Acoustic Metal

[NinjaGeek]

Note: This is different from my Behemoth + Acoustic guitar thread

Anyways, my school has a yearly unplugged concert, and next year my friends and I thought it would be kick ass if we played acoustic metal. Just curious have any other bands ever done this before? I know Apocalyptica did some acoustic covers of metallica, but thats not really what I'm looking for. Is there anyway to get that kickass Metal feel with 0 distortion? Even if we have to substitute certain instruments for others to get a heavier sound, we know plenty of people who play all kinds of instruments and could pretty easily get access to a lot of stuff as long as it's not too crazy.

So basically my request is are there any bands that have done acoustic metal before that I can listen to as a reference when building our band?

 

[zoidberg]

um, sentenced maybe.... acoustic metal?

um well um.... you say acoustic metal?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Heh, that's interesting. I'm pretty sure distortion is the #1 most important element in metal, and perhaps its only truly necessary ingredient. If anyone comes up with 'metal-sounding' music without distortion, I'd be pretty surprised. Especially if it didn't just sound like some silly gimmick that gets old after five minutes.

One thing that comes to mind is the intro piece for Celtic Frost's To Mega Therion. Although it does have a guitar in it, and is really short, I could imagine it sounding pretty 'metal' without the guitar. "Closure" by Opeth also comes to mind. It's mostly acoustic, but still has some pretty high energy percussion. But then, it does sound more like '70s prog. Which is probably the genre most likely to contain what you're looking for, if anything.

If you don't mind '70s prog, I recommend getting some Magma. Their music is very light on the distortion, but also very intense and rhythmic. It basically sounds like tribal jazz rock... A good piece of theirs to start with is "Ïma Süri Dondaï" off Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh (be warned - it's weird).

I think some of those ultra-wimpy prog metal bands like Haggard and Winds could also be considered 'acoustic metal'. I couldn't get into either of them, but you might want to try them.

There's also Therion's Vovin, which is basically their most gentle symphonic metal album, with lots of strings-plus-drumming passages. But it doesn't really qualify for acoustic metal, since pretty much all the songs are accented by the guitar at some point.

At any rate, that's the best I can do. Hope that helps.

 

[Seditious]

Heh, that's interesting. I'm pretty sure distortion is the #1 most important element in metal, and perhaps its only truly necessary ingredient. If anyone comes up with 'metal-sounding' music without distortion, I'd be pretty surprised. Especially if it didn't just sound like some silly gimmick that gets old after five minutes.

http://media.putfile.com/CarpathianForest-ColdMurderousMusic

no distortion, just interludes of acoustic with severe reverb, and besides 'Black Metal' I don't know what you could call it.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

http://media.putfile.com/CarpathianForest-ColdMurderousMusic

no distortion, just interludes of acoustic with severe reverb, and besides 'Black Metal' I don't know what you could call it.

Eh... ambient industrial, maybe? If Carpathian Forest released a whole album sounding like that, I doubt many people would call it metal. However, since they're a black metal band it's not hard to group their more experimental pieces under the same label.

Interesting piece, though.

 

[MasterOLightning]

I believe there's an LLN band that's clean tone tremolo picked guitar with tribal sounding drums and black metal styled vocals. Of course, being an obscure LLN band, it didn't get past the 20 minute demo stage.

Some black metal is pretty light on distortion, but you still have tremolo picking, which is probably too aggressive a style for what you want.

 

[Sabin Frost]

Megadeth did an accoustic album a while back, was interesting. Bands like Virgin Black which have a strong classical element can also at times forsake all electric guitars, though on those songs they really do play classical, not metal.