Metalcore is an incredibly misunderstood genre term, and goes forever unappreciated by many "true metal" elitists due to its connotation to be whiny, "too poppy," or whatever else people use to describe the scene that appeared in the genre in the mid- to late-2000s. What I aim to do here is to shed some light on the origins and history of the genre, and hopefully draw in new fans from both in and outside of the metal community.
Metalcore, or "metallic hardcore" as some will hear it described, is exactly what the namesake would suggest: a combination of metal music and hardcore punk. If you're a repeated reader of these genre timelines, then you'll know that this is not the first time this combination has been attempted (see: thrash metal and grindcore), but what differentiates metalcore from these prior styles really lies in one fundamental: the breakdown. Metalcore focuses heavily on the hardcore side of things, injecting metal's technicality and/or tone into what by all accounts would simply be an energetic hardcore band. The breakdown is a point in a track, usually towards the middle, where the tempo slows and riffs emerge that are meant to initiate moshing as a form of crowd participation. Moshing can be found in nearly every metal genre, but metalcore aims to make it a staple.
Metalcore saw its first wave in the early 1990s. Hardcore punk bands like Integrity, Rorschach, Earth Crisis, Starkweather, Merauder, Converge, and Deadguy were among the first to produce the metalcore sound. The death metal and thrash metal influence shows clearly in a lot of these bands, despite the framework of their material being relatively textbook hardcore. Anywhere from Black Sabbath to Joy Division to Celtic Frost could have some sort of contributing factor to the metalcore ideal. Some of these bands, like Merauder, even took influence from early groove metal and the booming New York hardcore scene. As the 1990s went on, more and more bands began to gain traction, including Hatebreed, Shai Hulud, Catharsis, Poison the Well, Acme, Cave In, and Zao. Bands like this, with a massive influx of unified would, would be the ones to carve the niche that defines and codifies metalcore as it is today.
Recommended '90s metalcore listening:
1. Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow (1991)
2. Earth Crisis - Destroy the Machines (1995)
3. Hatebreed - Satisfaction is the Death of Desire (1997)
4. Zao - Where Blood and Fire Bring Rest (1998)
5. Poison the Well - The Opposite of December (1999)
A subgenre development nearly as old as the genre itself but taking a much more chaotic track is called mathcore. What mathcore does as a style is takes the already raw, aggressive and spastic metalcore and injects it with dissonant, angular riffing, unconventional and constantly shifting time signatures, and an unparalleled sense of compositional incomprehensibility. Made popular by bands such as Deadguy, Botch, Converge, and of course the ever-popular The Dillinger Escape Plan, the 1990s saw incredible artistic merit in the subgenre. Linked closely to grindcore, the 2000s saw bands such as Ion Dissonance, Gaza, Daughters, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, and Car Bomb, among others. The style is still prevalent and boundary-pushing today.
Recommended mathcore listening:
1. Deadguy - Fixation on a Coworker (1995)
2. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity (1999)
3. Botch - We Are the Romans (1999)
4. Converge - Jane Doe (2001)
5. Gaza - I Don't Care Where I Go When I Die (2006)
Metalcore thrived in the 2000s, and its style began to take a drastic shift away from what had previously existed. Obviously, metallic hardcore bands continued strong: Converge, Shai Hulud, Poison the Well, Integrity, and Hatebreed all continued strong well into the decade. New metallic hardcore bands would pop up left and right, with releases from bands like Cursed, Every Time I Die, Skycamefalling, Hopesfall, Norma Jean, Terror, Nostromo, and Kickback. However, some metalcore bands would often inject more and more clean-sung, melodic death metal-inspired accentuations to the genre, resulting indirectly in the creation of melodic metalcore (which I will give its own entry in the future). Among these bands were Misery Signals, 7 Angels 7 Plagues, August Burns Red, Underoath, and Undying. This would eventually lead to genre speciation, with bands like Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall, and All That Remains holding the helm of melodic metalcore, an evolutionary offshoot of metallic hardcore, and often receiving the brunt of criticisms from "true metal" communities. Progressive metalcore began to show up as well, taking technical and avant-garde aspects of progressive metal and breathing new life into the very formula that metalcore had ridden on for a decade now. Bands like SikTh, Between the Buried and Me, Burst, and (arguably) early-career Mastodon all contributed to this sound distinct but reminiscent of mathcore.
