Yeah, there's a bit of a problem with how power metal was branched out compared to death, black, and doom metal. Aside from symphonic and prog power metal, the only real distinction is USPM vs EUPM, and just separating by region is a bit of a problem, especially since we got European bands that were just as heavy as most USPM such as Blind Guardian, while Savatage, a USPM band, is a bit on the melodic side.

I found a post on the Metal Archives and Reddit about "melodic power metal," and in a way you could say that "melodic" is somewhat redundant regarding power metal, but the OP did well flesh out the distinction on what they meant (softer bands with keyboards such as Sonata Arctica and Avantasia). I think the Metal Archives can label power metal bands to differentiate, but it's not exactly helping that the site only label certain bands as "melodic" (eg. Kamelot, Stratovarius, Dreamtale), while other melodic bands are not (Avantasia, Sonata Arctica, Twilight Force), which is my real strife. I've already posted this in the complaints forum, yet there hasn't been a response in over a month.


Going back to USPM, it's generally defined as more raw, aggressive, and riff-based, with an emphasis on a melodic chorus. I think the latter is the only thing in common that USPM has with softer EUPM bands, aside from fantasy themes.

Isn't USPM just "heavy metal"?

No. USPM is power metal with a "meaner" edge to it and usually has a lot of thrash-style riffing. It's still power metal, but it is much less melodic. Liege Lord, Iced Earth, and Riot are good examples of the standard USPM sound.

This is probably the best and most comprehensive guide to understanding USPM: https://rideintoglory.com/marcos-guide-to-uspm/

Most USPM borderlines with traditional heavy or speed metal anyways.

I think there's been a bit of a problem with how power metal was branched out. Other main metal subgenres have like many different fancy labels and derivatives based on whatever they make their music out of (eg. brutal death metal, atmospheric black metal, funeral doom, epic doom, etc.). With power metal, they only have EUPM and USPM, and maybe a few well-defined fusions like symphonic and prog power. And there's somewhat of a problem if we treat scenes as fully separate music styles, because 90s Blind Guardian was aggressive and heavy like USPM, while Savatage was a bit more theatrical and melodic. Any more creation of power metal subgenres can cause a bit of some controversy (eg. bringing up the existence of "melodic power metal" since many consider that label somewhat redundant to an extent). Part of the problem to how power metal didn't have this much differentiation is that there are more casuals into power metal, and for a while most of the dedicated metal community didn't take it as seriously, so it didn't have enough time for branching as the more dedicated ones.

A similar problem with thrash. There are like over three times as many thrash bands in the Archives as there are power (30,000 vs 9,000), but from my experience, most casual discussions regarding the genre are almost always Big Four centered, and maybe some sprinkling of Exodus and Testament. Maybe some more dedicated discussions involve Teutonic thrash (Kreator, Sodom, and the others), but outside of the passionate underground thrash community, there is almost zero mention of newer thrash bands.

Also I think if viking metal was renamed to something more vague like "northern metal" or "nordic metal," there'd be less of a controversy regarding its legitimacy as a music style. Thrash, black, and power are rather vague terms instead of a specific topic, so metalheads would see that they are not just defined by solely lyrical content. Okay, maybe death and doom are kind of like that (songs often sing about death and doom), but nothing compared to Vikings, a very specific historical/mythological topic.

Last year I've browsed for some genres for fun, so I've looked if, by a chance, something like progressive slam exosts. There was one band Ive found (Decimated Humans) and I listened to their stuff, but except for the regular average Slam I couldn't find anything different, let alone progressive in their music. So (how) did they add progressive elements in their slam?

You can't. It'll sound dumb. Some things just shouldn't be combined

The opening post of this thread talked about "dark metal," but when I searched up any bands of this genre in the Archives, all I got was "dark ambient" and like four "dark jazz" bands. Is this a genre that was eventually rid of by the Archives?

Yes. Was purged about 5-10 years ago.

What's dark jazz?

I don't know, if it belongs in this thread, but why are some artists here, who don't do metal at all and only Neoclassic, Industrial or Ambient?
If it's only because those are side projects from metal artists, then there should be all side projects here, also rock and nu metal, not only ambient and the other stuff.

And what exactly are the requirements for power prog? I have that feeling in case of Theodor Tuff that some artists are just labelled like that randomly, because some of them sound like regular heavy metal, but not power prog.

We talked about it briefly in the last page about the whole non-metal ambient issue, and I believe it's because the Archives accept them for their relevance in the scene or something. You'd probably want to ask this in the suggestion and complaints forum.

It's basically jazz through the filter of dark ambient or film noir. Something like these:

Wow, I like this! I'm definitely gonna check out this group later.

