Metal Reviews

does mixing generes actually create a new genre? yes? no? or do some bands pull it off? it seems to me its just a certain genres vocals with a certain genres guitar style. I wish i thought this through more thoroughly before i posted this, but i know you guys/girls are smart, you can def pick up where i left off.

Well of course it depends on what the new sound is like, whether it is disimialr enough to exisiting genres to merit a new title. The new sound is obviously going to depend on how much of each style is mixed together. For instance, Children of Bodom didn't create a new genre (despite what some people say) by giving power metal harsh vocals. However, combining metal and hardcore elements a collection of bands did give rise to metalcore as a genre distinct from its two 'parents'.

So I guess the bottom line is that it really varies from case to case.

my guitar teacher is always complaining about how genre-defined metal is. "oh, we're a melodic death metal band, so we have to play THIS way!" he just doesn't get it... i guess mixing genres, say power metal with melodic death, would make melodic power death metal... wouldn't it?

and that would be called Children of Bodom

yeah... just as progressive+power+speed+neo-classical=Sonata Arctica... right?

No.

indeed, that would be Symphony X and the likes...

NP
Daedalus "Denies the Day's Demise" (latina weird techno, this is quite good)

so what equation equals SA?

I think there needs to be a lot of bands doing the style. For instance, System Of A Down did not create a new genre. No one sounds like them, but that doesn't give them a genre all to their own.

Brutal Power Metal

ah.

It is a Question not to be answered easily. Imagine a graph, and the lines that this graph has, each representing different genres; now when these lines collide and touch it creates and meets to result a new sound, not a new Genre.

They did create their own genre. It's called "Spastic Pseudo-Metal Self-Important Suckfest"

Well said.

Well, for me genres are just "boxes" in which put a set of bands that sound similar. You can classify bands in a small set of genres, or in a really big list, always there will be bands than fell out of the boxes, or that stand in the intersections, or that changes of genre in each release.

Create a taxonomy of metal is not an easy work.

Power Metal.

Or if you really want to break it down, melodic power/speed metal with pop undertones.

But just Power Metal, really.

you know, to me SA was so good that it ruined a lot of other power metal stuff. I keep wanting catchy melodies and Janis fretwork and the great lyrics....

Well, for those of us who like audible riffs and varied drum patterns there's a whole other world out there.