Recommended '00s metalcore listening:
1. 7 Angels 7 Plagues - Jhazmyne's Lullaby (2001)
2. Norma Jean - Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child (2002)
3. Between the Buried and Me - Colors (2007)
4. Misery Signals - Controller (2008)
5. Converge - Axe to Fall (2009)
Let's backtrack a bit. Also in the 1990s arose a subgenre that, in my personal opinion, has done nothing but improve with time: deathcore. Though it didn't gain widespread attention or traction until the early and mid-2000s (explaining its placement in the timeline), deathcore aimed to combine the existing metalcore sound with the growled vocals and blast beats of death metal. The first handful of bands to use this sound, such as Damaged, Day of Suffering, Deformity, and Abnegation, often took elements of deathgrind as well, making the sound far more inaccessible than standard metalcore. As the style began to solidify into more of its now-recognizable sound though, bands like Animosity, The Red Chord, Despised Icon, and Job for a Cowboy aided it in eventually sweeping the world of MySpace. Big bands appeared in the late-2000s, among them Whitechapel, All Shall Perish, Chelsea Grin, Suicide Silence, Carnifex, Oceano, Impending Doom, After the Burial, and Winds of Plague. The subgenre was often held to a very low standard, as the gimmicks of the genre eventually became pitfalls, and the whole movement seemed to be very follow-the-leader. Since this wave of popularity though, there have been bands like Fit for an Autopsy, Thy Art is Murder, and Shadow of Intent that continue to breathe new and amazing life into the deathcore world. Also there's a bunch of "fake slam death metal" bands out there like Within Destruction that have created their own microcosm in the style.
Recommended deathcore listening:
1. Deformity - Murder Within Sin (1999)
2. The Red Chord - Fused Together in Revolving Doors (2002)
3. Whitechapel - This is Exile (2008)
4. Thy Art is Murder - Hate (2012)
5. Shadow of Intent - Melancholy (2019)
2010s metalcore still manages to take the forefront of both metal and punk scenes. Converge, Every Time I Die, and The Dillinger Escape Plan are still as strong as ever, if not stronger. Bands from the metallic hardcore style are coming back in a huge way, in what I've sometimes seen labeled as the "Entombedcore" movement; referencing the muddy, sludgy tone of the legendary Swedish death metal band Entombed. Bands like Code Orange, Knocked Loose, Jesus Piece, Vein, and early Oathbreaker all contributed greatly to the style's success. Atmospheric metalcore has begun to take a huge hold on the scene as well, with bands like Architects and Silent Planet carving a niche in the already booming progressive metalcore/djent scene (fronted by bands like Erra, Currents, and Northlane). Huge strides are being made with melodic metalcore-infused metalcore, further blurring the lines between the two, with bands such as Fit for a King, Oh Sleeper, Counterparts (also melodic hardcore, a genre of hardcore punk often wrongly-attributed to more traditional-sounding metalcore bands), and While She Sleeps. This isn't to say that classic metallic hardcore bands aren't as prevalent though, as new life is breathed into the genre every day with releases from bands like All Pigs Must Die, Rise of the Northstar, Incendiary, Ithaca, and Employed to Serve, among others. Also, RIP The Chariot, amirite?
Recommended '10s metalcore listening:
1. The Chariot - Long Live (2010)
2. Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind (2012)
3. Erra - Augment (2013)
4. Architects - Lost Forever // Lost Together (2014)
5. Every Time I Die - Low Teens (2016)
Overall, metalcore is one of my personal favorite genres of metal. It's incredibly diverse; so many facets can be discovered and explored because of how flexible the idea of 'metal+hardcore' can be. Converge, Misery Signals, and Knocked Loose all sound so different from each other, but all exist under the same idea. That's the brilliance of a simple concept: the pieces fit together like it was meant to be. I trust that with these new, refreshing bands appearing so frequently, and the genre's rich history, metalcore will remain a strong and prevalent force in metal for years to come.
