by Adam Moss

Created on: May 16, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2009

In this article, I may well tread on some toes and in fact I don't much care. I find myself rapidly tiring of these who claim to so ardently 'Defend the Faith' and so I intend to set right some wrongs. The first being, I will not use the term heavy-metal. I loath the term as it has earned today the leaden burden of its stereotype, bar the stereotype of screamo music. Unfortunately for most critics and outsiders, most metal heads are actually just appreciators of good music rather than Vikings or being constantly adorned in leather as was the fashion in the age of hair-metal and all things glamour. So, I intend to use the derivative forms of metal rather than the colloquial term of 'heavy-metal'. With that said, I shall now proceed in defending metal.

Albeit, now a days most metal acts do use a screaming vocal. What with the huge scenes of death-metal, grindcore and hardcore, it has become difficult to hear any metal without screaming within it. Unless of course you follow the New Wave Of Trad Metal or the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, which has grown increasingly popular what with the critical appraise that met with the release of Cauldron, The Answer and Wolf's latest records. Oh, and of course what with Saxon and AC/DC having returned, trad metal would appear to making a comeback and quite admirably so. The roots of metal do belong with such bands as Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Judas Priest and so why not homage such titans of both the genre and the era? Today's scene is why.

Nearly all know of Slipknot and if not, you must have been living in a cave for some considerable time. Having slithered forth from Des Moines, Iowa, just as Slayer were being criticized for their nu-metal wavering and Limp Bizkit were about to hit the mainstream in the year of 1999. Metal was suffering a little, what with the almighty Pestilence having broken up four years previous and the aftermath of the black metal contorversy still strong though the second wave of black metal was crashing down upon the metal scene of the time. Slipknot's self-titled debut is personally one of my favourite albums of all-time and it received all kinds of excellent reviews at the time and personally I believe helped to create the metal scene as we know it today. While bands such as Trivium and Machine Head still referto Iron Maiden and Metallica as points of origin, bands such as Slipknot pioneer the genre of metal itself and thus hit the big-time.

Metal as it is known today can be dated back to

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