What starts as a interesting look into the evolution of Metal and its always increasing number of sub-genres quickly turns into a narrow and biased look on the music based around a home made sub-genre family tree of questionable legitimacy and fact checking
The first few episodes are pretty interesting as they show where the genres have their stylistic roots, though it still misses something when they fail to mention Jimi Hendrix but do mention Iggy Pop & The Stooges, claim Judas Priest invented Metal in the same episode as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple is discussed, and other such small annoyances that makes it feel less professional and more like a opinion piece on when the music he loved growing up started sounding like he liked it
Then comes the big turnaround where he just starts speculating due to a lack of knowledge. Genres like Shock Rock and New Wave of American Heavy Metal are coined despite those being descriptors of a visual style/movement rather than a musical genre, and the bands mentioned already exists in set sub-genres they could have discussed instead. An entire episode is spent trying to convince us that Grunge and Post Grunge is a Metal genre while claiming Nu Metal can barely be considered Metal at all. Alternative Metal, Groove/Funk Metal, Industrial Metal and Metalcore are all completely ignored or put in as small segments into other episodes. The list goes on, and it's clear he should have had a team of experts from different genre origins with him on his journey instead of trying to map everything by himself via just interviews
The one positive part of the show that makes it still worth a watch though is the interviews. There is a lot of interesting looks into the music, lifestyle, philosophy and, yes, evolution of the music from the mouths of the musicians themselves. It's just a shame that all have to be wrapped together by a very unreliable narrator with a very narrow understanding of half of the genres he discusses with very odd priorities that ultimately undermines the educational value this show could have had
The first few episodes are pretty interesting as they show where the genres have their stylistic roots, though it still misses something when they fail to mention Jimi Hendrix but do mention Iggy Pop & The Stooges, claim Judas Priest invented Metal in the same episode as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple is discussed, and other such small annoyances that makes it feel less professional and more like a opinion piece on when the music he loved growing up started sounding like he liked it
Then comes the big turnaround where he just starts speculating due to a lack of knowledge. Genres like Shock Rock and New Wave of American Heavy Metal are coined despite those being descriptors of a visual style/movement rather than a musical genre, and the bands mentioned already exists in set sub-genres they could have discussed instead. An entire episode is spent trying to convince us that Grunge and Post Grunge is a Metal genre while claiming Nu Metal can barely be considered Metal at all. Alternative Metal, Groove/Funk Metal, Industrial Metal and Metalcore are all completely ignored or put in as small segments into other episodes. The list goes on, and it's clear he should have had a team of experts from different genre origins with him on his journey instead of trying to map everything by himself via just interviews
The one positive part of the show that makes it still worth a watch though is the interviews. There is a lot of interesting looks into the music, lifestyle, philosophy and, yes, evolution of the music from the mouths of the musicians themselves. It's just a shame that all have to be wrapped together by a very unreliable narrator with a very narrow understanding of half of the genres he discusses with very odd priorities that ultimately undermines the educational value this show could have had