Awhile ago I wrote a random speculation about there really being three forms of heavy metal, two more in addition to extreme metal. Now, this was long before I joined Metalstorm, so I was surprised when I noticed that their forums were divided in the same way. What is called melodic metal here I called epic metal, but otherwise the classification is more or less the same, the only difference I notice with classification is here sludge metal is listed under alternative, while I list it as extreme metal. Anyway, in another thread people where discussing about which board metalcore falls under (it's sometimes to go in alternative, but many bands end up in extreme metal), and I figure that depending on the band it could really be called extreme, melodic, or alternative metal. So that leads to the question, do you think this way of dividing metal into three supergenres makes sense? I think for the most part it does, but there is a lot of crossover.

Written by deadone on 01.07.2014 at 09:03

I think the 3 genres here is mainly due to there not being enough forum traffic to warrant genre specific ones.


As for your classificiations, I can't see tech death not being extreme metal. Last time I checked the likes of Psycroptic, Necrophagist, Neuraxis or Atheist being anything but Extreme Metal. Same applies to melodic DM ala Carcass, Edge of Sanity, At The Gates etc etc.

Techdeath is definately extreme metal, I put it as a crossover with extreme metal and epic metal. If you noticed I didn't put any crossover genres in the extreme metal section, that's because I covered it first, they are all in latter sections. Anyway, what I had in mind was more of the progressive death metal bands than brutal as hell ones.

Written by deadone on 01.07.2014 at 09:12

Written by Ganondox on 01.07.2014 at 09:07

Anyway, what I had in mind was more of the progressive death metal bands than brutal as hell ones.

Technical Death Metal usually is brutal by definition.

I doubt anyone thinks Opeth when talking about about Technical Death Metal.

Except wikipedia calls Opeth techdeath, that really needs to be sorted out. At the time I wrote that I just used techdeath as catch-all for all progressive death metal, I was confused when I first heard people differentiateing it as wikipedia is stupid. Anyway, bands like latter Death would fit as both epic and extreme metal, that's what I was going at.

Written by deadone on 01.07.2014 at 09:28

Latter Death wasn't really Death Metal. It was closer to Progressive Thrash Metal especially the last two albums and even then Symbolic was starting to reach into Power Metal territory (not surprising given Chuck's other project Control Denied).

Well it's progressive something, and it's heavy enough to be extreme metal, so it fits the category. A lot of techdeath is prog based, and melodeath is crossover between melodic metal and death metal, that's why they are both listed under epic. Whether or not it's technically tech death, bands like Fleshgod Apcalypse, Between the Buried and Me, and some Spawn of Possession would definately fit in that spot. If techdeath isn't proggy enough to fit the epic bill, then for the sake of the list it isn't meaningful to differentiate it from plain old death metal. There was a bunch of death metal or black metal subgenres I didn't cover because for example I figured it would to redundant to list death/doom, blackened death and black/doom when I already had black metal, death metal, and funeral doom listed.

Ok... Death's later works are considered both Technical Thrash and Technical Death Metal... Though I agree with Deadone it does have a lot more similarities with Thrash Metal, I guess it is considered so solely because the band was more death oriented in its early days and does have a touch of it in its later releases (notice the TOUCH). But apart from that I can't see why it would be labeled as Technical Death Metal... I do Fancy it being so, but I know a lot of people who would disagree.

I can tell the difference between normal death and thrash fine, but I don't really see any difference between techdeath and technical thrash, it's all just complex extreme stuff to me. At least I can tell the difference between djent, mathcore, and techdeath.

Written by Ganondox on 01.07.2014 at 13:26

I can tell the difference between normal death and thrash fine, but I don't really see any difference between techdeath and technical thrash, it's all just complex extreme stuff to me. At least I can tell the difference between djent, mathcore, and techdeath.

I haven't listened to a lot of technical thrash, but most of it still sounds pretty thrashy. Tech death on the other hand usually sounds like extreme prog with death vocals. Modern stuff anyway.

Written by deadone on 02.07.2014 at 02:26

Written by Ganondox on 01.07.2014 at 13:26

I can tell the difference between normal death and thrash fine, but I don't really see any difference between techdeath and technical thrash, it's all just complex extreme stuff to me.

So you can't tell the difference between something like Coroner or early Meshuggah and something like Neuraxis, Necrophagist, Psycroptic etc etc?

I can understand earlier tech Death ala Atheist and Death which did have overlap but technical thrash and techincal death are two very different beasts.

Oh yeah, I can tell the difference between Coronor or Meshuggah and Pscroptic or Necrophagist fine, it's just stuff like Revocation or Death or Athiest where I don't get the point in making the distinction.

