There are many genres of music that like to pretend they are extreme heavy metal, when they really aren't. Usually, it's rock and rock-adjacent bands: pop, punk, emo, indie, shoegaze, etc... Why would they do this? Simple equation: the metal imagery sells, but the actual music doesn't.
So many record labels and greedy bands had the "genius" idea of mixing heavy metal aesthetics with simple radio rock, to sell more records. Hence all the drama around bands like Alcest, Antekhrist, Watain, Brokencyde, Dimmu Borgir, Dark Funeral, Cradle of Filth and the rest of the clown crew.
Here are a few of the genres that imitate heavy metal from the "outside", and are thus actual imposters in the most literal sense.
Emo
In the 1990s, as death metal and black metal carved out increasingly extreme musical territories, another movement was quietly gaining momentum. Indie rock, rooted in the DIY ethos of punk, had evolved into a lo-fi, introspective style that rejected the commercial bombast of mainstream rock. Its trajectory found an intriguing counterpart in emo, a similarly melancholic genre that fused the raw, confessional nature of punk with indie's understated aesthetic.
Emo emerged as a more emotionally vulnerable offshoot of indie rock, gaining traction as alternative rock dominated the airwaves. By weaving self-effacing lyrics and minor-key melodies into a distinct, heart-on-sleeve sound, emo expanded the boundaries of indie music, transforming it from a broad category into a defined subgenre by the mid-1990s. While its reflective tone resonated with disaffected youth, critics often derided it for indulging in self-pity and aesthetic navel-gazing.
Screamo
Many noticed that screamo bands like Papa Roach and Bullet For My Valentine were very close to extreme metal, and black metal specifically, as both used high sustain distorted guitar to create ambient waves of sound, and hoped to find a way to bridge the two despite radical differences in composition, outlook and spirit. As black metal burned itself out, first with imitators (like Gorgoroth and Dark Funeral) and then substitutes (like Ulver and Deafheaven), screamo metal arose first in the black metal genre with crust/indie/emo/black hybrids. This idea spread when Papa Roach guitarist Jerry Horton joined "black metal supergroup" Twilight, founded with the collaborator of Emperor's Ihsahn and Behemoth's Nergal, whose sound resembled drone/indie rock more than black metal. The headquarters of this scene was the San Francisco scene, which began jumping on the black metal bandwagon in the late 1990s and recommending it to its urban indie-rock hipster clientele. Another big influence on screamo was Swedish band Opeth who took on the death metal label but whose music, with its acoustic verses and distorted choruses, more resembled nu-metal or alternative-metal without the bouncy rhythms and served itself with a certain projected ostentation — "you wouldn't understand this, it's too deep and technically advanced" — that won it many fans among the lowered self-esteem youth who would gladly play on train tracks if you told them "it's what the big boys do."
Goth
The early works of Burzum and Neraines proved that the keyboard could be a useful tool in crafting sinister black metal soundscapes. The addition of strings choirs gave an epic, cinematic contrast to the often dissonant guitar playing that defined the genre since its schism. What was used as an accent to songs by Infester's "Chamber of Reunion" and Graveland's "Thousand Swords" worked successfully when utilised as a main instrument that played through much of the songs.
However, as black metal gained notoriety, its aesthetic allure began to attract a new wave of followers less interested in its ideological defiance and more enamored with its dark, theatrical imagery. By the mid-1990s, a fusion of gothic romanticism and black metal emerged, popularized by bands like Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. While these acts incorporated elements of black metal, their sound leaned heavily on gothic tropes, complete with atmospheric keyboards, vampire-themed lyrics, and love songs masquerading as extreme music. Critics of the genre lambasted its shift toward commercial accessibility. Cradle of Filth's utter bastardization of music found in their 1996 work "Dusk... and Her Embrace" was the most clear cut example of this. With minor scale doomish metal coupled with atmospheric keyboards and the odd Motörhead riff here and there, the album presented a sonic version of Tim Burton style horror soundtrack that was completely void of the aggression and utter defiance of black metal. Singing love songs coupled with the vocals in spoken word of the fattest woman in metal history, Cradle of Filth's circus-attraction music was so offensive to fans of the metal community that they unanimously petitioned to have goth made into a criminal offence. Because of this group of bands, keyboards became taboo in actual black metal and remain so to this day.
