Metal keeps going and in the Metal Tree there is a New Wave of American Heavy Metal - [Metal Tree: 26]
Continuing the Metal Tree I am near the end of covering all the nodes on Sam Dunn's Metal Evolution chart. There is only one remaining after this, and then a couple nodes of my own I want to add.
This section seems to have focused on bands that became active and popular in the early 2000s. This continues my posts on the evolution of Heavy Metal and it's resulting family tree. It began with this very first post and the easiest way to see all of the posts is to click on the metaltree tab and review the resulting posts that way.
I was inspired to do this series after watching the Metal Evolution documentary series by Sam Dunn and Banger Films. In the series it keeps showing images of the metal evolution poster, and it doesn't cover all of the various leafs and branches on that chart. That was my plan when starting this series. To cover all of those bands, and some I add, as well as all of the branches. I also plan to add a few branches.
Let Us Begin
This new wave of American heavy metal is aggressive and mixes the technical prowess and techniques spread across many of the earlier nodes. It contains some of the current large metal acts out there. In this post I am not listing nationality, as this node of the tree is all United States originating bands.
Darkest Hour
Band First Released: 1996
Love As A Weapon
Demon(s)
Convalescence
Shadows Fall
Band First Released: 1997
In Efigy
The Light That Blinds
Thoughts Without Words
God Forbid
Band First Released: 1998
To The Fallen Hero
Anti Hero
Chains of Humanity
Lamb of God
Band First Released: 1999
It is difficult to be involved in metal today and not heard the name Lamb of God. These guys are a very popular act when it comes to some of the newer metal, and they are quite a powerful metal act at that.
Redneck
Laid To Rest
512
Killswitch Engage
Band First Released: 2000
Killswitch Engage also sometimes simply called KSE has been featured in some previous Metal Tree posts as they tend to straddle quite a few different branches of the Metal Tree. They are another big name in this list. By viewcount on youtube I'd say they are a bigger act than Lamb of God.
Holy Diver - Dio cover.
My Curse
My Last Serenade
Rose of Sharyn
Unearth
Band First Released: 2001
My Will Be Done
Sanctity of Brothers
Giles
Chimaira
Band First Released: 2001
Years ago I was looking for some new music with very powerful rhythms. This band Chimaira was a name that kept popping up. They often deliver exactly that and they are a very interesting band.
Resurrection
The Year of The Snake
Power Trip - I thought this might be a cover of the Ludichrist song Power Trip, but it is not.
Eyes of a Criminal
The Black Dahlia Murders
Band First Released: 2001
Statutory Ape
What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse
A Vulgar Picture
As I Lay Dying
Band First Released: 2001
This is another one of the bands that has appeared in previous posts as they straddle a couple of branches.
Parallels
The Darkest Nights
Nothing Left
Shinedown
Band First Released: 2003
This wasn't on the Metal Evolution chart because as I was searching for some of the other bands I stumbled upon this one and did some research, listened to some music, and decided they should have been in this list. By view count they have the largest following of the bands above it in this post. Perhaps it is not here in the Metal Evolution chart because the vocal stylings are different, and some of it is very different? So I suppose it is debateable whether they should be here. They definitely are metal, they are from the proper time frame, and they are from the United States.
Simple Man - Lynard Skynard cover.
Sound of Madness
Cut The Cord
Trivium
Band First Released: 2003
I've been hearing about Trivium from some youtube personalities I'll sometimes watch their channel. This is the favorite band for many of them, and yeah these personalities are the same age as my youngest kids (who are adults). They have some nice guitar work. I like them.
Strife
Until The World Goes Cold
Down From The Sky
In Closing
I personally find the metal in this section to be of great quality and I enjoy it all. It makes me very happy to see metal not only still a very much viable form of music, but it is still thriving and continuing to push and expand the boundaries of what defines metal. I am not always a fan of the vocal style choices, but sometimes it works pretty well and they do tend to mix up the styles which is something I enjoy. As always with this series if you have bands you think I missed feel free to reply and provide a link to a video of a band that you think should be on this particular branch of the Metal Family Tree.
