EW are primarily doom metal, but of more extreme kind (they sound more extreme than all 80's doom metal bands for sure).

Are you for real? Stoner metal IS doom metal.

Orangle Goblin, Corrosion of Conformity, Down and Spiritual Beggars are not doom metal at all but they're called stoner.

Stoner metal is a mix of doom metal and stoner rock.

-Corrosion of Conformity are a band that mix crossover thrash, hardcore punk, sludge metal, stoner metal and stoner rock. They aren't just "stoner metal", so they aren't called doom metal because they are a mix of a lot of different influences. Doom metal is one of them.
-Down are definitely a doom metal band. They play stoner metal with a lot of sludge, blues, southern rock, etc.
-Orange Goblin are labelled stoner metal/stoner rock/doom metal pretty much everywhere. They even played doom/death at the very beginning. Sources of them bein called a doom metal band: https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/orange_goblin/1703 + https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/orange_goblin

You very curiously left out his mention of Spiritual Beggars, which is the one I'm by far the most familiar with. Stoner metal is their primary genre, and there's hardly any doom to be found in their sound.

I've never listened to Spiritual Beggars so talking about a band I don't know would be preposterous. I've known people who describe them as hard rock/stoner rock but as I've said, I've never listened to them so I really can't say.

They sound similar to Orange Goblin.

Ok, so the point is that while there may tend to be quite a lot of overlap on stoner metal bands also being doom metal bands, not all of them are, some of them focus more on their other influences, whether those be hard rock, psychedelic rock, noise rock, prog rock, thrash, etc.



I've heard an album of theirs and wasn't that crazy about it, but they're probably worth revisiting again at some point.

My answer? Sometimes.
It's borderline.

This isn't extreme metal.


This is.


I recall a thread I participated in several months back that talked about why thrash metal died off while death and black metal live on to this day, why the most thrash can accomplish are "thrash revivals" and crossovers with other genres. Basically we came to the conclusion that thrash metal is a crossover genre on principle rather than its own distinct thing. It's both traditional metal pushed to its absolute limit as well as the birthing shrieks of extreme metal. Thrash is more "speed metal + gruffer vocals and more varied instrumentation" and it's no longer the bleeding edge of extremity in metal. There's a certain balancing act in making it. If you don't make it fast enough, you have groove metal. If you make it too light or with more traditional or operatic vocals, you have speed metal. But if you make it too fast, too heavy, or too chaotic or with vocals that are too gruff or growled, you have death metal. Likewise, you could take a third option and strip it back, playing it just as fast but with less musical technicality, giving you crossover thrash and early metalcore.

Thrash is a gateway to more extreme genres, being the most extreme kind of music possible in the early-mid 80s until death metal arrived, which originated as a deliberate attempt to take thrash metal and play it even heavier. Bands that were comfortable with their niche stayed where they are, and they played themselves out because there wasn't much more to do with that sound. Ironically we had more evolution of speed metal than we did thrash just because all "speed metal" really was was traditional heavy metal played at 4x the sound rather than a very specific brew of speed metal and hardcore punk.

Speaking of playing with the tempos of metal...

Someone mentioned doom metal earlier, and that's a good jumping off point for its own topic. Bands like Saint Vitus and Trouble aren't extreme metal, period. Saint Vitus is a punk band that played traditional heavy metal at quarter speed. Same deal with Trouble, Pagan Altar, Candlemass, Pentagram, etc. Heck, they often didn't play at quarter speed; they just played slower on more songs than just what the metal elite would've called "ballads". They were always united more by that vulnerable, apocalyptic lyricism. Nothing like actual extreme doom bands like Pantheist or My Dying Bride or even Electric Wizard. Stoner metal is something like the "thrash" of the doom family of genres in that it also borders genuine extreme metal and more traditional metal just by nature of drawing back to the proto-forms of metal.

While I have no problem with Darkness Descends being called thrash metal, I would also call it proto-death metal. It's definitely a missing link between Seven Churches and Scream Bloody Gore.

Nah, they were a heavy metal band first and foremost, influenced primarily by Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Blue Oyster Cult and Alice Cooper. Thats straight from Chandlers mouth. Of course they toured with Black Flag and SST took them under their punk wing (just to fuck with the punks) and some of that punk attitude and influence came into their sound and music. They're quite unique in that regard, especially at that time, not many bands have a story quite like theirs.

Epidemic of Violence by Demolition Hammer musically sounds as much brutal/extreme as e.g. Leprosy by Death despite the former album being thrash metal and latter death metal.

What is extremity? I think that depends on many points of view. I couldn't say a band is "extreme" if the music is brutal but the lyrics are exaggeratedly naive, for example. I think that in every genre one can find something "Extreme", Thrash included.

