Post-Metal

It's no secret that the metal community tends to create microcosms. Sounds that a handful of bands begin to do, trying to break away from conventions and monotonies of the status quo, end up catching on and becoming entire waves or even subgenres of their own. Some of these styles, to the beginner or untrained ear, can be hard to truly encapsulate with words as to what makes them a distinct thing. Maybe it's how eclectic the style can be, or maybe it's a particular playing method... in the case of post-metal, it's about the atmosphere.

Post-metal doesn't have any one unified sound, per se. Instead, it aims to play metal that's ascended from the formulas that other metal styles may be boxed into. Long, drawn out crescendos of songs, often with minimal or nonexistent vocals reminiscent of post-rock, washy, reverb-laden instrumentation often seen in shoegaze... but with the grit, honesty, and distortion of a metal band. "Post-" as a descriptor, often means something along the lines of "new," "experimental," or "atmospheric," when in reality post-metal aims to be all three.

The genre was first applicable to bands from the early nineties branching out of sludge metal. Sometimes post-metal bands are referred to as "atmospheric sludge metal," though post-metal has since grown into its own animal, with atmosludge serving as a meeting point between the post-metal and sludge metal rivers. Among these '90s atmospheric sludge metal bands were post-metal's progenitors: Neurosis, Nada, Godflesh, Lvmen, Dirge, Red Harvest, nd Gigandhi. This first wave of bands was still very much a sludge metal movement, so the aggression and hardcore punk-esque attitude was still present in their works.

Recommended '90s post-metal listening:
1. Gigandhi - Rafflesia (1996)
2. Red Harvest - Hybreed (1996)
3. Neurosis - Through Silver in Blood (1996)
4. Lvmen - Lvmen (1998)
5. Dirge - Down, Last Level (1998)

In the 2000s, post-metal took on a whole new level of meaning. The term now became an applicable label to almost any sort of band that was pushing boundaries in ways almost polar opposite to that of progressive metal bands. Post-metal was slower, more drawn out, more wishy washy and dreamlike, opting to experiment through textures in a manner most similar to ambient artists. The genre still held its ties to sludge metal, with the massive success of bands such as Isis, Cult of Luna, Pelican, Minsk, Rosetta, Amenra, Ghost Brigade, and The Ocean. However, post-metal extended its limbs surely and effectively to other branches of metal: from the folk metal and atmospheric black metal of Agalloch, to the shoegaze of Jesu and Alcest, to the drone metal of Boris and The Angelic Process, and to the strange avant-garde metal of Kayo Dot. Post-metal was an underlying theme in the development of many major metal movements.

Recommended '00s post-metal listening:
1. Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye (2003)
2. Isis - Panopticon (2004)
3. Rosetta - The Galilean Satellites (2005)
4. Cult of Luna - Somewhere Along the Highway (2006)
5. Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain (2006)

What the 2010s did for post-metal, perhaps most notably, was led to its connection to blackgaze, a subgenre of atmospheric black metal. In the aforementioned developments with bands like Jesu and Alcest, black metal began to creep more and more into the post-metal world, having the binding threads of huge, distant-sounding walls of guitar strums and focus on atmosphere. Bands like Deafheaven, Altar of Plagues, Furia, Oathbreaker, and Blut aus Nord among others would all create a wave known to some as post-black metal. That's not to say that the other post-metal offshoots died off, quite the contrary. Sludge metal-rooted post-metal still reigns as well, with bands such as Blindead, Sólstafir, Thou, Obscure Sphinx, Old Man Gloom, and Waste of Space Orchestra releasing incredible works. Heavyweights like Neurosis and Dirge would continue as strong as ever as well. Not to mention the groundbreaking collaboration between Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas, Mariner. Even post-death metal is in the works at this point, thanks to the band Ulcerate. Post-rock and shoegaze remain as strong as ever in these bands as well, with Russian Circles, Holy Fawn, Toundra, Year of No Light, and This Will Destroy You.

