A hybrid genre created by combining - wait for it - Industrial and Heavy Metal. The genre is characterized by electronics-heavy production, including looped, distorted guitar riffs, distorted vocals, drum machines, and relatively heavy use of keyboards and sampling. The genre was pioneered in the late 1980s by Ministry, Godflesh, and KMFDM, and rose to prominence in the 1990s with massive successes like Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, White
Zombie, and Marilyn Manson. Essentially died after that, with most modern bands in the genre (having no interest in
electronic music) attempting to imitate the "death metal" sound found in Godflesh's Streetcleaner and Fear Factory's Demanufacture without
understanding what makes those albums great, and failing spectacularly. One is extremely hard-pressed to name any good industrial metal bands formed after the '90s.
Industrial metal is often the source of endless online arguments about the definitions of "industrial" and "metal", usually instigated by people who only listen to one (or neither) of those genres but want to appear more knowledgeable about music than they actually are.
Not to be confused with
Industrial Rock.
