Metal Related Genres

MetalMusicArchives.com — the ultimate metal music online community, from the creators of progarchives.com

Metal Related is a term used on Metal Music Archives (MMA) in regard to artists that, although they do not play metal themselves, still have a place within the metal scene.

On MMA the aim is to build up a complete picture of the metal music genre and its associated scene, and the Metal Related Genres umbrella sub allows the inclusion of related bands and side projects of metal musicians to be included in the site database, along with artists that exist on the fringes of the metal scene by including elements of metal in their music, but haven't ever made a fully fledged metal album. There are also sections for some of the more closely related genres to metal.

There are five sections to the metal related section on MMA: Hard Rock (encompasses heavy psych and heavier progressive rock and more), Hardcore & Crust (punk genres that can sometimes be metallic), Metal Related (releases with metal elements), Non-Metal (mostly a catch all for releases that don't otherwise fit, but also sometimes used for related bands and side-projects to be included on MMA) and Proto-Metal (artists involved in the early development of the metal genre). Each sub-genre is governed by its own rules and policies, some with dedicated teams and some handled by the site admins. More can be learned about each by listing their individual sub-genre pages.

Nothing is ever added directly to the parent Metal Related Genres page. It is merely an umbrella sub used to group the five child sub-genres in one place.

metal related genres top albums

Showing only albums and EPs | Based on members ratings & MMA custom algorithm | 24 hours caching

SPOCK'S BEARD V Album Cover V
SPOCK'S BEARD
4.91 | 10 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
WISHBONE ASH Argus Album Cover Argus
WISHBONE ASH
4.56 | 32 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
JIMI HENDRIX Are You Experienced? Album Cover Are You Experienced?
JIMI HENDRIX
4.51 | 45 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
THE WHO Who's Next Album Cover Who's Next
THE WHO
4.48 | 38 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
NEAL MORSE Sola Scriptura Album Cover Sola Scriptura
NEAL MORSE
4.48 | 36 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
TRANSATLANTIC Bridge Across Forever Album Cover Bridge Across Forever
TRANSATLANTIC
4.55 | 23 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
QUEEN Queen II Album Cover Queen II
QUEEN
4.42 | 65 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
KING CRIMSON Red Album Cover Red
KING CRIMSON
4.37 | 100 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
NEAL MORSE One Album Cover One
NEAL MORSE
4.62 | 14 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
KING CRIMSON In The Court Of The Crimson King Album Cover In The Court Of The Crimson King
KING CRIMSON
4.35 | 99 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
JIMI HENDRIX Axis: Bold As Love Album Cover Axis: Bold As Love
JIMI HENDRIX
4.43 | 34 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
KING CRIMSON Larks' Tongues In Aspic Album Cover Larks' Tongues In Aspic
KING CRIMSON
4.35 | 92 ratings
Buy this album from MMA partners
This list is in progress since the site is new. We invite all logged in members to use the "quick rating" widget (stars bellow album covers) or post full reviews to increase the weight of your rating in the global average value (see FAQ for more details). Enjoy MMA!

metal related genres online videos

metal related genres New Releases

.. Album Cover
Poachers
EP
THE FREQS
Buy this album from MMA partners
.. Album Cover
Reimagined EP
EP
WE WERE GIANTS
Buy this album from MMA partners

metal related genres Music Reviews

KILLING JOKE Killing Joke (Debut)

Album · 1980 · Non-Metal
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
UMUR
"Killing Joke" is the eponymously titled debut full-length studio album by UK post-punk/industrial rock act Killing Joke. The album was released through E.G. Records in October 1980. It was preceded by the October 1979 EP "Turn to Red/Almost Red". The material on the album was pretty much recorded "live in the studio", with very few overdubs.

Although there haven´t been any lineup changes between the 1979 EP and this release, there have been great stylistic alterations. While "Turn to Red/Almost Red (1979)" featured a sort of odd experimental new wave style, "Killing Joke" is much darker, hard-edged, and raw. It´s grim, bleak, and industrial tinged post-punk featuring lyrics full of despair about the state of the world we live in. Although this is not heavy metal in any shape or form, it´s obvious why many heavy metal and hard rock artists have either covered Killing Joke (the most famous probably being Metallica who covered "The Wait" from this album) or cite them as an influence on their music.

