NS-AShortHistoryofExtremeMetal

Home

** A Short History of Extreme Metal **

By: Neil Schneeberg Grade: 10

Metal music has a diverse history; from Black Sabbath to Lamb of God, from King Crimson to Opeth. Some people say metal started when Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi cut off nearly all his fingertips on his right hand due to an accident he had at his last day of work at a sheet metal factory. In order to keep playing, Tony had to use lighter strings and tune his guitar lower than normal. This created the signature metal sound; downtuned guitars with lots of distortion. Black Sabbath released their debut album //Black Sabbath// in February of 1970, creating a new genre of music that will go on to have a plethora of subgenres and influence countless bands and other styles of music.

In the early 80's, the sound Black Sabbath helped pioneer was combined with the speed and intensity of hardcore punk creating thrash metal. The four bands most well-known for this style are: Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth. Thrash metal was the heaviest and fastest played music in the early 80's. It is known for speedy tremolo picking, double-bass drumming and shouted or raspy vocals. Slayer's magnum opus, //Reign in Blood//, had an average speed of 210 beats per minute on the album.

In the late 80's some bands in Florida started playing a genre of music even more extreme than thrash metal; death metal. The band Death released their debut album in 1987 and has been called "The first true death metal record." They were followed by bands like Morbid Angel, Suffocation, and Obituary. Death metal makes even more prominent use of double-bass drumming, and has the signature vocal style of deep, guttural growls. Some modern death metal bands incorporate other genres like jazz and classical into their songs, keeping metal fresh with new ideas.

Another genre that spawned from thrash metal was black metal which has it's roots in the Scandanavian countries. This genre makes use of blast beats, raspy vocals, and is known for its myriad of under-produced and underground acts.

These metal genres have gone on to spawn: deathcore, grindcore, doom metal, djent, Cascadian black metal, and many others. If you don't usually listen to metal, give it a try, there's bound to be a band that suits your taste.