Among the most elitist circles of metal fans it is quite common to hear, for some time now, that nothing is as good as it was in the first era, that is, the late eighties and early nineties, and that nothing new has been invented since then. This milieu is objectively right, at least partly, if we think that since those times the stylistic categories haven’t changed that much, yet it could be argued that new quality music is still released year after year, even if one must search among piles of lesser material in order to find it. As a matter of fact, most likely never before in history have there been so many active metal bands, as pointed out by the enormous amount of new albums published every year, of which the average listener can only cover a small fraction, thus facing great trouble to get a really broad picture of the qualitative state of metal as a whole. In addition to the growing difficult of following the evolution of the global metal scene, it becomes quite obvious that the changes experienced by the various subgenres have been, for a long time already, much subtler and more progressive, in contrast with the phase of magmatic creativity and transformation which took place roughly between the years 1983 and 1996. As we will see next, those changes actually occurred, in spite of what some may believe, and they were not always so unequivocally negative as others insist on seeing.
Since the times in which the various metal subgenres ended up crystallizing, somewhere around the mid-nineties, there has been a long succession of different eras, each one with its own features, trends and main actors. The years just before the millennium shift, for instance, saw the unrestrained expansion of black metal, which became the big trend overshadowing everything else, with the softening and dumbing down this brought about. Death metal did not recover until the end of the next decade, when it went from being the older brother fallen from grace to leading the restoration of the underground spirit. Meanwhile, black metal experienced a long journey through the desert, which the “orthodox” trend was unable to ease, and did not start to see the light at the end of the tunnel until well into the 2010s, when the genre regained, at least partially, the energy and fierceness it was known for in the beginning, just as the death metal revival seems to be faltering, among other reasons, out of sheer saturation. That way, black and death metal seem to be some sort of communicating vessels, in the sense that when one of the two loses heart or comes to a standstill, the other one takes the opportunity to rise again. Other minor subgenres like doom, thrash or grind, for their part, have been orbiting for some time around these two, often mingling with them to varying degrees.
Naturally we are talking about the extreme, less popular genres, because the evolution in the more commercial sector was quite different. On that ground, the nineties was a decade ravaged by the industrial and groove metal bands, as well as the clowning around that was nu metal. The replacement came in the shape of metalcore, gothic and symphonic metal and ultra processed power metal during the 2000s, a time which saw also the emergence of hybrid styles of rock and metal such as stoner and sludge, a way for old metal fans that were fed up with the classic styles to go back to conventional rock and roll without feeling too much shame. The decade of 2010 followed up with a landscape that was even more varied but equally terrible, becoming home to all kinds of post-metal, from the fiercest to the soppiest, along with products that were metal in appearance but not in spirit, such as atmospheric post-black, and other much more accessible stuff, such as electronic-infused pop metal with pretty frontwomen or folk and viking metal bands, invariably starring in videoclips aboard the essential drakkar, that seem to be popular among the youngest fans. This more mainstream segment is not our concern here, but it is a good thing to set forth its successive stages in order to illustrate the fact that, despite appearances, metal has changed, and actually a lot, during the last twenty-five years.
Within the strict scope of extreme metal, there is a sensible difference between the dark years that followed the commercial consecration of black metal and those that saw the recovering of death metal, which slowly pulled along all the other subgenres. This shift of paradigm did not only materialize on a musical level, but also in the areas of production, distribution and organization. After dying as a result of its own success and dissolving in entropy, as is always the case after a height of popularity, the fields of underground metal reorganized once again in a way that tried to seize the spirit of old, but using the new means made available by recent progress. Thus, along the decade following the year 2000, new labels, distributors and small-sized festivals began to appear with no intention of growing as much as possible in the heat of the expansion of the various subgenres, as was done before, focusing instead on doing things at a small scale without the imperative urge to monetize a musical activity that had never ceased to be a minority game, but by then was becoming even smaller. Excepting the biggest record companies, which continued to exploit the bigger names or new and more accessible versions of the extreme styles, many of the new proposals came by means of labels operated by fans who, as in the early days, released material meant for other fans like them, all sharing a common mind-set focused on music.
