music What is Groove Metal? Help!

[Sepul-Coloratura 762]

I listen to metal, and I oftern listen the term Groove Metal. I know what bands are associated with the genre, mainly Pantera, Lamb Of God, Exhorder, mid Sepultura, Soulfly, Machine Head etc. (I'm familiar with some of their music already)

I get the nuance of it, but how do you define the genre? That it's groovy? All good music are groovy in some way. Doom, Death, Thrash, Black, Power Metal all are more distinctive and easier to define. I don't get what Groove Metal is. Is it a legit genre?

Edited April 15, 2020 by Sepul-Coloratura

[vampireponyprince 184]

Its a blended genre, meaning a genre that derives from other genres its pretty closely related to thrash that capitalizes on grooving guitars (the sound that the guitars evoke)  and syncopation a good example would be Pantera, which is thrash/groove metal

hopefully that helped a little bit!

Edited April 15, 2020 by vampireponyprince

[Denim&Venöm 19,365]

I think a more fitting term would be post-trash. It expands upon what the 80s thrash bands did by focusing on mid-tempo, downtuned riffs and a harsher vocal style. You can't really go faster than thrash, so the only direction was to slow down and make it interesting. Make it heavy.  

Look at what was cool in the early to mid 90s. it wasn't thrash. Grunge and everyone trying to sound like The Black Album put it on the shelf. Industrial metal, hardcore, punk and throwbacks to 70s hard rock were what thrash fans gravitated to and began to play themselves. 

Robb Flynn formed Machine head after leaving thrash band Vio-lence. He incorporated lots of punk from that time period like Gripple, the Cro-Mags and Poison Idea. Phil Anselmo started with punk and hardcore himself. Grew up in the blues heavy NOLA scene. Convinced Pantera to shed the Glam/NWOBHM sound and get heavy.  Fear Factory were almost a death metal band until they started incorporating industrial metal riffs and remixes. The LoG guys listened to lots of punk and hardcore. Randy Blythe grew up on the stuff and formed his vocal approach from it. Biohazard was basically rap verses over hardcore riffs. Type O Negative was essentially Carnivore slowed down and sandwiched between Bauhaus and Black Sabbath. And of course Max Cavelera loves both his hardcore and his hip hop. Dude made like 5 bands from those combinations.