Proto-metal: 1950s-late 1960s Heavy metal's quintessential guitar style, which is built around distortion-heavy riffs and power chords, traces its roots to early 1950s
Memphis blues guitarists such as
Joe Hill Louis,
Willie Johnson and particularly
Pat Hare, Other early influences include the late 1950s instrumentals of
Link Wray, particularly "
Rumble" (1958); the early 1960s
surf rock of
Dick Dale, including "
Let's Go Trippin'" (1961) and "
Misirlou" (1962); and
the Kingsmen's version of "
Louie Louie" (1963), which became a
garage rock standard. However, the genre's direct lineage begins in the mid-1960s. American
blues music was a major influence on the early
British rockers of the era. Bands like
the Rolling Stones and
the Yardbirds developed
blues rock by recording covers of classic blues songs, often speeding up the
tempos. As they experimented with the music, the UK blues-based bands – and in turn the U.S. acts they influenced – developed what would become the hallmarks of heavy metal (in particular, the loud, distorted guitar sound). In addition to the Kinks'
Dave Davies, other guitarists such as
the Who's
Pete Townshend and the Yardbirds'
Jeff Beck were experimenting with feedback. Where the blues rock drumming style started out largely as simple shuffle beats on small kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex and amplified approach to match and be heard against the increasingly loud guitar. Vocalists similarly modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylized and dramatic. In terms of sheer volume, especially in live performance, the Who's "bigger-louder-wall-of-
Marshalls" approach was seminal to the development of the later heavy metal sound. The combination of this loud and heavy blues rock with
psychedelic rock and
acid rock formed much of the original basis for heavy metal. The variant or subgenre of psychedelic rock often known as "acid rock" was particularly influential on heavy metal and its development; acid rock is often defined as a heavier, louder, or harder variant of psychedelic rock, or the more extreme side of the psychedelic rock genre, frequently containing a loud, improvised, and heavily distorted, guitar-centered sound. Acid rock has been described as psychedelic rock at its "rawest and most intense", emphasizing the heavier qualities associated with both the positive and negative extremes of the
psychedelic experience rather than only the idyllic side of psychedelia. In contrast to more idyllic or whimsical pop psychedelic rock, American acid rock
garage bands such as the
13th Floor Elevators epitomized the frenetic, heavier, darker, and more psychotic psychedelic rock sound known as acid rock, a sound characterized by
droning guitar riffs, amplified feedback, and guitar distortion, while the 13th Floor Elevators' sound in particular featured yelping vocals and "occasionally demented" lyrics. Frank Hoffman noted that "[Psychedelic rock] was sometimes referred to as 'acid rock'. The latter label was applied to a pounding,
hard rock variant that evolved out of the mid-1960s
garage-punk movement.... When rock began turning back to softer, roots-oriented sounds in late 1968, acid-rock bands mutated into heavy metal acts." One of the most influential bands in forging the merger of psychedelic rock and acid rock with the blues rock genre was the British power trio
Cream, who derived a massive, heavy sound from
unison riffing between guitarist
Eric Clapton and bassist
Jack Bruce, as well as
Ginger Baker's double bass drumming. Their first two LPs –
Fresh Cream (1966) and
Disraeli Gears (1967) – are regarded as essential prototypes for the future style of heavy metal.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album,
Are You Experienced (1967), was also highly influential.
Hendrix's virtuosic technique would be emulated by many metal guitarists, and the album's most successful single, "
Purple Haze", is identified by some as the first heavy metal hit. and the band has been cited as an early American heavy metal group. On their self-titled debut album, Vanilla Fudge created "loud, heavy, slowed-down arrangements" of contemporary hit songs, blowing these songs up to "epic proportions" and "bathing them in a trippy, distorted haze". The American psychedelic rock band
Coven, who opened for early heavy metal influencers such as Vanilla Fudge and the Yardbirds, portrayed themselves as practitioners of
witchcraft or
black magic, using dark –
Satanic or
occult – imagery in their lyrics, album art and live performances, which consisted of elaborate, theatrical "
Satanic rites". Coven's 1969 debut album,
Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, featured imagery of skulls,
black masses,
inverted crosses, and
Satan worship, and both the album artwork and the band's live performances marked the first appearances in rock music of the
sign of the horns, which would later become an important gesture in heavy metal culture.
