I'm a huge metalhead like everyone here, but I'm fairly young. Extreme music drew my attention since I was 11 but I didn't start with the classics or the essentials of heavy metal. I started straight out with In Flames, Carcass and various metalcore/melo-death which quickly tuned into death, grindcore and most of all black metal which has ruled my life for the last 8 or so years now. Recently I've been listening to a lot of what may be considered the classics of metal (Sabbath, Metallica, Maiden etc...) and I've grown pretty curious about how metalheads who grew up with those bands received the genre becoming more and more extreme. So for anyone who has seen metal grow and expand, how have you personally taken to the emergence of extreme genres? Did or do they appeal to you? Do you even consider them metal or have a respect for the sound? How did you react to hearing something like say Morbid Angel when you were used to Metallica for example?

My dad grew up listening to rock/metal. He liked deep purple and black sabbath, and then had iron maiden's first ever release, then got into thrash when that came out, and got into death and black metal. He is still a huge fan of early metal, as well as death metal, black metal. I've seen mayhem, satyricon, and dark fortress with him. And he has seen impaled nazarene, anaal nathrakh, cannibal corpse, akercocke, deicide and tons of others.

So at least one older metal fan from almost it's inception got into the heavier side of things.

And I got into black metal years before any other styles.

I'm in my 30s. I grew up listening to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Dio. I couldn't stand death metal or black metal when I first heard them - the guitars just sounded like chugging noise, and the vocalists didn't even sing for chrissakes. This is pretty ironic in retrospect because today, 90% of what I listen to has harsh vocals.

I might never have given the more extreme metal genres a chance except for the release of Dio's Strange Highways and Rob Halford's Fight's War of Words back in 93-94. The harshness, the aggression, were so far beyond anything I'd experienced at the time, and I was mesmerised by what I heard. (Hell, just typing this makes me want to dust off Strange Highways and give it another listen...)

From there, the floodgates, so to speak, opened. Fear Factory's Demanufacture was my first album to feature real growling vocals. In the years that followed it was In Flames, Metallica (yeah, I was late getting into those guys, lol), Amon Amarth, Satyricon. These days it's everything from Blut Aus Nord, Behemoth, Melechesh, Vader and Immortal to more melodic/progressive/experimental stuff like Negura Bunget, Draconian, Virgin Black, Agalloch, Drudkh, Ne Obliviscaris... you get the idea.

Extreme metal was an acquired taste for me, but once I got it I never looked back. Those early extreme albums really helped me to appreciate that metal is a genre of pushing the boundaries and innovation; as a result, today's metal music offers a vast palette of sounds and ideas experience. And that is a great thing.

I'm in my 30's now and started listening to Hard Rock/Metal at a very young age. I remember being eight or nine years old and listening to Deep Purple, Zeppelin or Alice Cooper with my dad. In the early 90's I started listening to Guns and Roses and Metallica and, through them, I went really deep on Thrash metal (to this day my favorite bands are still from that specific genres).

I must say that from the mid 90's to early 2000's I became a huge power metal fan. And some bands are still my favorites (Helloween, Gamma Ray, Blind Guardian).

It wasn't until a few years ago that i got into Death Metal. Is not that before that I didn't like it, it was just that, with the exception of a few Cannibal Corpse songs, I had never paid attention to the genre. That changed the first I listened to Vader (Litany). I thought that that was such a great album that I went after their discography and began to look for other bands.

I must say that I had never had listened to Altars of Madness until 2006 or 2007.

Nowadays I'm very fond of Death Metal.

Regarding Black Metal, I know that there is some bands that are really praised here, but to be completely honest I never understood what's so great about bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone or Burzum.

To me is just bad music with worst production.

Interesting thread. I was thinking about something very similar the other day. I'm also in my 30s and by the time I got serious about my appreciation, the genre had splayed all over the place. I was wondering how the ones who were in it from the beginning (or at least early) felt about the changes.