Note: Sorry for not getting an entry out last week, this whole self-quarantine thing has taken quite a toll on my work ethic, admittedly. It's not going to be very fun, but with so much extra time it's allowed me to not only discover more music, but even take more time to write some of my own. Just remember to stay safe, stay healthy, and wash your hands. Thank you for reading!
Friday, March 27, 2020
Friday, March 13, 2020
Groove Metal
Groove metal, sometimes referred to as post-thrash metal, is an oft-overlooked subgenre of metal that developed in the late 1980s. Taking the unrelentingly fast, aggressive, hardcore punk-tinged formula of thrash metal and focusing it more on groovy syncopation and heaviness rather than outright speed, groove metal sits firmly as an underlying '90s offshoot of metal that never really skyrocketed to stardom like its contemporaries in nu metal, but remains an interesting and vital chunk of metal history.
Though Brazil's Sepultura undoubtedly set the stage that groove metal would eventually inherit, pretty much the only bands in the 1980s playing legitimately groove metal were Biohazard and the early works of White Zombie. Biohazard took elements of crossover thrash and pushed into odd alternative metal territory, creating a fairly sturdy prototype of the groove metal sound. White Zombie on the other hand fused industrial metal with more sludgy, midtempo riffage, something that would become a trademark of the genre as a whole. The 1990s saw an influx of new breath into the style, and no other band represented this new scene quite as well and as wholeheartedly as Pantera.
Pantera was in a league of its own. Having started in the 1980s as an odd blend of glam metal and speed metal, the turn of the decade saw the band shifting so drastically in tone and style, that they were hardly recognizable as the same entity. Part of what made this band so iconic and unique was the dual power of the Abbott brothers, whose stage names were Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul. Pantera released five albums in its career, and each defined a particular era in the groove metal scene, and solidified Pantera's role as the codifiers of the genre. Their 1990 debut, Cowboys from Hell, was particularly influential. Borrowing riffs that wouldn't seem out of place on a Metallica record but also interjecting aspects of Southern rock and even hardcore breakdowns... groove metal was here to stay. In 1992, the sophomore record Vulgar Display of Power did even more to make Pantera's mark not just on groove metal, but on metal music as a whole. To this day, Pantera is acclaimed as one of the greatest metal bands of all time.
Aside from Pantera, the 1990s brought in plenty of new interesting bands to the groove metal world. Among these were thrash metal and crossover veterans that decided to take a detour through this new scene, such as Sepultura, Anthrax, Exhorder, Coroner, Overkill, and Prong, as well as newer bands like Machine Head and Grip Inc. fusing the styles. There was also considerable overlap with alternative metal, significantly funk metal, with bands like Infectious Grooves and 24-7 Spyz crossing into groove metal territory. Straight groove metal came in the form of bands such as 2 Ton Predator, Pissing Razors, and Dearly Beheaded. Metalcore fusion bands also arrived pretty heavily on the scene, such as Merauder, Vision of Disorder, and Earth Crisis.
Recommended '90s groove metal listening:
1. Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power (1992)
2. Sepultura - Chaos A.D. (1993)
3. Prong - Cleansing (1994)
4. Machine Head - Burn My Eyes (1994)
5. White Zombie - Astro-Creep: 2000 (1995)
In the 2000s, groove metal was very closely tied to metalcore. The leading bands in the scene were actually often mistaken for metalcore bands, or at the very least would tour alongside them frequently, often blurring the lines between the two styles and leading to the umbrella term "New Wave of American Heavy Metal," often shortened to NWOAHM (paying homage to the NWOBHM of the 1980s). Bands like Lamb of God, DevilDriver, Chimaira, Five Finger Death Punch, Black Label Society, and Soulfly would appear in this era, many of which have become huge names in the overall metal scene. Machine Head in particular would release some of the genre's greatest works in this decade as well, namely 2007's The Blackening. Many underrated bands showed up as well, such as Trepalium (combining groove metal with technical death metal), Biomechanical, Byzantine, Mnemic, and Raging Speedhorn. Dimebag Darrell also tragically passed away in this time, while playing for the band Damageplan after Pantera's disbanding.
