When mellow bands go metal

symbolic

Was just listening to The Silent Enigma by Anathema there and got to thinking about how some bands I've listened to over the years have gone from heavy to mellow. Doing away with harsh vocals and instead moving to clean vocals. Doing away with the heavy music.

Katatonia and Paradise Lost being other examples...

Just wondering does anyone have any examples of mellow turning to metal? Is there any? I'm thinking its predominately metal to mellow, but i maybe wrong. If it is, why is this? Presumably because people into metal are often into mellower stuff but the opposite is not as common.

GLaDOS

Porcupine Tree's later stuff (Particularly In Absentia and Deadwing) is a lot heavier than their earlier stuff. Not a particularly dramatic change though.

SilverScreen

This is an interesting topic. The only band I can think of that got heavy as their career progressed are The Sisters Of Mercy (although they were never really that mellow). They started out as a gloomy post-punk band before morphing into a gloomy hard-rock band for their last studio album Vision Thing.

The Sisters Of Mercy - Alice (1982)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GwWra1sQgo

The Sisters Of Mercy - Vision Thing (1990)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQB7LBZVk9Q

karaokeman

Don't know any mellow bands that went to metal, but there's a few hard bands that softened out with the likes of System of A Down's 12th Annual Krog, or Ulver's Kveldssanger (which they made when they were black metal).

christophicus

Some may disagree, but Slipknot fit into this category to a certain degree, although they then went a great deal lighter afterward. Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat is quite a diverse album that can at times be seen as lighthearted. The album "Slipknot" has a decidedly darker tone, as does Iowa to an even greater degree. That's a 3 release progression that follows your premise.

For the most part though, when done right, writing and playing music should be a cathartic experience, and so it'd be an unusual progression(as you've already pointed out) to see things go the other way. At least imo.

triggermortis

didn't Pantera start off as a glam band?

SilverScreen

triggermortis wrote: »

didn't Pantera start off as a glam band?

True. They started out as a rubbish glam metal band before following the flock and becoming a rubbish groove metal band. But still they were never really mellow.

I'm interested in knowing what people would define as 'mellow' here.

Joe_Dull

I don't know about metal, but 1:45 onwards is much heavier than anything I'd expect from a band like Foals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ_PMvjmC6M

SilverScreen

I forgot about Ministry. They went from synth-pop/new romantic to one of the pioneering industrial metal bands.

From this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sET1lhBMNiU

To this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSiyA1cLTWQ

triggermortis

Zero1986 wrote: »

They started out as a rubbish glam metal band before following the flock and becoming a rubbish groove metal band

Can't agree they were rubbish. They were good enough to stand out from the crowd and their stuff still sounds good today - better than a lot of newer stuff I have heard recently

Banjo

Is no one going to mention when Vanilla Ice got his NuMetal on?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xtvMLg_2J4

Nine Inch Nails were a bit closer to synth pop on Pretty Hate Machine, but no where near as dramatic a change as Ministry. I still cry when I think about spending money on Work For Love.....

symbolic

Joe_Dull wrote: »

I don't know about metal, but 1:45 onwards is much heavier than anything I'd expect from a band like Foals.

Yeah i agree its heavier alright, good example, the Academy gig should be good!

And cheers for all the other examples, been interesting listening to them.

Joe_Dull

symbolic wrote: »

Yeah i agree its heavier alright, good example, the Academy gig should be good!

Too right, see you there!

KoolAidJimbo

Reverse example of this... it's always worse when a heavy band turns mellow, like All That Remains for example.
2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5UJ-kZU8pg

2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV4GM9tF2BA

Numina

Banjo wrote: »

Nine Inch Nails were a bit closer to synth pop on Pretty Hate Machine, but no where near as dramatic a change as Ministry.

Really? I would say going from this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7FPpuhwgvw

and then on the very next release, changing into this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeoyOIRIeHs

is pretty drastic.

flyswatter

Not sure what to make of that new Foals song. I don't think the chorus is all that great (e.g the heavy bit)

The video is a nice production.