The 90's

[Juggz]

Taking lead from the SFX thread - the 90's is probably the most divisive decade in Metal history. We all came through it in different ways and with different perspectives on the quality of what was released.

For me, I got into Metal in the mid-to-late 80's and, of course, that's where all my gateway bands are, that's where I have my special affinity, stretching into the early 90's. It was constantly evolving and exciting. There's a definite moment, though, which I associate with the release of Cynic's Focus, where the good times largely ended for me. Before, you could walk into Sound Cellar and buy almost anything and you'd get something good. After 93, most of the bands I loved had either broken up or turned shit. Where lyrics used to be outward looking, expansive and frequently educational, I associate the mid and late 90's with lots of whining about "I" and "me", lots of introspective self-pitying which does nothing for me. I never got into black metal and the promise of Unquestionable Presence, Focus and Human was never fully followed through. It was a dark time.

There were some gems, of course, but they were few and far between and I maintained a minimal interest in the Metal of the time because what I heard was relentlessly and violently shit.  Like Focus at the start, the recovery started with Aghora's s/t and Mastodon's Leviathan. It felt like things improved vastly from there. That 10 year period in the middle, though... if that was the soundtrack to your life, you have my sympathy 

[Eoin McLove]

I love BM and doom and the 90s is the definitive era for both, but being young and having only a glancing interest in those scenes at the time I really feel sickened that I either didn't have the cop on or an older,  more clued- in influence to push me down those paths at the time.  Considering a lot of the stuff I was into at the time that I never listen to now while also having an interest in Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Brutal Truth,  Emperor,  Cradle of Filth and a few other more extreme bands,  I'm raging I didn't just dive off the deep end around 94.

[Wiseblood]

There was a wealth of great material in the 90s but from 1996 onwards it was very obvious that something had started to go off the rails.

The early 90s were, to me anyway, the last era of true creativity.  Bands were branching out from what they saw as a tired 80s sound. The big grunge bands were by and large superb rock acts, the Roadrunner roster of Fear Factory, Machine Head, Sepultura and Type O Negative (Pantera and White Zombie also) at al were blazing a contemporary trail that really grabbed on to teenage fans as something they belonged to in the same way Thrash bands did in the 80s.

Elsewhere the experimentation with either hip hop, jazz progressive styles or gothic/doom influences meant that metal in the early 90s was a very creative melting pot. It all got a bit watered down and confused in the process though.

Sadly the focus on shock value or some kind of street cred meant that emphasis on songs went out the window over the ability to spin a good media frenzy and be part of very distinct scenes. The mainstream obsession of championing nu metal and hip hop type acts was a one trick pony that was never going to last and once the well was dry the media scampered back to bands like Maiden etc that they had spent ten years trying to bury. And while it was great to see bands like Crazy Town fuck off and die, the last fifteen years of nostalgia worship within metal is almost as off putting.

[Eoin McLove]

Nostalgia is a double edged sword. 

[Grim Reality]

The last real creative development in metal, in my opinion, was second wave BM up to say '94. Everything since has been some kind of spin on an already created sound/genre. But the immediate aftermath of 94 was shocking and metal at its lowest ebb. It felt like things were disintegrating at a rapid pace. Post 2000 things recovered in the underground with some exceptional doom and then 3rd wave BM pushed things within that scene a bit further as well as DM being reinvigorated with the cavernous black /death stuff. But 96-2000 was a low time and very very few came out of it unscathed.

Following on from the other thread, I never really fell for buying any of the real shite like Pulkas, OMS, Ultraspank etc etc but I did buy a Feeder 😔 album on the strength of it being metal hammer album of the year 97 or something. Jaysus

[Paul keohane]

I got into metal,fell in love with it,and got disillusioned with it all in the 90s.Got into Metallica,Slayer,Anthrax in primary school.Started secondary school in 92,latched onto some heads that introduced me to Death metal,hung around with a big group of lads that essentially had everything i needed to list to back then.Basically from 92 to 96 was a great time for me,overload with albums.Like i mentioned  in the SFX thread,bands i grew to love stated to release dodgy albums with dodgy artwork etc.Nu metal  took hold,i fuckin hated it,it felt like all the old guard bands were just cast aside.It felt like there was a period of nothing,very little buzz or gigs.Thankfully things turned again for the better,especially in Ireland,when touring bands became the norm again.

[Pentagrimes]

It's a weird one. A very fertile period for innovation overall, whatever you might think of the results.

The rise of death metal absolutely captured my imagination on one hand -hearing down tuned murk like Carcass and Bolt Thrower was the first point where I really felt like "wow, this is my music", and at the same time it felt so far removed from the likes of Iron Maiden and Priest or whatever to my teenage mind that it was its' own thing.. but the rise of black metal absolutely killed my interest in it a few years later for the bones of a decade after a period of fascination initially because I realised that it wasn't particularly heavy and I found the aesthetic fucking ridiculous as I got older.

