"There are only two kinds of music: good music and the other kind," wrote Duke Ellington in a 1962 essay. Metal didn't even exist then – imagine that – and six decades on, it would be interesting to find out what the jazz legend would think of metal off-shoots like cybergrind and funeral doom.
In an attempt to make sense of the continually sprawling world of metal and all its subgenres, here's a comprehensive list of some umbrella terms that may have passed you by.
ATMOSPHERIC BLACK METAL
If the sound of eternal torment recorded on a battered cassette player wasn't atmospheric enough, this frostbitten subgenre reimagines the black metal blueprint and adds swathes of dense ambient layers to the mix, replacing verses about Gamle Erik with screeching vocals about nature and general melancholy.
Notable bands: Wolves in the Throne Room, Drudkh, None
BLACKENED CRUST
Marrying the relentless hectoring of crust punk and the relentless sonic pummel of black metal, blackened crust combines anti-establishment lyrics with raw power. Imagine Old Scratch writing a strong letter to his local council, then screaming it over the most unforgiving wall of sound.
Notable bands: Martyrdöd, Dödsrit
CYBERGRIND
This offshoot of grindcore delivers short blasts of glitchy noise over a frantic drum machine, creating time signatures the average human mind could scarcely comprehend. Bear in mind, there is no suitable time to put a cybergrind album on, other than when you're cornered by robot gangs in a dystopian city war.
Notable bands: Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Genghis Tron
DRONE DOOM
Slow and low, that is the tempo. Drone doom is the preserve of the patient, with its proponents playing resonant riffs which move at a glacial pace and shake the calcium from your bones. Guttural screams optional.
Notable bands: Sunn O))), Khanate
ELECTRONICORE
Here's a mix of the deliberate chug of metalcore and the world of electronic dance music. In fact, electronicore's reach is vast, with heavy bands mixing wobbly synths, sub-bass, and pop sensibilities. On paper, it should wind up metal purists, but the genre's irresistible charm goes a long way at outdoor festivals. Exceptionally good at helping indoor cycling enthusiasts 'dig deep' or whatever during a Peloton session.
Notable bands: Electric Callboy, Enter Shikari
FUNERAL DOOM
Amateurs may describe this genre as simply slow and repetitive, but they'd be wrong. It's doom, but with the added vibe of a winter burial on the outskirts of a desolate industrial town.
Notable bands: Bell Witch, Ahab
GOREGRIND
An overwhelming and disturbing amalgam of grindcore, death metal, and the sort of imagery that you'd find on the now-defunct Rotten website, goregrind is the most abrasive of all metal. Unless you count gorenoise, which is an elitist subgenre for people who think goregrind is 'soft'.
Notable bands: Carcass, Repulsion
HEAVY NEGATIVE WIZARD METAL
Australian artist Bob Nekrasov's solo project, Rebel Wizard, is an unholy blend of power metal, black metal, and New Wave of British Heavy Metal. All the metal, basically. He calls it an “anarchic alchemical process of outsider energies respecting the power of traditional triumphant metal into a unique sound to smash out the coerced gloom and banality of our times.”
Notable bands: Rebel Wizard
INDUSTRIAL BLACK METAL
It's the frosty sound of black metal with all the percussive charm of a foundry. Lovely stuff.
Notable bands: Mysticum, Blut Aus Nord
JAZZ METAL
In 1958, legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk said: “Where’s jazz going? I don’t know. Maybe it’s going to hell.”
Almost seven decades later, we can safely say the genre is firmly in the big pit of hot punishment, taking the genre's swing and improvisational techniques and marrying them to heavy, distorted riffs, the raspy honk of a sax, or a squeaky trumpet parp. Nice.
Notable bands: Shining, Naked City
KAWAII METAL
Named after the Japanese word for 'cute', kawaii metal effortlessly blends catchy J-pop with propulsive, aggressive riffs. Metal purists scoffed when Babymetal first arrived in 2010, but the Tokyo-based band took the genre worldwide and introduced their unique take on metal to a whole new audience.
Notable bands: Babymetal, Hanabie
MEDIEVAL METAL
If you've got a mate who says stuff like 'my liege' and bows, there's a massive chance they'll be into this music. If they're not, they're a time-traveler. It's metal for people who yearn for the hand-cranked riffs of a hurdy-gurdy, the painful wheeze of the dudelsack, or even the dull thud of a frame drum. If that sounds appealing, then there's a whole world of minstrel music waiting for you.
Notable bands: In Extremo, Saltatio Mortis
NINTENDOCORE
Thanks to 8-bit computer processors, early console users could enjoy a handful of beeps which soundtracked their games. Nintendocore takes those technologically primitive noises and combines them with rock and metal. HORSE the Band frontman Nathan Winneke is responsible for this particular genre's name: “It amused us to say that the keyboards in our songs sounded like a Nintendo game. So we said we were 'Nintendocore'. And now it’s stupid.”
Notable bands: HORSE the Band, Powerglove
PORNOGRIND
Remember our evocative description of goregrind earlier on? Well, if you swap out the lyrical obsession with disease and death for pornography, then you've got yourself a whole new take on extreme metal. It's cock rock, but not as we know it.
Notable bands: Cock and Ball Torture, Anal Blast
RED AND BLACK ANARCHIST METAL
Red and Black Anarchist Metal, or RABM, is black metal with left-leaning lyrics that opposes everything National Socialist Black Metal stands for.
Notable bands: Dawn Ray'd
SYMPHONIC BLACK METAL
Doing away with the genre's embedded nihilism and general mischief, here we have a focus on gothic and fantasy themes, while adding lush, sweeping strings and crisp production to produce an altogether epic take on black metal. Tuxedos not included.
Notable bands: Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir
TECH DEATH
A genre that sounds like a computer calamity, this subgenre takes death metal's blueprint and adds a sweep-picking virtuosic element to its complex chaos.
Notable bands: Death, Archspire
UNBLACK METAL
This subgenre has all the hallmarks of traditional black metal – shrieked vocals, cold washes of tremolo-picked guitar, and monotone, Olde English font logos. But here's the twist: it's performed by Christian musicians. Horde, one of the genre's leading bands, are from the frostbitten forests of, um, Australia. Their album Hellig Usvart is the Christian black metal equivalent of Darkthrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky.
Notable bands: Horde, Crimson Moonlight
WAR METAL
While some purists call this subgenre bestial black metal, war metal is basically sonic hostility. While we're extremely lucky not to have been caught in an actual war zone, we can only imagine it sounds like this.
Notable bands: Blasphemy, Archgoat
YODEL METAL
Metal was forever tainted by this viral guff that combined Alpine singing with heavy riffs. While it's not strictly a genre, we've heard it and now you must too. We could lump Korpiklaani in with this section for including traditional Sámi singing, which sounds a bit like yodelling to the untrained ear.
Notable bands: The Institute of Quackology (sort of)
ZOMBIECORE
We're on the last letter of the alphabet. There's a ton of thrash bands obsessed with and inspired by horror films. Take Washington thrashers The Accüsed, who pioneered splattercore, or Leeds' Send More Paramedics, who named themselves after some dialogue in The Return of the Living Dead and dressed up like zombies.
Notable bands: The Accüsed, Send More Paramedics