Steem On!
Awesome post dude! I must admit that seeing Shinedown in the list threw me for a loop. I always kinda saw them as hard rock rather than metal, but I suppose it's relative to an individual's perception haha. And I do also have just one more piece of friendly input in regard to the list in the picture. I was a little confused on the addition of The Black Dahlia Murder being in said list. While I am a HUGE fan, I wonder if them being in this list is a bit of a stretch. When I look at this list, I see mainly "Metalcore" bands, whereas BDM are more of the "Technical Death Metal" variety. I do realize that this list may not necessarily be a specifically "Metalcore bands" list, but still, it did raise my eyebrows slightly lol. Anyway, awesome post brother! You always have so much perspective to go with these posts, and I ALWAYS enjoy reading them! Well done! \m/
The Black Dahlia Murder was on the Original Metal Evolution chart. I didn't add them. :) I did add Shinedown and explained why in ther text. I am not sure what Criteria Sam Dunn used in defining this particular genre. Seemed from what I could see to be more based upon the year they released material (seemed 90s), and in the United States. It wasn't as obvious in other areas. Also some of these bands have been listed in other sub-genre posts as there is often a lot of Overlap.
Yesterday I did Swedish Extreme Metal which finally completes the Metal Evolution chart. I have a few more I want to do, but they'll be branches I provide that were not in this list. I'm even considering at one point a Folk Metal one and referencing your older posts.
I did manage to read and resteem your Swedish metal post, that was a great coverage of many bands I have come to look up to as a musician. Very well done indeed!
As far as Shinedown being metal. I think there are a lot of acts people call Rock that really are metal. The reason for choosing to still call themselves Rock seems to stem from the stigma some people still seem to have with metal. I started at the very beginning of this chart, and metal is a very broad set of sub-genres.
Yet if you were to do the same thing with Rock. What is often called Rock today sounds NOTHING like what was given that original title.
What I found in my studies is that labels like hard rock, acid rock, grunge rock, etc all skirted that edge between what made early metal and rock.
Yet they seemed to step over that edge into the metal side in terms of what makes something metal.
Metal's only real defining characteristic that is consistent is a high level of distortion used on guitars. It doesn't have to be done on every song, or everwhere in a song, but that seems to be the defining characteristic.
You could then say the drums definitely can define metal, but this is only true of some sub-genres and actually was not so much the case in the earlier examples.
You could then say the vocal stylings, but then this is really only true of some sub-genres. It turns out metal vocalists can literally be heard to sing almost any other vocal styling imaginable. It is true it tends to focus on the more gutteral, angry sounds in most of the sub-genres, but this is not true of them all.
I wrote about this in an early post that I knew a female vocalist in a local band. I actually went because my friend was guitarist, and backing vocalist in the band. I remember the first time I heard them she claimed to HATE METAL. She insisted they were a rock band. Yet what they were playing in their originals was metal. I told this to my friend that was in the band and he just nodded and said "Yeah, Dawn hates metal".
Within a few years she LOVED metal. Apparently somewhere along the way she had quit resisting the stigma associated with the label.
I see this as the case with many bands. For example AC/DC has never referred to themselves as Metal, but I think the qualify as metal for sure.
So I listened to some Shinedown and other than the Lynard Skynard (early inspiration for some metal) cover they seem to meet the very loose criteria that is metal.
That actually is a very good point. What I have also come to find, like yourself, is that there are very generally loose forms of criteria that determine what is and isn't metal, or what is metal and what is rock and what separates the two even though they are part of a similar musical family. Hell, I'm sure back in the day, Beethoven would have been considered metal compared to other composers at the time haha! But this all just brings it back to what I had said before, in that I suppose that how people define which genres from which is all relative, and has more to do with "truth of perception" rather than concrete criteria, guidelines, etc. But I certainly don't want you to take my input the wrong way, I genuinely and thoroughly enjoyed your post. I suppose I was just trying to make good conversation on the piece and see if I could get some outsiders' perspective, including your own. Always a pleasure to nerd out and talk music geek talk with a fellow music lover! :D
Agreed. I plan to do a branch on Neoclassical, and one on Djent, and I'm considering Folk and possibly Symphonic as well.