Is Rap metal real genre? like Body Count

A bit like "power metal" in the 80's, "dark metal" was used in the 90's without being something well defined. After Bethlehem released their Dark Metal album in 1994 or so, the term began to be used for this mix of doom, black and death metal with casual "gothic" atmosphere. The Archives came to accept dark metal, defining it according to the style of this album. I remember as well that some used it in the 90's for Samael first albums, which were stylistically not far from this, or for some bands who were mostly black metal but couldn't be fully considered black metal, because of doom, death, gothic or various elements... In other terms, it was more of an umbrella term.

I think MA might have excluded "dark metal" from the site because:
- there has been no real perennial scene after Bethlehem's debut,
- this album could be best described as doom/black metal (or "blackened doom" as they say nowadays),
- and because the overall use of the term was too vague.

It's kind of weird because "dark metal" sounds good and natural, and I wonder why it hasn't find a metal scene that matches with it. But that could happen lately for a new subgenre to come as for power metal which was used for Metallica or Venom in the 80's before it came to be applied to "happy metal" bands in the late 90's, or retrospectively like for doom metal or other genres.

"Dark ambient" is not metal and has nothing to do with "dark metal" and "dark jazz" sounds like an attempt at creating something new for the sake of it.

It is. It was widely used in the 90's for Rage Against the Machine, Body Count... In the case of fusion subgenre, I think you could combine anything with "metal" and it would be a real subgenre as long as there are bands playing them.

Some would say that a lot of those "rap metal" bands are not really metal, but more like rap hard rock or something, though you could find a few metal riffs in some songs. But Body Count imo is definitely more in the lines of rap metal. I think with the case of bands like Limp Bizkit or RATM, they play a mix of both rap rock and rap metal, but it overall depends on whether you believe rap and metal can go along together.

But honestly, half the time when there's an x rock on something, the x metal label is usually just a heavier distortion variant, and as such, both are often used interchangeably. Bands like Marilyn Manson are labeled as both industrial rock and industrial metal, and I think many "alternative metal" bands are just as considered as "alternative rock." That said, there is still a very clear difference between gothic rock and gothic metal (majority of us are willing to accept Sioux and the Banshees and Type O Negative as separate genres from each other), as well as folk rock and folk metal (comparing Simon and Garfunkel with Eluveitie). Though honestly with the "folk" situation, some bands are also regarded both as rock and metal (Subway to Sally, the Hu).

I agree with RATM being both rap rock and rap metal, but in my opinion, most of their riffs are really heavy and can be called metal.

But honestly, half the time when there's an x rock on something, the x metal label is usually just a heavier distortion variant, and as such, both are often used interchangeably.

This is not false. But "x metal" being just a heavier version of "x rock" sounds logical to me. Sometimes those bands would alternate between rock and metal influences, so you can call them "x rock/metal". But for the mainstream audience, it would make no difference.

That said, there is still a very clear difference between gothic rock and gothic metal (majority of us are willing to accept Sioux and the Banshees and Type O Negative as separate genres from each other)

The problem about gothic is that the metal scene appropriated this term for metal bands either being heavier versions of The Sisters of Mercy or bands using synths and female vocals to create dark atmospheres, often completly cleaned of any post-punk elements. And most metalheads ignore gothic is a scene and a genre of its own which is rooted in post-punk and new wave, and it's wider than just gothic rock a la The Sisters of Mercy. Thus, how could Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus or Joy Division be in the same genre as Type O Negative? The formers are on the original post-punk/cold wave side of the gothic genre while Type O Negative could be described as a sort of doom metal with modern gothic rock elements. And anybody would immediately notice they sound absolutely nothing alike! This explains why gothic metal is not just gothic + metal. Few bands labelled as gothic metal really actually deserve this label.
The same could be said for industrial and industrial rock/metal: there is almost no link between Throbbing Gristle, the originators of industrial music, and Marilyn Manson or NIN.

Gothic” is often slapped on many things with a similar aesthetic, such as punk (Misfits), alt rock/metal (Evanescence), industrial [rock] (Marilyn Manson), emo, symphonic metal (Nightwish), visual kei, etc.

I think part of the problem with industrial vs. industrial metal, gothic rock vs. gothic metal, is the same as with death metal vs. melodic death metal. Genre purists think it should predominantly sound like the influence, but many bands have very different mixtures, where it might be half and half, or even more heavily weighted towards the metal or the melodic facet, and there's endless debate about where exactly the demarcation line should be.

