HEAVY METAL & PUNK HARDCORE - PART TWO
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Thrash metal spawned yet another kind of metal, which was to be the most
extreme ever: death metal.
Hellhammer, Death, Possessed and Bathory marked
the beginning of a gender of music destined to never attain commercial
success. Guitars became as heavy as possible, tempo changes went from
breakneck speeds to turtle slow, double pedaling almost became a rule
for drummers, and vocalists switched from screaming to uttering guttural
growls that were barely intelligible. Celtic Frost, Sodom,
and Kreator (these last two considerd thrash metal at times)
continued death metal, but due to a new interest of metal bands in metalcore,
death metal was losing ground. Then came Sepultura, Obituary
and Morbid Angel to resurrect death metal. During the last half
of the Eighties, death metal would churn out the most radical of its variations,
grindcore, which would eventually become a separate musical identity
in and of itself. On the other side is black metal, a branch of
death metal that began as an underproduced, noisy, but promising type
of music ('black' being a connotation of Satanic imagery)
that eventually developed into a more melodic type of death metal.
During the early Nineties, bands such as Tiamat, Therion,
Sentenced, and Cemetary began moving away from their previous
death metal sound in order to pursue diverse musical avenues, including
progressive, doom, and classic metal. As death metal rose from thrash
metal, and playing as fast as possible became the vogue for the heaviest
bands, some musicians decided to take things slowly and revive doom
metal, a branch of metal that had practically died with the end of
Ozzy's stint in Black Sabbath. As heavy metal began diversifying
itself continuously, certain musicians would decide to relieve its characteristic
vocals to a second plane, or to completely eliminate them. Among these
were guitar virtuosos Joe Satriani, his student Steve Vai,
and Yngwie Malmsteen. The first, often called 'the guitarist's
guitarist' created masterworks like Surfing With the Alien
and The Extremist; the second has an illustrious career, having
played with the likes of Frank Zappa and Whitesnake, and
later working on his solo projects; meanwhile, Malmsteen is recognized
for his heavy and constant classical music influence and swift dexterity,
while criticized because of his ego and extroverted persona. During the
heyday of thrash and pop metal, two bands became responsible for holding
progressive metal's ground: Queensryche and Fates Warning.
With Rush approaching a softer sound during most of the Eighties, and
progressive rock having lost much of its popularity during the late Seventies,
progressive metal had lost most of its appeal.
While Queensryche, Fates Warning, and Rush were creating complex
music backed by intellectual lyrics which ran the gamut from philosophy
to science fiction and beyond, several young bands began what would eventually
be known as hardcore: the marriage
of heavy metal and punk rock. Hardcore music was somewhat comparable
to punk rock in its simple approach and politically minded lyrics, while
borrowing a considerable portion of heavy metal's crunch and arrangements.
Washington DC and New York City provided the genre with a majoritary portion
of its bands. Among them was the Bad Brains, perhaps the most intense
hardcore band ever; blending jazz, reggae, metal, and a large portion of
hardcore, in order to produce bona-fide hardcore albums such as I Against
I and Rock For Light. Meanwhile, Los Angeles' Black Flag
was setting the world on fire with its 'I've heard it all before, don't
wanna hear it again!' ethic, Henry Rollins' manic roars, and
Greg Ginn's dissonant guitarwork which made up their classic Damaged.
The Dead Kennedys were to epitomize the righteous political stance
of hardcore with Jello Biafra leading the way, while Minor Threat
stood against all conformism on its exhilarating live shows. Others like
Circle Jerks, D.O.A., Husker Du, Murphy's Law,
Reagan Youth, Antidote, Agnostic Front, War Zone,
Gorilla Biscuits, the Cro-Mags, Youth of Today, Sick
Of It All and Life Of Agony kept adding fuel to the fire throughout
the genre's explosion, which provided yet another sharp contrast to the
reigning pop metal scene.
