How did you get introduced to extreme metal?
 

I got into extreme metal in a rather weird way; I was into the whole industrial scene. Throbbing Gristle, Killing Joke, :Wumpscut:, KMFDM, Pig, etc.

Around age 15 I listened to Streetcleaner, and it blew my mind. It changed the way I viewed industrial. After a few weeks, I learned of Godflesh's connections to Napalm Death, and how they influenced all these br000tal metal bands, etc.

Like many, the cookie monster vocals put me off. But, eventually, the riff on Napalm Death's "breed to breathe" caught my ear, so I bought the album "Inside the Torn Apart" - my first extreme metal album. I came to like the cookie monster vocals. From there I got Napalm Death's first two releases, Repulsion, Cannibal Corpse, Cryptopsy, etc.

Then, in a very short period of time, death metal, grindcore, and black metal was about 90% of my listening. In a space of 2 years I wound up with a hundred or so extreme metal albums.

While my musical tastes have changed quite a bit since then, I still listen to extreme metal. Every once in a while, when I start get frustrated with music, thinking it all sounds far too similar - I'll play 'Scum', and enjoy some wonderfully weird music.

That's somewhat similar to me actually, except that I was already pretty familiar with metal. Growing up in the late 80s and early 90s most of my friends listened to thrash and death metal. At the time I thought it was kind of cool and I enjoyed hearing it when I was hanging out with my friends but it just wasn't my cup of tea, I was much more interested in indie-type stuff from that era and then a little later on the whole Wax Trax/Mute/Cleopatra thing. It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I started getting nostalgic for some of that metal that my fiends were had been into and I started buying some of it. Eventually it went beyond just a nostalgia trip for me and I started getting flat-out interested in loud, fucked up metal. Because I came at it from kind of a weird direction though I have to confess I have a pretty low threshold for really cheesy and/or cliche metal.

And, yes, like you Godflesh was one of the few metal bands I actively listened to back in my early days. I'm still a hugh JK Broadrick fan.

Dennis Rodman introduced me.

through these guys, it's still one of the most brainbashing albums i've ever heard

http://i30.tinypic.com/2wowpdw.jpg

I was always aware of the extreme sub genres that followed metal, even when I was 13 and listening to stuff like Type O Negative, Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden and Megadeth. It wasn't until I hit high school and left all my middle school friends behind that I found solace in the more extreme genres. Everyday at high school seemed like an eternity and everyone felt obliged to remind me that because I was Canadian I was somehow beneath them. This went far beyond the joking around of adolescence and became pure disgust. Luckily at this time I found bands like Strapping Young Lad, In Flames, Dark Lunacy, and Opeth to help alleviate the pains that high school caused me. It was more for cathartic reasons at the time, however it slowly became something I genuinely wanted to listen to, even when I was perfectly content with what was happening around me. So to answer the question, I would say I was introduced to extreme metal when it seemed like everyone wanted me to believe I was not as good as them for the fact that I was from a different place.

FETO (Napalm Death)...which I didn't get right away and took me years to fully appreciate, which is why I love extreme metal. It's simply an over whelming experience, often much larger than my ability to comprehend in one setting. Next was "Alters of Madness", which blew me away. It was so incredibly fast and heavy, that it immediately impressed me at a visceral level, however like FETO it has taken me years to discern the incredible guitar and drum parts. Morbid Angel seemed like aliens playing in a different dimension that would occasionally slow down enough to drop a portal, letting humans jump on board for the ride. Been enjoying extreme metal ever since, the best most adventurous bands straddling the boundaries of avant garde, prog rock and plain ass whopping heavy metal. Lately enjoying !TOOH!, and have begun absorbing a good portion of Anaal Nathrakh.

Well, like so many 10-year-olds in the mid-90s, my first metal band was Metallica, and they were my favorite until I was 12, when I ordered Pantera's Official Live 101 Proof from a magazine. That was really where it started. I started by getting familiar with all the stand-bys like "Walk", "A New Level", "Five Minutes Alone" and "Becoming". But it was only a matter of time until I was blasting "Suicide Note Pt. 2" and "Sandblasted Skin" at full volume on my Discman everyday going to school and back. Occasionally I would hand the headphones over to some unexposed kid and say, "Hey! Listen to this." Good for a laugh.