Origins: late 1960s and early 1970s Critics disagree over who can be thought of as the first heavy metal band. Most credit the British bands
Led Zeppelin and
Black Sabbath, with American commentators tending to favour Led Zeppelin and British commentators tending to favour Black Sabbath, though many give equal credit to both.
Deep Purple, the third band in what is sometimes considered the "unholy trinity" of heavy metal along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, fluctuated between many rock styles until late 1969 when they took a heavy metal direction. A few commentators – mainly American – argue for other groups, including
Iron Butterfly,
Steppenwolf,
Blue Cheer, or
Vanilla Fudge, as the first to play heavy metal. In 1968, the sound that would become known as heavy metal began to coalesce. That January, San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a cover of
Eddie Cochran's classic "
Summertime Blues" as a part of their debut album,
Vincebus Eruptum, and many consider it to be the first true heavy metal recording. The same month, Steppenwolf released their
self-titled debut album, on which the track "
Born to Be Wild" refers to "heavy metal thunder" in describing a motorcycle. In July, the
Jeff Beck Group, whose leader had preceded Page as the Yardbirds' guitarist, released its debut record,
Truth, which featured some of the "most molten, barbed, downright funny noises of all time", breaking ground for generations of metal guitarists. In September, Page's new band, Led Zeppelin, made its live debut in Denmark (but were billed as the New Yardbirds).
The Beatles' double album
The Beatles, released in November, included "
Helter Skelter", one of the heaviest-sounding songs released by a major band at that time.
The Pretty Things'
rock opera S.F. Sorrow, released in December, featured "proto heavy metal" songs such as "Old Man Going" and "I See You". Iron Butterfly's 1968 song "
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is sometimes described as an example of the transition between
acid rock and heavy metal or the turning point in which acid rock became "heavy metal", and both Iron Butterfly's 1968 album
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Blue Cheer's 1968 album
Vincebus Eruptum have been described as laying the foundation of heavy metal and greatly influential in the transformation of acid rock into heavy metal. In this
counterculture period,
MC5, who began as part of the Detroit garage rock scene, developed a raw, distorted style that has been seen as a major influence on the future sound of both heavy metal and later
punk music.
The Stooges also began to establish and influence a heavy metal and later punk sound, with songs such as "
I Wanna Be Your Dog", featuring pounding and distorted heavy guitar power chord riffs.
Pink Floyd released two of their heaviest and loudest songs to date, "
Ibiza Bar" and "
The Nile Song", the latter of which being regarded as "one of the heaviest songs the band recorded."
King Crimson's debut album
In the Court of the Crimson King started with "
21st Century Schizoid Man", which was considered heavy metal by several critics. performing at
Chicago Stadium in January 1975|alt=A colour photograph of the four members of Led Zeppelin performing onstage, with some other figures visible in the background. The band members shown are, from left to right, the bassist, drummer, guitarist, and lead singer. Large guitar speaker stacks are behind the band members. In January 1969, Led Zeppelin's
self-titled debut album was released and reached No. 10 on the
Billboard album chart. In July, Led Zeppelin and a power trio with a Cream-inspired, but cruder sound, called
Grand Funk Railroad played the
Atlanta Pop Festival. That same month, another Cream-rooted trio led by
Leslie West released
Mountain, an album filled with heavy blues rock guitar and roaring vocals. In August, the group – now itself dubbed
Mountain – played an hour-long set at the
Woodstock Festival, exposing the crowd of 300,000 people to the emerging sound of heavy metal. Mountain's proto-metal or early heavy metal hit song "
Mississippi Queen" from the album
Climbing! is especially credited with paving the way for heavy metal and was one of the first heavy guitar songs to receive regular play on radio. In September 1969, the Beatles released the album
Abbey Road containing the track "
I Want You (She's So Heavy)", which has been credited as an early example of or influence on heavy metal or
doom metal. In October 1969, British band
High Tide debuted with the heavy, proto-metal album
Sea Shanties. Other bands, with a more consistently heavy, "purely" metal sound, would prove equally important in codifying the genre. The 1970 releases by Black Sabbath (
