Groove metal

Groove metal, also called neo-thrash, half-thrash, or post-thrash, is a term used to describe a musical subgenre derived from heavy metal, thrash metal, biker metal and death metal that took its current form in the early 1990s.

Groove metal is heavily influenced by thrash metal and biker metal. groove metal focuses more on heaviness while death metal often focuses more on speed. Groove metal places emphasis on heavy guitar riffs with usually syncopated rhythms, with the riffs sometimes being somewhat similar to death metal riffs. Guitars are generally down-tuned. Vocals in groove metal usually are yelling, growling, screaming, or very raspy singing. Although own groove metal has a big emphasis on guitar riffs, guitar solos are still very common in groove metal. While thrash metal usually has fast tempos, groove metal usually has slower tempos, but fast tempos can be featured in groove metal. Groove metal is also often influenced by traditional metal and electric blues-inspired heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath.

One of the first influences of this subgenre was the demo We Are the Dead by the Danish thrash metal band Artillery in 1982, We Are the Dead maintained a thrash style that had a bit more melody and darkness, reminiscent of Black Sabbath. The demo was not as energetic as records by other thrash bands like Overkill, Demolition Hammer, Metallica and Destruction, but it did start from a similar idea. A few years later, the American band Pantera would take an unexpected turn, especially with their 1988 album "PR-metal" which marked the debut with Phil Anselmo on voice and that took them away from the Glam that had stood out until that moment by laying the foundations of the genre, later the American thrash metal band Exhorder would do the same with two works to take into account: Slaughter in the Vatican and The Law (1990 and 1992 respectively). There is a controversy about the sound of both bands among fans due to the similarity that the two works of Pantera Cowboys from Hell (1990) and Vulgar Display of Power (1992) respectively have with the 2 works of Exhorder released in the same years, although no one denies that these four works left an important legacy for the further development of groove metal. For its part, Machine Head would be in charge of popularizing the genre with the release of their debut album, the acclaimed Burn My Eyes. Credit is also given to Overkill, who began to make a strange mix between thrash and groove metal from their 4th album, The Years of Decay, this being their last purely thrash metal work, as did the Brazilians Sepultura from their Chaos AD album