Post Metal

Post-metal is a music genre rooted in heavy metal but exploring approaches beyond metal conventions. It emerged in the 1990s with bands such as Neurosis and Godflesh, who transformed metal texture through experimental composition. In a way similar to the predecessor genres post-rock and post-hardcore, post-metal offsets the darkness and intensity of extreme metal with an emphasis on atmosphere, emotion, and even "revelation", developing an expansive but introspective sound variously imbued with elements of ambient, noise, psychedelic, progressive, and classical music. Songs are typically long, with loose and layered structures that discard the verse–chorus form in favor of crescendos and repeating themes. The sound centres on guitars (subjected to various effects) and drums, while any vocals are usually screamed or growled and resemble an additional instrument.

Post-metal is related to other experimental styles of metal: avant-garde metal, drone metal, progressive metal, and industrial metal. It has also been called metalgaze and art metal, highlighting its connection to shoegaze (an indie music style related to post-rock) and art music, respectively. Contemporary post-metal, pioneered by diverse groups such as Isis, Agalloch, Boris, Pelican, Jesu, and Wolves in the Throne Room, typically employs the deep heaviness of doom metal and sludge metal and/or the dark ferocity of black metal. The widespread acclaim of Deafheaven, who succeeded Alcest in combining black metal and shoegaze (a fusion nicknamed blackgaze), recently made this global post-metal underground scene more visible.

History

Predecessors

The groundwork for post-metal was laid in the 1980s and early 1990s by various artists (mostly in the US) combining heavy metal and punk rock sounds with an "avant-garde sensibility", such as the Melvins (particularly on 1991's ''Bullhead''), The Flying Luttenbachers, Justin Broadrick of Napalm Death and Godflesh, Swans, Gore, Last Exit, Glenn Branca, Rollins Band, and Fugazi. Helmet's albums ''Meantime'' (1992) and ''Betty'' (1994) were also significant, while Tool's music was described as post-metal as early as 1993. Many of these artists emerged from hardcore punk and post-punk circles but their combination of sonic violence with experimentation and eclecticism made them difficult to categorize under any one genre.

Emergence in the 1990s

The term post-rock was coined in 1994 and soon used to describe a diverse group of bands that shared "a penchant for drifting melodies and the desire to expand beyond established rock boundaries". As this movement swelled, bands from post-hardcore and experimental backgrounds began to incorporate its tendencies of " ambience, offbeat experimentation, downcast melodies and psychedelia" into metal. The two genres further converged through the influence of post-rock bands such as Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Lift to Experience who shared metal's emphasis on loudness.

Neurosis' third album ''Souls at Zero'' and Godflesh's second album ''Pure'', both released in 1992, are often retrospectively considered the first post-metal records. Godflesh had already pioneered "sluggish and tortured" industrial metal of their 1989 debut ''Streetcleaner'', but ''Pure'' showcased "more expansive structures and long stretches of billowing noise", inspiring a number of subsequent bands to combine metal with "layered washes of sound". Neurosis on the other hand were a hardcore band who embraced doom metal, post-punk and industrial influences, experimenting with texture and dynamics. They have since become recognized "for their pioneering post-metal efforts and unwavering dedication to expanding their artistic boundaries." In 2010, guitarist Steve Von Till stated:

The band's 1996 fifth album ''Through Silver in Blood'' was credited by ''Terrorizer'' with "effectively invent ngthe post-metal genre" and named the best post-metal album of all time by ''Fact''. The fluctuating 12-minute song "Purify" has been described as the album's "signature track". Neurosis' work has also contributed the development of doom metal, sludge metal, and drone metal, and these genres have been associated with post-metal since. Similarly, drone metal pioneers Earth have been significant to post-metal ever since their 1991 debut release '' Extra-Capsular Extraction''.

Furthermore, ''Fact'' writer Robin Jahdi highlights the late 1990s US noisecore of bands such as Botch, Kiss It Goodbye, the Dillinger Escape Plan and Coalesce, who merged brutal metallic hardcore with jazz into fast-and-complex compositions, as a fundamental influence on post-metal. Writing for ''Bandcamp Daily'', Jon Wiederhorn also noted the significance of Botch and Cave In, while Converge have been connected to post-metal through their longer songs since the closing track of their seminal 2001 album ''Jane Doe''. According to Jahdi, the genre emerged as "those young intellectuals decided to slow it down" and labels such as Relapse Records and Hydra Head Records began releasing "slower, more bass-heavy and abstract" music more akin to post-rock.

Development in the 2000s

Hydra Head Records had been established in 1993 by Aaron Turner. In 1997, Turner co-founded Isis, a band which became central to an increasingly recognizable post-metal movement. In particular, their 2002 album ''Oceanic'' – which showcased "buzzing washes of multilayered sound that ebbed and flowed in intensity", combining the "barbed guitars" and "shouted vocals" of post-hardcore with "meandering, psychedelic progressions" – has become regarded as a classic of the genre. At the same time, Hydra Head signed further prominent bands, releasing the early records of Pelican and Jesu. While Pelican are an instrumental quartet inspired as much by Neurosis and Godflesh as by Mogwai, Jesu was formed by Justin Broadrick after the breakup of Godflesh to explore "ambient guitar compositions", embracing shoegaze and slowcore influences.

As black metal "spread beyond Scandinavia to infect the global underground", it joined shoegaze as a major factor in the evolution of post-metal. Many bands employ the "speed and ferocity" of black metal in "contrast to slower, more ethereal compositions". This approach was pioneered by Agalloch, who formed in 1995 and also employed elements of doom metal, progressive rock, folk music, and post-hardcore. Wolves in the Throne Room, who became a significant act for American black metal by the release of their 2007 album ''Two Hunters

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