Seems it's likely to be a mixed bag. I can't imagine the fan base around here now is anything like what it was a few years ago. And I'm almost certain that a few of they who've borne consistent witness can't help but be a bit disappointed by some aspects of the "new breed" of fan, as well as some of the sub-genres. I just hope I don't contribute to their ire and that they excuse my kid-in-a-candy-store-noob's enthusiasm.

Metal has changed a lot over the past twenty years. I'm playing nothing but catch up at this point. I'd like to see this thread get some veterans' traffic for some perspective.

It's a bit late to find older metalheads who haven't either come around to extreme metal or grown indifferent to it.

^ I'd have to agree.

Although the only people in it are the ones who brought about extreme metal, you should reach Choosing Death. It's a documentary on death and grind, and is extremely famous. I think anyone who has this kind of question has a hunger for much more than the answer to query in particular can satisfy. It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but I'd give it a read if you haven't.

I believe it's a natural progression for metal heads to expand from lighter, more mainstream stuff to heavier, underground bands. For me, it wasn't much of a shock or something I had to adjust to. I went from Def Leppard and Judas Priest and Ozzy, into Slayer and Mercyful Fate and Venom in the early to mid 80s. By late 80s I was listening to Destruction and Possessed and Kreator. So the explosion of death metal and grind going into in the 90s was just another step into more extreme music.

In the 20-teens (this decade), I think it would be hard to even be a metal fan if you were opposed to extreme metal. The selection of mainstream metal and hard rock is pretty piss-poor. All the new bands are still pushing the boundaries or rehashing what has already been established in the extreme genres. The lighter, mainstream forms of hard music have mostly been abandoned, except by bands that I consider to be garbage. There are no new Maidens or Metallicas coming up IMO.

I am 41. So yeah, I've heard it all. Got into metal in 1982 when I think the term "extreme" has not even existed.

But believe it or not, my transition to thrash and later on to DM and BM went actually pretty smooth. To this day DM is stil remains my fave subgenre. But I certainly have not forgotten my roots and what made me a metalhead.

So I listen it all, from Maidens, Priests and Accept to Slayer, Immolation and Deathspell Omega and everything else in between.

I was introduced to metal in late 80's where the most extreme shit available was Slayer, Kreator, Possessed and Death. I started with heavy and thrash stuff (Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, Metallica, Testament and the aforementioned bands) and for everyone else, Slayer, Kreator and heavier stuff was completely unlistenable and 100% diabolic, so it was kinda forbidden to listen.

When Morbid Angel released Altars, it was a huge change for metal: it was without a doubt the most extreme, evil and dark stuff around (cause Bathory and Samael's music arrived here a little bit later) and, for us, death metal was officially born in that moment. Death's Human, CC and Deicide debut's, Carcass and Napalm Death were around kicking our asses thru and thru and appeared some stuff like Darkthrone (Soulside), Entombed, Suffo, Immolation and well... Incantation. I still consider Onward to Golgotha one of the greatest achievements in extreme metal; it was too dark, heavy, brutal, sinister, intimidating and evil to be believed (for me, of course) at the point I felt fear when I heard it the first time.

Then I knew about black metal and well... 90's are pretty well known as it was developing.

I'm almost 37 and for me it was Metallica and Slayer when I was 13 or 14 that did it for me, then I heard Morbid Angel for the first time and that changed everything and I pretty much been into extreme metal since. I still a huge King Diamond fan but that's about all the trad. heavy metal I like, maybe some old Metallica or Slayer once in a while.

I'm in my early 40's, and would echo what a few others have said. Back in the 80's "extreme" Metal existed. But it was Venom, Slayer, Exodus, etc.

Then those bands weren't all that extreme anymore, and others went further & further.

I like new Metal and older stuff. I try not to rule out anything before I've heard it a few times. Over the years I've also grown tired of the labeling and sub-genres. I just listen to heavy music. There is a band from every corner of the Metal universe that I like. And there's a band from every corner of the Metal universe that I dislike.

