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Subgenres and essential albums in chronogical order.A list made for the discovery, not really to go deeper into metal...Suggest in the comment box albums that you consider as essential but you didn't see in the list ! I'll examinate it and we'll see if it makes the list :)Hope you'll enjoy it !One album per artist for each subgenre, except for the most important artist which has two albums

Heavy metal (1970)



Heavy Metal is a style of music that began to emerge around 1970 in England and the United States, and is the first of many Metal sub-genres. Black Sabbath is considered by many to be the single most influential group in the formation of this style.



Heavy Metal differs from other Metal styles in a few key ways, the most obvious of which are its strong similarity to Hard Rock and its more traditional Rock sound compared to some of the more extreme Metal sub-genres. There is often somewhat of an overlap between this style and Hard Rock, however in most cases Heavy Metal is seen as having significantly more “loudness” in its instrumentation as well as lacking much of the Blues influence that Hard Rock has. Heavy Metal usually features much darker lyrics (often dealing with themes such as death and the occult) and often utilizes tense-sounding tritone relationships in its chord progressions, whereas this is not true for Hard Rock. Also worth noting is Heavy Metal’s stronger emphasis on distortion (and sometimes down-tuned guitars) as well as its more emphatic beats. This style has had a significant impact on the development of many other Metal sub-genres that followed.

Heavy Metal is a style of music that began to emerge around 1970 in England and the United States, and is the first of many Metal sub-genres. Black Sabbath is considered by many to be the single most influential group in the formation of this style.



Heavy Metal differs from other Metal styles in a few key ways, the most obvious of which are its strong similarity to Hard Rock and its more traditional Rock sound compared to some of the more extreme Metal sub-genres. There is often somewhat of an overlap between this style and Hard Rock, however in most cases Heavy Metal is seen as having significantly more “loudness” in its instrumentation as well as lacking much of the Blues influence that Hard Rock has. Heavy Metal usually features much darker lyrics (often dealing with themes such as death and the occult) and often utilizes tense-sounding tritone relationships in its chord progressions, whereas this is not true for Hard Rock. Also worth noting is Heavy Metal’s stronger emphasis on distortion (and sometimes down-tuned guitars) as well as its more emphatic beats. This style has had a significant impact on the development of many other Metal sub-genres that followed.

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Doom metal (1978)



Reveling in tension, despair, and dread, doom metal prizes atmosphere more than many of metal's other primary subgenres. Doom uses plodding tempos, repeated chords, and thick, distorted, down-tuned guitars to attempt to envelop the listener in a wash of desperate foreboding that can commonly last to the ten minute mark and beyond. Instruments generally keep to the standard guitar, bass, and drums, but it is not unusual to add keyboard passages and backdrops.



Doom vocals can be in any of the predominant metal styles, but all share a determined attempt to invoke emotional hopelessness and mental anguish. This is further amplified by the lyrical themes of grief, depression, fear, resentment, and suffering that are hallmarks of the style.



The roots of doom metal are considered to have been planted in the early 70s work of Black Sabbath. In the 1980s, European artists like Witchfinder General and Candlemass adopted the Doom sound as a full fledged genre unto itself, as well as American acts like Saint Vitus, Trouble and Pentagram. Their style of thick and depressive doom remained the standard until the early 90s, when newcomers such as My Dying Bride, Cathedral, Electric Wizard, and many others began to experiment in melding doom with several other metal subgenres. Doom has proven to be one of the most lasting and recognizable metal styles, maintaining a relatively small but devoted fan base in many countries.

Reveling in tension, despair, and dread, doom metal prizes atmosphere more than many of metal's other primary subgenres. Doom uses plodding tempos, repeated chords, and thick, distorted, down-tuned guitars to attempt to envelop the listener in a wash of desperate foreboding that can commonly last to the ten minute mark and beyond. Instruments generally keep to the standard guitar, bass, and drums, but it is not unusual to add keyboard passages and backdrops.



Doom vocals can be in any of the predominant metal styles, but all share a determined attempt to invoke emotional hopelessness and mental anguish. This is further amplified by the lyrical themes of grief, depression, fear, resentment, and suffering that are hallmarks of the style.



The roots of doom metal are considered to have been planted in the early 70s work of Black Sabbath. In the 1980s, European artists like Witchfinder General and Candlemass adopted the Doom sound as a full fledged genre unto itself, as well as American acts like Saint Vitus, Trouble and Pentagram. Their style of thick and depressive doom remained the standard until the early 90s, when newcomers such as My Dying Bride, Cathedral, Electric Wizard, and many others began to experiment in melding doom with several other metal subgenres. Doom has proven to be one of the most lasting and recognizable metal styles, maintaining a relatively small but devoted fan base in many countries.