With rap metal, I find it kind of bizarre that for a site that often seems to really only consider the guitar riffing style as the determinant of what genre something is, and whether something is metal or not, that suddenly rapping is a disqualifier. Many rap metal bands are just groove or thrash bands that rap instead of singing or shouting. As someone pointed out, a band like Stuck Mojo is not that far from being Pantera with more rapping rather than singing. It seems to me those sort of bands are tainted by being too adjacent to nu-metal. Metalheads are often allergic to hip-hop influences.

Industrial and gothic are actual genres outside the metal world. So I don't think it's genre purism to claim they are often misused by metalheads. "Melodic" is not a genre therefore it can't be comparable, though I get what you mean. But if melodic death metal is not death metal, then why calling it death metal? It doesn't make any sense.

I completely agree with what you say about rap metal and how MA deals with it.

The origins of it are heavily connected to death metal. Read/watch some interviews with luminaries of scene and you'll see that they wanted to combine the heaviness and aggression of death metal (particularly the Stockholm scene and others, who had already been moving in more melodic directions) with the melodies and harmonies of NWOBHM and such. It was the vocal style and instrumental intensity that they wanted to import, not the non-diatonic and chromatic riffs. M-A has a particular way of looking at things that to those who are here for a long time eventually seems more intuitive, but isn't always shared with the metal community at large. If you look at how more casual extreme metal fans group things, you'll see Arch Enemy and In Flames on the same lists as Cannibal Corpse and Deicide. They tend to place more emphasis on the vocal style than we do. I tend to be somewhere in the middle and think it's a mixture of elements that determine the style.

We still call it "melodic death metal" because it's where it originated from, it's always been called like that, and we haven't yet thought of another term for it (we tried "mallcore" with nu metal to take away any association of metal, but it was considered more like a negative connotation). I guess the shorter name "melodeath" can serve?



Hard to say what a "rock opera" truly is and whether or not it is an actual music style to be relevant as a tag in the Archives, but I assume it's rock music in the form of a musical theatre setting, which could be in various music styles (eg. prog, power metal, rock n roll, etc.). Think about A7X's A Little Piece of Heaven, much of the discography of other bands (eg. Savatage, Meat Loaf, Avantasia), the well-known Bohemian Rhapsody, and some musicals like Hairspray. Rock operas tend to be more in the form of concept albums.

It's kind of like "power ballad," which is practically any form of rock music that involves some form of building up of soft, slow, acoustic music all the way towards heavily distorted electric guitar, often with some symphony, to emphasize this whole emotional aspect. Except with power ballads, they're generally once per album kind of thing, because an album full of them can get pretty boring and rid of the emotions. In fact, an album with more than one or two power ballads can be overwhelming to me, especially if they are way too close together.

And anyways, there are a few more things I'd like some clarification for:

1. Does the Metal Archives consider trad heavy metal a specific sound, or is it just a default term for something reminiscent of the original melodic style? There are also modern bands, usually the metalcore, groove, and alternative stuff, that are also referred to as just "heavy metal," which I suppose is because their style is generally hard to define, but is mainstream-sounding enough, so they stick with the default term. I know the galloping riff is something those bands have in common, but what else between first wave, NWOBHM, and speed metal? If you're that much of a genre-differentiating maniac, I guess you could separate them into different genres as well, but I don't think that's necessary, and genres are generally created not just because of sound, but because of common scene that ties together.

2. Would you reckon "melodic power metal" to describe bands like Sonata Arctica, Avantasia, and Twilight Force to differentiate from the heavier, riff-based Blind Guardian and Majesty? Some would say "melodic" is somewhat redundant with power metal, but black metal is inherintly atmospheric, yet atmoblack still exists, and I am not a huge fan of solely using the whole USPM vs EUPM regional differences as separate genres. I guess symphonic power metal is already good enough, but some bands use keyboard for atmopsheric effect, not to induce an orchestra. In some extreme cases of genre purity, one might even go as far as to say that this style of power metal is not metal at all.

3. I've been trying a bit of stoner metal (Orange Goblin and Kyuss are examples), and from my experience, when it's not trying to be doom metal, it feels more like bluesy groove metal or gritty southern rock to me. What else makes this genre particular that we have 4,500 bands in the Metal Archives? Or am I just ignorant regarding psychedelia influences?

1. I'm pretty sure heavy metal is considered a specific genre on here, which is correct. As for your question regarding modern bands, the metal newsmedia tend to be packed with morons who aren't actually very knowledgeable about the metal genre, so they those bands you were talking about are called "heavy metal" because they don't understand what it is and are mislabeling something else, or they use the term as a umbrella term for all of metal in general, like Wikipedia does.

2. Of course flower metal is metal. The people who say it's not are poking fun at the genre because of how soft is it, or are from DMU or some place like that.

