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by hardbass 20 days ago
I would like to clarify if you meant Entombed as in the Left Hand Path era or Entombed as in Wolverine Blues. I believe boogie has a very specific meaning and the LHP era pages crustpunk and hardcore rhythms which to me is precisely one of the main antiboogie elements that metal learned from hardcore. Its a continuous flowing "square" beat that enables the guitar to center stage rather than a swinging beat that needs the drum to make room for guitars like in a lot of rock.

By prog I meant just classic prog. Complexity in metal is a bit orthogonal to being prog, I think simply "normal" death metal like Morbid Angel is far more "prog" that prog due to death metal's own native sensibilities which in part as I said tie in to the hardcore lineage. I haven't yet given it proper thought, but it's my theory that the hardcore beat and the different way punk/hardcore uses power chords from general rock music is what enabled thrash and ultimately death metal. I love Sadus and Atheist, and you will see people call them "technical" death metal not "prog" death metal, it may hint that subconsciously or consciously people are aware that death metal achieves "prog" goals without actually necessarily using classic prog techniques.

From what prog I have heard, I think its amazing, and an admirable development for the time. It's a big part of why metal is metal, early metal sensibility in my view is very strongly derived from prog. The prog bands were already using less "swingy" beats and more guitar centric writing. It's just that hardcore had to finally put the final piece of the puzzle that enabled these tendencies to achieve their full fruition. Direct prog had a tendency to sometimes wander too much. Hardcore firstly checked this by being hyper minimalist, and secondly that undeveloped theory of mine regarding hardcore having innovated a very different way of playing guitar and the drumming technique letting guitars room to breathe achieving a much more naturalistic and flowing method of creating hallways of riffs.

>When I was a kid, adults told me Metal was a passing fad, it would go away in a few years, and I'd grow out of it.

Partly imo this again ties in to the influence of hardcore culture on metal. Punk groups I think were doing xeroxed art and fliers and garage recorded and dubbed tapes quite early. A punk musician named Paul Halmshaw was irritated at the lack of infra for punk and hardcore music due to mainstream infra not deeming it worth it, so he fielded his own infra. Most people know of Peaceville as a famous metal record label today.

edit: >Cannibal Corpse

I am not aware they had any grindcore/deathgrind albums. I haven't listened to their entire discography so I could be wrong.

2 comments

Oh and yes I'd say Entombed and a lot of that branch of swedish death metal comes mostly from crust and hardcore rather than thrash. For thrashy swedish death, you could try this for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNTJ7n5LeCI
Cheers! I'll have a listen.
>> I would like to clarify if you meant Entombed as in the Left Hand Path era or Entombed as in Wolverine Blues. I believe boogie has a very specific meaning and the LHP era pages crustpunk and hardcore rhythms which to me is precisely one of the main antiboogie elements that metal learned from hardcore. Its a continuous flowing "square" beat that enables the guitar to center stage rather than a swinging beat that needs the drum to make room for guitars like in a lot of rock.

Wolverine Blues and even more To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak The Truth. They've gone back a bit since then I find.

>> By prog I meant just classic prog.

Oh, right. I actually haven't heard a lot of the. Blue Öyster Cult and Rush etc? I of course acknowledge the immense influence of those bands on Metal, but that's the part of Metal I don't like that much. I think the influence was the focus on guitar technique and general musical quality which is something that's not really there in crusty punk and hardcore bands, I guess it's even anathema to some. You could even argue that a lot of Metal bands play the same music as hardcore bands but take the craft of music-making more seriously. This of course goes against my argument that thrash/death/black aren't descendants of hardcore/punk.

>> I am not aware they had any grindcore/deathgrind albums. I haven't listened to their entire discography so I could be wrong.

Oh, I see. Wikipedia calls them straight Death Metal. For me and my friends they were always either splatter/gore or grind. Different definitions I guess.

What I was saying is that it's both. Before thrash, and especially for early nwobhm there is a lot of prog to it. Prog was actually trying to remove the rock/blues earlier than nwobhm, and even if such and such nwobhm band said they hated prog, their structure is much more like prog than hard rock. No swing, square beats, linear and through composed songwriting, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHHHePJtK40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpL5htneI-c

NWOBHM tried to streamline it of course and they succeeded to an extent but as I theorized before, it took hardcore to actually invent the tools to finally achieve that goal completely and result in chromatic labyrinths. Ie its not hardcore alone, nor prog alone, both had to be part of metal's dna to result in death metal in my view personally.