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Thrash metal (1980)



Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is a style of Metal music that originated in the United States in 1980-1981 under the heavy influence of British bands such as Venom and Motörhead and in reaction to another style of American rock / metal music that arose at the time, Glam Metal. Bands like Metallica, Slayer and Exodus took the roughest aspects of the NWOBHM sound and focused on writing fast and energetic songs with riffs which focused more on rhythmic than melodic qualities and laid out simple melodies over palm-muted pedal-point notes, so-called skank beats, derived from Hardcore Punk, where a straight bass/snare beat in 4/4 is played as fast as possible, shred guitar solos, shouted, often unmelodic vocals, and songwriting which, at its most extreme, was simply aimed at cramming as many riffs as possible in the span of a few minutes. Lyrics dealt with themes such as war, violence, satanism and Cold War paranoia while oftentimes including sociopolitical commentary, as well as more lighthearted topics like skating, partying and getting drunk. The first full-length studio-produced thrash metal albums were Metallica's Kill 'Em All and Slayer's Show No Mercy, both released in 1983.



As the 1980s progressed, hardcore punk bands like D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies took a lot of influence from the American thrash metal scene and refined their chaotic styles into what is commonly referred to as Crossover Thrash. Such influence worked both ways, as exemplified by Anthrax side project S.O.D., whose 1985 album Speak English or Die became a staple of this hardcore-influenced offshoot of thrash.



By the second half of the 1980s Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax had become household names for Metal fans all over the world and the American thrash metal scene had significantly grown in size with many previously underground acts receiving mainstream attention and the underground as a whole thriving with bands like Dark Angel and Sadus pushing the boundaries of the genre. To a large extent thanks to the tape-trading scene and fanzines, thrash metal bands spawned all around the world, some of the biggest scenes being in Germany with bands such as Sodom, Kreator and Destruction, in Canada with Razor, Slaughter and Sacrifice and in Brazil with Sepultura, Vulcano and Sarcófago.



In the 1990s, the style's popularity waned as Groove Metal and Grunge replaced it as the heavy rhythm-driven guitar music of the day, and underground styles like Death Metal and Black Metal were living through their golden era, rendering thrash outdated in the eyes of the newer wave of extreme metal fans. In turn, a lot of thrash bands shifted to a slicker, more modernized sound in that period as can be heard in albums such as Sound of White Noise and Chaos A.D..



The 2000s were somewhat of a renaissance for thrash: young bands that stuck to the style's classic 80s sound such as Municipal Waste and Evile garnered critical acclaim while a new wave of retro-thrash bands flourished. A lot of older bands reunited or recorded albums like Enemy of God and Tempo of the Damned which, while modern-sounding, brought back a lot of the old school vibes and energy the public was craving.



The impact thrash had on the metal genre as a whole cannot be overstated. Thrash metal musicians popularized the use of techniques such as tremolo picking, sweep picking and double-bass drumming in the metal genre. New amps, effect pedals and approaches to production developed to account for 80s thrash metal bands' drive to play as fast and sound as heavy as possible, the compressed bass-heavy production on classic thrash albums like Master of Puppets becoming a huge influence for metal bands to come. Death and black metal essentially spawned from the thrash metal scene with pioneering bands such as Possessed and Bathory being to some extent thrash bands with different aesthetic sensibilities.

Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is a style of Metal music that originated in the United States in 1980-1981 under the heavy influence of British bands such as Venom and Motörhead and in reaction to another style of American rock / metal music that arose at the time, Glam Metal. Bands like Metallica, Slayer and Exodus took the roughest aspects of the NWOBHM sound and focused on writing fast and energetic songs with riffs which focused more on rhythmic than melodic qualities and laid out simple melodies over palm-muted pedal-point notes, so-called skank beats, derived from Hardcore Punk, where a straight bass/snare beat in 4/4 is played as fast as possible, shred guitar solos, shouted, often unmelodic vocals, and songwriting which, at its most extreme, was simply aimed at cramming as many riffs as possible in the span of a few minutes. Lyrics dealt with themes such as war, violence, satanism and Cold War paranoia while oftentimes including sociopolitical commentary, as well as more lighthearted topics like skating, partying and getting drunk. The first full-length studio-produced thrash metal albums were Metallica's Kill 'Em All and Slayer's Show No Mercy, both released in 1983.



