A metal dead end is basically when you feel like there aren't any more good bands to be discovered in a particular genre, or that you have covered most of them. I have recently found myself in a black metal dead end so I'm very disappointed because it has been such a relatively short time since I first started actively seeking black metal.

I began looking into other genres and even non-metal music but within the metal field I have been focusing on atmospheric sludge/post-metal but that's slowing down as well. Note that I had came to a complete dead end with "melodic death metal" long ago (please don't argue about the name).

What does a metalhead do to combat this phenomena? Should I start looking harder? What are some ways?

Discuss. Pretty please .

I run into that wall too sometimes but I always come back to the bands i already have loved. So many black metal bands to hear with so many songs but finding those new special ones is a dig. I just go to striaght thrash and death metal for a little while and then find myself right back with bm.

I feel that I've dead-ended and exhausted all metal has to offer with keyboards....black/power/whatever, I feel complete.

But... I hate that feeling. I want more, damn it.

This happens to me terrifyingly frequently. I guess what I usually do is just remind myself that finite imaginations don't exist and then just press on with a different genre. I was in a huge death metal phase not too long ago, which was preceded by a long power metal phase. When I burn out on a sound, I just try another one. Eventually, Persuader sounds fresh and awesome again, and Vader starts to kick more ass again. It always works... I've been dealing with a lot of thrash lately, so I'll most likely hop trains again soon enough.

Start checking into other genres, and come back later like one of the above posters said. When I'm tired of scrounging in death metal, I change it up to bm, hardcore (real hardcore), punk, thrash, whatever. Give your brain a break and then you'll return with clearer eyes/ears .

I'd even suggest going completely out of your element and trying out some electronic music. Much of it is crap and dancefloor bullshit, but there's some amazingly creative stuff out there as well. Venetian Snares is as violent and nihilistic as anything you'll find, though his stuff can take time to appreciate.

Fight the Power Metal!!

With me it is a two edged sword. When it seems that there is so much that I can't possible grasp it all, that is overwhelming. And once it looks like the good ones are few and far between it is tough as well. There are so many mediocre black and death metal bands that are just too boring to sit through for an entire full length that it is disheartening. Thrash is always good to try out because there is a good chance if you like thrash you will be able to groove along to more or less any album for its duration and you can pick and choose favorite rather than just throwing out the trash and keeping what is somewhat decent.

Have you checked everything from here, for example -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_metal_bands ?
I don't think that everything on that list is black, the guys from wiki love messing up sometimes, but, still, it is some source.
Or maybe, if you want some work for a few years, check this one -> http://www.metal-archives.com/browseG.php?g=black


That, I think, is a mistake (knowing it by myself). There are so many overlooked masterpieces because of that...

I dont really believe in dead ends musically, at least not in the big, currently developing genres. There will always be something fresh and exciting to find, all you need to do is look a little harder.
Not to say I haven't felt like that sometimes. Post-Grundge, Nu-Metal, Meatlcore, Pop-Punk, and emo alls eem completely devoid of good music to me.

If I made up a list of all the albums I want to listen to but have not had the chance to yet it would be one hell of a list and would take months to listen to them all, years to familiarise myself with them, in which time there'd be another thousand albums to add to the list, so I don't quite follow what you're saying.

I'm not quite sure I understand if there can really be a dead end. Bands will always release new albums and new bands will always emerge taking things to a different level, experimenting and such...

I don't think I will ever hit a metal dead end anytime soon.
At where I live, its hard to discover new bands, other then on the net, especially on MA.

Its hard to stay on the right track when you've ran out of rope/

I guess you just got to dig deeper?

I've never actually had this happen to me. I'm always hungry for more bands of every genre I enjoy. I'm nearing 2,000 albums, and I have no intention of letting up on any genre.

When we hit dead ends, we come to forums like this one.
Think about it.

Define dead end better, because the only way to hit it is to stop looking and, quite frankly, that's not metal's fault, it's yours.

With metal expanding all the time, its going to become harder and harder to reach this state. I've been there before myself but, as others have suggested, turn your attentions to other genres, or even sub-genres and you're bound to find something you enjoy. When I go through my black metal ruts, I turn to doom for example to provide me with my fill. As I'm getting older, I'm beginning to appreciate more and more genres, like post-rock, or just simply rock music, as well as various other forms of metal I previously didn't care for (prog and power, to be precise). What about trying funeral doom? It isn't a big leap from black metal and should be accessible to you.

