Just What Is Heavy Metal, Anyway?

Part II of The Beginner’s Guide to Heavy Metal

Screen Shot from Heilung “Krigsgaldr”, youtube

(If you didn’t see Part I by Anthony Overs, here is the link.

A Beginner’s Guide to Heavy Metal

Anthony captured a Who’s Who of early metal royalty and hints of the various directions metal would take as it splintered into its many subgenres. It’s a perfect on-ramp for those who are metal-curious. It may also leave you questioning your assumptions about metal.

Part II takes those questions further and looks at some artists who have pushed the boundaries of metal.)

Since it first crawled out of the primeval seas in the 1960s, people have been trying to pin labels on metal, starting with the original label “heavy metal.” You could say it started off as rock with more than a dash of aggression. Think of “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin, “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” by Black Sabbath, or “Child in Time” by Deep Purple, and you get the idea.

While there is little agreement on what metal actually is, there are some widely held perceptions about it, especially among people who don’t actually listen to it. Loud. Angry. Depressing. Dark. Black clothing with metal spikes. Men (always men) with big hair screaming or playing self-indulgent guitar solos that do little for the song. Is there a lot of that? Of course there is. Stereotypes don’t come out of nowhere. But there is far more.

Despite its origins as a form of working-class protest music, metal quickly attracted virtuoso musicians who felt confined and smothered by the strictures of mainstream pop and even rock. Some, but not all, of these musicians got their start in the British blues scene of the late 60’s. They were heavily influenced by psychedelic rock bands like Blue Cheer, Cream, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which had blues roots but played innovative, technical music with lots of distortion and heavy beats.

As Anthony described in Part I of this series, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin are generally recognized as the big three “proto-metal” bands. Why? One big reason is their sound was centered on the electric guitars — this is considered the most likely basis for the term “metal.” And yes, they were loud and relied on heavy amplification. But they did far more than that.

They formalized a lot of the approaches that would become the basis for metal: dense, complex compositions; baroque and classical musical structures; and instrumental virtuosity. Along with bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, they added over-driven male vocals layered over all the heavy instrumentation. In the case of Priest and Maiden, in particular, the songwriting leaned toward the outright bombastic, which would become typical of many metal bands.

The protest element always remained, however. One way it manifested itself was through the increasing adoption of growling and screaming as primary forms of vocalization. This came to be what many people associate with metal, especially those who don’t like it.

Personally, I can only handle a limited dose of growling and screaming. But growling and screaming are not even what metal is about. They are simply a stylistic choice, one of many, and certainly not the one taken by all metal bands.

What, then, is metal? Wikipedia is of little help — it largely confirms the broad stereotype:

“Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound, and vigorous vocals.” I love the use of the word “vigorous” here.

This has been roughly the lay definition of metal since the term “heavy metal” was first used. I think it’s too narrow a definition — metal has evolved far beyond that. More important than what I think, metal musicians themselves don’t think of it in such narrow terms.

What if we dispense with the stereotypes altogether?

What if:

• You don’t need to wear black?

• Your clothes don’t need to be torn, or covered with gory images?

• You don’t need to accessorize with dog collars and skulls?

• You don’t need to look angry or depressed?

• You don’t need to sound angry or depressed?

• You don’t need to scream?

• You don’t need to grimace or make dorky “guitar faces”?

• You don’t even need to be a dude?

I’m going to make the case that none of these things define metal. These are tropes that have become customary but are not essential. Each of the bands on Anthony’s list checks some of them. None of those bands, even the more extreme ones, check all of them.

So, you might be thinking, “Well, what does it take to earn your metal stripes?”

The nearest I can come is to say metal is an attitude. It’s channeling our most primal feelings through music played at a virtuoso level. It pushes the boundaries of the emotions humans can express with musical instruments.

There is a common misconception that virtuosity and emotional authenticity are somehow in conflict. Like great classical orchestras, the best metal bands prove that nothing could be further from the truth. Like classical music, metal is highly scripted, i.e., composed. But metal bands constantly flirt with the boundary between chaos and control.

Beethoven is considered by many to be the original metal composer. His work had weight, or “gravitas.” It was also profoundly emotional. If there is a stylistic feature all metal has in common, it is that heaviness. This is not the same as loudness. Punk bands are loud but are not metal. Arena-rock bands are loud but are not metal.

There is no consensus on what metal is or which subgenres qualify as the real thing. Metalheads have a nerdy streak and love to get into debates about genre definitions and authenticity. My point is that it is a bigger and more diverse world than you may have thought.

I want to show here that metal can be — and the best metal often is — simply beautiful. There is more one could say, but nothing says it better at this point than some examples.

Heilung are metal and don’t even use electric guitars. These folks play bones, animal-hide drums, and other assorted prehistoric instruments reconstructed from archaeological digs. They sing in several languages, including proto-Germanic, a language reconstructed by academicians from Old Norse, and various archaic and modern languages.

It’s Bronze-age music, and as far as I’m concerned, that obviates the need for electric guitars. I was 2,000 years late in finding them, but it’s never too late to discover something new. Or really old.

Oh, they also wear antlers.

Anna von Hausswolff playing doom-pop on pipe organs is metal. Yes, actual church organs the size of small houses — in actual churches. A typical pipe organ consists of several tons of copper, lead, or zinc alloy, so I dare anyone to tell me this isn’t metal!

Some of Anna’s early performances were in Catholic churches, and then the Church freaked out and banned her. They tried unsuccessfully to pressure whole cities to ban her. Talk about not having a sense of humour.

Her work has been described as doom-metal, death pop, gothic, apocalyptic, post-shoe-gaze, magical, sludgy, ethereal, and lots of other things. When your best-known song is titled “Funeral for My Future Children,” that will happen.

Here is “Mountains Crave”:

…….

Metallica are metal. Well, of course. Heavy metal was invented and initially led by British bands. Metallica were the breakout American metal band. While they went harder and thrashier than the British bands, Metallica never lost sight of composition and melody.

But even the greatest thrash bands don’t just thrash. The best of them know how to do slow songs about love and loss. Metallica are metal even when, perhaps especially when, doing their definitive power ballad, “Nothing Else Matters.” When it was released, it angered many of their fans and outraged metal purists. It has since become one of their most popular anthems. Why? It’s beautiful. And that matters!

The HU, a modern-day Mongolian horde, are metal. After being warred over incessantly by the Russians and Chinese, Mongolia regained its independence 100 years ago. Today, it is a country of 3 million souls, still sandwiched between Russia and China. That makes for a precarious existence requiring a lot of moxie. The HU have moxie in spades.

They mix traditional instruments and throat-singing with a metal vibe. A good throat singer can sing a low note and a high harmonic simultaneously, a startling effect if you haven’t heard it. Here they are, doing a cover of Metallica’s “Sad But True”:

…….

None of these artists check all of the boxes on the list above. What they all have is their own unique, emotionally powerful sound and the ability to convey something deep and mysterious. They are all experts at what they do and are perfectionists when it comes to the music.

There are bands that uncheck literally all of the boxes in that list, and are as metal as it gets. I will be featuring some of them in later posts in this series.