And that's pretty much it. When you advance a few more years, I hope you all remain open minded and enjoy a wide variety of stuff as well. It's really restrictive to do otherwise. At least in my own, humble, opinion.

Please disregard them and listen to Satanic Warmaster, Gogoroth, Destoyer 666, Deathspell Omega or 1349.
although strangely enough I DO like Darkthrone, hm quite the quandary, but still I've never understood the hype around the Big acts of Black, (aside from DT that is) but I LOVE black metal.

As an older metalhead, can I just say without getting shit for it that the term "melodeath" makes me want to fucking die.

Depends; does it make you wanna die because of the music it reminds you of, or just because the term's stupid?

It's the term. Melodic death metal can be great when done right.

i grew up listening to alice cooper / guns n roses / helloween / metallica / megadeth
then slayer came along and i was hooked on the speed of it, i wanted the more extreme stuff. that naturally led to bolt thrower and deicide . both blew me away with the death metal vocals and again the blast beats. that was the early 90s. so i stuck with it and then black metal emerged a few years later. it took me a while to get used to the vocals. i remember turning my nose up at burzums vocals. but it wasn't long before i grew to the style and listened to more BM than DM
i started to get back into DM more recently.
i'm always on the lookout for something original and will give most things a chance.

it was good to grow up in a time without MP3 and downloads. you had to seek out and actually buy stuff and therefore listen to it. you gave it your attention. especially BM at the time was something very extreme and ethereal, atmospheric. had a big effect on me and my mates

"it was good to grow up in a time without MP3 and downloads. you had to seek out and actually buy stuff and therefore listen to it. you gave it your attention. especially BM at the time was something very extreme and ethereal, atmospheric. had a big effect on me and my mates"

Very true statement. I'm almost 37. Got into metal through AC/DC to Anthrax to Metallica to Slayer to early death metal and so on. Where I grew up there was only a independent CD store where you could get these albums from Earache/Roadrunner/Relapse. Being a young teenager, I only had a few bucks per month to get like two albums and then you were stuck unless you wanted to sell them back at a quarter of what you paid. Anyway, that helped let me acquire the taste better so to speak. For example, one of the most extreme albums I got back then was the Grindcrusher CD which was a comp of the early earache bands. The first few listens left a bad taste in my mouth, but with many of the bands I could tell something was there that was appealing. After a month or so I was hooked and bought full length albums from Entombed, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death. Ah memories...

ha yes i know it well, the grindcrusher LP. my sister actually had it!! we all hung out together and they had boyfriends into death metal etc. they were never really into it , but i got a copy of that and it introduced me to so many good bands.
i'm 35 myself, been at this metal thing a long time too \m/

This is an awesome thread. Sadly I can't contribute too much - I'm part of the generation whose gateway drug was nu-metal, of cursed memory.

I may not be old, but my dad always played classic stuff which is what typically gets people into metal (like I did). He played a lot of Led Zeppelin, Guns N' Roses, Cream, Hendrix, and the like.

We had a major chain store in my area at the crummy mall. However the manager was friends with a lot of metalheads, and stocked lots of thrash and death metal. This was in the early to mid '90's, so you could randomly pick a CD and chances are it would be awesome.

I feel that extreme metal today is basically stagnating in a lot of ways. There are a few really great bands, but the creativity and risk-taking isn't quite the same. Bands are, for the most part retreading the same ground, and often the pioneers were much better at it. I guess the extremes have been reached. There will never be another "Left Hand Path", "Horrified", "World Downfall", "Reign in Blood" etc because those were revolutionary - they took metal to new levels. There are albums that are faster, heavier, etc, but the impact isn't as pronounced now partly because there is only so fast and heavy you can get while maintaining structure, meter, rhythm , etc and partly because of over-saturation. It's just not as "dangerous" now.

