Your way in
Alternative metal 1988
Metal weight without the dress code or the scene rules: unconventional structures and influences from post-punk, funk or shoegaze.
- Heaviness
- 7
- Speed
- 5
- Melody
- 7
- Where from
- USA
- Tempo
- 90-140 bpm
- Song length
- 4-6 min
- Written about
- Dissociation, Ritual and belief, Sex and its damage, Refusal of metal's own conventions
- Vocals
- Sung and screamed
Why this one
| You said | Alternative metal | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Both, trading off When someone is singing, what should come out? | mixed | 100% | ×3 |
| As heavy as it gets How much weight do you want behind it? | 7 out of 10 | 70% | ×2 |
| A steady walk What pace? | 5 out of 10 | 100% | ×2 |
| The dark What should the words be about? | Dissociation, Ritual and belief, Sex and its damage, Refusal of metal's own conventions | 50% | ×1 |
| Yes. A proper melody. Do you want a tune you could hum afterwards? | 7 out of 10 | 70% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 84% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 5 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, pace 2, about 1, melody 1 out of 9. Alternative metal leads the next by 2 points. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1The one to put on first
Tool, Ænima 1996
Tool - Ænima. Complex without showing off, heavy without insisting.
- 2Then
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5One step further in
Kyuss, Blues for the Red Sun 1992
Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun. That guitar tone has been copied for thirty years.
The first is Alternative metal's own entry point. After it come Alternative metal's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Post-metal / atmospheric sludge 82%
Sludge with post-rock logic: long songs, crescendos and instrumental passages. Neurosis invented the form.
4 steps from Alternative metal, meeting it only at Heavy metal.
The way into Post-metal / atmospheric sludge -
Slam death metal 76%
Reduces brutal death metal to slow, lurching riffs made purely for moving your head.
4 steps from Alternative metal, meeting it only at Heavy metal.
The way into Slam death metal
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- Both, trading off put 72 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Alternative rock, Blues rock, Doom metal. Worth 3 of 9.
- As heavy as it gets put 13 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Rock and roll, Folk rock, Country rock. Worth 2 of 9.
- The dark put 119 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Punk rock, Hardcore punk, Alternative rock. Worth 1 of 9.
- Yes. A proper melody. put 12 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Grindcore, Brutal death metal, Cybergrind. Worth 1 of 9.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.