I"d split metal and related genres into more than 3 groups
proposing the 5 below and one for other
doom (seems to have split off early when metal wasn"t separated from hard rock yet, sounds different from the rest)
melodic (heavy metal and descendants like speed and power; folk)
extreme (harsher descendants of thrash, mainly black and death)
raw core (crust, traditional hardcore, grindcore)
modern core (post hardcore, metalcore, deathcore)

Written by theFIST on 03.07.2014 at 23:42

I"d split metal and related genres into more than 3 groups
proposing the 5 below and one for other
doom (seems to have split off early when metal wasn"t separated from hard rock yet, sounds different from the rest)
melodic (heavy metal and descendants like speed and power; folk)
extreme (harsher descendants of thrash, mainly black and death)
raw core (crust, traditional hardcore, grindcore)
modern core (post hardcore, metalcore, deathcore)

Pretty good for classifying "true metal", the only problem is it doesn't cover alternative metal at all other than throwing it under other, aside from metalcore all this stuff is within the extreme and melodic metal categories. I'm also going to let the fact that traditional hardcore and post-hardcore aren't metal slide because it fits with the means of classification and is a lot simpler than arguing what is metal and what is hardcore/post-hardcore.

Written by Ganondox on 07.07.2014 at 03:54

Pretty good for classifying "true metal", the only problem is it doesn't cover alternative metal at all other than throwing it under other, aside from metalcore all this stuff is within the extreme and melodic metal categories. I'm also going to let the fact that traditional hardcore and post-hardcore aren't metal slide because it fits with the means of classification and is a lot simpler than arguing what is metal and what is hardcore/post-hardcore.

thank you
yes, alternative falls into "other" in this case, as i don"t know what alternative actually means or how relevant it is separate from the five categories i already used
agreed that it currently is in these categories, but this splits doom making it up for debate in some cases
an issue my proposed system doesn"t solve is the debatable status of thrash
agreed, therefore this classification is for related genres as well, covering whatever is too intense for being considered rock

Written by theFIST on 08.07.2014 at 16:23

Written by Ganondox on 07.07.2014 at 03:54

Pretty good for classifying "true metal", the only problem is it doesn't cover alternative metal at all other than throwing it under other, aside from metalcore all this stuff is within the extreme and melodic metal categories. I'm also going to let the fact that traditional hardcore and post-hardcore aren't metal slide because it fits with the means of classification and is a lot simpler than arguing what is metal and what is hardcore/post-hardcore.

thank you
yes, alternative falls into "other" in this case, as i don"t know what alternative actually means or how relevant it is separate from the five categories i already used
agreed that it currently is in these categories, but this splits doom making it up for debate in some cases
an issue my proposed system doesn"t solve is the debatable status of thrash
agreed, therefore this classification is for related genres as well, covering whatever is too intense for being considered rock

Don't see the issue with thrash, just call it extreme metal. Here alternative refers anything from post-metal and sludge metal to industrial and nu metal. The first two might fit under doom, but industrial and nu metal are harder to classify as it doesn't seem proper to put them under extreme metal at all, but they don't really fit in any other category either.

Written by Ganondox on 08.07.2014 at 16:41

Don't see the issue with thrash, just call it extreme metal. Here alternative refers anything from post-metal and sludge metal to industrial and nu metal. The first two might fit under doom, but industrial and nu metal are harder to classify as it doesn't seem proper to put them under extreme metal at all, but they don't really fit in any other category either.

we might see that one different, as i wouldn"t consider all thrash extreme, but if all gets classified that way it avoids the issue just like the current method

agreed on sludge, not sure what post exactly is

are industrial and nu both similar and relevant enough for their own category, or is having "other" enough?

Written by theFIST on 08.07.2014 at 17:03

Written by Ganondox on 08.07.2014 at 16:41

Don't see the issue with thrash, just call it extreme metal. Here alternative refers anything from post-metal and sludge metal to industrial and nu metal. The first two might fit under doom, but industrial and nu metal are harder to classify as it doesn't seem proper to put them under extreme metal at all, but they don't really fit in any other category either.

we might see that one different, as i wouldn"t consider all thrash extreme, but if all gets classified that way it avoids the issue just like the current method

agreed on sludge, not sure what post exactly is

are industrial and nu both similar and relevant enough for their own category, or is having "other" enough?

I don't really see all thrash as extreme ever, but it fits well with death and black.

Post-metal is atmospheric sludge metal and all other mixtures of post-rock and heavy metal.

Industrial and nu metal are similar enough to lump together, but there are many other forms of alternative metal as well, like funk metal and grunge. It could all just be classified as other, but I thin that's a lot.