A quintet from Louisville, KY, Flaw aims at creating relevance and lively meaning to the nu metal scene, using it as the foundation for dynamic, hard-driven music. The core of Flaw pulled together in 1996 when Jason Daunt placed an ad for a guitarist and Chris Volz answered. Volz's adoptive mother, an opera singer who had performed at the... [+] Read More

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Brought together in Stockholm by guitarists Peter Lindgren and Mikael Åkerfeldt in 1990, Opeth added progressive influences and acoustic instrumentation to their brand of Swedish death metal. As the group progressed, it was very common for an Opeth live set to fly in several different musical directions -- and an average song lasted no less than... [+] Read More

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Formed by Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan and former Tool guitar tech Billy Howerdel, A Perfect Circle is an extension of the alt-metal-fused-with-art rock style popularized by Tool in the early to mid-'90s. While similar to Tool in intensity and melancholy, A Perfect Circle is less dark and more melodic, with a theatrical, ambient quality... [+] Read More

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Coheed & Cambria officially began in 2001, although the band originally formed as a trio called Shabutie in 1995. After performing a poppy metal/indie rock sound for many years, they decided to shift gears and in the process, changed their name. Their first album, 2002's The Second Stage Turbine Blade, was picked up by Equal Vision Records and... [+] Read More

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After leaving Ceremonial Oath to form In Flames, founding member and guitarist Jesper Strömblad saw this project as a way of expressing his songwriting creativity rather than being stuck in the background. With the added influences of Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, along with his own touch of aggressive metal that overwhelmed his home country of... [+] Read More

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The foursome that came together and created Killswitch Engage already had strong fan followings. Mike D'Antonio (bass) was formerly the leader and principal songwriter of Overcast, the legendary underground metal group. When Overcast split in 1998, D'Antonio sought for a year to find the right combination of players to fuse hardcore and metal... [+] Read More

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No band affected the metal world more than Pantera during the early to mid-'90s. Beginning with its 1990 album, Cowboys from Hell, the post-thrash band put to rest any and all remnants of the '80s metal scene, almost single-handedly demolishing any notion that hair metal, speed metal, power metal, et al., were anything but passé. Sure, a lot of... [+] Read More

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The Swedish metal sextet Soilwork formed in early 1997, fusing the country's signature ultra-heavy death metal sound with the power-groove riffs of late-'70s, early-'80s British and European metal. Vocalist Bjorn "Speed" Strid, guitarists Peter Wiches and Ola Frenning, and drummer Henry Ranta were all veterans of the Swedish scene by the time... [+] Read More

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Tool's greatest breakthrough was to introduce dark, vaguely underground metal to the preening pretentiousness of art rock. Or maybe it was introducing the self-absorbed pretension of art rock to the wearing grind of post-thrash metal -- the order really doesn't matter. Though Metallica wrote their multi-sectioned, layered songs as if they were... [+] Read More

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