I remember reading, on this site in fact, that stats say more and more albums are being released each year in the metal industry, so you're bound to continually find new bands with new material that is actually worth a damn.

or this list:

Black Metal list

Look a bit more lower in my message

I was... uh... just reiterating... yeah... reiterating

I'm still not running out of bands.

With black metal go research the first wave bands, or the beherit/sarcofago/von worship styled bands, those two alone make up more than half of my black metal collection and brought up the list of black metal bands I have stuff from up to around 300 different bands. It's sometimes daunting to go through.

There's also the exploration of other genres. I listen to thrash metal, death metal, nwobhm, speed metal and every other subgenre to a significantly lesser degree (as in less than maybe 20-25 bands of the genres I actually care for).

Outside of metal I listen to various genres to degree and open to recommendation. My main other genre is hardcore punk, crust punk, d-beat, and grindcore/powerviolence bands however, so it tends to range in those scenes outside.

I'm always finding bands, and this is how.


1) side projects, involvement as session/guest musician
2) thanks lists
3) people giving me demo tapes or studio releases to check out.
4) looking at new releases from labels, advertisements in the promotion folder.
5) split releases with bands I like

the list goes on, you'll keep finding bands like this.



I don't see where there's a dead end. I hear about 1-8 new bands DAILY, and listen to maybe 2-3.

I have a list like that . 1,415 albums, arranged in chronological order, beginning in 1970 with Lucifer's Friend's self-titled and ending this year with Wolf - Ravenous. A lot of them are essentials that I need to get around to buying, but there's some nice obscure stuff, too - Krux, anyone? Slauter Xstroyes? Artch?

http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=5798
http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=1894
http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=638

I've got waaay too much spare time.

I am sort of burnt out with thrash metal and death metal. It's not that the genres don't have anything more to offer but that when you binge on a particular style for too long, you can get exhausted with it, it's pretty natural. I am using this lull to explore doom metal and heavy metal but I am taking it slow because I don't want to burn out those genres too soon either and meanwhile, there's my other love, progressive rock, to take care of. Also, like others have said, it pays to listen to your favourites again or just to check out albums you didn't give enough time again, it's probably more productive than looking out for more and more albums that you have never heard before. It is only in these few months that I have realized how awesome Bolt Thrower and Incantation truly are, so there!

The best solution is to start buying them (if you don't have them already).
Believe me, when you start your searching for the CD's you'll find new bands and also you'll mention the albums and bands that you heard a long time ago and you had abandoned.

If I continue the way I'm headed, then I'll soon tire myself out with death metal and black metal. Genres I've rarely touched are power metal and a couple others, and I know that's another damn big field to run around in. I doubt I'll ever truly reach a "dead end," considering how many releases there are and how many more per year are put out.

My momentum has definitely slowed down a bit, considering the computer I have is on it's last gigs of space left (and capacity to withstand running, for that matter). I'll need to get another computer in a couple of years - one that isn't a gaming one, since I already have a laptop that does that and since gaming ones are lackluster for music and movies.

Gonna need a +750 gig on for that desktop and a +120 ipod to go along with it.

Apart from the 'is-it-metal?' discussion I'd have to say grindcore.
I was really into it up till 1993 but after that I started to find all bands just mere weak reflections of old faves.

'Tighter' or better produced even made it worse for me. Grindcore began suffering from dogmatic subgenres too much for my taste and even though I try some new stuff which is received well by others from time to time, nothing new even comes close to the old ones.

Proves my point though. You don't even have to go looking for new stuff to find it. Within the last ten minutes I've realised that I need to hear more Hellveto, get hold of the new Heaven & Hell single and also check out that old Lucifer's Friend LP.

when I dont know what to listen to, I start back at the beginning and fill in gaps in my collection. I just bought the first three Deep Purple singles. Also, I find that listening to all the genres at once is the best thing. Always sounds fresh, always sounds interesting and you tend to remember bands better that way.

@Priest, New Wolf is like most of their other albums, good first few songs, then it gets boring. Still, Curse You, Salem is fucking awesome.