Black Sabbath, which is generally accepted as the first heavy metal album, and
Paranoid) and Deep Purple (
Deep Purple in Rock) were crucial in this regard. Unable to play normally, Iommi had to tune his guitar down for easier fretting and rely on power chords with their relatively simple fingering. The bleak, industrial, working-class environment of Birmingham, a manufacturing city full of noisy factories and metalworking, has itself been credited with influencing Black Sabbath's heavy, chugging, metallic sound – and the sound of heavy metal in general. Deep Purple had fluctuated between styles in its early years, but by 1969, vocalist
Ian Gillan and guitarist
Ritchie Blackmore had led the band toward the developing heavy metal style. That same year, two other British bands released debut albums in a heavy metal mode:
Uriah Heep with ''
...Very 'Eavy... Very 'Umble and UFO with UFO 1. Bloodrock released their self-titled debut album, a collection of heavy guitar riffs, gruff style vocals and sadistic and macabre lyrics. The influential Budgie brought the new metal sound into a power trio context, creating some of the heaviest music of the time. The occult lyrics and imagery employed by Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep would prove particularly influential; Led Zeppelin also began foregrounding such elements with its fourth album, released in 1971. In 1973, Deep Purple released the song "Smoke on the Water", whose iconic riff is usually considered as the most recognizable one in "heavy rock" history, as a single of the classic live album Made in Japan''. ,
Phil Lynott and
Scott Gorham of
Thin Lizzy performing during the Bad Reputation Tour, 24 November 1977 On the other side of the Atlantic, the trendsetting group was
Grand Funk Railroad, who was described as "the most commercially successful American heavy-metal band from 1970 until they disbanded in 1976, [they] established the Seventies success formula: continuous touring." Other influential bands identified with metal emerged in the U.S. such as
Sir Lord Baltimore (
Kingdom Come, 1970),
Blue Öyster Cult (
Blue Öyster Cult, 1972),
Aerosmith (
Aerosmith, 1973) and
Kiss (
Kiss, 1974). Sir Lord Baltimore's 1970 debut album and both
Humble Pie's
debut and
self-titled third album were among the first albums to be described in print as "heavy metal", with
As Safe As Yesterday Is referred to by the term "heavy metal" in a 1970 review in
Rolling Stone magazine. These bands also built audiences via constant touring and increasingly elaborate stage shows. Rock historian Clinton Walker wrote, "Calling AC/DC a heavy metal band in the seventies was as inaccurate as it is today.... [They] were a rock 'n' roll band that just happened to be heavy enough for metal." The issue is not only one of shifting definitions, but also a persistent distinction between musical style and audience identification; Ian Christe describes how the band "became the stepping-stone that led huge numbers of hard rock fans into heavy metal perdition". In certain cases, there is little debate. After Black Sabbath, the next major example is Britain's
Judas Priest, which debuted with
Rocka Rolla in 1974. In Christe's description, Black Sabbath's audience was... left to scavenge for sounds with similar impact. By the mid-1970s, heavy metal aesthetic could be spotted, like a mythical beast, in the moody bass and complex dual guitars of
Thin Lizzy, in the stagecraft of
Alice Cooper, in the sizzling guitar and showy vocals of
Queen, and in the thundering medieval questions of Rainbow.... Judas Priest arrived to unify and amplify these diverse highlights from hard rock's sonic palette. For the first time, heavy metal became a true genre unto itself. Though Judas Priest did not have a top 40 album in the United States until 1980, for many it was the definitive post-Sabbath heavy metal band; its twin-guitar attack, featuring rapid tempos and a non-bluesy, more cleanly metallic sound, was a major influence on later acts. but the main offense was its perceived musical and lyrical vacuity: reviewing a Black Sabbath album in the early 1970s,
Robert Christgau described it as "dull and decadent... dim-witted, amoral exploitation."
Mainstream: late 1970s and 1980s , one of the central bands in the
new wave of British heavy metal Punk rock emerged in the mid-1970s as a reaction against contemporary social conditions as well as what was perceived as the overindulgent, overproduced rock music of the time, including heavy metal. Sales of heavy metal records declined sharply in the late 1970s in the face of punk,
disco and more mainstream rock.