As the 1980s progressed, hardcore punk bands like D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies took a lot of influence from the American thrash metal scene and refined their chaotic styles into what is commonly referred to as Crossover Thrash. Such influence worked both ways, as exemplified by Anthrax side project S.O.D., whose 1985 album Speak English or Die became a staple of this hardcore-influenced offshoot of thrash.



By the second half of the 1980s Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax had become household names for Metal fans all over the world and the American thrash metal scene had significantly grown in size with many previously underground acts receiving mainstream attention and the underground as a whole thriving with bands like Dark Angel and Sadus pushing the boundaries of the genre. To a large extent thanks to the tape-trading scene and fanzines, thrash metal bands spawned all around the world, some of the biggest scenes being in Germany with bands such as Sodom, Kreator and Destruction, in Canada with Razor, Slaughter and Sacrifice and in Brazil with Sepultura, Vulcano and Sarcófago.



In the 1990s, the style's popularity waned as Groove Metal and Grunge replaced it as the heavy rhythm-driven guitar music of the day, and underground styles like Death Metal and Black Metal were living through their golden era, rendering thrash outdated in the eyes of the newer wave of extreme metal fans. In turn, a lot of thrash bands shifted to a slicker, more modernized sound in that period as can be heard in albums such as Sound of White Noise and Chaos A.D..



The 2000s were somewhat of a renaissance for thrash: young bands that stuck to the style's classic 80s sound such as Municipal Waste and Evile garnered critical acclaim while a new wave of retro-thrash bands flourished. A lot of older bands reunited or recorded albums like Enemy of God and Tempo of the Damned which, while modern-sounding, brought back a lot of the old school vibes and energy the public was craving.



The impact thrash had on the metal genre as a whole cannot be overstated. Thrash metal musicians popularized the use of techniques such as tremolo picking, sweep picking and double-bass drumming in the metal genre. New amps, effect pedals and approaches to production developed to account for 80s thrash metal bands' drive to play as fast and sound as heavy as possible, the compressed bass-heavy production on classic thrash albums like Master of Puppets becoming a huge influence for metal bands to come. Death and black metal essentially spawned from the thrash metal scene with pioneering bands such as Possessed and Bathory being to some extent thrash bands with different aesthetic sensibilities.

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Speed metal (1981)



Speed Metal is a sub-genre of Metal originating from the NWOBHM and the work of early Heavy Metal bands such as Deep Purple and Judas Priest. It is usually considered less abrasive and more melodic than Thrash Metal, showing less influence from Hardcore Punk. However, Speed Metal is usually faster and more aggressive than traditional Heavy Metal, also showing more inclination to virtuoso soloing and featuring short instrumental passages between couplets. Speed Metal songs frequently make use of highly expressive vocals, but are usually less likely to employ 'harsh' vocals than Thrash Metal songs.



A few defining Speed Metal releases are Exciter's Violence & Force (1984), Helloween's Walls of Jericho (1985), Blind Guardian's Battalions of Fear (1988), and Angel Dust's Into the Dark Past (1986).

Speed Metal is a sub-genre of Metal originating from the NWOBHM and the work of early Heavy Metal bands such as Deep Purple and Judas Priest. It is usually considered less abrasive and more melodic than Thrash Metal, showing less influence from Hardcore Punk. However, Speed Metal is usually faster and more aggressive than traditional Heavy Metal, also showing more inclination to virtuoso soloing and featuring short instrumental passages between couplets. Speed Metal songs frequently make use of highly expressive vocals, but are usually less likely to employ 'harsh' vocals than Thrash Metal songs.



A few defining Speed Metal releases are Exciter's Violence & Force (1984), Helloween's Walls of Jericho (1985), Blind Guardian's Battalions of Fear (1988), and Angel Dust's Into the Dark Past (1986).

Power metal (1983)



Power Metal is a subgenre of Metal music that developed primarily in Europe in the early 1980s. Power Metal combines elements of both Heavy Metal and Speed Metal, characterized by fast tempos and an emphasis on melody and harmony. The majority of Power Metal bands use soaring clean vocals rather than the guttural or high pitched vocals primarily used in Death Metal and Black Metal. Additionally, Power Metal often incorporates symphonic or classical instrumentation, a similarity that may lead some bands to be considered Symphonic Metal. The lyrics of the genre are often focused on high fantasy or mythological imagery, with specific textual examples such as The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia. Prominent bands of the Power Metal genre include but are certainly not limited to Helloween, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, and Stratovarius.