Symphonic metal
Symphonic metal is a cross-genre style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitars of metal with different elements of orchestral classical music, such as symphonic instruments, choirs and sometimes a full orchestra, or just keyboard orchestration.
Symphonic metal bands can feature classically trained vocalists, in which case they can be attributed nicknames such as opera metal or operatic metal. Perhaps the most prominent examples of symphonic metal bands are Swedish band Therion, Finnish band Nightwish, German band Xandria, Italian band Rhapsody of Fire, Norwegian band Emperor, American bands Lorna Shore and Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Dutch bands Epica and Within Temptation. Those bands place a large focus on elements prevalent in film scores in addition to the more basic classical components utilized more widely in the genre. Many people who participate in this genre of metal music have a degree in musical thought or have been taught how to sing in a classical style.
It is often confused with subgenres such as power metal, black metal, and death metal in its symphonic branch. Most bands of the 1990s, both power metal and more extreme genres such as black metal and death metal, had already incorporated symphonic elements into their compositions. Symphonic power metal is sometimes mistakenly classified as symphonic metal.
Musical characteristics
The metal subgenres most typically featuring a subset of symphonic bands are gothic metal, power metal, black metal, death metal and classic heavy metal. As with many other metal bands, those adopting a symphonic style may feature influences from several metal subgenres.Music workstation keyboards and orchestras are often a key feature of the style, distinguishing symphonic from non-symphonic bands within the same metal subgenre. Other instruments, including guitars, bass and drums, may at times play relatively simple parts in contrast to the complex and nuanced keyboard and/or orchestral parts. Bands that do not use live orchestral instrumentation on their recordings or when playing live typically utilize factory presets on workstation keyboards to conjure up a "pseudo-orchestral" sound, where parts are played idiomatically according to keyboard technique. This is particularly characteristic of lesser-known bands on tighter budgets. Some symphonic metal bands abstain from using keyboards entirely, preferring to use orchestral backing tracks pre-recorded by a live symphony orchestra and/or choir during an album session, or recorded using virtual software instruments in a sequencer. This is particularly characteristic of bands that feature deeper and more complex arrangements which could be more difficult for one or two keyboardists to reproduce faithfully in a live performance.
It is more difficult to generalize about the role of the classic metal instruments, as they vary depending on the metal subgenre to which the symphonic band mostly associates. With varying frequency, symphonic bands may employ these instruments to play more simple, catchy melodies than non-symphonic bands, which arguably make the symphonic metal style one of the most accessible in metal.
Songs are often highly atmospheric, though more upbeat than those of many non-symphonic metal bands; songs with morbid themes routinely feature prominent major-key fanfares. Particularly central to creating mood and atmosphere is the choice of keyboard timbre.
Lyrics cover a broad range of topics. As with two of its often overlapping elements, power metal and opera, fantasy and mythological themes are common. Concept albums styled after operas or epic poems are not uncommon.
Bands in this genre may often feature a female lead vocalist, usually a soprano. Male vocalists, are also common in gothic metal. Growling, death-metal-style vocals are not unknown but tend to be used less frequently than in other metal subgenres. Backing vocals, often consisting of a choral ensemble or full choir, may be employed.
It is common for bands, particularly female-fronted bands, to feature operatic lead vocals. Such bands may be referred to as operatic symphonic metal and include the likes of Epica, Nightwish, Haggard, Therion, Operatika, Dremora, Dol Ammad, Visions of Atlantis, Aesma Daeva, and Almora, among countless others. The operatic style is not tied exclusively to symphonic metal, but may appear in avant-garde metal, progressive metal and gothic metal. Many bands featuring operatic female vocalists also have a male vocalist who uses harsh vocals for contrast, in a vocal style often referred to as "beauty and the beast".
Origins and evolution
One of the earliest songs by a heavy metal band to include string arrangements is "Spiral Architect", the closing track of the fifth Black Sabbath album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, released in 1973. In the 1980s, Celtic Frost experimented with orchestration, woodwinds, horns, and choral voices in the albums To Mega Therion and Into the Pandemonium. A 2021 article by Metal Hammer listed the latter at number two in its list of the best twenty-five symphonic metal albums. The article claims that while perhaps neither Celtic Frost album constitutes "full-blown" symphonic metal, the rest the symphonic metal recordings listed in the article likely would not exist if not for Into the Pandemonium.An early prototypical symphonic metal song was "Dies Irae" by American Christian thrash metal group Believer. Appearing on their 1990 album Sanity Obscure, it foreshadowed the operatic approach used by the bands Therion and Nightwish. According to Jeff Wagner in his book Mean Deviation, the song was a creative watershed in metal, and except for Mekong Delta, no other extreme metal band at the time had merged the genre with classical music so seamlessly. The band continued with operatic and symphonic elements on their next release, Dimensions, on the multi-song suite "The Trilogy of Knowledge". The gothic metal band Saviour Machine, which formed in 1989 and released its first studio album in 1993, has also been referred to as symphonic metal.
File:C. Johnsson and L. Lewis.jpg|left|thumb|Therion's Lori Lewis and Christofer Johnsson with symphonic orchestra and choir during the live classical show at the Miskolc Opera Festival, Hungary, 2007.
