Metal - The Six Genres

If you're talking about early Napalm Death and Carcass, wasn't that called Grindcore?

I'd personally say brutal and tech death are musically closer than prog and melodic death. That being said I think we are just fine as we are now putting a progressive death metal album in either prog metal or death metal and a subsub is not needed. As I've said if I could make a subsub it would be for melodic death metal, just to show there is a distinction.

However, the only subsub we have now is for NWOBHM, which is often very much the same sounding as other bands in the Traditional heavy metal category. AFAIK the NWOBHM subsub is to designate the bands in the movement, not always bands of a separate musical sound. So I think any subsub should be similar.

^Indeed. Even on PA there are several sub-subs explained in each genre, from the traditional prog metal like Fates Warning to modern prog like DT to Symphony X, which admittedly don't all sound similar but have a succinct explanation.

I can see 'alternative metal' becoming the heavy prog of PA, whereas any somewhat hard rock prog band that didn't fit anywhere mostly got lumped in there.

UMUR wrote: About the sub subs to death metal, I could as a compromise live with a melodic death metal sub sub, but I wouldn�t be comfortable with seperate sub subs for technical and progressive death metal. I think we�ll end up in too many discussions about what is progressive and what is technical. I saw Kim mentioned a Brutal death metal sub sub, but I wouldn�t support such a sub sub either. I think it�s in the very nature of death metal that it is brutal and even the melodic bands in the genre are brutal to these ears albeit lesser so than the most extreme acts in the genre.   As mentioned earlier I�d rather not see any sub subs to death metal, as I think the best idea is to explain in the bio if a band is either melodic, technical or progressive instead of putting them in seperate sub subs. If people take time to check out the youtube clips and mp3 that will be added in time, that�s also a great help.

That's basically my opinion as well. Although it's sometimes hard to decide where to place a progressive death metal band, an extra sub-sub may cause some added confusion. However, if there were any sub-subs to death metal, I would support this the most.

Technical death metal, brutal death metal (this one especially), and melodic death metal are ones that wouldn't really help us too much. Any true melodeath band will end up in death metal no matter what, so this wouldn't help any borderline cases. This subgenre would just make placing more difficult for bands like Edge of Sanity and Opeth IMO.

Progressive death metal may be helpful since it would help bridge the gap between these two genres without a cut-and-dry selection.

Either way, I've kinda stopped caring a whole lot about the precision of the genre tags. They are bound to be slightly misleading in most cases, and, after all, that's what reviews and bios are for.

UMUR, I reckon the doom  / death sub sub would be a wise idea, as often there is a vase gap between these bands and the more traditional type. I also think with a the doom death sub sub, it would give a more suitable home to say a band like DiSEMBOWLMENT who are currently under the Death Metal banner. Also some of the Sludge/post-metal groups would possible fit this sub sub a little more comfortable, such as a band like Corrupted, who while Sludge orientated, have a large part of their whole in Doom Metal.

From a personal perspective, I just lump everything under the 'Metal' banner, but I think for a site aimed at introducing people to news type of music, the segregation of the whole into more specific subs is helpful as long as it doesn't reach the obsessive compulsive stage.      

About the sub subs to death metal, I could as a compromise live with a melodic death metal sub sub, but I wouldn�t be comfortable with seperate sub subs for technical and progressive death metal. I think we�ll end up in too many discussions about what is progressive and what is technical. I saw Kim mentioned a Brutal death metal sub sub, but I wouldn�t support such a sub sub either. I think it�s in the very nature of death metal that it is brutal and even the melodic bands in the genre are brutal to these ears albeit lesser so than the most extreme acts in the genre.

Edited by UMUR - 20 Nov 2010 at 4:11pm

I am neutral on the melodeath under death discussion. For one thing, melodeath to me doesn't sound very much like death metal aside from the vocals, whereas tech death and prog death clearly are direct progressions of the genre.

Grind should not be moved in with death. There are bands that are deathgrind that will be difficult to figure where they go, but the difference between most death bands and grind bands are pretty obvious IMO.

And NWOBHM was a movement, not a genre. However I'm pretty sure we established we need the sub to designate the important movement on the site.

I personally don't see a need for melo and tech death metal.
Atheist IMO is death metal. As are In Flames (to name 2 quick ones).
A really extreme tech band like Necrophagist are also still death metal.

Don't see a need to expand even farther.

I think that there's a lot of difference between a lot of the NWoBHM artists. I mean just compare Ace Lane, Salem, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Satan, Jameson Raid and Hell- they don't really sound like the same genre. But then again, NWoBHM was not a genre but an artistsi movement - and one of the most important ones in metal history. which is why I think that the NWoBHM sub is important on MMA. But, we have to find a cut off year, because it makes no sense to call, say, Iron Maiden's 90s and 2000s material NWoBHM.

Fair enough.