Recommended '10s post-metal listening:
1. Alcest - Écailles de lune (2010)
2. Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All (2011)
3. The Ocean - Pelagial (2013)
4. Deafheaven - Sunbather (2013)
5. Cult of Luna and Julie Christmas - Mariner (2016)

Post-metal defies explanation in the greatest of ways. It pokes its head into as many facets of metal as it can, and leaves its mark. The mark of post-metal is shrouding the listener in impenetrable and dreamlike atmosphere, cloaking the metal machismo with the hypnotic walls of sound we've come to know and love. And it will continue to leave its mark for as long as there are musicians welcoming textures and soundscapes where simple traditional note selection and structuring cannot scratch the itch.

Folk Metal

Folk metal is a tricky style of metal to encapsulate in a single blog post, since it varies so wildly depending on its geographic location. Many of these metal genres I've discussed before have ties to some sort of place: Thrash metal has the Bay Area in California, death metal had the Tampa area of Florida, and second wave trve kvlt black metal resides in the forests of Norway... but folk metal has a unique and differentiable sound depending on what cultures produced it. So let's talk about it.

So what is folk metal? Generally, it's described as a fusion of metal with traditional folk music, usually with heavy usage of folk instruments, including but not limited to the flute, violin, or accordion. However, while retaining folk melodies in their music, some bands rely more on standard metal instrumentation. Lyrical content of the genre is most commonly related to nature, mythology, paganism and fantasy. In some ways, this may seem overlapping with Viking metal, and that assumption would be keen. Viking metal and folk metal have long had overlapping sounds, bands, and fanbases. However, I find that folk metal has often (though not always) removed itself thoroughly from a black metal background, allowing for a wider range of experimentation.

Folk metal found its origins in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. It will continue to be a primarily European style for its duration. Bands like Skyclad and Waylander would lead the charge, injecting jaunty folk music into their more traditional heavy metal sound. As the idea began to spread, so did its geographic influence. Bands from many countries would begin to contribute their own forms of folk music in metal contexts: Ireland provides Cruachan and Primordial. Spain comes forward with Mägo de Oz. Norway would provide Isengard, Borknagar, and Storm; all of which are heavily black metal-influenced and cross over into Viking metal. Germany produced Falkenbach, Subway to Sally and Empyrium. Sweden comes forth with more mighty Viking metal-crossovers with Vintersorg and Thyrfing. Before long, each of these countries and more would develop their own distinct sound within the folk metal spectrum.

Recommended '90s folk metal listening:
1. Skyclad - Prince of the Poverty Line (1994)
2. Empyrium - Songs of Moors and Misty Fields (1997)
3. Falkenbach - ...Magni Blandinn Ok Megintiri... (1998)
4. Primordial - A Journey's End (1998)
5. Vintersorg - Ödemarkens Son (1999)

Waylander, Cruachan, and Mägo de Oz in particular would lead a specific subgenre of folk metal that would take off a bit more than other regional variants: Celtic metal. The origins of the genre lie Celtic folk music being injected into things like Celtic rock or Celtic punk. Celtic metal is localized on regions with Celtic roots like the British Islands, France, Spain, Switzerland and Germany, but in the last years the genre has expanded worldwide. Other famous bands include Eluveitie, Suidakra, and Tuatha de Danann.

Recommended Celtic metal listening:
1. Cruachan - Tuatha na Gael (1995)
2. Waylander - Reawakening Pride Once Lost (1998)
3. Mägo de Oz - Finisterra (2000)
4. Eluveitie - Spirit (2006)
5. Suidakra - Crógacht (2009)

In the mid-1990s, another distinct style of folk metal arrived: Medieval folk metal. As the name would imply, Medieval metal takes most of its traditional elements from Medieval folk music. It arrived as an offshoot of the German Neo-Medieval movement of the 1990s, alongside its tamer but oft-crossed over genre Medieval rock. Led by bands such as Subway to Sally and In Extremo, Medieval metal quickly gained an ardent but niche following. Most folk instrumentation is relatively period-accurate, with heavy emphasis on things such as the shawm or hurdy-gurdy. Bands following the initial wave include Schandmaul, Ignis Fatuu, Saltatio Mortis, Folkstone, and Obsequiae, among others.