Motörhead, founded in 1975, was the first important band to straddle the punk/metal divide. With the explosion of punk in 1977, others followed. British music magazines such as the
NME and
Sounds took notice, with
Sounds writer Geoff Barton christening the movement the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal". NWOBHM bands including
Iron Maiden,
Saxon and
Def Leppard re-energized the heavy metal genre. Following the lead set by Judas Priest and Motörhead, they toughened up the sound, reduced its blues elements and emphasized increasingly fast tempos. "This seemed to be the resurgence of heavy metal," noted
Ronnie James Dio, who joined Black Sabbath in 1979. "I've never thought there was a
desurgence of heavy metal – if that's a word! – but it was important to me that, yet again
[after Rainbow], I could be involved in something that was paving the way for those who are going to come after me." By 1980, the NWOBHM had broken into the mainstream, as albums by Iron Maiden and Saxon, as well as Motörhead, reached the British top 10. Though less commercially successful, NWOBHM bands such as
Venom and
Diamond Head would have a significant influence on metal's development. In 1981, Motörhead became the first of this new breed of metal bands to top the U.K. charts with the live album ''
No Sleep 'til Hammersmith''. The first generation of metal bands was ceding the limelight. Deep Purple broke up soon after Blackmore's departure in 1975, and Led Zeppelin split following drummer
John Bonham's death in 1980. Black Sabbath were plagued with infighting and substance abuse, while facing fierce competition from
their opening band,
Van Halen.
Eddie Van Halen established himself as one of the leading metal guitarists of the era. His solo on "
Eruption", from the band's
self-titled 1978 album, is considered a milestone. Eddie Van Halen's sound even crossed over into pop music when his guitar solo was featured on the track "
Beat It" by
Michael Jackson, which reached No. 1 in the U.S. in February 1983. Inspired by Van Halen's success, a metal scene began to develop in Southern California during the late 1970s. Based on the clubs of L.A.'s
Sunset Strip, bands such as
Mötley Crüe,
Quiet Riot,
Ratt and
W.A.S.P. were influenced by traditional heavy metal of the 1970s. These acts incorporated the theatrics (and sometimes makeup) of
glam metal or "hair metal" bands such as
Alice Cooper and Kiss. Glam metal bands were often visually distinguished by long, overworked hairstyles accompanied by wardrobes which were sometimes considered cross-gender. The lyrics of these glam metal bands characteristically emphasized
hedonism and wild behavior, including lyrics that involved sexual expletives and the use of narcotics.In the wake of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and Judas Priest's breakthrough with
British Steel (1980), heavy metal became increasingly popular in the early 1980s. Many metal artists benefited from the exposure they received on
MTV, which began airing in 1981; sales often soared if a band's videos screened on the channel. Def Leppard's videos for
Pyromania (1983) made them superstars in America, and Quiet Riot became the first domestic heavy metal band to top the
Billboard chart with
Metal Health (1983). One of the seminal events in metal's growing popularity was the 1983
US Festival in California, where the "heavy metal day" featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Scorpions, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest and others drew the largest audiences of the three-day event. Between 1983 and 1984, heavy metal's share of all recordings sold in the U.S. increased from 8% to 20%. Several major professional magazines devoted to the genre were launched, including
Kerrang! in 1981 and
Metal Hammer in 1984, as well as a host of fan journals. In 1985,
Billboard declared: "Metal has broadened its audience base. Metal music is no longer the exclusive domain of male teenagers. The metal audience has become older (college-aged), younger (pre-teen), and more female." By the mid-1980s, glam metal was a dominant presence on the U.S. charts,
music television and the arena concert circuit. New bands such as L.A.'s
Warrant and acts from the East Coast like
Poison and
Cinderella became major draws, while Mötley Crüe and Ratt remained very popular. Bridging the stylistic gap between hard rock and glam metal,
New Jersey's
Bon Jovi became enormously successful with its third album,
Slippery When Wet (1986). The similarly styled Swedish band
Europe became international stars with
The Final Countdown (1986), whose
title track hit No. 1 in 25 countries. In 1987, MTV launched
Headbangers Ball, a show devoted exclusively to heavy metal videos. However, the metal audience had begun to factionalize, with those in many underground metal scenes favoring more extreme sounds and disparaging the popular style as "light metal" or "hair metal". One band that reached diverse audiences was
Guns N' Roses. With the release of their chart-topping album
Appetite for Destruction in 1987, they "recharged and almost single-handedly sustained the Sunset Strip sleaze system for several years". The following year,
Jane's Addiction emerged from the same L.A. hard-rock club scene with their major-label debut, ''
Nothing's Shocking. Reviewing the album, Steve Pond of Rolling Stone'' declared, "As much as any band in existence, Jane's Addiction is the true heir to Led Zeppelin." The group was one of the first to be identified with the "
alternative metal" trend that would come to the fore in the next decade. Meanwhile, new bands like New York City's
Winger and New Jersey's
Skid Row sustained the popularity of the glam metal style.
