Avant Garde Rock?

After listening to mainstream music on the radio for years, specifically Rock, I have found myself wondering why they insist on using the same three chords over and over and over, without trying to expand and complicate their tonal pallets.

This week we examine Avant Garde Rock. The Avant Garde title today is joined at the hip with metal more than rock. These groups seek to separate themselves from the pack, and to do something different. Really, I can't hear a difference in the styles between what I know as metal and this though:

In my search, I came upon  Avantgarde-Metal.com, a likely source for my studies. Therein, I read about avant garde metal itself, and took a listen to several different bands, trying to expand my horizons and allow this idiom to impose itself in my mind. What I hear is nothing radical though, not even when venturing outside of the U.S. to find more of the genre:

This is the first video that caught my eye though. Even though it never ventures far from what we know as metal,  it does have a dramatic moment around 2' in, where we have a new beginning of the form of the song.

After listening to Les Discrets, I moved around Europe to Germany, to Todtgelichter. When venturing over to Germany, I expected to hear something along the lines of Rammstein. I was incorrect, however, this was much more tame than I expected from what they deem Avant Garde Metal.  Even their song Begin the End, seemed tame.

In my quest to figure out this genre, I delved a little deeper. I went all the way back to 2008, and found something different, but equally disappointing. After listening to Anaak Nathrakh, Negura Bunget, and others, I began searching for something different. I searched and listened through some Progressive Rock, Folk Metal, and Post-Hardcore, and finally hit upon something that seemed unique and more true to form in terms of the Avant Garde. 

As a genre, it actually sounds fairly unique. Still repetitive at times, Symphonnic Metal at least incorporates some radically different styles. Combining traditional symphonic sounds with metal was a totally unique aural experience. Although I feel that it puts me into my symphonic box, as a hornist, it is the most distant music in the rock world I encountered after quite a bit of searching. I hesitated to dive into it after seeing the title of the genre, but yet, it is a real departure from the norms of other genres which have blended together such already similar styles the point is moot. 


The pioneer of this style seems to be a band called Nightwish. One of the most striking things about this group is the variation in length of some of their musics. Besides Mars Volta, they actually contain some real length.

Interesting anyway, but this turned me to Gothic Metal, a style employing some of the orchestra again, but this time also with the sounds of synthesizers and a little distortion. An interesting topic with a lot of rep to listen to, and virtually no end to groups seeking to distinguish themselves, and in fact falling into the same pits of sounding virtually the same as other groups from mainstream genres nearby.  


So, Avant Garde Rock itself seems a little forward. I will have to read some of my colleagues blogs to find out just how out there these folks get. Really, I was expecting to hear rock groups that took their influence from Christian Wolff or Schoenberg. Still, some different sounds worth exploring.