Recommended Medieval folk metal listening:
1. Subway to Sally - Bannkreis (1997)
2. In Extremo - Verehrt und angespien (1998)
3. Saltatio Mortis - Aus der Asche (2007)
4. Ignis Fatuu - Es werde Licht (2009)
5. Obsequiae - Suspended in the Brume of Eos (2011)

Folk metal flourished in the 2000s. As word got around of a new method of expression musical and cultural tradition through the modern vessel of metal music, more and more regional variants began to pop up. Some bands continued to meld the genre with black metal and Viking metal, leading to the massive success of some of the genre's biggest bands: Finland's Moonsorrow, the United States' Agalloch, and Ukraine's Nokturnal Mortum, just to name a few. Others would take a much more symphonic, epic approach to the sound, like Germany's Equilibrium, and Finland's Ensiferum and Turisas. Others still would take a lighter path, making fun and bouncy music sometimes influenced by traditional folk styles like humppa and joik, such as Finland's Korpiklaani and Finntroll. Some bands stuck to a more metal ideal and fused with power metal like Elvenking and Týr, or maybe progressive metal like Wuthering Heights and Orphaned Land.

Recommended '00s folk metal listening:
1. Ensiferum - Ensiferum (2001)
2. Korpiklaani - Spirit of the Forest (2003)
3. Finntroll - Nattfödd (2004)
4. Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet (2005)
5. Turisas - The Varangian Way (2007)

In the 2010s, folk metal was primarily led by the bands established in the prior decades. Moonsorrow, Primordial, Falkenbach, Orphaned Land, Nokturnal Mortum, Elvenking, and many more all continued to release incredible music. Among the new blood were bands such as progressive metal fusion bands like Wilderun and Lör, atmospheric black metal legends Negură Bunget, previously-mentioned Medieval metallers Obsequiae, and other names that rose to prominence such as Arkona, Dalriada, Tengger Cavalry, Triddana, Falconer, Myrath, Aiumeen Basoa, and the wonderful melodic death metal band Æther Realm.

Recommended '10s folk metal listening:
1. Negură Bunget - Vîrstele pămîntului (2010)
2. Moonsorrow - Varjoina kuljemme kuolleiden maassa (2011)
3. Primordial - Where Greater Men Have Fallen (2014)
4. Wilderun - Sleep at the Edge of the Earth (2015)
5. Lör - In Forgotten Sleep (2017)

In summary, folk metal remains one of metal's most varied and most acquired tastes. On paper, it doesn't seem as though traditional folk music would have much of a place in such a genre like metal, but upon further inspection, one comes to realize that it embodies everything that metal stands for: being true to your roots, expression of individualism, and the creation of a culture. Metal in itself is a culture. Folk metal simply introduces one culture to another.

Drone Metal

Drone metal is a pinnacle of acquired taste. Characterized by fuzzy chords being held out for full minutes, laden with feedback and reverb, sometimes at paces too slow to warrant percussive instruments... drone metal is not for everybody. Behind drone metal's visage of being a seemingly impenetrable niche of near-music, however, lies a booming counterculture stuck somewhere between doom metal, ambient, and post-rock. So let's check it out.

Drone metal, as its name would imply, takes its notes from drone music. Drone is a subgenre of experimental music focusing on long, sustained tones and the repetition of singular notes. Many types of classical and regional music make usage of a single continuous drone as a backbone for melody and rhythm, but drone as a genre focuses on the drone alone, creating a hypnotic, dreamlike atmosphere. Also influential on the genre's foundations are ambient and noise. Ambient music places its focus on sound over structure, with both conventional and unconventional methods of creating minimalist, moody soundscapes. Dark ambient is particularly influential on drone metal. Noise music, on the other hand, is exactly what it would sound like: experimental music that strays from all conventions of what counts as "music," preferring to assemble sounds in a thick, harsh wall. Combining these three experimental styles with doom metal birthed the microcosm that is drone metal.

