

Mr Bungle: they went from almost being pioneers of death metal (Raging Wrath of The Easter Bunny [1986]) to weirdass funk metal with a bunch of carnival shit lol

Yeah, I got all their shit because I was so into their early stuff. When I listened to the last two albums, I thought it was the wrong band or something.

Sentenced went from swedish-style DM on their first album, to some kind of ultra-chromatic melodeath on their second album, then to a metal/goth rock hybrid after that. And went through three completely different singers. IMO they managed all three styles really well, and North From Here in particular is a real one-of-a-kind album. Miika Tenkula was a great songwriter and guitarist that should have received a lot more recognition than he did.

Judas Priest

Shame on everyone here for not mentioning Carcass!

beyond terror beyond grace went from grindcore to atmospheric death metal

Pantera went from glam to trash/groove, whatever you want to call it.

Semi-relevant, a friend pointed out to me that if you search for 'pop' as a genre on the archives, you get a sizeable list of bands who switched over from metal to pop rock:

http://www.metal-archives.com/search?searchString=pop&type=band_genre

You have to wonder what happened in the case of a few of the more obscure ones.

Pyogenesis is a pretty well known example. They went from death/doom to pop punk. The lyrical themes on their MA page is amusing:

Lyrical themes:
Sorrow, Death (early) / Partying, Dating (later)

Disharmonic Orchestra went from death metal to various styles of weirdness. Pleasuredome was some kind of a partly dissonant, deranged grunge album, and Ahead is just something completely else.


It may be trash, but the music style is not called that.

As everyone already knows, Anthrax went from being straight thrash metal in the 80's to groove metal/grunge in the 90's during the John Bush era. Not to mention their infamous attempts at merging metal with rap music. I'd say they definitely had a few radical changes in style.

Surprised no one has said Katatonia already. The Gathering also changed quite thoroughly, albeit gradually, over their career.

Celestial Season went from My Dying Bride death/doom to Kyuss stoner rock/metal.

1993 - http://youtu.be/vvfVATUFpsg
2000 - http://youtu.be/pJJTa9ISO2k

Yeah, I have a feeling that someone was kind of taking the piss with those lyrical theme entries...nevertheless, it's pretty much true. It's not as though they changed from doomdeath to pop punk overnight, but indeed it's one of the more inexplicable things to happen to a metal band, ever. I mean, compare this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uSQDu9isTM
TO this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh4SitLySxs
Yeah, there might be even more absurd examples of their newer style, but i haven't the patience to find them.

Celestial Season is another good example. they went from admittedly very 70s-inspired doom with death metal vocals (I hesitate to say doomdeath because really, their old stuff never sounded a thing like death metal, despite the stoned sounding growls) with beautiful dual violin playing, to something that sounded a bit like a cross between Kyuss and Soundgarden. Actually, their Chrome album was not too bad, all things considered.

Edit: Oops, Wayward beat me to that.

I mentioned this in the other thread but I will try to clarify it here: Mayhem started out as a gore-inspired death metal band, influenced as much by Sodom and Kreator as by Venom. Black metal as we know it today didnt really exist with the sole exception of Bathory, which didnt have any direct influence on Mayhem's music at all. Even Mayhem's lyrics were all about gore, mutilation and violence, nothing black metal about them.

But at some point, Euronymous got disgusted with all of that, and with the prevalance of death metal bands and the trendiness of that scene. So he transformed the band's sound and image toward pure black metal, in fact Mayhem was one of a handful of bands that helped create that scene as something distinct and different from the then-popular death metal and grindcore. The difference is very distinct: Listen to "Deathcrush" and it sounds a lot like early Sodom (circa "Obsessed by Cruelty" or "In the Sign of Evil") while the 1993 full length is pure tremolo-picked evil-sounding black metal which the band became famous for.

Darkthrone's the first that comes to mind. Starting out as a death metal band before becoming black metal, then blackened punk, then blackened speed.

Wow what? Is this a joke?