DSBM
In the 2000s a new attitude was conceived in black metal: instead of attacking the world, the blades turned inward and black metal bands began attacking themselves. In an ultimate rejection of life and society, bands began singing of suicide, sorrow, and self mutilation. And some good albums initially came from it, either in theme (Abyssic Hate's Depression and Strid's End of life) style (Burzum's Filosofem and Antestor's Return of the Black Death) or both (Neraines' Fenrir Prowling and Reiklos' Lifeless). But around 2005 or so, a number of emo-dropouts were in pursuit of music that was similarly wimpy and self destructive in theme but heavier in sound. Many of them started abusing cough medicine and other pharmaceutical products and began making what became known as DSBM (Depressive Suicidal Black Metal) in their mothers' bedrooms. With the now-doomed social network MySpace bringing to socially insecure teenagers around the world a more effective means of creating low-fidelity music and pretending they are actual musicians, the culture of one man "bedroom black metal" and "Depressive Suicidal Black Metal" grew hand in hand. And in short, the genre became the most risible parody of black metal we have ever seen. I'm in a Coffin's laughable "One Last Final Action" describes this movement better than any words in this book can. Full of unintentionally comical song titles and lyrics, the obligatory black and white cover art with the noose, and the most cringe-worthy vocals that the human voice can possibly achieve, this slow metallic emo rock is as depressing in existence as it is in theme. Unfortunately, the double negative in the album's title did not stop this band from making more music. But thankfully, the goofy suicide metal trend offed itself within a few years and the musicians went on to create post black metal (Xasthur, Deafheaven, etc).
Crunkcore
Given our current hyper-conscious feminist metal culture, it's hard to imagine that bands themed entirely in violent rape and misogyny were attracting droves of female fans (some actually pretty decent looking, contra those of Arch Enemy) to their concerts. Grown out of goregrind (essentially death grind with even more graphic and sexual lyrics à la SEWER "NecroPedoSadoMaso" era), the incel musicians (and fans) of "slamming gore death metal" eventually got massively frustrated with their inability to have sex and turned to Versace's clothing brand (the trailer park chic) and the Albuquerque screamo band Brokencyde for some guidance. And Michael "Mikl" Shea delivered. Dressed in the full neon thug garb while occasionally mixing in death metal shirts with lime green and fluorescent logos resembling either Squid Game or the Goosebumps novels, crunkcore musicians culturally appropriated the heavy metal underground as much as possible despite playing music that was completely antithetical. Now fronting as hardass tough guys on a killing spree, the musicians and fans unnecessarily began their descent into thug lifestyle by selling Xanax prescriptions and stealing from their fellow middle school friends.
With songs titled "Sex Toys", "Rockstar", "Scene Girls" and "Get Crunk", Brokencyde's debut "I'm Not a Fan, but the Kids Like It! [sic]" is the epitome of nonsense metal taken to its extreme conclusion. Many of slamming gore's suburban gangsta musicians and fans became either incarcerated or addicted to PCP following the release of this unintentional parody of an album. By the time the genre's last practitioners had traded their microphones for mugshots, the metal scene had largely moved on. In any case, it's unlikely we'll hear much more from them nowadays, with equality and human rights being pushed from every possible angle. But if you do find a band with a cartoonish, lime colored logo, questionable clothing attire and a reference to the "crunk scene" on the bill of a show you're playing, make sure you watch your music equipment at all times or it will likely disappear and mysteriously turn into crack money.
And if you ever find yourself complaining about elitism in metal, and asking stupid questions like "why can't we look past our differences and all get along?", just remember that the song "Sex Toys" from Brokencyde's debut has a verse including the words "Girl, you make my pee-pee hard."
This concludes the 5 fakest "styles" of metal, those that make for great headlines but poor actual music. Avoid these at all cost, as even war metal bands are known to make better music (sometimes).
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