Metal Reviews

What are common (and/or tired) metal cliches some of you have noticed (beyond the usual "long hair," etc)?

Here are a few from me:

1. Lyrics dealing with organized religion.

2. The "soft guitar/symphonic intro" to the first track of a thrash metal album.

3. The metal ballad being placed on Track 4.

4. Guitars tuned to either E or D (E often being used in "classic metal" and D often being used in metalcore).

5. The growling/clean vocal mix popularized by bands like Machine Head and Fear Factory.

What are some others you can think of?

Homoeroticism?

Maybe the black and white pictures of the band members between the lyrics in the booklet.

Corpse paint

Yeah, except they're overdone in death and melodeath too. I'd much rather they incorporate them into the actual songs rather than just funneling the idea into an interlude.


I love stuff that goes from GRAKKKGURRR to tralalala as long as they don't make the chorus clean in every song.

I think the biggest cliche of metal is being centered around individual riffs rather than music movements or songs

I'd say that's more of a hard rock thing.

200th post

The title track often being a long fucking epic. Especially in heavy/power/prog metal. Not that it's a complain, they're often quite badass actually.




On a side note, one of the first things I noticed with patterns in metal was how Metallica kept putting their title tracks as song number 2. That somehow bugged me a little, dunno why though.

How about the Eb tuning for Power Metal (for no believable reason that I can discern)?

The Eb tuning is more common in black metal, and that really is a cliché, nearly every norwegian black metal tunes in Eb, it´s like in Norway they don´t make strings long enough to get to E! although a cliché, that evil-sounding half-tone tuning thingy really works most of the time

And, about E being a cliché in metal... E tuning is what you call the "standard" guitar tuning, more traditional styles (heavy, power) use mainly E because, well... to sound traditional

The one about the accoustic intro on thrash albums I never realized it, it really is true! take a look at coma of souls, the only clean guitar used on the whole album is the fucking intro to the first song! not to mention metallica.

how about power metal bands rhyming "fire" with "desire"? It´s been used like a million times already for gods sake...
And well, a walking talking cliché has to be Hammerfall, with Templars of steel iron titanium and chopped wood on every freaking song?

How many rock/metal songs are there in the key of E? I shitload, mainly because it's easy to solo in the key of E.

I've noticed the "night" "fight" "light" rhyme more than "fire" and "desire"...

lol, I've never thought about that before, and I've listened to Metallica alot over the years. Now it's bugging me too!

Yeah lol, I dunno why but it kinda bugs me that bands actually make up patterns how to place their songs in order on different albums. It feels dirty in someway, don't know how to explain it without going into further detail and sounding like a complete idiot though

I just think Eb tuning sounds cooler than E tuning. I don't really know why. I guess it just has a more nocturnal and organic sound than E tuning.

You´re right, that´s another one that started getting repetitive in 1997, haven´t thought about it though



It really depends, but yes, Eb sounds more "evil" to say it in a way, notice most grunge bands live Alice in Chains used Eb, and Jerry Cantrel´s guitar always had that wicked touch mainly because of the tuning

The bottle of Jack Daniels in every promo photo.

Motorcycles.

The legs-akimbo guitar solo.

I am a metal cliche. I play thrash and death metal in standard tuning, you have to work harder to get a good heavy song going, and you know you've truly done it without having to sound muddy and shit.

I think of image and clothing when I think of Metal cliches...

I miss the old Dave Mustaine look of tight denim jeans, white trainers, bare chest and perm (I looked like that (minus the ginger hair) for most of 1990, but couldn't get away with that look nowadays as the beer gut's starting to overtake the belt!).

Bandanas, ripped jeans and Leather Jackets or Denim jackets with band patches all over it.

In modern times, black clothing and generally too much using of the word black in most corners of metal.

Masks or facepaint in Black/Death/Battle Metal.

Sensitivity to racism, none whatsoever to homophobia?

Guitarist orgasm face

alcoholism