Gothic Metal Music

Gothic metal is a genre of heavy metal music that originated during the mid 1990s in Europe as an outgrowth of doom-death, a fusion genre of doom metal and death metal.

Gothic metal, a metal subgenre that is mainly characterized by dual vocalists (growls and female vocals), keyboards and guitars, is known for its rather complex compositions.

Gothic metal tends to take influence from the doom metal, black metal, and death metal subgenres of Heavy metal for its composition. The heavily synthesized styles of their melody and rhythm ideas in its guitar riffs often cause the music to be aggressive and fast paced like death metal, while sometimes the sound is slow and heavy like doom metal. Independent of its appearance, gothic metal is always characterized by the dual vocals.

Acoustic guitars are sometimes used in gothic metal. In bands that feature two guitarists, one guitarist often plays a form of acoustic guitar. The acoustic guitar is used in the same way as its electronic counterpart, and is normally found playing melodies of equal technicality. The bass guitar in gothic metal is usually played using lower tones akin to doom metal, often combined with the aggressive playing of black and death metal. The bass guitar is often the main contributor to the atmosphere in songs, though has also been seen as performing a duet with the keyboarding in this regard.

Keyboards in gothic metal play a significant role in the music, often replacing the second guitarist in bands and taking on the role of either lead or rhythm. The keyboards are often used to imitate a variety of instruments, most often string and wind instruments, though this varies between artists.

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Gothic metal makes heavy use of atmospheres in its music, which are commonly tailored to fit the song; warm and energetic, empty and enclosing. The atmosphere rarely follows the deep morbidity of doom metal unlike its origin/offspring, doom-death/gothic-doom, or the upbeat nature of closely related genre, symphonic metal. The use of the atmospherics is often to draw the listener into the music, as if to give them a sense of being involved with what is happening in the song.

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