3. Stoner metal is just metal with a fuzzy guitar tone. That's what defines the genre.

Also, what stoner metal albums have you listened to? I can recommend some more if you'd like..

I just edited my post with a different question (eg. changed to the melodic power metal thing), but I appreciate the clarifications. I'd like to know what else constitutes as trad heavy metal aside from clean vocals and galloping riffs. I know it started with blues and psychedelia, but NWOBHM fade away from that and leaned a bit more towards punk influences.

I tried a bit of Orange Goblin and Kyuss, and yeah, I understand the fuzzy guitar tone being a factor. I know the whole unsurprising Black Sabbath influence, but I feel like stoner metal straddles between another scene outside of metal, similar to metalcore. Or maybe it's because there's only a fraction of stoner bands listed here that aren't doom or sludge, and I've been mainly focusing on pure stoner stuff.

1. I'd say both. "Traditional heavy metal" is used to define bands that stick to the original heavy metal sound, that is, the sound that Judas Priest particularly, popularized in the 70's and was continued in the 80's by Iron Maiden and many others. I think the addition of "traditional" aims at differentiating the original heavy metal style from more modern heavy metal sounds, but more importantly from the use of "heavy metal", from a mainstream perspective, as the whole metal genre.
I agree that NWOBHM and speed metal belong to traditional heavy metal: they are at least ways of playing it and at best subgenres of it.
I wouldn't say the galloping riffs constitutes the most common element of traditional heavy metal though they are common. Sure, there are objective core elements like heavier than hard rock riffs and chords, use of the minor scales, melodic lead guitars, soaring/gritty vocals... But as for every style, we've got to take in account the spirit of this genre which is more difficult to define with words but instantly make you say it's traditional heavy metal: let's say a certain sense of aggression inherited from hard rock with more darkness, epicness, outrageousness and drama...
I do agree with you writing genres are more created for scenes that tie together than to differentiate sounds at all costs. That's why I don't like unnecessary subgenre names.

2. "Melodic power metal" describes bands that emphasize melody even more than the other (naturally melodic) power metal bands. Like atmospheric black metal is to black metal.
I agree that EUPM and USPM like any "regional genres" aren't satisfying descriptors... Plus they are obsolete.

3. I totally share your point of view about stoner being more of a fusion genre mixing proto-metal, blues, southern rock, doom or groove metal. Listening to stoner bands, they obviously don't sound like pure metal. I think stoner is a rock 'n' roll/metal fusion genre in nature.

True. "Traditional" helps differentiate bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest from stuff like Eternal Champion, which is stylistically a bit different, but not so much as to necessitate its own exclusive genre ("epic heavy metal" is still under that heavy metal umbrella). Ultimately, as someone who likes subgenres, I find these distinctions interesting and useful, but it's all heavy metal at the end of the day.



N.W.OB.H.M. is an interesting genre classification: it denotes less of a sound than it does a specific region and era which was incredibly influential. I mean, it's where speed metal has its roots. To me, if there were to be a sound associated with N.W.O.B.H.M., it would be a "rough around the edges" and "stripped down" sound. But these traits are not exclusive to it, obviously. Again, it's all squarely in heavy metal territory, hence the acronym. To that speed metal point, I don't agree: I personally feel speed metal to be its own genre. Closely related to heavy metal, but enough of its own thing so as to be distinct.



This is a pretty good summation of what the hell heavy metal even is. It's hard rock, but with everything turned up to 11. Greater emphasis on musical proficiency as well.



"Writing subgenres"? What do you mean?



I totally get the difference between black and atmospheric black metals, but even though it may seem contradictory, I think the distinction between power and melodic power is entirely unnecessary.



How so? I don't think they're obsolete: there's a big difference between the two styles, and that rift has only widened as the years go on. If anything, I'd say USPM has died down while EUPM has only gotten more gaudy as the years progress.

While I see the historical importance between USPM and EUPM, the issue is that USPM is generally more borderline with heavy, speed, or thrash metal, and that USPM has downfall a lot after the late 80s/early 90s; after that, it was just Manowar, Iced Earth, and maybe a bit of Savatage gaining some attention.

EUPM on the other hand, is generally more well-known and the forefront on what people think is power metal, especially with Dragonforce, Sabaton, and Nightwish reaching mainstream levels. It's also relatively more diverse in style: We got the heavier and riff-based Blind Guardian, the melodic keyboard-solo based Stratovarius, and the pop metal stuff that's been playing recently. It's also more widespread outside of Europe; bands in Japan, North America, and Latin America are picking up more from this style.