Recommended '00s groove metal listening:
1. Black Label Society - 1919 Eternal (2002)
2. Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake (2004)
3. DevilDriver - The Fury of Our Maker's Hand (2005)
4. Soulfly - Dark Ages (2005)
5. Machine Head - The Blackening (2007)
In the 2010s, groove metal admittedly waned a bit in popularity. The bigger bands in the scene would handle this change in different ways: Lamb of God continued strong, Five Finger Death Punch moved into a more commercially-accessible alternative metal sound, and Machine Head would... well, release some really cool albums and then nearly fall off the face of the earth with the release of the near-universally hated Catharsis. Unto the Locust was pretty cool though, right? Anyway, the rest of the newcoming groove metal bands in the 2010s often combined groove metal with other metal styles, such as Dyscarnate (groovy death metal?), Rise of the Northstar and Kublai Khan (tough guy beatdown hardcore/metalcore + groove metal), Gojira (progressive metal), Minushuman and System Divide (melodic death metal), Body Count (rap metal), and The Offering (power metal), to name a few.
Recommended '10s groove metal listening:
1. Machine Head - Unto the Locust (2011)
2. Lamb of God - VII: Sturm und Drang (2015)
3. Gojira - Magma (2016)
4. Dyscarnate - With All Their Might (2017)
5. Kublai Khan - Nomad (2017)
Groove metal as a whole has often fallen by the wayside in light of other, more popular genres of metal. Despite this, the bands that do get big (Pantera, Lamb of God, Five Finger Death Punch) often lead new metal listeners into more and more great music. This stations groove metal at a very integral part of the metal listener's journey: the gateway into heavier, darker, and more obscure music. And it serves this job well. Here's to groove metal always shifting, and always introducing.
Note: Hey all! I'm currently on Spring break. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy out there given the current circumstances. Be sure to be conscious and aware; all it really takes is washing your hands. Thanks so much for reading, and stay tuned for next week!
Though Brazil's Sepultura undoubtedly set the stage that groove metal would eventually inherit, pretty much the only bands in the 1980s playing legitimately groove metal were Biohazard and the early works of White Zombie. Biohazard took elements of crossover thrash and pushed into odd alternative metal territory, creating a fairly sturdy prototype of the groove metal sound. White Zombie on the other hand fused industrial metal with more sludgy, midtempo riffage, something that would become a trademark of the genre as a whole. The 1990s saw an influx of new breath into the style, and no other band represented this new scene quite as well and as wholeheartedly as Pantera.
Pantera was in a league of its own. Having started in the 1980s as an odd blend of glam metal and speed metal, the turn of the decade saw the band shifting so drastically in tone and style, that they were hardly recognizable as the same entity. Part of what made this band so iconic and unique was the dual power of the Abbott brothers, whose stage names were Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul. Pantera released five albums in its career, and each defined a particular era in the groove metal scene, and solidified Pantera's role as the codifiers of the genre. Their 1990 debut, Cowboys from Hell, was particularly influential. Borrowing riffs that wouldn't seem out of place on a Metallica record but also interjecting aspects of Southern rock and even hardcore breakdowns... groove metal was here to stay. In 1992, the sophomore record Vulgar Display of Power did even more to make Pantera's mark not just on groove metal, but on metal music as a whole. To this day, Pantera is acclaimed as one of the greatest metal bands of all time.
Aside from Pantera, the 1990s brought in plenty of new interesting bands to the groove metal world. Among these were thrash metal and crossover veterans that decided to take a detour through this new scene, such as Sepultura, Anthrax, Exhorder, Coroner, Overkill, and Prong, as well as newer bands like Machine Head and Grip Inc. fusing the styles. There was also considerable overlap with alternative metal, significantly funk metal, with bands like Infectious Grooves and 24-7 Spyz crossing into groove metal territory. Straight groove metal came in the form of bands such as 2 Ton Predator, Pissing Razors, and Dearly Beheaded. Metalcore fusion bands also arrived pretty heavily on the scene, such as Merauder, Vision of Disorder, and Earth Crisis.