It wasn't until high school that I was officially introduced to Slayer through some friends from New Hampshire. They also had this Death Metal comp disc called Death is Just the Beginning. It was strange. There was a Death Metal band with a flute player and it was the first music I had ever heard with blast beats except for Cannibal Corpse, who actually turned me off from that style for a long time.

So back to Slayer. My friends and I used to get high and have debates about who could kick whose ass in a fight: Pantera or Slayer. You know, kids' sh!t.

From then on, in a rough chronological order, my progression into extreme metal went something like this: Pantera to Slayer to Sepultura to Hatebreed to Six Feet Under to Slipknot to Fear Factory to Scar Culture to Superjoint Ritual to Opeth to Pig Destroyer to a whole world that includes the likes of Between the Buried and Me, Burnt By The Sun, Car Bomb, Psyopus, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Despised Icon, Behemoth, Nile, Dimmu Borgir, The Red Chord, Strapping Young Lad, Darkane, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Braindrill, The Faceless and Gojira.

Well for me i was one of the luckier kids. My dad is a true rocker from his tastes in music. He influenced me by playing almost every rock genre out there. Metal was the one he enjoyed even more. So one up pops.
thanks
the iron man

I discovered Nightwish and instantly fell in love with it, and Nightwish just led me to slightly heavier and heavier bands until I got to things like Emperor and Nile.

Unfortunately, i was introduced through a rather terrible band called Cradle of Filth, this however led me to an article saying that most Norwegian black Metal bands frown upon said band. i did not know what type of music Norwegian black metal was so I downloaded a band called samael, i enjoyed that and got really into black metal, which spawned me into folk metal, and then doom and stoner, however i have never found death metal to be very enjoyable.

I was captured as a PoW and they played this to break my soul. Needless to say Cuba is no longer under Spanish rule.

I used to watch Headbanger's Ball but usually a lot of it sounded the same. Until I heard The Black Dahlia Murder. I was a really big fan of them and also Mudvayne. Not for the long though, I only ended up enjoying L.D. 50. The Black Dahlia Murder has changed as well, mainly the vocals. I liked the older style. While on youtube one video lead me to another and I ended up listening to black metal and thoroughly enjoying it. So I started with (and still enjoy) The Black Dahlia Murder's Unhallowed and Mudvayne's L.D. 50 and pretty much only listen to black metal. (As far as metal goes)

I count myself fortunate that Grindcore was a scene that developed virtually on my doorstep when I was growing up and it was a natural progression to go to all day indoor festivals for just a few quid and watch all manner of bands trying their luck. Most failed but seeing bands like Napalm Death, Carcass, Bolthrower, Cerebral Fix, Extreme Noise Terror, Concrete Sox, Genital Deformities on the same bill etc quickly turned me onto heavier bands.

I was into lots of indie and British sacred cows and only really started to branch out into metal with bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Sabbath and some awful nu metal bands. My greater knowledge and understanding of metal and more extreme metal only required the opening of one very important door which looked like this

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Yesterday My brother showed me some lamb of god concert videos on you tube , they were awesome and usually iv'e been put of it by the screaming voice they always sing in but once i got past it i really liked it , im gonna look up to some more of their stuff today.

For years, I dismissed the more extreme vocals as just noise, based on a relatively limited listening experience. I am still not a fan of extreme vocals in general, but I do enjoy certain bands with extreme vocals.

Black metal: I started listening to some of the folkier black metal bands like Finntroll, Agalloch, Drudkh and Ulver. I now love black metal with folk aspects, and prefer it over garden variety black metal bands.

Death metal: A friend recommended Amon Amarth, and I took a chance on Nile. I later bought a Katatonia CD on a whim and loved it.

Funeral doom: I never really had to be convinced about funeral doom. I've always loved it.