Suggestions
Suggestions
Alternative metal began in the late 1980s with heavy bands too offbeat and eclectic for the thrash underground. Their audience came mostly from alternative listeners drawn to heavy guitars. Heavy metal stayed at the core, and the first wave fused it with prog-rock (Jane’s Addiction), noise rock (Helmet), funk (Faith No More), industrial music (Ministry), psychedelia or rap, with no single scene holding the bands together. Grunge opened it up to mass audiences, and through the 1990s no heavy style was more popular. By the end of the decade most new bands were mixing simplified thrash, rap, industrial, hardcore punk and grunge, with grinding texture and aggression pushing hooks aside.
Iron Form, started by UK metal veterans Alex Heffernan and Mario Gambardella, join melodic hardcore and alternative metal on “Become the Blade”. Man Looking Man name Converge, Botch and Tool as influences alongside Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. Los Angeles band Melted Bodies draw on metal, punk and experimental music, and SOM describe their shoegaze and post-metal sound as “Doom Pop”. Deftones started near nu metal, took in shoegaze, alternative rock and post-hardcore, and still echo through newer bands such as Narrow Head and Fleshwater.