I would argue that Epidemic of Violence is heavier than Leprosy and a good deal of early death metal as well.

Some random thoughts prompted by Yuli Ban's comment, particularly how thrash is this genre that hit the ceiling of innovation while death and black have so much variation etc...

a. I believe thrash metal to be the crossroads of all the trad genres (even doom if we consider songs like The Thing That Should Not Be - and I do) and the genre that its bands crossed over more comfortably and open-mindedly with external genres (like punk obviously, but also funk or rap, regardless how one feels about those).

b. I believe thrash is perceived to be this closed, stagnated genre is because people were quick to use new labels to describe thrash-related stuff. We said death metal, groove or whatever people called what Pantera played but a lot of that stuff is very much related or directly descended from thrash than say some stuff that is labelled Black Metal today. Seriously, since "black" is such an abstract and basically cool word that can mean a lot of things to different people, it simply has survived as a label description. It meant literally "satanic" at first. Then it meant that bathory/early Sodom stuff played by the Norwegians and since then basically anything with some tremolo riffing and screeching vocals is black-something... But I hear some stuff cited as prime examples of how diverse black metal is (like post blackgaze or some shit) and to me it's no different than calling Meshuggah prog-tech deathrash or SOAD alternative post-thrash and suddenly thrash would also be this "diverse genre that keeps evolving".

tl;dr: Leave thrash alone! It's one of the healthiest genres in principle and can span a huge variety of sounds and actually has in the 80s and there are plenty of stuff to do with it still (or at least I think so).

I don't see any real point to try to find a definitive line that separates extreme with "not-extreme". It really is so subjective. To me anything like Venom's Witching Hour or Black Metal onwards is extreme enough to be labelled as such. Even if kids todya are used to it. I also find merit to what Dimitris of Sacral Rage has told me. That he thought Sacral Rage to be more extreme in the true meaning of the word than a lot of what passes as extreme metal today, like some mainstream NB melodeath etc. I certainly agree, for example I find Hell Awaits to be more extreme metal than Amon Amarth even if it doesn't feature one growl.

Going back to my Dark Angel example, listening to that and early Kreator and bits of Slayer inform me that "extreme" thrash is essentially quasi-death metal with clean vocals. Gruff, but not growled. Otherwise very similar chaotic, blasting style of music. Hence why we recognize a lot of it as crossing over or even outdoing early death metal at times.

Non-extreme thrash is far closer musically to traditional heavy metal, but sped up and infused with copious amounts of hardcore punk.

I'm not sure that thrash metal is actually played out. There are some more obscure bands/styles/scenes that had a specific sound that never got that popular. However I think that people who want to be forward pushing are just less interested in playing thrash. Then you automatically get the situation that newer thrash becomes something you do because you want play something that's rather specifically retro even when it's done made by people who have other bands that are more innovative.

I think thrash is entry-level extreme metal. It can appeal to complete casuals, Metallica being the prime example, as well as lead them into trying out heavier styles of metal (Kreator, Sodom, etc). The heaviest thrash bands certainly sound like extreme metal to me.

As far as I know it's one of the only subgenres that bridges the gap between traditional metal and extreme metal so comprehensively. Power metal seems another obvious answer but it never had anywhere near the mainstream appeal of bands like Metallica, Megdeth, even Slayer.

Yes. Somewhat.

As most have already said I wouldn't call any era of Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, etc. to be extreme; however bands like Kreator, Overkill (early), and the entirety of death/thrash and black/thrash I would call extreme.

Dragonforce and Sabaton are PM and they're pretty well known/mainstream.

How is power metal remotely close to extreme metal?

Dragonforce def is an extreme band in some ways, very busy music.

I can't hear Dragonforce being extreme in any way at all, sorry.

There's nothing super heavy or intense about them, and I'm not sure i know of any power metal that qualifies as extreme, though some have mentioned some of Nevermore's stuff, but i just generally don't listen to much power metal so maybe there is some that qualifies, but certainly not most of it.

Dragonforce at least has blast beats (and very very limited harsh vocals). I wouldn't consider them extreme, but something like Fury of the Storm (particularly live, where they add in the harsh vocals) can get pretty intense.

Ya doom and stoner are definitely two different sub genres.

With regards to power metal being extreme (sorry for off-topic!), I was thinking of Children of Bodom as the most extreme example. Their albums Hatebreeder and (especially) Follow the Reaper seem to be very much in line with the genre, and I don't know how I would otherwise classify those albums. Sorry for not being more clear initially.

It really depends on the band. I wouldn't call Anthrax or early Metallica extreme, but Razor or Demolition Hammer? Definitely.