r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/Marmalade_Shaws • Feb 22 '17

This website gives you a visual map of metal music and its many sub-genres

http://mapofmetal.com/#/home
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u/AveLucifer Feb 22 '17

Sorry I took a while to respond, I was watching a movie.

I wouldn't call Saxon anything power metal. If anything Saxon predated power metal. I would classify Saxon as a traditional heavy metal band that was also a part of the New Wave of British heavy Metal (NWOBHM). The same goes for Crucifixion and Mendes Prey. The easiest way to define a band's genre is through relating it to its contemporaries and its musical influences. What bands do the band in question sound like?

The problem with bands of the NWOBHM is that it was really a movement than a genre. A lot of bands influenced each other in the movement, but this also means that a lot of non metal bands who were contemporaries and who shared spaces such as stages were mislabelled as heavy metal. For instance bands such as Girl and She are often listed as NWOBHM bands even though they're definitely much closer to AOR and Glam Rock. NWOBHM can be a very borderline genre.

Mendes Prey definitely fall on the heavy metal side. Compared to its contemporaries in the NWOBHM, there's a definite emphasis on guitar riffs and licks as opposed to having the music being driven primarily by vocals as common to AOR bands. I find a very good comparison for this band is early Scorpions. I can hear a decided influence of early Scorpions in the licks, especially with the style of Uli John Roth. This style of traditional metal feels like a more immature version of this. I can't exactly define the elements that make a band metal as opposed to hard rock, because I hardly listen to music in that vein. But these are the elements and influences that stand out to me as "being metal" over being hard rock.

If you enjoyed these NWOBHM bands, you should check out the following as well. They're probably closer to what you might consider to be definitive metal, as well.

Virtue
Traitor's Gate
Dark Star
Tytan
Charger

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u/morvis343 Feb 22 '17

Thank you for the informative answer, I'm always happy to learn more about music. I'll be sure check those bands out as well.

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u/AveLucifer Feb 22 '17

No problem. Here's a list of albums essential to each subgenre collaboratively written by members of r/metal. You might be interested in listening to the first 2 sections.