However, this doesn't mean there is nothing new to offer. Bands are simply having to become more diverse to make their mark, which isn't a bad thing. That's why melodic death metal became popular, because the limits of brutality had been achieved. As an example, Amorphis has done some amazing work over the years by adding rock, folk, and unconventional (for metal) instrumentation with excellent song writing. They have focused on their own path as opposed to simply trying to be the most extreme. On the other hand, some copycat bands are good at what they do. It may not be as innovative, bu a good riff is a good riff, even if it sounds like something Carcass could have written.

This isn't much different than anything else in life. When the car was first invented, it was a radical change. Then came mass assembly and part standards, and then automatic transmissions, fuel injection, seat belts, and so on. There are loads of great cars out there, but it's very hard to stand out among the crowd. There may never be another Chevelle SS454, but that's OK as long as newer generations appreciate what the pioneers have already done.

I think you may be viewing the days of yore through rose-colored glasses a little bit. The reason it seems like the 80s/90s were a golden age is due to two reasons:

Fact of the matter is, music's a lot more accessible nowadays with the internet at all- if i wanted to, I could listen to hundreds of bands in a single day that I've never heard before, and music is generally easier for artists to get out there due to the avenues the internet paves. That privilege wasn't there yet way back when, so you didn't get to hear as many strange outliers that usually suck. Like you said, there's over-saturation, but it's not like that wasn't also the case back in the 90s- you just didn't hear the shit side of things.

Which brings me to the other reason, time filters out all the crap. Sure, if one were to look back on what came out from 1984-1994 it looks like the fucking Renaissance for metal; genre-defining classics left and right. What we don't see is the hordes of third rate, lame thrash/death/whatever bands that never got noticed, recognized or stocked in that record store you went to because they sucked and nobody wanted to sell their discs and they couldn't just spam their facebook/soundcloud/bandcamp to every internet dweller within earshot so they faded away into obscurity. There are plenty of new classics being established nowadays and plenty of new ground being forged; they just haven't had the time to become established like the classics from a decade ago have. I, personally, think bands like Antediluvian and Pseudogod are pushing death metal in eerie directions we haven't ventured into yet, for example.

I, being fairly young, don't have anything to contribute to this thread other than that rebuttal, but I have enjoyed this thread so far! It's very interesting to see so many old-timers were so receptive to the genre changes; but then again, what would one expect on a metal forum like this one? All the guys who didn't like the direction metal was going in probably jumped ship a long time ago

I started getting into death metal/extreme music in 97, when I was a sophomore. Before that, it was Anthrax and some Slayer. I had first heard Cannibal Corpse on Ace Ventura and it blew me away. I would go to the cd store at the mall and would see all the albums and remember the censored versions. I eventually bought Vile and The Bleeding. I wrote to get the lyrics(a few years before the internet) multiple times and they never once sent them. I think the first death metal cd I got was The End Complete(got it used and that was the only way to hear it). I was always at the used cd store, but now theyre with the Twilight crowd. I started getting online at home in 98, found amazon and I think the first album I heard was Suffocation Pierced From Within. Since then, Ive found hundreds of extreme bands that I wouldve never found in an actual store.

As one older Metalhead to another, I hail you, sir.
Huge fan of the sub-genre for years now, and that term grates me like little else...

For me it was: classic rock->hard rock->heavy metal->speed metal->thrash metal->black metal->death metal->tech death->grindcore-> and then i could somewhat appriciate and enjoy deathcore and the likes

Melodic death metal became popular around the mid 90s I am assuming. Slaughter of the Soul which seems to be the album that caused a lot of copycats was released in 1995. There was still a fair bit of development left for brutality. Brutal death metal was beginning to take off as well around this time and then we got the technical brutal bands and the slam stuff coming out after that.

I just see melodic death metal as a more accessible form of death metal with a friendlier sound that will appeal to a greater audience (whether that is the intention of the band or not is not part of my point).

