Metal Bands

The all important Metal Bands. Those bands that rock so hard they cant be classified as rock bands.

		Metallica was easily the best, most influential heavy metal band of the '80s. Metallica expanded the limits of thrash, using speed and volume not for their own sake, but to enhance their intricately structured compositions. The release of 1983's Kill 'Em All marked the beginning of the legitimization of heavy metal's underground. After releasing their masterpiece Master of Puppets in 1986, tragedy struck when their tour bus crashed killing Burton. Jason Newsted was chosen to replace Burton; two years later, the band released And Justice for All, which hit the Top Ten without any radio play and very little support from MTV. Metallica crossed over into the mainstream with 1991's Metallica and resulted in a number one album that sold over seven million copies in the U.S. alone. By the '90s, Metallica had changed the rules for all heavy metal bands.
Slayer was one of the most distinctive, influential, and extreme thrash metal bands of the 1980s. Their graphic lyrics deal with everything from death and dismemberment to war and the horrors of hell. Their full-throttle velocity, wildly chaotic guitar solos, and powerful musical chops paint an effectively chilling sonic background for their obsessive chronicling of the dark side. Naturally, Slayer has stirred up quite a bit of controversy over the years, with rumors flying about Satanism and Nazism that have only added to their mystique.
	No band affected the metal world more so than Pantera during the early to mid-'90s. Beginning with its 1990 album Cowboys From Hell, the post-thrash band put to rest any and all remnants of the '80s metal scene, almost single-handedly demolishing any notion that hair metal, speed metal, power metal, could live on. By the time Pantera unleashed Far Beyond Driven in 1994, they were the most popular metal band in the land, as the frenzy surrounding that Billboard chart-topping album testified. Unfortunately the band begin to go downhill and after Dimebag Darrell was shot there is no hope of them getting back together. They will however, always be known as one of the most influential metal bands to date.
		Like many late-'90s metal bands, System of a Down struck a balance between '80s underground thrash metal and metallic early-'90s alternative rockers like Jane's Addiction. Their dark, neo-gothic alternative metal earned a cult following. Their fan base grew by word of mouth and eventually were signed to American/Columbia who released the group's eponymous debut album in the summer of 1998, securing the band opening spots on the Slayer and Ozzfest tours.
After he left Metallica in 1983, guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine formed the thrash metal quartet Megadeth. Though Megadeth followed the basic blueprint of Metallica's relentless attack, Mustaine's group distinguished themselves from his earlier band by lessening the progressive rock influences, adding an emphasis on instrumental skills, speeding the tempo up slightly, and making the instrumental attack harsher. By streamlining the classic thrash metal approach and making the music more threatening, as well as making the lyrics more nihilistic, Megadeth became one of the leading bands of the genre during the mid-'80s and late '80s.
	For metal heads who thought bands like W.A.S.P. and Motley Crue just weren't menacing or heavy enough, White Zombie was the perfect antidote as they fused B-horror movies visuals and subject matter with heavy music and growled vocals. And while White Zombie was originally thought to be a full-fledged ‘band,' it would later become known that the group was almost entirely the vision of their larger-than-life singer, Rob Zombie. Eventually White Zombie began incorporating industrial rock elements into their sound, which made them one of the few hard rock bands that you could also dance to. Geffen Records signed the band, and issued their major label debut, La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1, in early 1992. Success couldn't hide the fact that Rob Zombie was getting fed up with the group and longed to launch a solo career of his own so after 1996's Supersexy Swingin' Sounds, White Zombie split up. Rob Zombie started off by issuing American Made Music to Strip By in the fall of 1999. Starting his own label, Zombie-A-Go-Go Records, he gave bands like the Ghastly Ones a home while creating demented mix CDs like Halloween Hootenanny. He delivered remixes to a number of soundtracks while recording a new song for the Mission Impossible: 2 soundtrack, and he rounded out his first major solo run with a Rob Zombie toy produced by Todd McFarlane. He began to work on a feature film in April of 2000, funded by Universal Studios. The film, entitled House of 1000 Corpses, was produced and edited, but the studio backed out due to their own corporate standards. Zombie wrangled the rights to the film from the studio while taking out his frustrations on his next solo record, Sinister Urge. Rob continues to travel along making awesome music and wonderfully gory movies.
		Nearly as much as Metallica or Megadeth, Anthrax was responsible for the emergence of speed and thrash metal; combining the speed and fury of hardcore punk with the prominent guitars and vocals of heavy metal, they helped create a new sub genre of heavy metal on their early albums. Unlike Metallica or Megadeth, they had the good sense to temper their often serious music with a healthy dose of humor and realism. After a few line up changes and a couple lead singer changes they are still going strong today. Even if their sound has changed in ways never expected.
At a time when pop was dominated by dance music and pop-metal, Guns N' Roses brought raw, ugly rock & roll crashing back into the charts. They were not nice boys; nice boys don't play rock & roll. They were ugly, misogynist, and violent; they were also funny, vulnerable, and occasionally sensitive, as their breakthrough hit, "Sweet Child O' Mine," showed. Guns N' Roses' music was basic and gritty, with a solid hard, bluesy base; they were dark, sleazy, dirty, and honest -- everything that good hard rock and heavy metal should be. There was something refreshing about a band who could provoke everything from devotion to hatred, especially since both sides were equally right
	Motörhead's overwhelmingly loud and fast style of heavy metal was one of the most groundbreaking styles the genre had to offer in the late '70s. Though the group's leader, Lemmy Kilminster, had his roots in the hard-rocking space rock band Hawkwind, Motörhead didn't bother with his old group's progressive tendencies, choosing to amplify the heavy biker rock elements of Hawkwind with the speed of punk rock. Motörhead wasn't punk rock -- they formed before the Sex Pistols and they loved the hell-for-leather imagery of bikers too much to conform with the safety-pinned, ripped T-shirts of punk -- but they were the first metal band to harness that energy and, in the process, they created speed metal and thrash metal. Unlike many of their contemporaries, Motörhead continued performing into the next century. Although the band changed its lineup many, many times -- Lemmy was its only consistent member -- they never changed their raging sound.