The tracks feature a restless energy, repetitive hard-edged riffs, almost tribal influenced rhythms, and Jaz Coleman´s distinct sounding voice on top. There is use of keyboards/synths but they are not omnipresent and sporadic use is a better description of their place in the soundscape. The album features a raw sounding production, which suits the raw nature of the material well. Although it´s predominantly a pretty bleak album and the repetitive nature of the tracks leave little room for hooks, there are some melodic moments on the album. A vocal hookline, a memorable riff/rhythm, an instrumental guitar/keyboard motif, which are often a light in the dark (or at least a slightly less bleak breather).

With time this has become an iconic release and it is indeed a rather original sounding album by an innovative young act. They would soon depart from the rawness of this release and venture into more melodic new wave territory, but by the end of the 80s they went back to the roots and this debut album is pretty much the blueprint of most of their output (save for the mid-to late eighties albums). A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

RIVERSIDE ID.Entity

Album · 2022 · Metal Related
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
Negoba
A Very Uneven Endeavor with a Few Bright Spots Riverside has been creating a unique take on progressive metal for over 20 years now based in part on Mariusz Duda's amazing voice and heavy use of Floyd-ian atmospherics. ID.Entity still has these elements, and some very solid riffage. But the band has also decided to slide in the pop / 80's direction to mixed effect. Though I don't usually review song by song, this album almost demands it as there is so much variation in approach and quality.

1. Friend or Foe - maybe it was Stranger Things. Pulling in early 80's keys is trendy and Riverside goes full in on the opening track and promo single. The song reminds a bit of the similarly intention retro 80's synthpop of the Weeknd's 2019 hit "Blinding Lights." Luckily, I think the move works here. It's a great melodic hard rock song. Hard to call it prog, besides the fact that it's (too) long.

2. Landmine Blast - my favorite song on the album. The band takes a great riff (yes a throwback to their own previous work) and trades it through different instruments and permutations almost like a classical piece. Some of the guitar solos also intentionally point back to early work (even though it's not the same player).

3. Big Tech Brother - after a clumsy, dumb spoken word intro, we get another very strong song. It opens with a great riff in odd time that almost has an R&B feel (a horn like keyboard patch is used and I can definitely hear a Tower of Power horn section taking it on). Duda uses a staccato delivery in the verses a la Haken to great effect. It has a strong aggressive rhythm, and plenty of layering. So far so good.

4. Post-Truth - here things start to slow. The lyrics, meant to be political criticism, start to sound obvious and whiney. The songs itself it pretty straight forward. Nothing wrong here but no surprises.

5. The Place Where I Belong - and we go off the rails. This epic length song has almost nothing progressive, or even interesting. The first half is quite boring. The second half is PF/PT moody and does carry some emotion, but there is absolutely no excuse for a song of this kind to be this long. There just isn't enough happening, too repetitive.

6. I'm Done with You - another relatively straightfoward rock song with bad lyrics. The main riff and intertwining parts are pretty driving and form a good groove, but the verses are boring and the chorus is bad. The "Fire Away!" section is pretty cool. The instrumental breaks toward the end are good. But like the album as a whole, really uneven.

7. Self Aware - starts with a riff straight out of the 80's that Ghost has already used with more menace and I consider them a tongue-in-cheek parody / novelty act. Not as tightly constructed as Friend or Foe, but seems to have a similar intention or inspiration. Harmless.

Perhaps that word is the best description of the album. Harmless. The first time I listened to this album I actively disliked it, probably because the last 3 tracks are the weakest. But on repeat listens, I can appreciate it. It has it spots. But overall - harmless. Not compelling. Mostly solid. A little better than meh. Not sure I would ever put this on just for enjoyment (I listen to alot just to see what's new in the world) when there is so much better music out there (even from Riverside). I may steal track 2 for a 2023 prog playlist. That's about it.

Good but really non-essential

KING CRIMSON Live In Kassel, 1974

Promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs) · 2007 · Proto-Metal
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
Warthur
Right at the tail end of King Crimson's European tour of 1974 - followed by the grand slog through the USA which culminated in David Cross leaving the band and, shortly after, Robert Fripp dissolving the group following the recording of Red - this Kassel gig, captured on decent-quality soundboard tapes, finds the band in an aggressive mood, like they're roaring to see the finish line just up ahead. The set is incomplete - it cuts out partway through Fracture - but the quality of what you get is superb and it's only this incompleteness which stops it getting five stars. Then again, if you're digging this deep into this phase of the band's history, you may as well get the Starless boxed set - which includes this plus all the other surviving soundboard tapes from this tour.