In the early 1990s, a band called Earth arrived onto the scene with a few demos that would shape the drone metal scene at large. The sludge metal band Melvins would soon create a masterwork of the whole genre, their 1992 record Lysol. Alongside these two, other bands would have similar ideas: Naked City, Black Mayonnaise, Circle, Boris, Thrones, and Corrupted would all contribute to the growing drone metal sound over the course of the decade. Lo-fi compilations such as The Way of Nihilism were made early on in the style's development too, mirroring the underground boom of the noise rock and No Wave movements of the late 1970s. Though, from a metal perspective, drone metal was drawing primarily from doom metal, the genre would combine with a plethora of others over the timeline of its existence, most notably crossovers within sludge metal, post-metal, black metal, and avant-garde metal (to which drone metal owes a lot of its fundamental ideas). 

Recommended '90s drone metal listening:

1. Melvins - Lysol (1992)

2. Naked City - Leng Tch'e (1992)

3. Earth - Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version (1993)

4. Corrupted - Paso inferior (1997)

5. Boris - Amplifier Worship (1998)

In the 2000s, the lines between drone metal and post-metal were blurred even further, leading to the beginning of a wave of music with many names. Some call it metalgaze or doomgaze, alluding to the washy, reverby subgenre of alternative rock known as shoegaze, while others call it post-doom or simply atmospheric metal. Whatever the name, bands like Jesu, The Angelic Process, Nadja, and Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine all encapsulated this new sound. Drone metal as a whole flourished in its own niche sort of way, with the addition of the genre's biggest claim to fame: a band called Sunn O))). Alongside them were other more "traditional" drone metal bands such as Black Boned Angel and Khanate. Bands like Boris and Corrupted continue strong into the decade, where others like Earth and Melvins would go on to pursue a multitude of other genres (post-rock and stoner metal, respectively).

Recommended '00s drone metal listening:

1. Boris - Boris at Last: Feedbacker (2003)

2. Jesu - Jesu (2004)

3. Nadja - Touched (2007)

4. The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand (2007)

5. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (2009)

The 2010s brought a renaissance of heavy drone metal into the fray, with sludgy, funeral doom metal-influenced bands such as Bismuth, Conan, Drowning Horse, Bongripper, and Hell rearing their unforgiving brand onto the populace. Other genre combinations began to flourish, such as the introduction of post-industrial music into the drone metal formula. Bands such as Author & Punisher, The Body, and Khost would introduce elements of death industrial and power electronics, creating an even bleaker, colder atmosphere. Other bands stuck to the ambient/post-rock side of things such as Wolvserpent, Wrekmeister Harmonies, and Big Brave. Others still would push the boundaries even further, such as the unlikely blend of drone metal and psychedelic rock seen in the releases of Bong.

Recommended '10s drone metal listening:

1. Bong - Mana-Yood-Sushai (2012)

2. Hell - Hell III (2012)

3. The Body - I Shall Die Here (2014)

4. Bismuth - The Slow Dying of the Great Barrier Reef (2018)

5. Big Brave - A Gaze Among Them (2019)

As a whole, drone metal remains a small but consistent slice of the metal pie. As specific of a niche as it serves to fill, drone metal does so with the utmost ability to push its own limits, just as the experimental music it takes from as influences. Drone metal, despite being all about long, sustained notes (not unlikely to last for hours on end!), will never get stale as long as there are musicians willing to look beyond the narrow, confining conventions of "music."

Stoner Metal

Of all the metal subgenres that Black Sabbath created, stoner metal often pales in comparison to its predecessors heavy metal and doom metal. But in 1971, with the release of Sabbath's masterpiece Master of Reality, one song shaped an entire genre: "Sweet Leaf." The fuzzy, blues-injected riffage, the plodding, midtempo feel, and of course the subject of recreational marijuana usage all led down a singular path: the path to stoner metal.