This spirit also invaded the strictly musical ground, pervading to a large extent many of the bands that were active at the time and encouraging the emergence of new acts that thought more in terms of authenticity than innovation or potential popularity. But undoubtedly the most significant thing was the return of many bands that had split up some time ago, a phenomenon which gave rise to a new wave of underground metal, whose renewed vigour had not been seen in almost fifteen years. The starting signal was probably shot by Asphyx and Beherit, two bands from the early nineties that had been inactive for a few years and then reformed in 2007, each of them releasing an excellent album two years later (Death… The Brutal Way and Engram, respectively), both strongly connected to their past yet at the same time opening a gate towards further advance. Other acts, such as Absu, Imprecation, Ungod, Autopsy or Master’s Hammer, among others, came also back to live around the same time and started living a second youth, unleashing new releases of interest and launching tour and concert activities that were in general much broader than the ones they originally had. This comeback of classic acts came along with a new stream of young bands, mostly from the death metal field, such as Corpsessed, Dead Congregation, Ectovoid, Undergang or Gorephilia, among many others, which defined themselves as “old school”, in opposition to death metal labelled as “melodic”, “technical” or any other variety deemed illegitimate and degenerate. These also showed a manifest will to return to the origins of the genre and extract from it the strength needed in order to bring it back with renewed vigour.
This return of the “old school” (an expression that became somewhat eroded in later years due to an excessive use) was originally a phenomenon that shook the underground scene approximately between the years 2007 and 2013. It entailed rearmament of the extreme styles, which until then had been beating a retreat, and drew a clear line, at least for the connoisseurs, between what was true metal and that which, under the same name, remained a superficial version suitable for all audiences. Europe as well as the United States experienced an explosion of small and medium-sized festivals which could focus on specific subgenres without a need to diversify the offer for fear of losing appeal. This was how events such as Maryland Deathfest or Destroying Texas Fest in North America, Black Flames of Blasphemy, Wolf Throne or Nuclear War Now Fest in Europe came to life and developed, all of them specializing in extreme metal in a way that would have been unthinkable some years before. New labels also appeared with the express purpose of promoting this trend, such as Dark Descent and its subsidiary Unspeakable Axe, and others which already existed boosted their visibility in order to become solid strongholds of this new wave, such as Iron Bonehead, Hell’s Headbangers or Nuclear War Now. Moreover, thanks to the democratization of the Internet and the proliferation of social networks, the offer of online information and e-zines expanded greatly, thus further encouraging the interest for all the aforementioned activities.
It needs to be pointed out that the “old school” phenomenon manifested itself almost exclusively on the grounds of death metal, yet it sowed the seed so that at a later, more recent date, black metal could start carrying out a similar comeback, though in a more fragmentary manner, through names such as Espiritismo, Infamous, Serpent ov Old, Tarnkappe or Polemicist. The abundance of decent bands in these two genres and other during the 2010s has made possible that the most elitist among us can allow ourselves the luxury of raising objections to acts which are certainly noticeable but also stylistically condemnable, such as Chthe’ilist, Blood Incantation, Grave Miasma, Possession or Ascended Dead, among others, although fifteen or twenty years ago any of them would probably have been saluted without any scruples as the summit of their respective subgenres. On a more personal note, the present author has been able, thanks to the European festivals mentioned above, to attend concerts of bands he never thought he would catch live, such as Demilich, Varathron or Antaeus, each time in the context of specialized events filled with enthusiastic fans, something which in the 2000s was conspicuous by its absence. Finally and more generally, it has also been possible for the average listener to lend a more critical ear, focusing solely on what is truly exceptional and leaving aside everything that could only be merely interesting if there wasn’t anything better to compare with. For this, it was mandatory to always keep the distance both from what is clearly created with a hipster mentality and that which is merely fuelled by sheer nostalgia, the two main currents in underground metal during the last decade.
According to all that has been said, at the present time, almost at the end of the 2010s, we can declare with good reason that this decade has been a sort of “silver age” of metal, on a double meaning. First in a literal sense, since the fans, or at least a fair amount of them, are already grey-haired, and then mainly because the last ten years have seen a huge qualitative rise in metal in every respect, from the bands, albums and labels to the tours, festivals and all kinds of subsidiary cultural manifestations. We can also speak of a silver age in the sense that this last decade is subordinate to the original golden age, that is, the era in which the different subgenres flourished, since in spite of all the virtues mentioned in the previous paragraphs, the degree of evolution and creativity has been objectively smaller than in the early days. The years between 2010 and 2020 have undoubtedly been much more interesting than those ranging from 2000 to 2010, and every fan should be grateful for having at his grasp so much information as is available now, and so many shows, festivals, re-releases, reunions of old bands and emergence of new ones playing the old styles as has been seen during the last ten years. Considering that the average age of the musicians and also the fans has increased considerably in recent times, it is likely that this silver age will not last forever, so let’s take the chance to acknowledge and celebrate it before the global situation changes again, this time probably for worse.
This article was originally published in Spanish at El Negro Metal: http://www.elnegrometal.es/la_edad_de_plata_del_metal.html