I've yet to reach a point where I feel a particular subgenre has nothing left to offer me, although I do hit a point where the music ceases to produce less of an emotional reaction. At that point, I tend to find another subgenre to explore. In most cases, however, interest in one particular subgenre ends up overshadowing interest in another. I used to be heavily into black metal (out of the 43 genres on my iPod, black metal has the most bands under it) and grindcore, but now I'm primarily into grindcore and thrash metal.

I get that all the time, as well. I'm particularly closed-minded and unaccepting of new (to me) musical concepts though, so you can imagine something like that, happening to someone like me, is particularly annoying. Having only made one major genre shift (from death to black), i started making circles in sub-genres to combat burning out. Usually such a phase lasts for about 2-3 months when i slowly transfer to another sub-genre, or sometimes i even bounce back between only two when a lot of new stuff was released that quickly rekindled my love for a particular sound.

For example, i was big into raw black metal sound not too long ago, but having widely explored that area and (sadly enough) finding out it's a turd minefield with a few gems scattered here and there, i turned to experimental black noise bands, from which i hopped on over to rock influenced black metal, and from there to oldschool black thrash. I honestly can't think of another way to keep enjoying my favourite metal genre whilst not putting my closed-mindedness at risk of atrophy.

I find that balancing all the genres always keeps me guessing. Right now I'm listening to punk and early hardcore and also Origin's new album - how can that be boring?

I can remember that when I first listen to Darkness Descends I was stuck for sometime. Mainly a thrash fan at the time nothing was fast enough.

Now I am mainly into doom, and there are hunderds of bands that I haven't listened to yet...

I will just listen to hard rock or old rock and roll for a little while. I like to listen to music. Eventually, I find my way back to much metal listening quite quickly.

This happens to me a lot! I used to listen to almost strictly Power Metal, but for the past 6 months it's been Death, Black, and Folk metal. Now that I'm going back into Power Metal, I've been finding more bands I haven't heard of that are awesome. So, what I do is take a break from the genres I've exhausted, and then I go back later. It works well for me.

I was hesitant to post, because I really don't want to see another thread swallowed up in a downloaders v.s. buyers argument, but I think this "dead end" mentality is created by (can also be alleviated by) the internet. If you're downloading full discographies from hundreds (or thousands, in some cases) of different bands and listening to each album once before moving on then yes you may feel like you've hit a "wall" so to speak. The truth is, however, that you're just spreading yourself way to fucking thin. Instead of downloading, listening, and instantly moving on, perhaps you could make an effort to purchase your favorite albums and then go BALLS FUCKING DEEP into them. Study them, learn them, what's your favorite song on the album, favorite riff, favorite moment, favorite vocal line... If you really dedicate yourself to purchasing and truly delving into your favorite albums you will find the "dead end" mentality melting away, I think.

Also, there just isn't much of a realistic possibility of running out of bands. What the fuck do you listen to, thrash, death, bm, black/thrash, doom? Use the advanced search feature, try finding strictly South American or strictly Asian bands that play a style you love. See if you can find an obscure doom/death album from the early 90s from fucking Ireland. Use this amazing research tool you've been given instead of waiting for bands to fall into your lap. It may take some time weeding through all the shitty bands but eventually you're going to find even more buried gems.

I guess what I'm saying is the sky is the fucking limit here...

THIS

I realized this a few months after I really started downloading albums. When You buy a CD/vinyl, the first thing you want to do is give it a spin, and listen the whole way through. But when you've got all those mp3s, you tend to listen to them much less. You'll listen to one or two tracks from an album, and then move on to the next. you never really go as deep into the album as you should. Nowadays, I try to listen to full albums whenever I can, but mostly, it's just a couple standout tracks then on to the next one.

Even more shameful, there are still albums on my ipod that I havent even given a single listen to.

The only genre I've burnt out on is Punk, but then I found Hardcore, Crust, etc. There are way to many Metal bands that I still have yet to listen to.

Jonpo summed up much of what I'm thinking.

Also, when you listen to certain genres, do you tend to focus on just one subgenre in a stretch of time or do you vary? If you don't vary yet, within metal and outside of it, I'd seriously recommend it. I have only very rarely dealt with these dead ends and I think this is because I almost always listen to a healthy variety of music. If I repeat any one song, album, or genre over and over again, I will inevitably get sick of it--I have the feeling this may be happening to you.