Melodic black metal

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Melodic black metal is a sub-genre of black metal. Melodic black metal is a style of music that is classified according to several key aspects. The style encompasses typical black metal characteristics, such as growled vocals, blast beats and heavily distorted guitars. The music style however differs from traditional black metal in several ways. Fast tempos are generally uncommon as the music is normally slower. The songs, even though generally have no choruses, have a more defined structure than its original counterpart. Heavy guitar riffs are used throughout the songs even though clean guitar sections are generally incorporated. Aside from including the traditional bass, drums, vocals and guitar, many, if not all Melodic Black Metal bands also incorporate keyboards, thefore giving the music a more melodic atmosphere.

The genre reputable draws its roots from black metal and melodic death metal, even though symphonic metal is generally considered a big influence as well. Melodic black metal is sometimes confused with gothic metal, doom metal, and symphonic metal due to similarities in the styles (slow tempos, occasional death grunts, clean guitars, defined structures), which results in the erroneous genre classification for many bands and albums.

Melodic black metal songs usually have a typical structure and characteristics. Most of them are composed in armonic minor scales,often modulating violently between minor chords by thirds(ie:F#m then Am then Cm etc.) which gives the songs an "evil" feeling. Many of the songs incorporate heavy guitar power chords but unlike traditional black metal, the songs have at least some control on the volume, allowing the music to blend instead of sounding too "noisy". The songs usually begin with a melodic introduction, be it clean guitar or keyboards and usually move on to a more aggressive and distorted sound as the piece advances. Unlike typical black metal songs, melodic black metal compositions have, on the most part, very clearly defined bridges. Songs go from introduction to verse to a prechorus to "chorus" to Verse to Preochorus to chorus and then to a bridge. In a bridge the music can turn quite mellow and unlike black metal. The bridge however, turns back into the verse or the black metal sound with a very swift and unexpected turn (usually a loud death grunt).

Unlike traditional black metal, melodic black metal usually revolves around deep structure and accessibility. The lyrical themes and main attributes, however, still come from black metal, with melodic black metal's lyrical subjects usually remaining the same (although many melodic black metal bands are not as aggressively anti-Christian). Like most black metal bands, the lyrics are usually quite aggressive, whether added intentionally or bearing the aggression of the lyricist. Heavy drumming and highly structured guitar riffs (usually played with what some call reverse power chords and tremolo picking) are the most prominent feature of the genre, entailing melodic structure deep within the composition and sound.

Melodic Black Metal has remained, on the most part uniquely an underground phenomena. The genre's most popular bands are quite unknown (with the exception of Cradle of Filth). Most "popular" bands and less unknown are probably The Kovenant and immortal from Norway.

The appearance of Melodic Black Metal musicians has remained, on the most part very close to the appearance of normal black metal bands. Bandmembers use corpse paint for live performances, spikes and black clothing. They generally use pseudonyms or stage names and chose to remain unknown in mainstream circles.

Melodic black metal productions are normally of higher musical quality in contrast to traditional black metal.