KING CRIMSON Live In Denver, 1972

Promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs) · 2007 · Proto-Metal
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
Warthur
As much as I enjoy some of the live material from the Islands-era King Crimson lineup that Discipline Global Mobile has made available over the years (with the Sailors' Tales boxed set compiling more of these releases than you will ever really need at an astonishingly reasonable price compared to if you bought them separately), there's some live recordings of theirs where the sound quality simply is too poor to make it worthwhile. This Denver, Colorado gig was recorded to cassette from the soundboard and the nicest thing I can say about it is that it sounds a bit better than Earthbound - but there's other live recordings from the same tour which sound better than this.

In particular, the Summit Studios radio session recorded prior to this gig has much the same energy, but benefits enormously from the multi-track recording's far superior sound quality. Don't bother with this one unless you got it in the Sailors' Tales box - and even then, I'm willing to bet it'll be one of the shows you don't listen to so often.

KING CRIMSON Live In Heidelberg, 1974

Promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs) · 2005 · Proto-Metal
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
Warthur
Prevented from being a five-star release largely because it's incomplete (and most frustratingly of all, it cuts out three minutes into Fracture!), nonetheless this live release capturing one of the stops on the Starless and Bible Black tour (also included on the Starless boxed set) is a magnificent hour or so of King Crimson at their finest. There's some delightful improvisations captured, the songs are top notch, and by and large the band are at the peak of their game - and to cap everything off, the source is a soundboard recording, so the sound quality is crystal clear. Pretty good, though if you're keen enough on this era to be interested in this, you may as well save up and get the Starless box, which despite the expense is astonishingly good value for money compared to buying these live sets individually.

metal related genres movie reviews

PENDRAGON Past And Presence

Movie · 2007 · Non-Metal
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
Warthur
Pendragon's Past and Presence captures a very special concert put on by Pendragon in celebration of the band's history. Recorded in Poland as a special treat for their very appreciative Polish fanbase, the concert saw a host of past members of the band making special guest appearances - with all the current and ex-Pendragon members present taking to the stage for show closer Stan and Ollie (a good call, since the song was essentially written as a goof-off piece to round off the band's sets with a happy party number, much like Marillion's Margaret).

Aside from 2AM from Kowtow (present as one of several encores), the songs here are all vintage Pendragon from their very earliest days - you have all the tracks from The Jewel and the Fly High Fall Far EP here, plus some delicious rarities otherwise only available in inferior versions on the Once Upon a Time In England compilations. Two decades have come and gone since the band recorded the versions of the songs we're most familiar with, and the additional experience really does show. Many of the songs here blow the original studio versions out of the water - even songs which sounded pretty decent on the original recordings, such as The Black Knight.

I'd go so far as to say that this show is, perhaps, the best way to experience Pendragon's material from before The World came out. Certainly, I would strongly encourage people to pick up the limited edition version which comes with a 2CD audio version of the show, because the audio stands up really well on there and I actually find I listen to the CD more than I watch the actual show. The main limitation here is that the material in question is a bit rough and naive, but the band couldn't really fix that without abandoning the idea of a nostalgia show.

NEAL MORSE Morsefest! 5015

Movie · 2017 · Metal Related
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
adg211288
Morsefest! 2015 is a live release by US musician Neal Morse. Morsefest! shows are without a doubt the most special Neal Morse shows that a fan could attend – a two day event with a different Neal Morse set each night. Morsefest! 2015 was released on either a 2x blu-ray or 4 x CD/2x DVD package in 2017. Strictly speaking it is The Neal Morse Band playing on the release – Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Randy George, Eric Gillette & Bill Hubauer – but Morsefest! 2015 was released under just Neal Morse's name likely due to the event's focus on his albums ? (2005) and Sola Scriptura (2007).

While the focus is indeed on those albums, with ? played in full on night one and Sola Scriptura in full on night two, the set is varied with various extra tracks. The Neal Morse Band had released their debut album The Grand Experiment earlier in 2015 and that album also gets a fair airing across the two nights, particularly in the first half of night one with The Call, the title track and the limited edition bonus track New Jerusalem gets played, while Waterfall was featured on night two complete with some instrument changes for various band members. Three Spock's Beard songs are also brought out, Go the Way You Go on night one and At the End of the Day and Wind at My Back on night two, the latter two featuring Nick D'Virgilio first on drums then co-lead vocals. An edited version of Transatlantic's near eighty minute whole album epic The Whirlwind closes the second night, with further guest vocals by D'Virgilio and guitar by Phil Keaggy, who also makes an appearance on night one and was the support act for the event. Finally the band brings to the live stage for the first time a lesser known Neal Morse epic called A Whole Nother Trip, which appeared on his first solo album while still a member of Spock's Beard amongst what was otherwise a bunch of pop songs. There is also a cover of the song MacArthur Park, originally released by Richard Harris, which has been given the prog treatment by Bill Hubauer on challenge from Mike Portnoy. Neal Morse hates the song apparently and always swore he'd never cover it, but there you go. Hubauer sings lead on it.

