Three Metal bands you could not live without
 

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The guy looks at you askance, and lowers the gun. "You know what?" he says with a grim smile, "I'm not gonna kill you. I'm gonna do something much worse to a metalhead like you. I'm gonna grind up all your metal albums, every one." Seeing the shock in your eyes, he relents a little. "Okay, okay! Jeez! Don't blubber!" he snarls in disgust. "You can keep the discographies of three bands or artists only, but the rest go into the grinder."

You have seconds to choose: who and why?

The threat of the man with the gun is soon ended, his brains splattered across the wall by the Shutterstock sniper.

Ah, I think you misunderstand.
On all jobs like this there is always a backup. The Shutterstock guy is watching the guy with the gun to ensure he does not mess things up. If he does, or fails to carry out his mission, then he is indeed toast.

Electric Wizard for rainy days.
Ufomammut for spacy day.
Swarrrm for crazy days.
I might be able to survive on that.

Really? Swarrrm? Black Bong is indeed a mind ****, but do they really have that many albums that are all that different from a bunch of other grindcore bands?

Sunn O))) because they're my favourite metal band.
The Body because they're one of my favourite metal bands.
Slayer because they're one of my favourite metal bands, and I need a fail safe in case I get old and lame and grow out of the crazy stuff.

All their albums are good and only the first one sounds like typical grindcore. They definitely have their own style.

I have to listen to more of them to really get the feel for their whole discography, but it just sounded weird to me, mostly because I've been sticking to Black Bong after not being as impressed with the weirdness of some of their earlier material. Just one of the coolest grind albums I've ever heard.

Black Sabbath, timeless.
Motorhead, to keep my spirits up.
Vektor, small discography, but enough diversity in their longer tracks to keep it endlessly interesting.

Burzum
Metallica
Acid Bath

Not necessarily my top three metal bands, but they provide me with endless fun as it is. I enjoy basically every second of every song from these bands heavily (minus Metallica, but the good ones are ultra good.)

Black Bong is great but I like Nise Kyûseishu Domo even more.

why would I be scared of a man with a pho hawk and a perfectly lined up gotee ????

Dude, don't underestimate stock art models.

He's not even holding the gun sideways which as I understand is a kill shot. Anyways:

Black Sabbath- never gets old. Plus you have Ozzy and Dio.
Judas Priest- classic after classic.
Iron Maiden

Easy choices

Black Sabbath: I know everyone's choosing them, but they just have such a diverse discography that they'd never get old.

Bathory: From my favorite form of extreme metal (primitive 80s black metal) to their epic Viking metal, this band has two of my all time fav metal sounds.

Manowar: Need my fun.

I need to listen to more metal. I could very easily live without metal at the moment. That means I'm slacking.

Agalloch
Cult of Luna
Dillinger Escape Plan

Devildriver
metallica
incubus for the lighter sunnier days

Sigh: My favourite band, they've got a great amount of variety in their discography and could pretty much always satisfy my Avant-garde Metal itch.

Blind Guardian: Another favourite of course, and would do the job of satisfying my need for melodic/harmonious/consonant Metal in that they're Power Metal, and excellent Power Metal at that with their own decent amount of variety.

Necrophagia: These guys wouldn't always be in my top three, but I've been liking them a lot recently, and I feel they would satisfy my need for Extreme Metal pretty well for a while, though I don't think they could really make up for the lack of many dozens of other Extreme Metal bands, I feel each of those other bands couldn't do much better on their own in satisfying my taste due to none of them really encompassing all of what I look for in extreme metal either, and none of which I would consider "the definitive" Extreme Metal band, so Necrophagia would do just as well as all of the other ones individually. Anyways, I think Necrophagia would be good for their really awesome mid-80's demos, their first two classic 80's Proto-Death Metal albums, their groovier work for varieties sake, those three great EPs they released in the early-mid 00's, the more brutal 2011 release they did, and their most recent, very solid release. Also, that many of those releases have different feels to them, and all of their work tends to have quite interesting, somewhat unique atmospheres which focuses on cool Horror Movie/Occult themes often very well, which has made them one of my favourite Death Metal bands.