Well, back in the early 80's the "Gateway bands" were stuff like Ozzy, Sabbath, and the NWOBHM, although for me it was mostly the former, plus Iron Maiden. I was always (and still am) into classic hard rock, but I never really dug glam/hair metal, although I did dig "Shout at the Devil" (Motley Crue) and of course early Van Halen.

But for me it was always a case of one-upmanship. I always craved whatever was harder, faster, more unrestrained, more extreme, and less compromising. Metallica, Exodus and Slayer filled that role for me perfectly. It was like, this is what I was missing! Over time, I discovered more and more harsher and extreme bands and always embraced them. But I think a lot of what happened is some of the early extreme metal pioneers cleaned up their sound and their later stuff became bland in comparison with the bands that were starting to emerge as the 80's wound down. Metallica and Megadeth are a perfect case in point. That, in a sense, is why thrash metal peaked in 1988 and was widely perceived to have gone downhill afterwards. I know that is simplistic but...when stuff like Carcass's first LP came out, or Napalm Death- nothing like that existed, it was so noisy and extreme that it pushed music beyond the realms of what had been metal and into borderline experimental noise, and made a lot of that stuff obsolete. 20 years later, I have yet to hear anything more extreme than "Reek of Putrefaction" or "From Enslavement to Obliteration." (At least, that doesnt sound like a total joke.) That was the last word, extreme metal taken to it's logical conclusion. I really wholeheartedly embraced this transition but...things quickly got really stupid (for lack of a better word) with bands trying to copy that sound and for the most part, sounding pretty inept; or at best, like a second-rate imitation. So I burned out on grindcore and death metal really quickly.

As for the black metal stuff of the 90's- never really got into it, for various reasons. Some of it (Dark Throne and Burzum) is good but I was always kind of put off by that whole scene. "Melodeath" to me was an interesting fusion of existing styles of metal and I did like some of those bands when they first appeared, but (like grindcore) thought it became oversaturated and boring really quickly. So I guess I've come full circle; nowdays I tend to prefer more traditional heavy metal along with thrash/speed metal, but the various offshoots of death, grind, and black metal- not so much, although there are exceptions.

Sort of the same for me. First time i heard death metal, I thought it was crap. It's still not my favorite, but I can appreciate it to an extent. First time I heard black metal, i thought it was crap, and it has been my favorite for many years now.

Actually I started out with the big four. Metallica was my favorite band as a kid. I started a zine when I was 14 and people started sending me death metal (among other things) to review, and I made my friend review it all.

At first we were all mainly listening to Metallica and Megadeth, and I didn't even understand why Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden were considered metal, because they seemed a lot like rock to me (at the time. I fully understand this aspect now.) I liked those bands, I just didn't quite understand why they were considered metal. To me, metal sounded exactly like Metallica, and nothing else. I subscribed to Metallica-only fanzines and had penpals, one guy sent me an enormous box of bootleg shit for no good reason, zines, etc. It was like Christmas, but more awesome.

I probably got more into black metal in the 90s because it was an extension of what I liked about bands like Slayer, with the lyrical matter and such. And I just like trebly guitars. I began to really enjoy the vocals, rather than thinking they were crap. These days, I barely listen to any metal with singing in it. (If I want to hear singing, I will listen to classic rock or something instead of metal). I remember getting flyers and shit for more extreme bands (BM, DM, grindcore,etc) and being really interested in it. Part of it in the 90s might be written off as teenage rebellion, and the fun of all the satanic imagery and all (to the extent that I was interviewed on a Pennsylvania TV news station as a "Satanist" just because I looked the part), but it was also an appreciation of the freedom I saw in underground music, shit that didn't even strive to get world famous and be on MTV, so they didn't have to compromise to appeal to the lowest common denominator. When I went to a friend's house and she played some Deicide and Morbid Angel and various other shit for me, it wasn't so much that I loved the bands as I was just relieved that they existed, and the existence of such things made the world seem like a better place.