Recommended '90s groove metal listening:
1. Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power (1992)
2. Sepultura - Chaos A.D. (1993)
3. Prong - Cleansing (1994)
4. Machine Head - Burn My Eyes (1994)
5. White Zombie - Astro-Creep: 2000 (1995)
In the 2000s, groove metal was very closely tied to metalcore. The leading bands in the scene were actually often mistaken for metalcore bands, or at the very least would tour alongside them frequently, often blurring the lines between the two styles and leading to the umbrella term "New Wave of American Heavy Metal," often shortened to NWOAHM (paying homage to the NWOBHM of the 1980s). Bands like Lamb of God, DevilDriver, Chimaira, Five Finger Death Punch, Black Label Society, and Soulfly would appear in this era, many of which have become huge names in the overall metal scene. Machine Head in particular would release some of the genre's greatest works in this decade as well, namely 2007's The Blackening. Many underrated bands showed up as well, such as Trepalium (combining groove metal with technical death metal), Biomechanical, Byzantine, Mnemic, and Raging Speedhorn. Dimebag Darrell also tragically passed away in this time, while playing for the band Damageplan after Pantera's disbanding.
Recommended '00s groove metal listening:
1. Black Label Society - 1919 Eternal (2002)
2. Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake (2004)
3. DevilDriver - The Fury of Our Maker's Hand (2005)
4. Soulfly - Dark Ages (2005)
5. Machine Head - The Blackening (2007)
In the 2010s, groove metal admittedly waned a bit in popularity. The bigger bands in the scene would handle this change in different ways: Lamb of God continued strong, Five Finger Death Punch moved into a more commercially-accessible alternative metal sound, and Machine Head would... well, release some really cool albums and then nearly fall off the face of the earth with the release of the near-universally hated Catharsis. Unto the Locust was pretty cool though, right? Anyway, the rest of the newcoming groove metal bands in the 2010s often combined groove metal with other metal styles, such as Dyscarnate (groovy death metal?), Rise of the Northstar and Kublai Khan (tough guy beatdown hardcore/metalcore + groove metal), Gojira (progressive metal), Minushuman and System Divide (melodic death metal), Body Count (rap metal), and The Offering (power metal), to name a few.
Recommended '10s groove metal listening:
1. Machine Head - Unto the Locust (2011)
2. Lamb of God - VII: Sturm und Drang (2015)
3. Gojira - Magma (2016)
4. Dyscarnate - With All Their Might (2017)
5. Kublai Khan - Nomad (2017)
Groove metal as a whole has often fallen by the wayside in light of other, more popular genres of metal. Despite this, the bands that do get big (Pantera, Lamb of God, Five Finger Death Punch) often lead new metal listeners into more and more great music. This stations groove metal at a very integral part of the metal listener's journey: the gateway into heavier, darker, and more obscure music. And it serves this job well. Here's to groove metal always shifting, and always introducing.
Note: Hey all! I'm currently on Spring break. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy out there given the current circumstances. Be sure to be conscious and aware; all it really takes is washing your hands. Thanks so much for reading, and stay tuned for next week!
Friday, March 6, 2020
Viking Metal
Gonna knock this one out right off the bat: Amon Amarth is not Viking metal. I still love them, but that's not what this entry is about.
Viking metal is a style of metal that originated at the very beginning of the 1990s, and finds its stylistic origins in black metal and Nordic folk music. Being an abrasive yet atmospheric offshoot of the tremolo-picked, occult-obsessed world of black metal does not mean that it falls into the same pitfalls however, as Viking metal shifts its thematic focus to, you guessed it, Vikings and folklore. A direct precursor to folk metal (which we will discuss later), Viking metal was a logical progression even from early hard rock and heavy metal, with Nordic and Pagan themes being found anywhere from Led Zeppelin to Yngwie Malmsteen. But why does metal have such a fascination with Nordic folklore, and why is simply singing about the conquest of Vikings (as in the case of Amon Amarth) not enough to justify the genre tag?
