Issue 6 2009

Hi there, welcome to my first column. Every week (or whenever I have time to write this) I shall try to enlighten you as to the glorious music that is metal. After the hair metal of the 80s succumbed to the grunge movement, metal really hasn’t seen the light of the mainstream media and as such it is somewhat of an enigma to the average Joe. Consider this you’re chance to peek into the underground.

First a little beginners course.
Whilst there were bands prior that could be considered the ‘true’ beginning of metal, 90% of people in the metal culture will consider Black Sabbath to be the very first metal band. Forming in 1968 in Birmingham England, many people now sadly associate this band with their first front man, reality TV Dad Ozzy Osborne who has become something of a poster boy for what happens when you take too many drugs. Fortunately the real soul of Black Sabbath was guitarist and song writer Tony Iommi who is responsible for a sound that launched a genre. Despite numerous line up changes, a grand total of twenty two former members, Black Sabbath is still going strong having sold over 100 million albums worldwide.

Despite many pre-conceived notions, metal is not just loud guitars and ‘screaming’ harsh vocals. In fact most of the well known names such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Motorhead have ‘normal’ clean vocals. It also has an extremely complicated culture of genres, sub genres, fused genres and god-knows-what genres. Even within the community not everyone agrees 100% on the ‘titles’ of certain genres, and there’s always going to be at least one argument about which genre someone’s favourite band fits into. There’s no way I could list all the genres and sub genres with my word limit, but to give you an idea there is death metal, melodic death metal, black metal, symphonic black metal, symphonic metal, gothic metal, goth metal, speed metal, power metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, Viking metal, folk metal, hair metal, classic metal...I think you get the idea...

The names aren’t the only things that are different, quite a few of the genres I listed could not sound more different if they tried. For example, on the lighter end of the scale there are the likes of power metal, symphonic metal and gothic metal. Floating around in the middle you could find classic metal and melodic death metal. Then down in the truly heavy end of the spectrum are the likes of death metal and black metal. A power metal group such as Stratovarious will sound nothing like a melodic death metal group such as In Flames, and the latter will only sound slightly similar to a black metal band such as Gorgoroth. And yet by some strange, complicated way, they all get grouped under the big umbrella that is metal. If you really want to get a feel for the diversity that can be found in metal I would suggest Youtube-ing my two favourite bands. The first links that come up with ‘Nightwish – Nemo’ and ‘Children of Bodom – Hate Me’ should give you a fair idea.

Well I hope that has given you a bit of an insight into the world of metal. Next week, or there abouts I’ll try to explain to you why females aren’t just at metal concerts to hold their boyfriends jacket.

PS. If you don’t like the bands I listen to don’t bother complaining. I’ll just roll my eyes and ignore you. ^^