CHICAGO—The definition of cultural rebellion, blistering independence, and a no-holds-barred attitude. You don’t get the heaviest and darkest of all musical genres with humbles beginnings: Born of the seeds of English blues-rockers pushing the musical limits of their American predecessors and an all-out obsession with anything dark and angry enough to contradict the happy-go-lucky attitude of the late 1960’s, bands like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Motorhead began tuning down their guitars, speeding up their drums, wailing their hearts out, and aiming their hate-filled pens at the war-drivers of Big Government. A revolution had begun, and was spreading its branches faster than the media could contain it.

As the 1970’s rolled on, Heavy Metal continued to take shape with the birth of many rock bands that would come to contribute much to the still infantile but never-slowing development of Metal. Through the progressive sound of bands like Rush, the powerful vocals of Queen, the timelessly heavy riffage of AC/DC, and the mystical stagecraft of Alice Cooper and KISS, Metal’s branches began to stretch far enough to touch the masses everywhere. Like an adaptive organism, the headbangers pushed through the attacks of the rising Punk movement and integrated it into their own sound. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal as it became known included eventual staples of Metal such as Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, and Diamond Head.

Equally inspired by the punk movement as well as the successes of early hard rock successes like Van Halen, the U.S. branch of the growing Heavy Metal tree began to development in the 1980s. The Glam Metal movement became an incontestable commercial success, with radio-hit producers Mötley Crüe, Poison, and the formidable and tumultuous Guns N’ Roses.

In parallel yet complete contrast to the appearance-obsessed pop sound of their Glam counterparts, the true, stronger, roots-driven subgenres of Metal began to show their sweat-glistening, raging faces, sprouting straight from the dark, underground seeds planted by their forefathers. Ushering in the hellish musical change was Trash Metal behind the underground success of the subgenre’s “Big Four”: The mosh-ready Anthrax, the apocalyptic Slayer, the virtuoso Megadeth, and Heavy Metal giants Metallica. Following in suit and splintering off into their own niches were Death, Black, Doom, and Gothic Metal, each contributing to the unprecedentedly dark subculture surrounding the movement. Simultaneous, the more progressive movements of Power Metal and Progressive Metal found their own path through bands like Helloween and Dream Theater.

As time passes, the musical and cultural environment poses new challenges to overcome. The 1990s saw the dawn of the “Alternative” revolution, cutting off all things Glam from the rest of the Heavy Metal tree and shrouding the rest of the genre from the mainstream eye. Nevertheless, Heavy Metal persists as it always has, vining its way through the cracks of the walls placed around it and continuously expanding into endlessness. In this adaption and survival, Alternative Metal began to emerge, ushered in by the first Alt-Metal act, Jane’s Addiction. The branches of the grunge-inspired Soundgarden and Alice in Chains and the fusion-inspired Faith No More and Primus found themselves a place to grow in the generally non-conducive environment toward Metal bands, and boiling over in the depths and darkness that Heavy Metal has always found comforting, the post-trash Grove Metal of bands like Pantera and Sepultura began to emerge. One thing is for certain: Heavy Metal isn’t going anywhere but up.

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