Other heavy metal genres: 1980s, 1990s and 2000s from
crossover thrash band
Suicidal Tendencies Many
subgenres of heavy metal developed outside of the commercial mainstream during the 1980s, such as
crossover thrash. Several attempts have been made to map the complex world of underground metal, most notably by the editors of
AllMusic, as well as critic
Garry Sharpe-Young. Sharpe-Young's multivolume metal encyclopedia separates the underground into five major categories:
thrash metal,
death metal,
black metal,
power metal and the related subgenres of
doom and
gothic metal. In 1990, a review in
Rolling Stone suggested retiring the term "heavy metal" as the genre was "ridiculously vague". The article stated that the term only fueled "misperceptions of rock & roll bigots who still assume that five bands as different as
Ratt,
Extreme,
Anthrax,
Danzig and
Mother Love Bone" sound the same. particularly songs in the revved-up style known as
speed metal. The movement began in the United States, with
Bay Area thrash metal being the leading scene. The sound developed by thrash groups was faster and more aggressive than that of the original metal bands and their glam metal successors. The subgenre was popularized by the "Big Four of Thrash":
Metallica,
Anthrax,
Megadeth and
Slayer. Three German bands,
Kreator,
Sodom and
Destruction, played a central role in bringing the style to Europe. Others, including the San Francisco Bay Area's
Testament and
Exodus, New Jersey's
Overkill, and Brazil's
Sepultura and
Sarcófago, also had a significant impact. Although thrash metal began as an underground movement, and remained largely that for almost a decade, the leading bands of the scene began to reach a wider audience. Metallica brought the sound into the top 40 of the
Billboard album chart in 1986 with
Master of Puppets, the genre's first Platinum record. Two years later, the band's album
...And Justice for All hit No. 6, while Megadeth and Anthrax also had top 40 records on the American charts. Though less commercially successful than the rest of the Big Four, Slayer released one of the genre's definitive records:
Reign in Blood (1986) was credited for incorporating heavier guitar
timbres and including explicit depictions of death, suffering, violence and occult into thrash metal's lyricism. Slayer attracted a following among
far-right skinheads, and accusations of promoting violence and
Nazi themes have dogged the band. Even though Slayer did not receive substantial media exposure, their music played a key role in the development of
extreme metal. In the early 1990s, bands that got their start in thrash metal achieved breakout success, challenging and redefining the metal mainstream. Metallica's
self-titled 1991 album topped the
Billboard chart, as the band established an international following. Megadeth's
Countdown to Extinction (1992) debuted at No. 2, Anthrax and Slayer cracked the top 10, and albums by regional bands such as Testament and Sepultura entered the top 100.
