I've seen something I never thought I would see... At least not on this page. "Raw black metal". Can black metal be rawer to put a sub-genre of it called like that?
I found this genre while crawling on the releases by Depressive Illusions Records and then in this band called 1389.

raw black metal used to be the cool thing a couple years ago. It's generally black metal with the classic case of being underproduced to sound abrasive and often with a trace of punk influence. Think stuff ranging from darkthrone to bone awl or ildjarn

Yeah, I see raw black metal as a relevant term in contrast to, say, symphonic black or DSBM or something like that. Despite drawing from a similar well regarding influences and having similar elements in their music, Darkthrone and Emperor sound pretty different. As Emperor was one of the first black metal bands I really got into, hearing Transilvanian Hunger for the first time kind of threw me, as I was expecting something more like In the Nightside Eclipse.

If raw black metal meant something like Transilvanian Hunger, as opposed to symphonic, depressive and such black metal, more than 50% of black metal would be raw. No, I'm pretty sure it means stuff like Absurd, Vlad Tepes and such - very abrasive-sounding, and generally lacking finesse. More often than not, it's simply a matter of production, playing style and attitude.

Never underestimate how bad anything DIR puts out can be. Just imagine that it sounds like a seventh-generation copy of an Ildjarn tape played through an old radio that used a fluorescent light bulb instead of a vacuum tube.



Yeah, that seems to be the common use, though it's quite varied, and these countless bedroom projects have made Ildjarn sound like Metallica. We use the term pretty sparingly and only for the noisiest, rawest stuff on the archives.

Makes sense. Stuff like, say, Moonblood or the LLN bands might be "raw" in terms of production, but has too much of the conventional sound and structure of black metal (melodies in the riffs etc.) to be designated "raw black metal."

Off-topic, but on the subject of confusing (or confused) genre mishmashes, today I came across a band described on the Archives as "power metal, industrial/country/rap/rock."

http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/MX/ ... iscography

Haven't heard any of their songs yet, but I can't imagine they're not the worst band ever.

worst band logo I have ever seen

I know how the genre Symphonic X (Power, Gothic and another else) sounds, but I can see in the archives how there are others bands described as Neoclassical X (Power, Black, etc.), like this:

http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Bann/73926

Then, what is exactly the neoclassical sound? I can´t imagine big differences between this and Symphonic.

Neoclassical to my understanding more refers to the scales and note progressions used with the guitar, rather than anything orchestral. Tends to have lots of soloing and can have a big overlap with shred.

Yngwie Malmsteen seems like the archetypal "neoclassical" artist, with bands like Stratovarius and Galneryus for instance heavily influenced by him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsHFSrh0i8

Neoclassical is a bit tough to explain as it's a really, really broad subset of music. Our use of genres on the archives is generally done with respect to metal, and we prefer using relatively simple, broad terms to refer to non-metal (i.e. "ambient"). When a genre on MA includes "neoclassical" there are three things I'd say:

-It is not directly related to common usage of the term to describe the early-1900s style of music.
-If it isn't paired with "metal" then it likely refers to something evolved from Dead Can Dance's neoclassical ambient style of the 80s, see also "darkwave." For example, Autumn Tears and similar artists
-If it is neoclassical ___ metal then it is likely something influenced by/similar to Malmsteen's style. This is pretty well documented so I won't go into much detail, but a lot of parts and patterns have been reproduced or adapted from classical music, especially JS and CPE Bach.

What makes a band "southern metal"? For all I know it's basically groove metal or sludge metal with southern rock influences.

Or just plain heavy metal with southern rock influences like Pride & Glory.

I've been getting into Metal lately (I started with Heavy/Traditional, and I had already listened to a lot of Thrash), and I just noticed the genre ''Speed Metal''.
There's a lot of bands on sites that get tagged with ''Speed Metal'', yet I can't really find any band that's just a speed metal band.
It's like it's more of an attribute to an existing band than an actual genre. The genre description is always something like : ''Thrash Metal, Speed Metal'' or ''Heavy Metal, Speed Metal'' or ''Power Metal, Speed Metal'', but never really just Speed Metal. Why is this? is it even a real genre? Isn't it pretty much a pointless genre then? or did I just not look at enough bands?

Speed metal is a legit genre, though it's kind of a transitional genre historically, which is why you usually find it with other genres on here; trad metal of NWOBHM ilk played faster, bands wanting to be more extreme and aggressive before settling into thrash or black metal, or power metal bands before streamlining and "refining" their sound into modern (usually Euro) power metal.

Try out this for the pure speed metal sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uWEMkIOpZM

What is epic doom metal? Whats the difference between epic and traditional doom? Is it only in lyrical themes? Do you need to have power metal influences in order to be called epic doom?

epic doom goes for a colder sound and more epic songwriting.
Compare Candlemass with Pentagram

What the fuck is the subgenre "Extreme", I saw an "Extreme progressive death metal" band on this page called Ne Obliviscaris. Isn't death metal extreme enough? It sounds so weird as making a subgenre called "Raw" for black metal. "Raw black metal", "Extreme death metal", what now? "Slow doom metal"? And sorry if I sound really angry or something, this is just too weird for me...

