Soundseekers: Jack
It is hard to imagine what life would be like without music. In the USA, 95.2% of people aged 13 or over listen to music daily. With music, you have divisions of genres, and those genres into sub-genres. Some people have a highly eclectic taste in music, being able to listen to a plethora of artists, while others prefer to just keep it simple with only a few.
One aspect of music that people find most vital is the feeling of comfort, security, and happiness that it provides. This is especially the case with Metal music.
What is metal?
Metal (or heavy metal) is a specific genre of hard rock music. Traditionally, it is characterised by it is intensity and aggression. The genre is usually regarded as being established in the 1960s by the renowned “unholy trinity” of British bands Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. As time progressed, the sound of the music and its audience was progressively expanded, as thrash metal dominated the 1980s with bands like Metallica, leading into the sound of the millennium with Nu Metal, but this is just the beginning.
What is the appeal of metal?
People listen to Metal for a variety of reasons, but it depends on the person. For some, they have had a connection with the genre their entire lives and hence hold this kind of music close to their hearts. But primarily, there is a strong tie between mental health and metal. Many individuals find the music to be a thorough source of emotional comfort lyrically, act as an outlet for aggression and anger or to energise the listener. Overall, there has been a correlation established between listening to heavier music and reduced symptoms of negative emotion.
Schism - TOOL
Prog metal
Beginning the list is Prog Metal band TOOL.
One of many aspects I find appealing about TOOL is how they explore difficult life experiences and trauma. Bands like tool help people explore their feelings and find comfort in some of life’s difficulty. Lyrically, Maynard (TOOL’s vocalist) talks about his own life and gives the listener space in the lyrics to find their own meanings. So, the song works on many levels. Depending on the listener, the songs chorus (“I know the pieces fit…”) may be assigned meaning towards the listener or Maynard’s life, sense of self, or even pieces of the song. This is due to the essence of TOOL and other prog music in it is divergent time signature- switching between 5/8 and 7/8.
Tool is a band that fascinatingly divide their listeners due to their unorthodox rhythms and song structure. For many, particularly those with little exposure to unconventional rhythms, will find the song may give a feeling of uneasiness and discomfort in the listening experience. On the contrary, some will find the unpredictability and musical chaos a profoundly cerebral experience. TOOL do things differently. The Listener is placed right in the front seat- questioning what is going to occur next, subverting expectations and creating a chaos and uncertainty in the listening experience.
Despite the musical twists and turns the listener is subjected to, TOOL bears a cyclic nature to its tracks, seeming to flow in its own way, blurring the lines of chaos and order. Similarly, the band has always ensured an acute attention to detail and complexity. Two fantastic examples of this are the use of the Fibonacci sequence in the song ‘lateralus’ lyrically, as well as the cover art of the same album.
Schism is a great jumping in point for discovering TOOL physically embodying the what the band stand for and the experience people have with them. If you enjoyed this, then I highly recommend diving into TOOL’s song ‘The Pot’
Du Hast - Rammstein
Industrial metal
Juxtaposing the complexity of TOOL. Du Hast is a minimalist industrial metal track by German band Rammstein with repeating beats and rhythms. Thus, this track that conveys how a song can still have a profound effect regardless of its complexity, and that there is therefore not necessarily a positive correlation between the two.
A staple of the band is the showmanship and theatrics that accompany the already thumping riffs and drum beats. The most renowned feature of this is commonly regarded as their use of pyrotechnics, specifically on this track.
With many bands, the element of showmanship is often dismissed. An example of this was my parent’s experience with watching Kings of Leon live. While other people’s experiences may differ with the band, they described it as the band “sitting in a circle and playing through the song list with little to no audience participation at all, making no effort to get the crowd going.”
If you like Du Hast then you will love Radio. Radio is about the political divide Germany following the end of the second World War and the subsequent antithesis of lifestyle in East and West. Its catchy and upbeat melody withholds dark undertones of how West Germanic individuals would utilise Radio to get a glimpse of life across the wall that divided the torn nation in the contemporary period.
Breaking the Habit - Linkin Park
Nu metal
Singer songwriter Chester Bennington sadly committed suicide in 2017 following a prolonged battle with depression. The death of Chester has given songs like breaking the habit far more semantic meaning and memories for its listeners.
For Me, this song and the entire Meteora album holds a special place in my heart. I have listened to the record since I was honestly around 4 or 5, and I have never grown tired of it. Each track flows seamlessly into the next. While ‘Numb’ is the album’s most popular song (and for good reason!) I equally recommend ‘Faint’ and ‘Somewhere I Belong.’
‘Breaking the Habit’ is a song that serves as an empowering track about personal development and change. The extremely high tempo of the song creates a sense of dissonance when combined with the juxtaposing melancholic melody. In this way, the track can be said to be oxymoronic.
In this manner, the song for me is a representation of individuals facing personal adversity. This is echoed through the music video, in which the song acts as a shared ballad for all the characters shown. Similarly, to how the there is a sense of calmness that attempts to mask the faster and erratic elements, as though these conflicting aspects are in battle, the characters of the music video put on a mask of serenity while there is mental turmoil beneath.
Although Chester himself lost his own battle, it was not in vain. Songs like these provide a sense of solace to many listeners and in many cases, can be a huge catalyst for the pathway of the transformation of people into their truest, best, and most authentic self.
Throne - Bring me the Horizon
Metalcore
“The sticks and stones that you used to through have built me an empire”
“Every wound will shape me; every scar will build my throne”
Throne is a pure empowerment track about transforming negative experience into positive actions and building strength and resilience, mirroring Linkin Park with added heaviness and aggressiveness of sound and thus serving as an excellent outlet of negative emotion.
I believe that the two quotes above convey this perfectly, but the lyrics are so raw and empowering, I honestly could have just quoted the entire song. It is my second most played song of all time on Spotify, seconded only to Feel Good Inc. By Gorillaz (not metal but I highly recommend it!).
My top 3 albums by BMTH would absolutely be Sempiternal (2013), That’s the Spirit (2015) and Post Human: Survival Horror (2019). There is not a single song on these albums to me that are skips. They present the drastic changes in the band’s sound over the years, ranging from Deathcore to Pop infused metal/rock due to recent collaboration with mainstream artists that gives added accessibility to their music.
If you want something easier on the ears and something a bit more accessible, listen to their track ‘Follow You.” On the other hand, if you are tempted to listen to something with added heaviness, modernity, and incorporation of electronic elements, give “Kingslayer” a try.
Hypa Hypa – Electric Callboy
Electronicore
One great aspect to the metal genre is the diversity of mood, sound, and seriousness. While metal typically bears great lyrical, musical, and emotional intensity (in the manner that the previous artists do), many bands diverge from this trend.
A brilliantly hilarious and equally energetic instance of this is German band Electric Callboy. The band fuses elements of comedy, electronic music, and metal in a seamless manner. Every single song on their new album ‘Tekkno’ does not fall short of expectations in the slightest, and the music videos for each mirror the humour and energetic nature that gives the music it is distinct sound.
If you enjoy this song, I recommend listening to any song on their new record, but the songs ‘we got the moves,’ ‘tekkno train’ and ‘arrow of love’ are some of the most popular.