It's like someone listened to Punky Bruster and thought to themselves "Hey this whole 'play pop punk to make money' sounds like a good idea actually..."

Ulver (http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Ulver/1208) really sticks out in this category to me.

Starting off as a folk/black metal hybrid and eventually turning into pure electronica along the way. Strange, yet interesting.

Not that radical. All their musical identities are fully compatible.

Just thought of another one: Amoral. They started out as some nice death metal, then they got a singer who had won the Finnish version of Pop Idol and became a rather shitty power metal band.

Solefald: from symphonic black metal to avant-garde, to viking/folk, to something really weird. Every album is different from each other.

Arcturus: From death metal (in their Mortem days) to atmospheric/symphonic black metal to something else.

Fleurety, Dodheimsgard, In the Woods, Ulver... those 'avantgarde' bands change most of time in every album, most of them started as black metal acts.

throne of chaos

an obvious one would be Old Lady Drivers, who started out as a grindcore band, turned into a death metal band, then into an industrial/avant garde band, and then into a psychadelic prog rock band.

Carbonized started out as a Cynic clone, and then turned into a modern rock band.

Amoral were a kick-ass tech death band, now they blend radio rock with prog.

Not a major change, but Extol started off as progressive death metal, transitioned to thrash, and then transitioned into a hard rock band.

and then theres Sonic Syndicate....but who really gives a fuck!

Belial from Finland started out black/death metal, then transitioned to some kind of black/death /deathnroll / electro hybrid, before finishing with a weird goth/punk rock album. The last track instrumental on said album is pretty cool btw, but the shitty lifeless vocals sink the rest of it.

I loved Manes' first two albums. They had black metal pretty damn well figured-out with Under ein Blodraud Maane, I guess they realised that too and did something completely different for Vilosophe, which I find largely indescribable outside of 'catchy and emotional.' In a fantastic way. =)
Shame they couldn't keep up the quality before disbanding.

Gorefest & Atrocity

Xysma from Finland started out by playing old Napalm Death/Carcass influenced grind, before gradually shifting into mainstream rock shit. What is weird is that the line-up barely changed during their whole career.
Atrocity (germany) started out as a sort of thrash/grind band.
Nobody mentioned Entombed? What about those mid-period Napalm Death albums...

Hmm, will have to check them out some more, I think.



I thought they started out as a death/grind band. The debut at least is pretty grindy death metal and the demos even more filthy. On the second album they did get kind of jazzy..perhaps they were influenced by Cynic, I don't know, but I wouldn't call them a clone in the slightest.

Some of the stuff mentioned here just doesn't seem very radical. I mean, I know a large number of people thought the band had jumped the shark and so on, but it's not exactly a huge shift for a band like entombed to go from heavily rock-influenced death metal (Clandestine to kind of death metal influenced rock Wolverine Blues now is it?

So no one has mentioned Celtic Frost?

This, people. While there are definitely some responses that fit the discussion, some of the responses (especially listers) which merely bring up bands that slightly shift Metal subgenre between albums (on top of that, with no links to show the shift either in lyric or sound) are missing the point. A band that goes from Death Metal to Black Metal isn't in the same league as a band that starts as Death Metal only to consistently release Pop-Punk albums (or vice versa).

WARNING: The links over Heavy/Thrash and radio contain content which are NOT SAFE FOR WORK. View at your own risk.

Pardon the bump, but I discovered this curious Brazillian band called DeFalla by entering "Funk" on the Archives' advanced search. Starting out playing AOR/Funk Rock, they then released two Heavy/Thrash Metal albums in 1989 and 1990, only to then radically change their style for a final time towards a radio-friendly Pop Rock.

Warning: some of those videos aren't work safe.

EDIT: Just to add to the topic, I guess, King Crimson. Though certainly not metal, they went from a eccentric heavily jam based sound to a tightly composed four piece group that experimented with new wave, funk and pop.

One More Red Nightmare vs Frame by Frame

tiamat started as death metal and now is a sort of dark rock or somethind like that

What's even more amusing than what changed is what stayed the same. Their name.

This