It is generally agreed upon that the initial scene of Viking metal bands owe their prominence to Bathory. Already a driving force in the first wave of black metal, Bathory (and its iconic frontman Quorthon) took a turn for the Vikings in 1990 with the release of the genre's first true album: Hammerheart. Along with other bands at the time such as Pagan Rites, Twin Obscenity, Hades, and Mithotyn, Viking metal took its first steps. It wasn't until the middle of the decade, however, that the genre began to flourish. With the oncoming arrival of names such as Storm, Falkenbach, Vintersorg, Thyrfing, Einherjer, Graveland, Borknagar, and the mighty Enslaved, Viking metal was quickly catching on, and linking heavily to the subsequent folk metal movement in the mid- to late-'90s.
Recommended '90s Viking metal listening:
1. Bathory - Hammerheart (1990)
2. Enslaved - Frost (1994)
3. Borknagar - The Olden Domain (1997)
4. Falkenbach - Magni Blandinn Ok Megintiri... (1998)
5. Vintersorg - Till fjälls (1998)
Into the 2000s, Viking metal continued strong, losing (in my opinion) none of the momentum it had created. One of the most major players in the genre's timeline, Moonsorrow, released phenomenal records throughout the decade. The ties with folk metal became closer and closer, until to most casual fans the genres became inseparable. Albums from Ensiferum, Falkenbach, Equilibrium, Turisas, Týr, and Månegarm all combine the styles seamlessly and naturally, as the thematic elements of folk music and folklore are intended hand in hand. The style became much more grand and epic in its instrumentation and presentation, something that folk metal had inspired. Despite this overtake and overlap, Viking metal remained a prominent force of its own, separate from folk metal and truer to its black metal roots with bands such as Galar, Forefather, Thyrfing, and Sorgsvart keeping the flame alive.
Recommended '00s Viking metal listening:
1. Ensiferum - Ensiferum (2001)
2. Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja (2003)
3. Månegarm - Vredens tid (2005)
4. Falkenbach - Heralding: The Fireblade (2005)
5. Equilibrium - Sagas (2008)
As we entered the 2010s, Viking metal saw a mixture of mostly older bands continuing to reign strong, with every once in a while a new band arriving and pulling something great and unexpected out of their pockets. Falkenbach, Finsterforst, and Vintersorg all continued to write phenomenally, even after their contemporaries either shied away from the genre entirely (ie, Enslaved) or had long been broken up (ie, Bathory). Bands rearing their heads for the first time either in the later portion of the 2000s or completely in the new decade included King of Asgard, Nothgard, Ereb Altor, Draugnim, Voluspaa, and Svartsot, among others.
Recommended '10s Viking metal listening:
1. Ereb Altor - The End (2010)
2. King of Asgard - Fi'mbulvintr (2010)
3. Nothgard - Warhorns of Midgard (2011)
4. Finsterforst - Rastlos (2012)
5. Falkenbach - Asa (2013)
So why the fascination with such old-fashioned themes? Is it for the sake of metal guys feeling cool? Doubtful, though it certainly is cool in my personal opinion. Is it the lust for aggression, or for feeling the honor that a battle brings? Is it the pride for the rich European heritage from which most of these key figures hail? Or is it the surprisingly consistent overlap between metal fans and history buffs? It could be any combination of these things, but one thing is for certain: Viking metal has cranked out some of the most fantastic metal records of the last three decades, and the genre shows no signs of slowing.
Note: Hey y'all! Sorry it's a bit of a shorter entry today. I know I've been behind on things, it's time for midterms here at my university, so free time has been a little tight. In other news, I'm going to see the great Devin Townsend live with his all-new all-star Empath band! I hope you've enjoyed keeping up with these entries, and I'll do my darnedest to have a new one out on the regular weekly schedule again. Thanks!
Viking metal is a style of metal that originated at the very beginning of the 1990s, and finds its stylistic origins in black metal and Nordic folk music. Being an abrasive yet atmospheric offshoot of the tremolo-picked, occult-obsessed world of black metal does not mean that it falls into the same pitfalls however, as Viking metal shifts its thematic focus to, you guessed it, Vikings and folklore. A direct precursor to folk metal (which we will discuss later), Viking metal was a logical progression even from early hard rock and heavy metal, with Nordic and Pagan themes being found anywhere from Led Zeppelin to Yngwie Malmsteen. But why does metal have such a fascination with Nordic folklore, and why is simply singing about the conquest of Vikings (as in the case of Amon Amarth) not enough to justify the genre tag?