So what constitutes as stoner metal? Is it just metal music that centers itself around pot? Not exactly, it has a very distinct sound and style to it, just as much as any other subgenre I've covered here before. It takes the slow doom metal blueprint and lines it with influences from blues rock, psychedelic rock, and eventually (naturally) stoner rock, an offshoot of hard rock mentioned in my very first post. Stoner metal aims to bring the blues back into the metal formula. The genre is very closely linked to sludge metal, sometimes to the point of the genre terms being used interchangeably, but stoner metal has a much more carefree, less aggressive air to it that sets it apart fairly distinctly.

Though "Sweet Leaf" was released all the way back in 1971, stoner metal as a whole didn't begin to take form until the early 1990s. Early stoner rock bands like Monster Magnet and Fu Manchu didn't precede the metal counterpart by much, and often would blur the lines between rock and metal from song to song. The early '90s saw the arrival of bands that would remain hugely prevalent forces throughout the genre's entire existence, solidifying themselves as forerunners and trailblazers, such as Sleep, Corrosion of Conformity, Down, Melvins, Kyuss, Earth, Blood Farmers, Motorpsycho, and Clutch. Also prevalent were traditional doom metal bands that took more and more psychedelic influence such as Trouble, Saint Vitus, and Cathedral. The later '90s brought more bands to the fray such as Spiritual Beggars, Acrimony, Orange Goblin, Electric Wizard, Spirit Caravan, Goatsnake, the Atomic Bitchwax, and Sons of Otis.

Recommended '90s stoner metal listening:
1. Sleep - Holy Mountain (1992)
2. Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley (1994)
3. Melvins - Stoner Witch (1994)
4. Down - NOLA (1995)
5. Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics... (1997)

In the 2000s, stoner metal continued strong with both already-established bands just as much as newcomers. Stoner juggernauts like Sleep and Electric Wizard both released their magnum opuses (Dopesmoker and Dopethone, respectively) in the first few years of the decade. The 2000s saw the sludge-stoner crossover take full effect, with the arrival of bands like High on Fire, Kylesa, Ufomammut, Big Business, and Boris (being a particularly interesting crossover of drone metal and noise rock as well). Other bands still such as Solace, Om, YOB, The Hidden Hand, Church of Misery, and The Sword continued the style teetering on the edge of one thing or another, whether between stoner and doom metal, or between stoner rock and metal.

Recommended '00s stoner metal listening:
1. Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (2000)
2. Sleep - Dopesmoker (2003)
3. Boris - Pink (2005)
4. High on Fire - Death is This Communion (2007)
5. Kylesa - Static Tensions (2009)

The 2010s saw a continuation of the 2000s, where bands both new and old would continue strong doing the tried and tested stoner metal formula. High on Fire holds the reigns in many ways, leading the charge of the new wave of stoner bands. Sleep makes a phenomenal comeback after 15 years of silence with 2018's The Sciences. A new wave of progressive metal-tinged stoner bands arrive, such as Mastodon and Baroness, who have both moved away from their previous sludge metal sounds. New bands like Elder, Stoned Jesus, Mutoid Man, Alunah, Spaceslug, Khemmis, and Turbowolf all release respectable additions to the genre's repertoire, alongside other reigning giants from decades prior like The Sword, Church of Misery, Electric Wizard, Kylesa, and Solace. Even notorious independent garage rock/psychedelic rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard tried their hand at the stoner metal sound (incredibly, if I may add) with their 2019 record Infest the Rats' Nest.

Recommended '10s stoner metal listening:
1. The Sword - Warp Riders (2010)
2. Elder - Dead Roots Stirring (2011)
3. High on Fire - De vermis mysteriis (2012)
4. Sleep - The Sciences (2018)
5. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest (2019)

It's genres like this that aim to show how far a simple idea can go. Of course the binding thread between these bands is a mutual love for marijuana and doom metal, but such a simple yet specific concept should have, for all intents and purposes, fallen flat on its face within five years of surfacing. But thanks to the creativity, ingenuity, and passion that bands continue to breathe into the genre's style, stoner metal prevails as strongly as ever.