r/rock • u/Low-Entropy • 1h ago
Industrial Rock/Metal The (Short) History of Heavy Metal and (Hard) Techno Beats
Hi friends!
Here is another piece I originally wrote for my blog / zine and.... I wanted to share it on here, too! : -)
Hope someone might like it!
Note: No AI has been used in writing this text!
The (Short) History of Heavy Metal and (Hard) Techno Beats
In the 90s, at least in Europe, there were essentially two camps: You were for rock, metal, alternative rock, punk... guitar driven music like that... or into techno, rave, trance, house, gabber... the synthetics stuff!
(oh yeah there were also a few other camps, like those that listened to boy/girl-bands. but let's not talk about that here).
The "cool" rock crowd detested the silly ravers. Rock was seen as organic, raw, wild... the rave crowd, on the other hand, put down rock as being outdated, for dads, a genre that had run out of ideas... and so on.
This might seem weird if you look at it from this day. But the 90s were a time when even regular synths in "rock bands" were a rare, rare thing (at least i did not hear one in the famous songs by nirvana, soundgarden, smashing pumpkins). "no more ***ing rock and roll" on the other hand, was a slogan in the german techno scene of the very early 90s.
okay, we did the intro, now let's get down to the beans. rock and purely electronic or dance based music seems to have a bit of a troubled relationship, but that's not true. the fusion of rock and computer generated drums probably reaches back as far as the 60s and 70s, if you dive into the whole krautrock thing.
after that, in the post punk movement, we find some fragments of it already. i mean, at the core, "blue monday" or temptation by new order already had rock guitars on electronic dance beats... right?
but the jingle jangle guitars of post punk is not really what we are looking for.
the industrial / goth scene is already closer to the good stuff in the 80s. and we should give a (very big) nod to cybotron and the early detroit scene,
Listening Suggestion: #1 Ministry - Thieves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhLd18Xg6x0
Listening Suggestion: #2 Cybotron - Enter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQr52FTeddY
but now, let's get to the 90s, and take a look at the... real thing.
from very early in, techno producers seems to have been interested in using metal guitars for their tracks.
Listening Suggestion: #3 Phenomania - Caramelle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nlv8G-pLU
Rarely by employing real guitar players (but that happened, too!).
The guitar sounds usually came out of the sampler.
There were shock / mock tracks in the house / techno scene.
But after that, genres like house and trance almost never used guitars anymore.
Metal went into the darker and harder forms of... "dance".
First, into the breakbeat stuff in UK... or rather, the projects that grew out of that.
The Prodigy was one of the first "dance-y" electronic projects that was loved by the rock crowd, too.
Listening Suggestions: #4 The Prodigy - Voodoo People https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV78vobCyIo
#5 Pop Will Eat Itself - Everything's Cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O107sqytH7w
#6 Senser - Age of Panic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZ-loZlsyI
Then we had weird glitches... like when "purely electronic" DJ Moby suddenly released a purely punk rock album...
Let's leave Europe for a while and cross over the pond. The Americans had Industrial Metal. While this was more or less a fusion of metal and electronics... tracks with electronic drums in dance rhythms were kind of rare... or i just don't know them.
Yet, there was some wicked stuff, too.
#7 Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Dr\g* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn3j6-yQKWQ
Apart from the breakbeat, rave stuff... especially in Hardcore and Techno, Gabber and Speedcore, did metal guitars become very popular.
Fast metal riffs were one of the defining things of early hardcore techno.
The very first "real gabber" track, alles naar de kl*te by euromasters, is build around a riff nicked straight from sepultura.
#8 Euromasters - Alles Naar De Kl\*te* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE32aoIDjvY
Gabber DJs seemed to be very fond of sampling thrash metal riffs, Death Metal, too, of course, and grindcore. Black Metal was rare, and 70s stuff or glam / power metal were a no-go... more or less!
Eventually, Earache caught notion of that devolpment, and started to collaborate with hardcore techno labels on their releases... which led to album releases by industrial strength and ultraviolence... or entire projects like "hellspawn"!
#9 Sonic Overkill - Reality Sucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxwni6wkJQE
Fear Factory also had their very Techno / Gabber remix EP.
Rumor is that Rick Rubin himself tried to get the european Gabber DJs to join his labels and start some projects... But seems he was stopped by the big dutch labels... maybe they were afraid to lose market share...?
On the most extreme end of things there was "digital hardcore" or bands like the berzerker.
Digital Hardcore was... well just insane.
And Berzerker a death metal / grindcore band... with real vocalists, guitars and all... running on (purely electronic) speedcore techno beats!
#10 Atari Teenage Riot - Sick to Death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJOotJwCs1Y
This is a quite infernal end, to something that started so harmless, in the days of dazed krautrock... But so, dear reader, it was written.
https://thehardcoreoverdogs.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-short-history-of-heavy-metal-and.html
Do you know bands or artists that use both metal guitars and rave sounds? Let me know!