Metal Reviews

I have to say I find Metal Archives to have a strange defnition of metal.

I have tried in the past to submit certain Death Metal orientated Grindcore bands but they have been rejected as being non-metal.

Other notable absences are Soulfly, the Nu-Metal Slipknot, Guns N Roses, Ugly Kid Joe and a few others. Now Slipknot and Soulfly are very much rooted in the metal stuff especially these days. I can understand the Glam guys not being included as musically they're more Hard Rock, though Motley Crue is present.

However there are some strange additions that in my mind are not metal at all. These include:

Ministry - an industrial band but no Rammstein
Faith No More - but no Korn, Slipknot, Soulfly etc
Mortiis - Just cause he played in Emperor?
Napalm Death, Leng Tche, Nasum but not a number of other Grindcore bands that are clearly Metal orientated.
Motely Crue - but not Guns N Roses, Ugly Kid Joe or Warrant.

In fact there's a few bands noted as Darkwave(e.g. Chaostar, Pazuzu, Vond) or pure Ambient (e.g. Akhlys, Andy Winter, De Infernali).

Darkwave and Ambient are sure as fuck not metal genres!

By the way I actually like Faith No More, but loathe Korn and am ambivalent to Soulfly, Slipnkot etc. Guns N Roses are lumped as Hair Metal but play Hard rock. I don't listen to much Grindcore these days.

But given that Metal Archives is meant to be an Encyclopaedia of Metal music, some sort of consistency would be appreciated.

I get the feeling that the moderators just kind of lump in things that they like. They like Faith No More so they're included but Soulfly who has done 2 Neo-Thrash Metal albums doesn't. They like ambient electronica so that gets included on a Metal website.

If they liked Brtiney Spears and hated Slayer, I'm sure they'd include Britney and exclude Slayer!

I should hope so, too! And yes, Metal Archives should have Soulfly and Rammstein and Killing Joke and all manner of bands that may not have been metal all their careers, but are now. Eh, c'est la vie, they have a wacky policy, they're good people apart from that.

Interestingly they happily include metal bands that stopped being metal ala Burzum, Metallica, Megadeth (Risk) etc.

I think that is fair enough but they should include bands that have become more metal over time.

They used to have Korn.

Still better than this site's definition of metal.

Ouch

Didn't know they had one,I thought they just reviewed whatever here.

Double ouch.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. There's a lot of grey area.

I wouldn't call Soulfly a grey area.

People might think they're shite, but they're still a metal band.

After the last three albums, it became black and white. When MA started, not so much.

I have discussed the issue with a few users from the site, and it's difficult to define anything especially when the submission of bands is routinely denied in an arbitrary fashion. They allow Underoath and other bands, but have removed others for simply sucking. Any bringing up of this fact longtime users will give you a long rant about submission guidelines, even though their track record of submissions is slightly spotty regarding most grey genres.

Ministry was accepted after Rio Grande Blood came out due to being mostly Thrash Metal. They have been arguably Industrial Metal since Psalm 69 but whatever. Rammstein have had a few songs over the years which could be stretched into being called Metal, but certainly not the majority of them.
Not sure about this one, but generally their policy is not to have Nu or Alt Metal
Yes, because it counts as a side project. Other examples include Karl Sanders and Ice Ages.
Not sure about the others but Napalm Death eventually became Death Metal hence why they are accepted.
Beats me. Something about just being barely 51% Metal.

I'd have to check but I'm guessing they are also side-projects.
I think they're quite consistent most of the time, save for a few rare exceptions.

It has nothing to do with what they like and don't like. It has to do with what they consider being >50% Metal sound. I disagree with their definition of that but I don't have delusions that they only accept bands they like.

As stated Soulfly are now more Neo-Thrash Metal than Alt Metal. Korn and Slipknot are more metal than Faith No More.

I'd never have called FNM a metal band as a lot of it is pop/punk/funk/rap/alternative rock.

Regardless the policy should be consistent.



If the side projects are not metal, they shouldn't be there. Mortiis isn't a side project by the way. It's actually his main band!

So if Kerry King and Chris Barnes did a children's pop rock album with not a single guitar on it, I assume Metal Archives would put it on their site due to it being a side project from 2 metal guys?

It's actually quite ridiculous.



The others were very Grindcore and on par or less "metal" with some of the other bands I tried to submit a few years ago.




I beg to differ, but that's fine.

This is why I like Metal Reviews. There's no pretention about what is metal and no trying to dictate genres. Keep up the good work guys.

Metal archives is good for the obscure stuff (providing it is metal enough).




I seriously doubt Faith No More, Mortiis or any of those Darkwave/Ambient bands have a 50% metal sound (probably only about 15-20% for FNM and 0% for the rest as they're electronica).

I remember reading debates about it on the forums a few times. It has something to do with certain releases, but I haven't heard much by them so I dunno what it was about. All I know is that a great deal of people agreed that they shouldn't be on the archives.
Personally I don't care that side projects are on there, but it does seem hypocritical when there are a good number of bands that probably deserve a place there but are rejected.

It is really simple. Some metal fans are so fucking stupid they think that any sub-genre of metal that they don't personally like is a bastardization and ab-oration so they refuse to even acknowledge it is actually metal. Sorry, the dumbasses that think nu-metal or anything with an alternative influence is not metal need to pack it up and shut the fuck up. Next thing you know, somebody is gonna declare death metal not metal enough and a bunch of anti-DM morons are gonna start spreading it like they know what the hell they are talking about.

nu-metal is not metal

why is it called nu-metal then?

I never will understand this argument. You can argue Korn is not metal, but Alternative. You can argue Dope is not metal, but Industrial. You can argue Orgy is not metal, but synth pop. On and on and on...but you can't say every single band that has ever been given that title, bands like Static-X, Disturbed, Mudvayne, Slipknot, Stuck Mojo, ect. are not metal because they happened to appear in metal edge during the two or three year span Paul Gargano lumped every fucking band that was less than 5 years old into the "movement" that literally no one was promoting within the bands themselves. Nu-Metal is a bullshit term to begin with. during it's time it was always referred to as "new metal" akin to the NWOBHM anyways. They thought there was acommerical rebirth on the horizon and it reflected that, not the sound of the bands. Once it became an internet mime to call every band with rhyming lyrics or down-tuned guitars a "nu-metal" band, as an insult, the term was bastardized and henceforth and retroactively became irrelevant and basically only used by people that absolutely hate contemporary music, heavy or not.

Any respectable metal head would not lump any nu metal garbage band metal PERIOD.