Death metal 's
Chuck Schuldiner, "widely recognized as the father of death metal" Thrash metal soon began to evolve and split into more extreme metal genres. "Slayer's music was directly responsible for the rise of death metal," according to MTV News. The NWOBHM band Venom was also an important progenitor. The death metal movement in both North America and Europe adopted and emphasized the elements of
blasphemy and
diabolism employed by such acts. Florida's
Death, San Francisco Bay Area's
Possessed and Ohio's
Necrophagia are recognized as seminal bands in the style. All three have been credited with inspiring the subgenre's name. Possessed in particular did so via their 1984 demo,
Death Metal, and their song "Death Metal", which came from their 1985 debut album,
Seven Churches. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Swedish death metal became notable and melodic forms of death metal were created. Death metal utilizes the speed and aggression of both thrash and hardcore, fused with lyrics preoccupied with
Z-grade slasher movie violence and
Satanism. Death metal vocals are typically bleak, involving guttural "
death growls", high-pitched
screaming, the "death rasp" and other uncommon techniques. Complementing the deep, aggressive vocal style are down-tuned, heavily
distorted guitars Death metal, like thrash metal, generally rejects the theatrics of earlier metal styles, opting instead for an everyday look of ripped jeans and plain leather jackets. One major exception to this rule was
Deicide's
Glen Benton, who branded an inverted cross on his forehead and wore armor on stage.
Morbid Angel adopted
neo-fascist imagery. Black metal varies considerably in style and production quality, although most bands emphasize shrieked and growled vocals, highly distorted guitars frequently played with rapid
tremolo picking, a dark atmosphere Satanic themes are common in black metal, though many bands take inspiration from ancient
paganism, promoting a return to supposed pre-Christian values. Numerous black metal bands also "experiment with sounds from all possible forms of metal, folk, classical music, electronica and avant-garde". Although bands such as
Sarcófago had been donning
corpsepaint, by 1990, Mayhem was regularly wearing it; many other black metal acts also adopted the look. Bathory inspired the
Viking metal and
folk metal movements, and
Immortal brought blast beats to the fore. Some bands in the Scandinavian black metal scene became associated with considerable violence in the early 1990s, with Mayhem and Burzum linked to church burnings. Growing commercial hype around death metal generated a backlash; beginning in Norway, much of the Scandinavian metal underground shifted to support a black metal scene that resisted being co-opted by the commercial metal industry. By 1992, black metal scenes had begun to emerge in areas outside Scandinavia, including Germany, France and Poland. The 1993 murder of Mayhem's
Euronymous by Burzum's
Varg Vikernes provoked intensive media coverage. several key bands, including Burzum and Finland's
Beherit, moved toward an
ambient style, while
symphonic black metal was explored by Sweden's
Tiamat and Switzerland's
Samael. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Norway's
Dimmu Borgir and England's
Cradle of Filth brought black metal closer to the mainstream.
Power metal performing in Buenos Aires in 2010 During the late 1980s, the power metal scene came together largely in reaction to the harshness of death and black metal. Though a relatively underground style in North America, it enjoys wide popularity in Europe, Japan and South America. Power metal focuses on upbeat, epic melodies and themes that "appeal to the listener's sense of valor and loveliness". The prototype for the sound was established in the mid- to late 1980s by Germany's
Helloween, who, in their 1987 and 1988
Keeper of the Seven Keys albums, combined the power riffs, melodic approach and a high-pitched, "clean" singing style of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden with thrash's speed and energy, "crystalliz[ing] the sonic ingredients of what is now known as power metal". Traditional power metal bands like Sweden's
HammerFall, England's
DragonForce and the U.S.'s
Iced Earth have a sound clearly indebted to the classic NWOBHM style. Many power metal bands such as the U.S.'s
Kamelot, Finland's
Nightwish,
Stratovarius and
Sonata Arctica, Italy's
Rhapsody of Fire and Russia's
Catharsis feature a keyboard-based
"symphonic" sound, sometimes employing orchestras and opera singers. Power metal has built a strong fanbase in Japan and South America, where bands like Brazil's
Angra and Argentina's
Rata Blanca are popular. Closely related to power metal is
progressive metal, which adopts the complex compositional approach of bands like
Rush and
King Crimson. This style emerged in the United States in the early and mid-1980s, with innovators such as
Queensrÿche,
Fates Warning and
Dream Theater. The mix of the progressive and power metal sounds is typified by New Jersey's
Symphony X, whose guitarist
Michael Romeo is among the most recognized of latter-day shredders.