The band Therion were influential in forming the genre through their use of a live orchestra and classical compositional techniques; gradually these elements became a more important part of Therion's music than their death metal roots, culminating on the 1996 album Theli. Another key early influence was Finnish progressive metal band Waltari's album Yeah! Yeah! Die! Die! Death Metal Symphony in Deep C. In mid-1996 Rage released Lingua Mortis, the band's first collaboration with the Prague Symphony Orchestra.
Nightwish, Rhapsody of Fire and Within Temptation all released their first album in 1997. Within Temptation's sound was usually defined as gothic metal, being overall simpler than Nightwish's power metal, but both bands shared two frequent symphonic metal elements: powerful female lead vocals from Tarja Turunen and Sharon den Adel respectively, and the heavy use of classically influenced keyboard playing.
Many new symphonic bands appeared or came to wide attention in the early to mid-2000s, including Rain Fell Within, After Forever, Epica, Delain, Leaves' Eyes, Xandria, and Edenbridge, all featuring female vocals and the characteristic keyboards. Power metal, with its relatively upbeat fantasy themes and stylized keyboard sounds, tended to be an important influence on these groups.
The symphonic style in metal subgenres
The term "symphonic metal" denotes any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements; "symphonic metal" then is not so much a subgenre but rather a cross-generic designation. A few bands simply refer to themselves as "symphonic metal", particularly Aesma Daeva, and the term is applied by some to generically ambiguous metal bands like Epica and post-2002 Nightwish. Following heavy metal's tradition of classifying its subgenres based on the differences among the musical structures in the electric, "metal" part of bands' sound, the label "symphonic" is usually prefixed to the subgenre to which a band mostly belongs. No "symphonic metal" band being simply symphonic, a subgenre definition could be attributable to any bands simply defining themselves as symphonic metal. Symphonic heavy metal and symphonic gothic metal bands are the main objects of such neglect of classification, originating the misperception of "symphonic metal" as a coherent and separated metal subgenre excluding symphonic black, death, and power metal bands. Symphonic elements are often implemented in songs by bands of other subgenres.Symphonic black metal
Symphonic black metal has similar components as melodic black metal, but uses keyboarding or instruments normally found in symphonic or classical music. It can also include black metal bands that make heavy usage of atmospheric keyboarding in the music, akin to symphonic metal or gothic metal. The symphonic aspects of this genre are normally integral parts of a band, and as such are commonly used throughout the whole duration of a song. The prototypical symphonic black metal bands are Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth, Emperor and Carach Angren.Symphonic power metal
Symphonic power metal refers to power metal bands that make extensive usage of keyboards, or instruments normally found in classical music, similar to symphonic metal. These additional elements are often used as key elements of the music when compared to regular power metal, contributing not only an extra layer to the music, but a greater variety of sound. Bands in this genre often feature clean vocals, with some bands adding relatively small quantities of screams or growls.The first prototypical symphonic power metal song was "Art of Life", a twenty-nine-minute song performed by Japanese heavy metal band X Japan in 1993. A defining role for the style's development was played by Italian band Rhapsody of Fire since their groundbreaking 1997 debut, Legendary Tales, first with a baroque approach influenced by Vivaldi and Paganini, and subsequently with a growing film-score-oriented turn employing full orchestras and choirs. The influence of symphonic and operatic music are equally audible in cognate bands Luca Turilli's Rhapsody and Turilli / Lione Rhapsody. Rhapsody's contributions to symphonic metal are best exemplified by short songs like "Emerald Sword", "Dawn of Victory" and "Lamento Eroico", and long suites such as "Gargoyles, Angels of Darkness", "The Mystic Prophecy of the Demonknight" and "Erian's Mystical Rhymes". Finnish band Nightwish, who debuted the same year, also performed symphonic power metal, their style being well exemplified by songs like "Wishmaster" from the album Wishmaster and the rest of their discography until the year 2000. Since the album Century Child, they gradually decreased their power metal influences, with over 10-minute epics like "Ghost Love Score" from the album Once and "The Poet and the Pendulum" from the album Dark Passion Play as the best examples of their new course making a more extensive use of orchestral elements.
German band Blind Guardian also introduced some symphonic elements in the album Nightfall in Middle-Earth, although it wasn't until 2002 with A Night at the Opera when they established their symphonic power metal style, mainly with the song "And Then There Was Silence". They gradually composed more and more symphonic songs such as "Sacred Worlds" and "Wheel of Time", both featured on the album At the Edge of Time, and "The Ninth Wave", "At the Edge of Time", "The Throne" and "Grand Parade" from their latest album, Beyond the Red Mirror. They also made orchestral versions of previously released songs like "The Lord of the Rings" and "Theatre of Pain", both included on the compilation album The Forgotten Tales. Blind Guardian went deeper into symphonic music with the album Legacy of the Dark Lands, a fully orchestral album composed by singer Hansi Kürsch and guitarist André Olbrich that kept the band's spirit but was credited to the Blind Guardian Twilight Orchestra, as Hansi was the only member of the band to perform on the album.