I ONLY LISTEN TO METAL

First and foremost, for a band to be metal, it must have metal riffs. This point should be fairly straight-forward and obvious. Nevertheless, when it comes to some genres or styles, it's not always implied that the music is rooted in metal or is substantively comprised of metal riffs. For example, grindcore can either be rooted in punk (ex. Anal Cunt) or in death metal (ex. Nasum, Pig Destroyer, Agathocles); metalcore rooted in hardcore/-core (ex. Atreyu) or in metal (ex. Bleeding Through); and so on. Such music can be borderline, but still be acceptable. Some bands have mostly chugging, fuzz, or noodling, with minor metal influences; this does not make these bands metal. The metal elements must outweigh the non-metal ones.

I have previously accepted some non-metal bands as selected exceptions. Those were mostly side-projects of notable metal band members (ex. Mortiis, Wongraven, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas) and some non-metal bands (ex. Rush, Arditi, Stille Volk) included arbitrarily as they have been seen by the staff to be historically relevant to the metal scene. I am no longer listening any more non-metal exceptions. Do not ask me too listen to anything like that.

I do NOT listen to the following since it's not metal (this is our decision, please don't argue this):

• Nu-metal (ex: Korn, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, Jinjer, In This Moment)
• Metalcore and Deathcore, unless it's clearly more metal than core (ex: As I Lay Dying, Unearth, All Shall Perish are OK; Atreyu, Architects, Bullet for My Valentine, Parkway Drive, Chelsea Grin, Slaughter to Prevail, Suicide Silence are NOT)
• Glam rock (ex: Poison, Ratt, Whitesnake, Steel Panther)
• Hard rock (ex: Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Blue Öyster Cult, Alice Cooper, Kiss)
• Progressive rock (ex: King Crimson, Porcupine Tree, Spock's Beard, Tool, Scale the Summit)
• Psychedelic/occult rock (ex: Graveyard, The Devil's Blood, Kadavar, Year of the Goat, Coven)
• Medieval/folk rock (ex: In Extremo, Subway to Sally, Saltatio Mortis)
• Stoner rock (ex: Fu Manchu, Clutch, Monster Magnet, Villagers of Ioannina City)
• Hardcore (ex: Hatebreed, Earth Crisis, Agnostic Front)
• Grindcore (and all its variants; noise, powerviolence, gore, etc.) with little to zero metal riffs or influence (ex: Anal Cunt, Libido Airbag, Last Days of Humanity, Sete Star Sept, Spazz, Man Is the Bastard)
• Crust punk (ex: Anti Cimex, Disfear, Doom, Wolfbrigade)
• Screamo (ex: From Autumn to Ashes, Pg. 99, Envy)
• Punk (ex: Misfits, Black Flag, GBH, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat)
• Noise rock (ex: Lightning Bolt, Swans, Wrong)
• Gothic rock (ex: The Sisters of Mercy, Christian Death, HIM, The 69 Eyes)
• Industrial rock (ex: Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, KMFDM, Turmion Kätilöt)
• Alternative/modern hard rock (ex: Avenged Sevenfold, Evanescence, Audioslave, Godsmack, Five Finger Death Punch)
• Symphonic hard rock (ex: Edge of Paradise, Illumishade, Blackbriar)
• J-Rock/Visual Kei rock (ex: Nogod, Dir En Grey, Kiryu)
• Pop with metal elements (ex: Amaranthe, Babymetal, Necronomidol)
• Djent (ex: Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Tesseract, Monuments)
• Ambient, Drone, Noise (ex: Lustmord, Æthenor, Merzbow)
• Folk, Medieval folk, Neofolk (ex: Heilung, Faun, Death in June)
• Post-rock (ex: God Is an Astronaut, Coastlands, Long Distance Calling)
• Post-punk (ex: Killing Joke, The Birthday Party, Grave Pleasures, Rope Sect)
• Post-hardcore (ex: Rosetta, LLNN, The Fall of Troy)
• Cover/tribute/gimmick bands (ex: The Iron Maidens, Catch the Rainbow) of contemporary artists (metal versions of traditional folk songs can be OK), unless they start as such and eventually write their own music. Touhou/doujin cover bands (ex: Thousand Leaves), in other words, the bands who cover many different songs from different artists and then mesh them into one seemingly original song are also unacceptable.
• Bands that only have re-issues: if a band changes name and re-issues their older releases under the new name, that's not enough to be listed. It needs original material, though a complete re-recording of past songs could be acceptable.