Doom metal Emerging in the mid-1980s with such bands as California's
Saint Vitus, Maryland's
the Obsessed, Chicago's
Trouble and Sweden's
Candlemass, the doom metal movement rejected other metal styles' emphasis on speed, slowing its music to a crawl. Doom metal traces its roots to the lyrical themes and musical approach of early Black Sabbath. The
Melvins have also been a significant influence on doom metal and a number of its subgenres. Doom metal emphasizes melody, melancholy tempos and a sepulchral mood relative to many other varieties of metal. The 1991 release of
Forest of Equilibrium, the debut album by U.K. band
Cathedral, helped spark a new wave of doom metal. During the same period, the
doom-death fusion style of British bands
Paradise Lost,
My Dying Bride and
Anathema gave rise to European
gothic metal. with its signature dual-vocalist arrangements, exemplified by Norway's
Theatre of Tragedy and
Tristania. New York's
Type O Negative introduced an American take on the style. In the United States,
sludge metal, which mixes doom metal and hardcore punk, emerged in the late 1980s;
Eyehategod and
Crowbar were leaders in a
major Louisiana sludge scene. Early in the next decade, California's
Kyuss and
Sleep, inspired by the earlier doom metal bands, spearheaded the rise of
stoner metal, while Seattle's
Earth helped develop the
drone metal subgenre. The late 1990s saw new bands form such as the Los Angeles–based
Goatsnake, with a classic stoner/doom sound, and
Sunn O))), which crosses lines between doom, drone and
dark ambient metal; the
New York Times has compared their sound to an "
Indian raga in the middle of an earthquake". but as well as the growing popularity of the more aggressive sound typified by Metallica and the post-thrash
groove metal of
Pantera and
White Zombie. Grunge acts were influenced by the heavy metal sound, but rejected the excesses of the more popular metal bands, such as their "flashy and virtuosic solos" and "appearance-driven"
MTV orientation. The album was certified 16× Platinum by the
RIAA. A few new, unambiguously metal bands had commercial success during the first half of the decade – Pantera's
Far Beyond Driven topped the
Billboard chart in 1994 – but, "In the dull eyes of the mainstream, metal was dead." Some bands tried to adapt to the new musical landscape. Metallica revamped its image: the band members cut their hair and, in 1996, headlined the alternative music festival
Lollapalooza, which was founded by
Jane's Addiction singer
Perry Farrell. While this prompted a backlash among some longtime fans, Metallica remained one of the most successful bands in the world into the new century. band
Lacuna Coil performing in 2010 Like Jane's Addiction, many of the most popular early 1990s groups with roots in heavy metal fall under the umbrella term "alternative metal". Bands in Seattle's grunge scene such as
Soundgarden are credited for making a "place for heavy metal in alternative rock", and
Alice in Chains were at the center of the alternative metal movement. The label was applied to a wide spectrum of other acts that fused metal with different styles:
Faith No More combined their alternative rock sound with punk,
funk, metal and
hip-hop;
Primus joined elements of funk, punk,
thrash metal and
experimental music;
Tool mixed metal and
progressive rock; bands such as
Fear Factory,
Ministry and
Nine Inch Nails began incorporating metal into their
industrial sound (and vice versa); and
Marilyn Manson went down a similar route, while also employing shock effects of the sort popularized by Alice Cooper. Alternative metal artists, though they did not represent a cohesive scene, were united by their willingness to experiment with the metal genre and their rejection of glam metal aesthetics (with the stagecraft of Marilyn Manson and White Zombie – also identified with alt metal – significant, if partial, exceptions). In the mid- and late 1990s came a new wave of U.S. metal groups inspired by the alternative metal bands and their mix of genres. Dubbed "nu metal", bands such as
Slipknot,
Linkin Park,
Limp Bizkit,
Papa Roach,
P.O.D.,
Korn and
Disturbed incorporated elements ranging from
death metal to hip-hop, often including
DJs and
rap-style vocals. The mix demonstrated that "pancultural metal could pay off". Nu metal gained mainstream success through heavy MTV rotation and Ozzy Osbourne's 1996 introduction of
Ozzfest, which led the media to talk of a resurgence of heavy metal. In 1999,
Billboard noted that there were more than 500 specialty metal radio shows in the U.S., nearly three times as many as 10 years before. While nu metal was widely popular, traditional metal fans did not fully embrace the style. By early 2003, the movement's popularity was on the wane, though several nu metal acts such as Korn or Limp Bizkit retained substantial followings.