As Black Flag and the Bad Brains were continuously attracting the wariness
of police departments all across the United States, several bands decided
to take hardcore even further into heavy metal domains, thus creating
metalcore, or crossover. Discharge had begun the turmoil
on Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing in the early Eighties only
to spearhead a movement which would have its brightest moments throughout
the rest of the decade. D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles)
would release albums like Crossover and Definition while
Corrosion of Conformity created Eye For an Eye and Animosity,
both bands attracting the attention of hardcore and heavy metal fans only
to pave the way for S.O.D (Stormtroopers of Death). The
ironic Speak English Or Die is perhaps the album most representative
of crossover yet. However, crossover has yet to reach the commercial heights
it attained during the Eighties, while hardcore is still somewhat prominent
through bands like Fugazi, the Jesus Lizard, Madball,
and Biohazard.
By then the end of the Eighties was rapidly approaching, and metal was
again becoming a jaded form of music. Every new pop and thrash metal band
sounded exactly the same, and of the old ones only a few remained. Motley
Crue and Guns n' Roses still ruled the music world along with Metallica,
in the absence of Def Leppard and Bon Jovi. The thrash world was quickly
dying as bands were repeating everything done before; and Slayer, Megadeth,
and Metallica had slowed down and softened up on their approach in different
degrees, which in turn propelled their sales and sent Metallica's 'Black'
Album into an unbelievably long stay on the charts. Pop metal didn't
get it, but thrash metal did, courtesy of Pantera. Pantera (originally
a glam metal band) practically revolutionized thrash metal. Speed wasn't
the main point anymore, it was what singer Phil Anselmo called
the 'power groove'. Riffs became unusually heavy without the need of growling
or the extremely low-tuned and distorted guitars of death metal, rhythms
depended more on a heavy groove, and vocals became a mixture of snarls
and sharp screams, which revived speed metal for the Nineties. Meanwhile,
progressive metal would enjoy yet another zenith among commercial circles.
Images and Words, a rather complex collection of progressive-minded
music delivered by Dream Theater, reached stellar sales and took progressive
metal to grounds seldom tried before. New punk bands like the Offspring,
Green Day, and Rancid (which came out of the ska-punk
Operation Ivy) had helped with the initial impulse of the Seattle
scene, actually and mistakenly being called alternative by MTV, but
their lack of musical fierceness when compared to older punk bands eventually
contributed to their own downfall, excepting the Offspring. The hardcore
Bad Religion, Social Distortion, and NOFX, the latest
of punk bands to reach wide media exposure after several years of existence,
seem to be making a small commotion, but the matter of punk rock surviving
in commercial circles for much longer is rather questionable. This last
half of the Nineties has seen yet another revival of heavy metal, which
reinstates the fact that the heavy metal/punk scene seems to fit quite
comfortably into the historic theory of cycles.
This revival was due to two factors: a harder-edged metal provided by
several new bands; and reunion and comeback tours and albums from
Kiss, the Sex Pistols,
Black Sabbath, Jimmy Page
and Robert Plant, Ratt, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot,
Warrant, Poison, Slaughter, and several other bands.
This new rise of heavy metal is considerably surprising, taking into account
the fact that the newest bands are probably the heaviest and most shocking
to ever reach wide media rotation. One of the new musical tendencies is
rap metal, also called rap-core, a combination that had
already been experimented with by older groups such as Anthrax, the Bad
Brains, and Aerosmith; and played constantly by more obscure outfits like
Hard Corps, but that lately has been taking a harder turn. Somewhat pioneered
by the controversial Ice-T-led Body Count along with the popular
and politically active Rage Against the Machine during the Nineties,
the movement has its softer side among the likes of 311. The dark side
of the coin has been heralded so far by Deftones, the ever-growing
Korn, and, recently, by others like Slipknot, Limp Bizkit,
and Coal Chamber.
Quite undoubtedly, as the media has shown, it is the strongest tendency
among new bands that have already begun to copy the praised sounds of
established bands. The other new tendency is even more shocking and being
led by what some people consider a lunatic, a menace, a misunderstood
genius, a clown, the prime embodiment of evil, or just a cynical man who
has learned that shock value and manipulation through the media can absorb
the minds of youths eager to think that they are truly rebellious. None
other than Marilyn Manson could fit all those categories so easily.
What lies in the future of heavy metal? As any historian worth his own
weight knows, history cannot and should not be predicted; although historic
cycles may help with such evaluations, nothing assures that they are right...
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