Considering the premise, I've come to decide that I could live without metal really. I mean, I listen to a lot of it these days, but there are so many other genres out there that wiping out one (although it is a VERY large umbrella) wouldn't be too bad. I can find what I look for in metal in other places. I think the same can be said for other genres as well. I think the only genre that would be hard for me to part with apart from three artists would be avant-garde music, but that would depend on how strict the definitions were. If it were an affront to anything with an avant-garde element it would wreck me, but if it were against straight up avant-garde artists who you couldn't call anything else, I'd be set. They'd catch me listening to Beefheart one day and I'd tell them to go **** themselves because they didn't ban the blues (although I would probably pick him just to be safe).

That kind of goes for metal as well, how strict are we with this? Would I be allowed to listen to something like Death Grips or Peter Brotzmann, who have a lot of metal elements/influences, or would I be shot on sight?

1. Metallica
2. Megadeth
3. Deep Purple

Black Sabbath without question! I guess the other two would be Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Truthfully, I can take or leave the "metal" label. I'm fine with calling it HARD ROCK! However, these three epitomize the genre BETTER than anybody else ( :wave: ), to my thinking. As I write this, Eddie Trunk is playing 'Snowblind'. Perfect timing ( :thumb: ).

I'm going to provide a "mainstream" answer and pick:

- Iron Maiden - Bonus points because they continue to produce good material after all these years, and Bruce has an amazing voice.

- Metallica - The first five Metallica albums (the "Black Album" is debatable, I know) are some of the best metal albums I've ever listened to. I still prefer "Ride The Lightning" to "Master Of Puppets", but all are enjoyable. "Kill 'Em All" is a very underrated album - It's a little messy in some parts, Metallica was still young and inexperienced, but "The Four Horsemen" remains my favourite Metallica song.

- Alice In Chains - I dislike the label "Grunge" so I usually associate each band with a specific genre. IMO, Alice In Chains are alternative rock mostly but very close to metal and some songs are undeniably metal.

I'm still not a fan of Sabbath. Many songs are catchy, some albums are good, but I just don't like Ozzy Osbourne as a singer.

What is Metal these days? How is it defined in 2015?

Which bands fit the premise that we're supposed to choose from?

Put up against some of the extreme black metal ****, Black Sabbath sounds like The Beach Boys for cripes sake.

It is all those things and more.

No matter how much I love the Metal genre being constantly splintered if I have to choose three bands then familiarity, consistency and nostalgia win every time. If a band does experiment and I love that aspect of music you have to come to the conclusion that they can experiment no more if you only have three to choose from.

Iron Maiden 1980-1988
Black Sabbath (even the whole mad solo years)
Napalm Death. (don't even want to put it in brackets especially as an ex bassist is a good friend) oh I just did....

In the words of the great Meatloaf, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Never been that into Maiden or something?

Love me some Maiden.

Oh you don't like Sabbath then? Or are you blaspheming on me?

Sub in Judas for Napalm and all is good, but you knew that.

Whatever, I'm more of a Painkiller man than ND myself. Always helps to throw Laswell and Zorn into the mix and Mick Harris's drumming is my favourite thing about Napalm Death.

Metal?

You tell me.

I forgot my favorite band of all time, Faith No More, was metal, and they weren't on my list.

Burzum
Metallica
FNM

Avant-garde, experimental, and just plain noise.

Not metal.

Sucks too IMO.

Avant garde metal isn't going to sound like Iron Maiden dude.

Deafheaven, Mastodon, and Pig Destroyer - they all scratch very different itches for me, and between the three of them you have quite a lot of variation in sound.

Never liked Iron Maiden. Don't own a single disc by them. Your point being?

:finger:

Well then replace any other standard metal band and my point is pretty clear. If it sounded like all the other grind core bands it wouldn't be avant garde metal would it?

I wouldn't call Painkiller metal. They're pretty great though.