The main draw to the Morsefest! 2015 live release is of course the full performance of two of Neal Morse's best known albums. ? is basically one long song in and of itself and is treated like the crowning piece of what Morse describes as a night of epics – a fair description when the shortest song is about seven and a half minutes long. For me personally the performance of Sola Scriptura is the key focal point of the two night show though. That's my personal favourite Neal Morse album, not to mention the one that really got me into his music. It's also one of his heaviest and most metal works which along with various parts of The Neal Morse Band's music gives a metallic edge to those otherwise symphonic progressive rock fuelled double concert.

Morsefest! 2015 is one heck of a show if you're into progressive rock. The scope is tremendous not just through the double show but each night's set is over two hours a pop as well. The amount of musicians on stage at one time goes far beyond the core band – far too many to recite in a review. Suffice to say there's a lot of people involved to pull this off. The sound and picture quality of the blu-ray release is excellent and you certainly get a lot of music for your money. The only fault with the set is that one listed bonus feature called Prog Jeopardy is completely missing from the release. Not sure what the story is there, perhaps it was planned and had to be cut for some reason and they forget to change the inserts before going to the press, who knows? But you weren't buying this for the bonus features anyway right?

There are several of the Morsefest shows released by the time of writing this review in September 2020 so which one holds the most appeal to each fan will of course be different. 2015 was a no brainer for me due to my particular love of Sola Scriptura. Someone else may think 2014's focus on Testimony (2003) and One (2004) or 2017's Testimony 2 (2011) and The Similitude of a Dream (2016) to be better options for them. Regardless any Neal Morse fan owns it to themselves to pick up at least one of these releases for his most special and exclusive concerts.

PORCUPINE TREE Arriving Somewhere...

Movie · 2006 · Metal Related
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
Warthur
Focusing on the more metal-oriented material from Deadwing and In Absentia - though notably steering it back in a more rock-oriented direction in order to allow this material to sit a little more comfortably beside the "indie prog rock" stylings of Stupid Dream, Lightbulb Sun and Recordings (picks from all of which surface here). Fans of their earlier psychedelic and space rock styles might be disappointed that those aren't represented, but on the plus side there's a liberal sprinkling of rarities here such as the glorious Buying New Soul as well as Revenant, So-Called Friend and Mother and Child Divided, those three songs having only appeared on various special editions of Deadwing. Not the definitive Porcupine Tree live experience, but a pretty decent one nonetheless.

BLIND FAITH London Hyde Park 1969

Movie · 2006 · Proto-Metal
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
stefanbedna
Blind Faith -London Hyde Park 1969 dvd. An excellent concert.Quite simple concert.A beautiful day and a hundred thousand people in London´s central Hyde Park listens Blind Faith in their first big gig.Absolutely wonderful.For me the historic value of this concert.Rating 4,0 stars for me.Concert will be held 07/06/1969.Performers lineup eric clapton lead guitar,steve winwood phenomenal vocal and keyboards, rick grech on bass and of course phenomenal ginger baker on drums.This is an example of the unique combination of two large groups of Cream and Traffic rights in the Great introducetd in London´s Hyde Park.Really very interesting concert series watch it again on dvd.I highly recommend.

RIVERSIDE Reality Dream

Movie · 2009 · Metal Related
Cover art Buy this album from MMA partners
progshine
My polish girlfriend gave me this DVD on my anniversary in May, I really didn't know what to expect of the band live cause I only knew their studio recordings. Like I always do, I watched the bonus DVD first, I like to see backstage footage, interviews and extras much more than the proper live presentations on most of the time (maybe the only exception is Live At Wembley by QUEEN).

The first DVD is the show itself, and it's a very good recording, both audio and video, and seeing them live male me wonder how good is Mariusz Duda, cause as a bass player myself, I know how hard is to play some lines while you sing, Mariusz dows a fantastic work live, as the whole band.

I think it's a great buy for any prog rock fan, this polish band deserves more light on our '70's' world.

Artists with Metal Related Genres release(s)

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

At The End Metalcore
HAINT
Buy this album from MMA partners
Mammon's Throne Doom Metal
MAMMON'S THRONE
Buy this album from MMA partners
A Violent Truth Sludge Metal
ALLFATHER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Reversion Of The Repressed Sludge Metal
GREH
Buy this album from MMA partners
Deathless Sludge Metal
HELLISH FORM
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us