Metal and Dubstep

I grew up listening to bands like Machine Head, Lamb Of God, Metallica (the old stuff anyway) among many others. The last few years, maybe 5-6, I have been getting really into my 140’s from Grime to Dubstep and it seems that there are many people in the scene who tend to have similar roots to me. With Distance making almost metal riffs with heavy synths and The Bug making very weighty stuff for example, it’s easy to tell which producers grew up listening to the good stuff.

Just wondering if there’s anyone on here with a similar take?

Safe! :smile:

There’s definitely an aesthetic connection - heaviness - but I think direct genre mashes most always fail (in general) because they often take on the most obvious, cliched, stereotypical traits of either genre and just lump them together to create their hybrid.

Distance was inspired by Korn among other people but thankfully sounds nothing like 'em. Rather, he took a look at the elements of that sound that were working overall and translated them into the vocabulary of bass/sound system music. Not a direct stylistic graft but a functional one instead that gave a more gritty edge to the synths being used in order to replicate the intensity [of metal guitar riffs].

But I also think there’s a lot of room to explore within the larger setting of “heavy loud music” here without getting twisted on fitting into genres - like how Jesu or Nadja incorporate electronics with heavy guitars very organically. That’s how it should be done IMO, not “let’s mix metal + dubstep so, um… 140 chugga chugga wif cookiemonster vox!”

1 BigUp

Love metal. Bands like Black Dahlia Murder, Nile, Origin, Dark Funeral. I started playing drums almost 10 years ago, and my love for heavy music grew. I became obsessed with bass music 4.5 years ago. I think you can definitely hear peoples influences. I personally don’t like the two mixed though. (actual metal on top of electronic)

I do appreciate metal heads making electronic because their stuff tends to be on the heavier/darker side.

distance might be an obvious one but heaviness doesn’t always mean the producer has listened to metal

Not a direct stylistic graft but a functional one instead that gave a more gritty edge to the synths being used in order to replicate the intensity [of metal guitar riffs].

If I had missed the part where you said “Distance”, I would have guessed you are talking about Skrillex lol.

Yeah, right? But the strand of the sound that Distance (hell, Coki for that matter) helped create definitely laid the foundation for Skrillex, regardless of how much ppl like it. I mean… Skrillex was a bassist in a kinda metalcore-lite band before he became the jetsetting EDM supastar he is, no?

I started with Metallica, but after a couple of years of that I wanted it heavier, darker etc. Being Norwegian I was naturally curious of black metal bands like Dimmu Borgir, which became my favourite for a couple of years. After that things evolved into more raw, “pure” kind of bands like Gorgoroth, Taake etc. For some years I listened more or less exclusively to those kinds of bands (Nargaroth, Xasthur, Burzum, Darkthrone) while I at the same time slowly started to expand into death metal with bands like Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus etc. Somewhere back at around 2010 or so I started challenging my self musically and at some point was really digging what Headhunterz was putting out, while at the same time exploring hardcore and gabber etc. I remember vividly the first time I listened to Skrillex, and I liked what I heard. Fast forward to 2012 and at some point I discover Kryptic Minds. I was sold. The mood and overall feel made me fall head over heels in love with 140 music and I’ve been more or less sold since that.

Since I was 12 I’ve been a fan of metal and hardcore (I’m 26 now), and though there have been some great combinations of more hardcore variations of electronic music (not sure if you guys are familiar with Drumcorps, but he takes samples from bands like Converge, Pig Destroyer, and Botch, and cuts them up in the style of Vsnares/breakcore sort of), there haven’t really been good attempts at doing so with dubstep. I tried myself in college with my metal band, and personally I think it was terrible in retrospect.

SeamlessR interviewed Audeka and two of the members said how they loved the heaviness metal and were ina metal band until they heard dubstep and how its so much heavier than metal could ever wish to be with the bass and the kick and such. It was pretty interesting.

I’m pretty sure he was either a singer or a guitarist or both, but can’t remember for sure.

he was the lead singer of From First to Last. post hardcore screamo metalcore or whatever the elitists want to call it these days. i actually Saw them live and had the pleasure of being in the pit with skrillex before they played. it was some on warped tour or something mid 2000’s

IIRC ikonika was a metal drummer before she made beats

her first beats sampled metal drums

grist (the tune) is basically dubstep + metalcore samples. nowadays he’s going for more of a live/band approach & got the ex vocalist of animosity on board.
you might like jk flesh

personally i don’t think metal/rock + electronic music go well together. crossovers usually end up sounding forced & crammed. maybe the “right” people didn’t get involved? idk. but i doubt there will be a crossover between proper dubstep and metal anytime soon, mostly because:

  1. the people who play around with their metal influences are already at the harder edges of electronic music: darkstep, breakcore, hardcore, crossbreed etc; stuff that’s already far removed and rarely, if ever, crosses paths with other scenes anymore. also these are people that gravitated towards the harder/bro edges of dubstep when it started blowing up.
    and 2. the sounds just don’t go well together. even the stuff i mentioned earlier is better suited because of its pace and allover aggro vibe.

tbh i noticed that it’s usually people coming almost exclusively from metal backgrounds that want this crossover. not having a go at metal/rock w/e fans (i used to be heavily into hardcore and some metal in my teens) but what’s the point of wanting to listen to metal-influenced dubstep when you already listen to metal?

crossovers happen all the time, and like i’ve argued on here a few times lately, i think that’s really healthy for music in general. it’s just that some work better than others. dubstep + techno work well together because they share common elements, just like say hardcore with metal riffs or w/e. but techno + metal riffs, not so much.
even earlier crossover attempts between electronic music and rock/metal sucked, like when ebm bands started incorporating guitars, they lost what made them interesting in the first place. not to mention summer festival fodder like the prodigy.

i personally think that electronic music becomes really boring & cheesy when it tries to go for more traditional “musical” elements. just how metal gets boring when it takes on the repetitiveness and more or less rigid beats of electronic music.

that being said

and you might like lone wolf
https://pro.beatport.com/artist/lone-wolf/63626/tracks (slayed by shadows especially)

also
https://www.dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17690

1 BigUp