As as has been said in other threads, extreme metal is a good vehicle for artists to express extreme thoughts and emotions. A song about hate just feels more authentic as a black metal song than it would as a warbly pop song or something, and I do think that, to an extent, people's feelings and personalities drive them towards certain types of music more than others. You listen to the shit that appeals to you and that you can relate to. For me, it just happens to be black metal.

In 1996 or whenever Metallica's Load album came out, I got really fucking mad at them and stopped listening to them for at least ten years. I also totally stopped listening to any other thrash. That probably helped point me in the direction of more extreme metal, also. Nowadays I can enjoy Metallica's earlier albums for nostalgic reasons, though.
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Topic aside - what i always found interesting is how the guitar sounds of Thrash went into the whole Metal-Scene during the nineties. You can chose Power-, Groove-, Nu-, Progressive-, or even some of Melodic-Death-Bands - In the 80ties, the modern metal-guitar would have been considered as "thrashy". Maybe that's one reason Thrash went downhill during the last two decades (despite the Retro-Thrash-Wave) - Thrash has been absorbed into the broader spectrums of Metal.

I don't quite understand the hate towards that term, it's basicly just two words combined that make a shorter one... it's easyer typing/pronouncing melodeath than melodic death, isn't it?

Back in the day, "traditional" metal WAS extreme. In my younger years it was Venom, Exciter, Abattoir etc. Everything else is just a gradual progression.

It sounds gay.

Not wanting to derail the thread, but I don't think using 'gay' as an insult is okay. Not to mention meaningless, since Rob Halford and Gaahl are pretty badass...

^yeah...nowadays we prefer the term "Penisuckular" as opposed to "gay."

In the old days things weren't as politically correct, but I do see your point and I always try to respect things like that.

One poster above made an interesting point about some elements of extreme metal finding their way into mainstream music. I hear genuine thrash metal riffs showing up in bands like System of a Down and the gawdawful Bullet for my Valentine for example; and nobody would argue that either band are genuinely "metal." And when a lot of late 80's/early 90's bands started playing downtuned riffs, mainstream nu-metal bands started writing riffs like that too, but instead, watering it down and making it into the bland slip-vayne-ish music that eventually polluted the radio. Which begs the interesting question, how would these bands have been received if they had come out back in the days of classic metal/thrash? Would they have been labeled as pioneering, progressive (whatever that means) thrash or death metal, or merely as just shitty attempts at the same, with a few too many non-metal influences (probably the latter, I'm guessing.) And if Fear Factory or the funk-metal Mordred from California were to release their debut albums today, would they be dismissed as non-metal/mallcore instead?

I think one of the things about the old days was, we were more open to discovering new variations of the use of heavy, aggressive guitar riffs and over time many (like myself) have become more jaded especially with so many bands using heavy aggressive riffs in totally unimpressive ways.

Considering how alien it would be in the contest of the '80s, a Mudvayne record in 1986 would probably be met with first puzzlement, then disdain, and finally be forgotten about.

Do you mean that Bathory/Root/Burzum riff? I'm wondering which band influenced them or if it's a pure coincidence.

Funny everyone is talking about the faster genres here. A question to the veterans here who grew up with the faster pace of music (thrash, black, death, grind etc), what do you people think of music like Stoner, Southern, Sludge or even Drone? How did you people went through it? I mean, if you're so used with epicly fast stuff like what Kreator spouts out, what happened when you first heard Eyehategod's album?

I don't think its about speed. I grew up on classics of late 70s/early 80s before I got into thrash. So I don't really oppose to slower stuff. Heck, Funeral Doom is my second fave sub-genre after Death Metal. So I guess its just a matter of taste than anything else.

This is an intriguing post and I've meant to create a similar one in the past. I will still likely do so, but my angle is a decidedly different one.