Back with the stoner metal thing, I guess the Metal Archives does kind of view it as a fusion genre, especially where they specified in the rules that they don't allow plain stoner rock; it has to align with metal more.

As with speed metal, I guess you can kind of view it as its own thing. My issue is that it's pretty narrow in sound and broad in scene and more than often overlaps with other trad heavy, thrash, and power metal bands, and many albums that could be partly speed metal aren't labeled as such. For example, some early thrash albums like Kill em All and Killing is my Business are somewhat on the speed metal side to me.

Why is there an issue? That's exactly the reason why USPM and EUPM aren't listed distinct genres on the archives. Just like "Floridian" or "Swedish" Death Metal aren't. They're just shorthands to describe stylistic flavors.

Because it's not a geographical matter anymore: many American bands play the "European" way while some European bands play the "American" way. Anyway, as Narsilianshard said, the Archives don't even recognize them as subgenres, but "shorthands to describe stylistic flavors". Which is correct to me.

I guess the other problem is that is USPM really solely a US phenomenon? I mean, I'm not denying that Manowar was a kickstarter, but many early EUPM works at the time were also just as much rooted in trad/speed metal riffing (eg. early Helloween bar I Want Out, Blind Guardian, and Gamma Ray). I think there were some trad bands from Europe that would've been labeled as "USPM" had they been based in America. By the time EUPM had its own identity, much of the USPM have relatively declined.

Floridan vs Swedish death metal is a different case because people don't treat them as entirely separate subgenres as much as USPM vs EUPM, nor do they label certain New York death metal bands as FDM or Norwegian death metal as SDM; Swedish death metal stayed in 90s Sweden (and maybe Finland to some extent, but that's a regional border), and Floridan death metal stayed in 90s Florida. Okay, maybe some bands are labeled as "Gothenburg-influenced," but I'm pretty sure it just means early melodeath.
Also both had were more balanced in terms of development and influence; Florida was a keen influence in prog/tech death, and melodeath for Sweden.

Also another thing: a band that sings only in clean vocals, but uses every other common black, death metal, or grindcore elements (not the melodic stuff): tremolo picking, blast beats, song structures, dark tonality, etc. Whether or not this is possible, can it still be considered black/death/grindcore, or is it something else? Does extreme metal strictly requires harsh vocals? I think in this case, it could be either considered a fusion or x metal with y influences.

I was digging through this thread for any examples of extreme metal with only clean vocals, and I found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y13UcAP ... Host-Topic
It still being "extreme metal" is a bit of a debate, but the Archives does list them as "blackened power metal," so I assume it is mostly the latter case. But a lot of us do consider anything melodic instrumentally but predominantly harsh vocal style as melodeath or something, so I wonder if there could be a term for the opposite case here: extreme instrumentals with solely clean melodic vocals.

Yeah, to me those sort of examples are proof to me that it's not just about the instrumentation, vocals also have importance in determining subgenre. One of my go-to examples continues to be this song, which if you imagine growls over it would be labeled some kind of death metal, but instead stays in the prog/power/thrash realm.

I agree that the vocal style contribute to define a subgenre, but it's not the main element and it may depend it may depend of the case. Hallucinogen by Blut Aus Nord for example has no shrieking vocals and yet sounds black metal and couldn't be could anything else. And if Cannibal Corpse played the same music with Tom Araya or even Kurt Cobain singing, they would still be death metal.

Hmm...two somewhat opposite takes here. I listened to a bit of that Blut Aus Nord, and it kind of sounds like atmospheric, somewhat experimental, blackgaze (dunno too much about the genre) or something, but not exactly what I'd call a pure black metal record.

As for the CC with Cobain vocals, I think they could be considered somethign like thrash-death or heavy-death here; that is, if we still treat melodeath as a separate genre.

Can I also use this thread as a "is x album/band y genre" thing, or should it be its own megathread? I'd like to talk about the Black Album, which I'd consider groove metal, or at least some of the songs such as Sad But True and Don't Tread On Me.

Anyways, going back to the "melodic power metal" thing. I don't think that's completely necessary, because a lot of the un-melodic bands of both European and American variety are already paired with some other genre such as speed or heavy. I think by default, "power" is as melodic we can go.

The Black Album is a bit difficult to classify because it's at the crossroad of many influences. I'd describe it as a kind of groovy heavy metal keeping some thrash metal roots while injecting a bit of hard rock to it. I would rather call it proto-groove metal (assuming "groove metal" is a legitimate subgenre because it doesn't totally fit the band's it's supposed to describe in my opinion).

To me TBA is one of the best candidates for pure "heavy metal", along with Dickinson and Halford's solo material.