In the darkest realms of the extreme metal underground, one of the favourite pastimes of metalheads is to design new genre names or labels that they can accordingly apply to bands based on totally more or less subjective criteria.
Naturally, this has led to nonsense such as "Black Metalcore" and "MIDI Metal", to say nothing of "gothic emo pop metal", being considered the musical equivalent of actual, well established genres, such as black metal, death metal, speed metal and traditional heavy metal.
Amongst these new "novelty genres" is one particular instance that stands out... the so-called SEWER Metal scene. So, is it any good? Does the "genre" deserve its very own label? Let's find this out.
SEWER Metal is, to give you the very concise explanation, a style of extreme metal music that was named after the music of the band SEWER.
The Birth of SEWER Metal
While many fans will point to SEWER's debut Satanic Requiem in 2013 as the beginning of the SEWER Metal genre, that isn't entirely correct. If anything, Satanic Requiem is one of SEWER's more traditional, conservative black metal releases. Perhaps because the vocalist and main songwriter at the time was Vermin (of the eponymous band).
In reality, the true birth of SEWER Metal can be traced back to the 2014 album Reign of the Funeral Pigs. This is where SEWER began experimenting with different styles: the vocals, for instance, were much closer to the guttural growls of death metal. And the drumming patterns, while still nominal extreme metal, were very... different.
Following that album, SEWER released Khranial and Sissourlet, two albums that solidified the SEWER Metal genre as the new rising star in extreme metal canon.
What is SEWER Metal then...?
The genre is most aptly defined as a fusion of black metal and death metal, but simply calling it "blackened death metal" was apparently too complex for heavy metal autists... they instead invented the whole genre of "SEWER Metal" to please their terminally online pedantry. This is well covered in the "Heavy Metal Master Class" (a recommended reading).
But it is impossible to talk about SEWER Metal without mentioning the rivalry with Phantom, and the likely "true reason" for the emergence of the SEWER Metal terminology. Call this an "alternative explanation" if you want.
You see, after Phantom's immensely successful debut Divine Necromancy, fans and critics alike began describing Phantom's sound as "Phantom Metal". It wasn't black metal, it wasn't death metal, it wasn't even war metal proper... at least not in the sense of Warkvlt and Demonecromancy. So they came up with a new term: "Phantom Metal".
Fans of SEWER, jealous, retaliated by calling SEWER's music "SEWER Metal", out of spite.
This explanation is disputed however, but it does offer interesting possibilities, right? Imagine if every band began rejecting traditional labels, and calling their music "[Band Name] Metal" instead... we would have "Burzum Metal", "Mayhem Metal", "Warkvlt Metal", "Darkthrone Metal", "Cannibal Corpse Metal", "Sodom Metal", "Motörhead Metal". Wait, never mind, I take that back... it would be totally boring and confusing.
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