Metal Reviews

A while back I read somewhere that Black Sabbath were a Doom Metal band. And then all of a sudden all these other 1970's rock and heavy metal bands were retconned into Doom Metal bands.

Back when I first heard the title "Doom Metal" it was applied to My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, early Anathema, very early Catherdral - so basically really slow Death Metal stuff that didn't fit into the general vibe of Death Metal.

Now it applies to the heavier versions of what was called Heavy Metal or Stoner Metal at worst.

Then there's Cradle of Filth whose earlier works were always regarded as Symphonic Black Metal but have now been retconned into Gothic Metal whatever that is.

The other thing that has been retconned into heavy metal history is that Metalcore first introduced elements of hardcore and punk into metal. Clearly people hadn't heard of NWOBHM or Thrash Metal or Death Metal or Grindcore or Crossover or Black Metal, all of which borrowed Punk, Hardcore elements to a degree.

Grindcore itself has been retconned from its very early days as Hardcore gone nuts to a more Death Metal style (though arguably this started very early in the genre's life when anything on Earache was regarded as Grindcore).

"retconned"?

retroactive continuity

Apparently it's the cool thing to say these days.

It's almost as overused as "hyperbole" nowadays, anyway:

Yeah. Not a big fan of this myself. Specifically I don't care about doom metal. Black Sabbath and Pentagram have not really gone out of their way to specifically write slow doom metal kind of stuff, so I wouldn't label them that way.

Nor would I start saying Crimson Glory is Power Metal because it sort of fits and a lot of influence came from that. I don't think a band can represent genres that didn't exist when the album comes out.

It happens with every damn genre. I don't think power metal existed until after death metal came and went. So Maiden is just another "Heavy Metal" band from the 80's.

Prog. Metal didn't really exist until the late 80's, so I wouldn't call "The Dungeons are Calling" that.

Obviously Aerosmith can't be a classic rock band because that wasn't around until the 80's.

Mercyful Fate can't be black metal...
Judas Priest can't be thrash....
The beatles can't be Hard Rock...


ect.

People think this?

I don't really care. imo genres are just adjectives describing how the music sounds and if a band (like Sabbath) influenced an entire genre (like doom metal) then obviously there's aspects of that genre in their sound.

Most of what was said in the op is debatable, anyways - not all grindcore is considered Death Metal, and Cradle of Filth did incorporate Gothic Metal aspects into their sound. Plenty of harsh Doom bands around, and who ever claimed that Metalcore was the OG combination of metal and 'core? A bit straw-man-y.

The principle of whether you can retroactively describe something with a term that's only invented afterwards is an interesting one though.

Maybe that's a loose definition of "interesting", but anyway.

I guess you could say a lot of classical music has been "retconned". AFAIK Bach didn't refer to his music as "Baroque". Or did he?

*doesn't know but imagines not*

It is an interesting discussion, particularly the horridly amorphous character of 'doom metal'. Keep Boris away from my My Dying Bride, please.

But back to the OP, I also want to (pig-headedly) assert that no death or black metal (at least not the stuff I listen to) has been tainted by punk, hardcore, or any other styles of that 'music'. Segregation forever!!

finally someone says this, drone doom is an oxymoron.

I think doom should be about dynamics, or in the case of funeral doom, a pulverizing yet still atmosphere. 95% of drone I've listened to does nothing for me.

Doom is probably the most poorly defined subgenre in metal.

Doom = DWs new favourite genre

Really? Napalm Death, Benediction, Fuck Off And Die, Impaled Nazarene, the list goes on. A bit of punk is sometimes very good in these genres.

I was mostly exaggerating. I just didn't like the OP's blanket statement that black metal borrows from punk or hardcore.

Black metal has the same DIY/"anybody with a guitar and a tape recorder can do it" aesthetic of punk. Also black metal is the only metal subgenre where I've heard people say things like "they're not black metal because they're Christian", and punk has similarly strong ties to ideology behind the music.

Ideology yes, the ideology is strong in both genres, but generally opposite. And similarity doesn't mean influence.

I don't see the DIY aesthetic as being an influence, just perhaps a common trait. Most DIY black metal is one or two man bands who don't tour and write often incomprehensible to the outsider 10 minute tracks. I fail to see any 'punk' influence in something like Xasthur, for example.

But Xasthur are also coming into the game 20 years into black metal's evolution. There's not a whole lot of Possessed left in a band like Necrophagist or Augury, either, and they're considered in the same genre not just an influence. For DIY I think even the non-one member bands favour raw recordings in the same way that punk does.

Also I just hear pretty big similarities between black metal and subgenres of punk, especially screamo (original definition) stuff like Orchid, Saetia, pg99, even Circle Takes the Square or Buried Inside. I'm not super familiar with either genre though. Sometimes with a band like Armia I would've thought they were black metal if they hadn't been introduced to me as a hardcore punk band.

Also also there's a local record store that organizes black metal/crust punk/power violence/grindcore shows so I tend to associate black metal more with those genres while other genres of metal tend to stick together.

Yeah who knows how influencial punk or whatever was on most black metal but sure the similarities are there.

Well it is a fair opinion noodles. I can't say I agree, but people get too worked up about genre designations as it is, so perhaps I should let it go. It's just a label.

Regarding Balck Metal and punk...firstly I'm no expert on the genre.

Darkthrone and Satyricon both definitely have a punk vibe in their later days. Impaled Nazarene were always punky. Later day BM bands seem firmly based on Black Metal.

Though to be honest, I'm not sure how much of the punk vibe is a result of stripped down Thrash influences ala Sodom or early raw sounding stuff such as Motorhead, Bathory and Venom.

For Death Metal, many British DM bands had a punk background (not only Napalm Death but Carcass, Benediction, Bolt Thrower) as did bands such as Entombed. The American bands did seem to come from the Thrash side of things via bands such as Possessed .

Most Thrash bands definitely had a punk influence and indeed this eventually grew into Crossover ala the mighy Nuclear Assault as well as D.R.I., Suicidal Tendencies etc.

As for Metalcore I don't think it really added anything new to the mix except that it took Melodic Death Metal and mixed it with post-1990 American heavy metal ala Pantera and Machine Head (usage of soft/heavy vocal mix, breakdown style riffs).