Recent styles: mid- to late 2000s, 2010s and 2020s Metalcore, a hybrid of extreme metal and
hardcore punk, emerged as a commercial force in the mid-2000s, having mostly been an underground phenomenon throughout the 1980s and 1990s; pioneering bands include
Earth Crisis,
Converge, and
Shai Hulud. By 2004, melodic metalcore – influenced by
melodic death metal as well – was popular enough that
Killswitch Engage's
The End of Heartache and
Shadows Fall's
The War Within debuted at No. 21 and No. 20, respectively, on the
Billboard album chart. , performing at the 2007
Masters of Rock festival Evolving even further from metalcore came
mathcore, a more rhythmically complicated and progressive style brought to light by bands such as
the Dillinger Escape Plan,
Converge and
Protest the Hero. Mathcore's main defining quality is the use of odd time signatures, and has been described to possess rhythmic comparability to
free jazz. Heavy metal remained popular in the 2000s, particularly in continental Europe. By the new millennium, Scandinavia had emerged as one of the areas producing innovative and successful bands, while Belgium, the Netherlands and especially Germany were the most significant markets. Metal music is more favorably embraced in Scandinavia and Northern Europe than other regions due to social and political openness in these regions; Finland in particular has been often called the "Promised Land of Heavy Metal", as there are more than 50 metal bands for every 100,000 inhabitants – more than any other nation in the world. Established continental metal bands that placed multiple albums in the top 20 of the German charts between 2003 and 2008 include Finland's
Children of Bodom, Norway's Dimmu Borgir, Germany's
Blind Guardian and Sweden's HammerFall. In the 2000s, an extreme metal fusion genre known as
deathcore emerged. Deathcore incorporates elements of
death metal,
hardcore punk and
metalcore. Deathcore features characteristics such as death metal
riffs, hardcore punk
breakdowns, death growling, "pig squeal"-sounding vocals and screaming. Deathcore bands include
Whitechapel,
Suicide Silence,
Despised Icon and
Carnifex. The term "retro-metal" has been used to describe bands such as Texas-based
the Sword, California's
High on Fire, Sweden's
Witchcraft and Australia's
Wolfmother. The Sword's
Age of Winters (2006) drew heavily on the work of Black Sabbath and
Pentagram, Witchcraft added elements of
folk rock and psychedelic rock, and Wolfmother's
self-titled 2005 debut album had "
Deep Purple-ish organs" and "
Jimmy Page-worthy chordal
riffing".
Mastodon, which plays a progressive/sludge style of metal, has inspired claims of a metal revival in the United States, dubbed by some critics the "
New Wave of American Heavy Metal". By the early 2010s, metalcore was evolving to more frequently incorporate synthesizers and elements from genres beyond rock and metal. The album
Reckless & Relentless by British band
Asking Alexandria, which sold 31,000 copies in its first week, and the Devil Wears Prada's 2011 album
Dead Throne, which sold 32,400 in its first week, reached No. 9 and No. 10, respectively, on the
Billboard 200 chart. In 2013, British band
Bring Me the Horizon released their fourth studio album,
Sempiternal, to critical acclaim. The album debuted at No. 3 on the
U.K. Album Chart and at No. 1 in Australia. The album sold 27,522 copies in the U.S. and charted at No. 11 on the
Billboard Chart, making it their highest-charting release in America until their follow-up album, ''
That's the Spirit'', which debuted at No. 2 in 2015. Also in the 2010s, a metal style called "
djent" developed as a spinoff of standard
progressive metal. Djent music uses rhythmic and technical complexity, heavily distorted,
palm-muted guitar chords, syncopated
riffs and
polyrhythms alongside
virtuoso soloing. Fusion of
nu metal with
electropop by singer-songwriters
Poppy,
Grimes and
Rina Sawayama saw a popular and critical revival of the former genre in the late 2010s and 2020s, particular on their respective albums
I Disagree, Miss Anthropocene and
Sawayama. ==Global reach==