It is generally agreed upon that the initial scene of Viking metal bands owe their prominence to Bathory. Already a driving force in the first wave of black metal, Bathory (and its iconic frontman Quorthon) took a turn for the Vikings in 1990 with the release of the genre's first true album: Hammerheart. Along with other bands at the time such as Pagan Rites, Twin Obscenity, Hades, and Mithotyn, Viking metal took its first steps. It wasn't until the middle of the decade, however, that the genre began to flourish. With the oncoming arrival of names such as Storm, Falkenbach, Vintersorg, Thyrfing, Einherjer, Graveland, Borknagar, and the mighty Enslaved, Viking metal was quickly catching on, and linking heavily to the subsequent folk metal movement in the mid- to late-'90s.
Recommended '90s Viking metal listening:
1. Bathory - Hammerheart (1990)
2. Enslaved - Frost (1994)
3. Borknagar - The Olden Domain (1997)
4. Falkenbach - Magni Blandinn Ok Megintiri... (1998)
5. Vintersorg - Till fjälls (1998)
Into the 2000s, Viking metal continued strong, losing (in my opinion) none of the momentum it had created. One of the most major players in the genre's timeline, Moonsorrow, released phenomenal records throughout the decade. The ties with folk metal became closer and closer, until to most casual fans the genres became inseparable. Albums from Ensiferum, Falkenbach, Equilibrium, Turisas, Týr, and Månegarm all combine the styles seamlessly and naturally, as the thematic elements of folk music and folklore are intended hand in hand. The style became much more grand and epic in its instrumentation and presentation, something that folk metal had inspired. Despite this overtake and overlap, Viking metal remained a prominent force of its own, separate from folk metal and truer to its black metal roots with bands such as Galar, Forefather, Thyrfing, and Sorgsvart keeping the flame alive.
Recommended '00s Viking metal listening:
1. Ensiferum - Ensiferum (2001)
2. Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja (2003)
3. Månegarm - Vredens tid (2005)
4. Falkenbach - Heralding: The Fireblade (2005)
5. Equilibrium - Sagas (2008)
As we entered the 2010s, Viking metal saw a mixture of mostly older bands continuing to reign strong, with every once in a while a new band arriving and pulling something great and unexpected out of their pockets. Falkenbach, Finsterforst, and Vintersorg all continued to write phenomenally, even after their contemporaries either shied away from the genre entirely (ie, Enslaved) or had long been broken up (ie, Bathory). Bands rearing their heads for the first time either in the later portion of the 2000s or completely in the new decade included King of Asgard, Nothgard, Ereb Altor, Draugnim, Voluspaa, and Svartsot, among others.
Recommended '10s Viking metal listening:
1. Ereb Altor - The End (2010)
2. King of Asgard - Fi'mbulvintr (2010)
3. Nothgard - Warhorns of Midgard (2011)
4. Finsterforst - Rastlos (2012)
5. Falkenbach - Asa (2013)
So why the fascination with such old-fashioned themes? Is it for the sake of metal guys feeling cool? Doubtful, though it certainly is cool in my personal opinion. Is it the lust for aggression, or for feeling the honor that a battle brings? Is it the pride for the rich European heritage from which most of these key figures hail? Or is it the surprisingly consistent overlap between metal fans and history buffs? It could be any combination of these things, but one thing is for certain: Viking metal has cranked out some of the most fantastic metal records of the last three decades, and the genre shows no signs of slowing.
Note: Hey y'all! Sorry it's a bit of a shorter entry today. I know I've been behind on things, it's time for midterms here at my university, so free time has been a little tight. In other news, I'm going to see the great Devin Townsend live with his all-new all-star Empath band! I hope you've enjoyed keeping up with these entries, and I'll do my darnedest to have a new one out on the regular weekly schedule again. Thanks!
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