Favorite Metal Bands?

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It's a diverse genre with a bunch of different sub-genres. Some of my favorites in no particular order:

Metallica
Megadeth
Nightwish
Blind Guardian
The Sword
Lacuna Coil
Within Temptation
Alestorm
Powerwolf
Sabaton
Doro/Warlock
In This Moment

What are some of your favorites?

I'm not going to bother segregating out metal/hardcore crossover stuff.

Slayer
Exodus
Municipal Waste
Converge
DRI
Anthrax
Stormtroopers of Death
Body Count
Suffocation
Pig Destroyer
Insect Warfare
Benumb
Brutal Truth
Celtic Frost
Bolt Thrower
Burzum
Darkthrone
Shai Hulud
Racetraitor
Eyehategod

A whole lot, much more in the harsher regions of metal.

Agalloch
Dissection
Metallica
Ensiferum
Judas Priest
At The Gates
Dark Tranquillity
Opeth
Gojira
Amorphis
Alcest
Katatonia
Summoning
Wintersun

Iron Maiden
System of a Down
In Flames
Dir En Grey
Judas Priest
Disturbed
Tool
Astronoid
Tarby
Oathbreaker
Pain of Salvation
Savatage
Death
Amorphis
Nightwish
Sabaton
Deftones
Alice in Chains
Periphery
Killswitch Engage
Mastodon
Black Sabbath
PrinceWhateverer
Devin Townsend Project
Rishloo
Sleep Token
Alcest
Gojira

Walknut
Psychonaut 4
Solitude Aeturnus
While Heaven Wept
Draconian
Wode
Emperor
Inquisition
Sielunvihollinen
Dissection
Rhapsody of Fire
Thormesis
Helheim
Funeral
Doom:VS
Evoken
Melechesh
Bloodbath
Nux Vomica
Napalm Death
Coroner
Khemmis
Procession
Wormhole
Allegaeon
Dark Tranquility
Al Namrood
Bosse-de-Nage
Saint Vitus
Saturnus
Insomnium
Swallow the Sun

You all are giving me ideas for bands I should check out. My tastes are pretty old school: Metallica, Black Sabbath (and Ozzy’s solo work), Judas Priest, Anthrax, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Pantera.

I always thought of Alice In Chains as more grunge than metal, but there’s definitely a metal influence. Fun fact: They started as a hair metal band called Alice ‘N Chainz.

How could I forget Tool and Nine Inch Nails?

Heavy Metal, Serbian style: playing the trumpet in Guca

Black Sabbath
Wicked Lady
Iron Claw
Sabaton
Anthrax
Megadeth
Iron Maiden
Saxon
Diamondhead
Witchfynde
Satan
Crucifixion
Argus
Hellion
Alien Force


I kinda have a thing for NWOBH

Here's a tangent all of us probably have a worthwhile opinion about; what defines metal? What criteria do you use to drawn the boundaries between metal vs. punk rock, alternative rock, progressive rock and hard rock or other guitar based music you feel metal overlaps with?

If OP would like, I'll create a new thread rather than hijack this one.

Don't mind this thread getting hijacked but it may more effective to create a new thread so that people clicking on the thread are giving their opinion of what defines metal rather than what their favorite metal bands are.

To give my opinion it's that "metal" sound that kicks in. I think it's heavy guitar, but am not instrumentally sophisticated enough to say exactly what it is but examples:

Couple songs that start off "metal:"

Judas Priest "Firepower" 0:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QtjdDiMLVg

Nightwish "Slaying the Dreamer" 0:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgAREQWVAlY

Lacuna Coil "Swamped" 0:01: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOuxOUYycoU

Blind Guardian "Mirror Mirror" 0:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AfNOKQdY-U

And some others that start off some other atmosphere and don't get a metal kick until partway through:

Five Finger Death Punch "Wrong Side of Heaven" 1:27: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_l4Ab5FRwM

In this Moment "Blood" 0:20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZF5m-vmDzM

Within Temptation "Mother Earth" 1:17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOgy_No29cs

Tool "46 & 2" 1:55: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm38Ojh61lY

Alestorm "Back Through Time" 0:41: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK6NwV7wREA

Evanescence "Sweet Sacrifice" 0:53: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBYhQnjyrWo

Example of hard rock that never gets metal:

Halestorm "Vicious": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSrlo-kteTY

Jethro Tull "Rattlesnake Trail": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qE3arxhhcw

Def Leppard Pour "Some Sugar On me": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14iHRpk9qvQ

Disclaimer: I am specifically talking about the particular songs linked, I do not consider for example Jethro Tull to generally be a hard rock band or Evanescence to generally be a metal band

I like that explanation.

Usually for me, I tend to consider song structures quite important. Metal typically has longer riffs than hardcore/metalcore/heavy punk subgenres, or nu-metal, or more mainstream hard rock. Metal usually has more sophisticated song structures than most other rock, often more like the 'movement' based genres than pop and rock with verse-chorus-verse structures.

The boundary between progressive rock and metal I find harder to define besides 'uhh, is it heavy?'.

In my opinion this is correlation rather than a defining feature in that the type of musicians that go into metal tend to want to make more complicated songs. They also typically aren't trying to pump out 3 minute Radio hits

There are a lot of complicated rock songs such as:

The Beatles 'A Day in The Life'
Queen 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
The Who 'Behind Blue Eyes'
Jethro Tull 'Locomotive Breath'
Led Zeppelin 'Stairway to Heaven'
Styx 'Come Sail Away From Me'
Lynyrd Skynyrd 'Free Bird'
Muse 'Knights of Cydonia'

Obviously some of that is progressive rock, but it's the mainstream friendly progressive rock and not say Gentle Giant, and I included a lot of not progressive rock.

Whereas something like Electric Eye (which is still awesome) isn't really all that complicated. BTW looking back at my OP, somehow I left out Judas Priest and it's too late for me to edit it.

I think that's a case of rock bands dabbling in or participating in rock genres that also share that trend with metal. Aren't those all mostly bands that crossover with prog, metal or both? Psychedelic rock/'acid rock' and alternative rock along with all the subgenres that overlap or exist within it break the 'pop song' formula a lot, and quite a bit of metal uses the pop song formula and still is considered metal, but there's certain structural reasons why people reject classifying certain bands as metal because they 'sound like a -core band', or 'sound like a pop band'.

What is the definition of a '-core' band. I'm relatively new to the metal scene (although like the obssessive autistic I am have learned a lot in a short time), and don't quite get all the sub-genre distinctions. I thought '-core' bands were considered part of metal.