But there were all these weird little innovations going on outside that as well - the brief but bizarre outbreaks of Industrial metal int he wake of Godflesh, or for better or for worse the Funk/Rap Metal thing. It seemed like people were willing to take a risk. I mean, sure, that resulted in garbage like I Love You or Limbomaniacs taking up space on Raw Power or Headbanger's ball but still. Rather that then Poison. Nu Metal was like the awkward teenage growing pains really - you look back on it now and it's a cringefest but honestly, at the time the  first Korn or Fear Factory albums were exciting as fuck to me because they were something new, and Deftones I think we can all agree were the best thing to come out of that era. Other than those and maybe Human Waste Project nowt else has held up.

Seeing as they were mentioned elsewhere - The Wildhearts were fucking great as well, and I quite like Terrorvision tbh. All those Kerrang wanna be "alternative metal" bands from a similar era like Ape Pigs and Spacemen or Skyscraper or whatever haven't aged well but they were definitely again trying something new.

I think things really had to evolve in some way to keep things fresh rather than sticking to glam on one hand or the more "traditional" Maiden/Priest etc thing on the other, every genre needs to develop to prevent stagnation and there'll be growing pains - in this case nu metal for sure. There was a definite need I think for some people to try and break away from the hair metal/leather and spikes image too, the fantasy or escapist side which is why Grunge was important,  If I'm honest, I feel like it's great that we have all these various strains of metal at this point now, but  it's getting a bit stale again - underground metal particularly for me anyway.

Overall the 90s was a pretty fertile and creative period for underground music in general though, and a lot of my favourite stuff is from that decade overall. A lot of stuff outside of metal I discovered because of the metal scene/press for example: I was definitely a child of the grunge era for sure, which in turn led me to bands like Melvins, Unsane, Steel Pole Bathtub and the noise rock/Am Rep scene on one hand, and hardcore/punk on the other. Then through Faith No More name checking bands like Grotus or Morbid Angel talking about Laibach, that got me interested in checking out industrial and noise music, likewise when Relapse starting releasing things like Masonna and Merzbow. Hell, GGFH being on Peaceville was an eye opener.

There's still loads of forgotten about weird little innovative metal/rock bands that probably need a revisit who were doing something different too. Mind Over Four, Eisenvater,The Beyond (UK), Mind Rot, Into Another, Slab! even some of the weirder shit OLD were doing (which I hated at the time), early Therapy? and pre "Beg to Differ" Prong even. it was an exciting time. Seemed a lot more open minded than nowadays.

[Juggz]

Had the internet been as prevalent back then it might not have felt as bad as it did at the time. The way the mainstream press tried to bury anything which wasn't dressed in baggy pants and a bowling shirt meant finding out about decent releases sometimes only happened by chance. The 2FM Metal Show started a few years too late for me, a lot of what Kenny played left me cold and definitley turned me off taking chances when spending money on new Metal. Headbanger's Ball had the very occasional gem but it meant lots of time spent being exposed to utter garbage and, ultimately, not worth it. It's funny, some of my favourite albums come from that decade but I spent much of it, definitely the last few years of it, exploring music outside of Metal as, overall, it just seemed a lot more interesting.

[Pentagrimes]

I dunno now. The aforementioned Raw Power was good for unearthing weirder stuff, as Phil Alexander was a real supporter of stuff that was slightly different at the time, from GGFH to Masters of Reality to Galactic Cowboys through to Death Metal.

Weirdly, where I was hearing/seeing a lot of the more interesting stuff was the 120 Minutes typs shows on MTV at the time, or through John Peel. They'd always occasionally incorporate some of the more interesting let's call it "metal adjacent" stuff - Peel's support for Death/Grind/Hardcore is legendary already. Who else was playing Dark Throne or weird grind bands like  Gibbed on national radio in 1991??

[Juggz]

Raw Power stopped around 94 didn't it?

[Pentagrimes]

About that yeah. A lot of the innovation I'm referring to really occured in the first half of the decade, it definitely got a bit shit on all fronts from about 96 on.

In terms of Underground Metal  going to shit in the latter half of the decade-  I'd fucked off out of death metal at that stage once I'd discovered the weirder/heavier likes of Gasp, Dystopia, Man Is The Bastard, His Hero Is Gone, Cattlepress,Despise You,  Deadguy etc coming from the more extreme end of hardcore. A lot of that stuff is still not really talked about in metal terms but that's where the real exciting stuff in terms of extreme/heavy music was for me for the late 90s to early 00s. A lot of groundbreaking and unusual stuff there, and definitely a lot of it had a major death metal influence in terms of heaviness..

you have to remember as well before stoner/doom/amp worship became a thing in the late 90s with the Southern Lord wave, bands like Eyehategod, Boris or Burning Witch were loosely tied in with that scene too, putting out records on labels like Bovine or Slap A Ham who usually released grind/hc/powerviolence stuff