I knew KSE would be on this one! Excellent stuff, I see a few bands that I haven't heard here. I will definitely check them out. Always open for some new stuff.
Well, it's about time lol!!! I hadn't heard Darkest Hour, I like em...Also Shadows Fall- really tight musically, I'm impressed. I like the black group (also about time, I think 20 Pound Sledge was getting lonesome).Killswitch and LOG I've followed for awhile. Didn't one of the guys from Lamb die recently? I'll go back and listen to the others I haven't heard...just wanted to drop a line.
One left to cover to complete Sam Dunn's chart. Then I'm going to add one on Neo-Classical, and I'll probably add one on Djent, and possibly some one for some old bands that didn't make it on here, but were kind of different. Then I'll likely cap it off with a post listing ALL of the episodes in one place and what bands are in each. Yet since I ran past the 30 days that I had that I could edit the original post the pressure off to push them out rapidly was off. So I slowed way down intentionally.
I'm interested in the neo-classical... sounds right for an old guy!
Djent is mostly the youngin's giving a name to a technique you and I have heard a bunch of. So when I cover that you might enjoy it as well.
I'm looking forward (Looking forward to getting Tavistock done as well so I can move on to Hannah Arendt)
Yngwie Malmsteen is an example of neo-classical. Likely the most prominent name in it. So it is not a new thing, just something that wasn't on Sam's tree.
@richq11, No, all members of Lamb of God are still alive and well. You might be thinking of a few years back when the singer, Randy Blythe, spent some time in Pankrac prison in the Czech Republic on manslaughter accusations resulting from a fan's death at a show back in 2010 when they played in Prague. Or.... perhaps the death you're thinking of was that Wayne dude Randy was keeping in touch with and that Lamb of God wrote a song for during the recording sessions for their most recent album, "VII: Sturm und Drang". A song called "The Duke", which didn't end up appearing on the album but did get released on an EP some months back in memory of Wayne who passed away from some type of cancer. Though he wasn't a member of the band, Randy did get very close to him as a friend before his death. Very moving story if you ever have a chance to look it up.
Great post! I'm a fan of Pearl Jam, I'm going to check the bands that you uploaded.
I left a post about rock!
https://steemit.com/music/@tincho/rocking-in-the-free-world-the-best-rocanroll-of-all-time-insane-if-you-dont-like-rock-dont-come-and-see
Yeah I covered Pearl Jam in the earlier post about the branch Grunge Rock. :)
Looks like it was Metal Tree 14
I kept a running index in the first metal tree post until I went past the 30 day mark and it wouldn't let me edit it anymore. I have the first 21 posts indexed at the bottom of that one though if you are interested.
It also has the full chart that I am trying to complete. One branch left, and then I'll add a few of my own.
OH MEN, I follow you with so much pleasure!!!! You really are my favorite user at all steemit. YOU MADE MY DAY!
I'm going to start reading everything you posted!
And if you like live shows, watch the AC / DC videos in the post I uploaded. It's INSANE!
I'm happy my friend! Good luck!
I may have shared some AC/DC concerts in the post they were in for this series. I'll try to watch them if I get a chance. I enjoy AC/DC. I got into them when I was around 12 or 13... fell in love with the album Back In Black.
If you don't see the recitals from Argentina, you'll be left with the mouth open when you see them. They made the DVD here.
Set the volume to the maximum and enjoy. You are welcome!Look at the comments, I'm proud of my country, in that part
You made me listen again, and like soooo many time, my skin was like chicken! Listen, how crowd sing the riffs guitar!!!!
I always kind of thought that the new wave of American Heavy Metal was heavily influenced by the groove metal sounds of bands like pantera.
It actually seems to span a lot of the other branches before this. Pantera influenced a lot of branches, but as some these bands actually ended up in other branches as well as this one I suspect it is quite a bit broader than that. Pantera's influence actually was heavily on some of the other branches as well.