Before you even say anything, we know what's you're thinking and, yes, there really are more than three dozen different subgenres within the world of heavy metal. There's still plenty of territory we haven't touched as the endless genre mashing continues to populate the most niche of realms, but, for the sake of sanity, this list of the Best Metal Band From 40 Different Subgenres keeps things pretty grounded in the (mostly) familiar.

On the surface, there are the big genre players like traditional, thrash, black, death, doom, power, progressive, grindcore, hair, alternative and industrial, which all have a wealth of largely notable acts within each respective style. This provided plenty of room for experimentation as bands willfully took techniques from any and all subgenres, injecting them into whatever sonic hallmarks were being used as the foundation. This spurred a litany of acts blending black and death metal, implementing doom into death metal, the raucous mixing of hardcore and metal that resulted in metalcore and a lot more, which still continues today.

After 30 years of various kinds of metal, it's hard to imagine many untapped styles still out there waiting to be discovered, but the creative well has never been in danger of running dry with the technical death metal rebirth, newfound classifications like djent and deathcore as well as the embodiment of themes like pirate metal.

If you're new to some of these styles, let the gallery at the top of the page be your guideline to the wide world of heavy metal and if you're a self-proclaimed metal expert, see if your favorite representatives of each subgenre made the cut!