Sometimes "extreme" is the best way to describe a band. "Extreme metal" usually refers to any metal subgenre that has harsh vocals by default, so stuff like black, death, death/doom, funeral doom, etc. Some people include thrash in there as well but I tend to think of thrash as more closely aligned with heavy/speed metal unless it's particularly brutal or has harsh vocals (or both).

Anyway, bands that are tagged "extreme metal" are bands that clearly come out of some sort of black or death metal style but can't really be described as belonging to either or, for that matter, as being a hybrid of the two (i.e. black/death or blackened death metal). Ne Obliviscaris are definitely extreme metal but their music is more akin to ridiculous Francophile Aussies rubbing their penises all over violins and guitar fretboards than it is to either death or black metal (which is why their genre tag is actually "extreme progressive metal" rather than what you said it was).

Well, then. I'll check the band later and some other "extreme metal" bands to see how the genre is and so... Thanks for the reply.

Is tribal metal considered a legit genre?

Nope.

Oh well, here another question comes. What makes the NWOBHM different from the traditional heavy metal? It is just because it is some wave of bands from the same genre but in a different time and space like early norwegian black metal scene and later black metal bands?

That's not so much a genre question as something that you can differentiate somewhat be listening to heavy metal/hard rock before/outside the NWOBHM, and listen to NWOBHM bands themselves and note the years it came from. "Traditional heavy metal" is a rather misleading term anyway, because the traditions of heavy metal aren't one unified style, and the term is applied to everything from the heavier offerings of blues rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and various incarnations of hard rock to a fairly wide variety of heavy metal into the 80s.

Keep in mind that every heavy metal band of the 70s was a hard rock band of some sort which wasn't crossing a defined line into heavy metal. The bands that came to define heavy metal were simply the heavier ones who put the most emphasis on certain styles of guitar riffing that defined the genre.

Check out some of the hard rock bands that really started pushing the border of hard, heavy guitar music what we know as heavy metal - Lucifer's Friend, Night Sun, Bang, and Buffalo. Perhaps the best band to illustrate the cutting edge of metal in the 70s is Judas Priest - their first album wasn't metal, and they drew from many styles over the following few albums until basically trimming it down into the straight, aggressive style of Killing Machine.

Apparently Palms is 'art metal'. Never heard of the style before.

Because that genre doesn't exist.

heh... thought so.

What is Shamanic black metal?

^ It's pretty much as same as 'pagan' metal.

What's the difference between pornogrind and "pornogore"?

A lyrical theme (shanamic religions) and a regular old genre. Same thing as "Satanic black metal" and "Christian power metal."



I'd guess "pornogore" is a hybrid of pornogrind and goregrind. I couldn't explain the difference between all those goofy different niches though.

I don't think "pornogore" really exists, it's just another name for those types of bands. "Pornogrind" is a subset of goregrind as it is, and the two are similar enough that there's no need to make a hybrid genre denoting a fusion of the two.

Something like Arckanum, maybe? Or any BM with a sense of dark mysticism to it.

Methinks that pornogore is just pornogrind that involves a bit more gore in their lyrics that regular pornogrind bands do.

Also, what is dark doom metal? What bands are considered that sort?

Sounds like an ad hoc description. As in "dark" as a lone adjective, not part of a crystallised genre term.

"Blackgaze" sounds like it would almost perfectly describe Deafheaven.

Deafheaven are way more of a post rock band than shoegaze though.

We've been trying to remove "dark" as a genre for a while now, it's often useless and I mean, if your doom metal isn't dark, you're doing something wrong.

Dark metal, imo, perfectly describes Bethlehem first outputs, a blend of death doom metal and black metal. Dark metal, on the other hand, also arguably describes some Agalloch.

What exactly makes a certain band a Post-X band? For example, what makes a post black metal band post black as opposed to... well, black?

There's always a bit of debate ever since the term was introduced, but generally speaking "post-genre" is used to described a sound that takes its core base from the genre and goes beyond the regular norms of it, expanding that same style by using the usual elements that define it and taking them into newer uncharted grounds where it can still be related to the core genre, but in a way that the core genre isn't enough to define it. Imagine that there's an established genre with rules set in stone, then bands start picking up on that genre and taking it into new directions but still in a way that those rules are more or less followed at a core level. What I'm trying to say is that "post-genre" doesn't mean bands are going on experimental or avant-garde directions, or cross-breeding genres, they're just picking up on the core elements of a genre and giving it a different spin.

Erh... yeah, this isn't very easy I reckon. It's one of those descriptors where it can be a specific thing or a major umbrella term. Hope this helps.