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Avant-garde metal 1993

Metal that imports anything - jazz, cabaret, electronics - and refuses to settle into a shape.

Heaviness
7
Speed
7
Melody
5
Where from
Norway / USA
Tempo
60-200 bpm
Song length
4-10 min
Written about
Absurdity, Mysticism, Identity and dissolution, Whatever the record decides it is about
Vocals
Sung and screamed

Why this one

You saidAvant-garde metalMatchWeight
Both, trading off When someone is singing, what should come out? mixed 100% ×3
There, but not the point How much weight do you want behind it? 7 out of 10 80% ×2
Quick and driving What pace? 7 out of 10 100% ×2
The nineties Does it matter when it was made? 1993 100% ×1
No. Texture and force are enough. Do you want a tune you could hum afterwards? 5 out of 10 60% ×1
Weighted mean 91%

Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 5 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, pace 2, era 1, melody 1 out of 9. Avant-garde 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

  1. 1Start one step outside
    Cover of Blackwater Park

    Opeth, Blackwater Park 2001

    Progressive metal

    Opeth - Blackwater Park. Growls and acoustic guitar in one song, and nothing forced about it.

  2. 2The one to put on first
    Cover of La Masquerade Infernale

    Arcturus, La Masquerade Infernale 1997

    Avant-garde metal

    Arcturus - La Masquerade Infernale. Black metal, cabaret and opera on one album.

  3. 3Then
    Cover of Disco Volante
  4. 4Then
    Cover of Imaginary Sonicscape
  5. 5Then
    Cover of Written in Waters

The first is the entry point for Progressive metal, one step outside, so the second record has something to be heard against. After it come Avant-garde 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

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

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.