The Routledge Handbook to Metal Music Composition Evolution of Structure, Expression, and Production

List of Contributors 

List of Figures 

List of Tables 

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction: Appreciating, Understanding, and Interpreting Metal Music Composition

Lori Burns and Ciro Scotto

Part I. Structures

1. Perspectives on Harmony in Early Heavy Metal: Chords, Modes, Functions, and Texture

Esa Lilja

2. Recognizing Tonal Momentum and Echoes of Past Styles in Riff Turnarounds
Stephen S. Hudson

3.What is a Riff? A Structural Definition and its Analytical Consequences for Process and Form in Heavy Metal
Ciro Scotto

4. Mutually Exclusive Two- and Three-Part Forms in Heavy Metal Songs
Nolan Stolz

5. Compound Bridge Sections in Rock and Metal
Michael Dekovich

6. Unfulfilled Expectations: Theorizing on Terminally Anti-Climactic Form
Zach Simonds

7. Conceived Through an Act of Catharsis: The Phenomenological Allure of the Breakdown
Owen Morawitz

8. More than Moshing: Structure, Convention, and Innovation in Extreme Metal Breakdowns
John Muniz

9. Half-Time, Standard-Time, and Double-Time Feels in 1980s Crossover Thrash
David Easley 

10. Systematic Onslaught: The Aesthetics and Functions of Blast Beats in Contemporary Extreme Metal
Dennis William Lee

11. Blackened Textures: Black Metal’s Sonic Complexity During the Second and Third Waves
Wolf-Georg Zaddach

Part II. Expressions and Techniques: Instruments

12. Traditional Instruments in Global Folk Metal
Olivia R. Lucas

13. Primordial Percussion: Drumming in Six Influential Metal Albums
Jose M. Garza, Jr.

14. Paradigms of Guitar Performance Practice and the Language of Metal Music
Mark Marrington

15. Metal Guitar Techniques as Timbre, Form, and Speed
Calder Hannan

16. The Evolution of the Bass Guitar in Metal Music: Its Function in Performance and Compositional Structure
Shvan Kaban

17. Keys to Hell: Synthesizers from Early Death Metal to Deathcore
Tyler Osborne

Part III. Expressions and Techniques: Voices

18. “All Shall Scream”: Transposable Lessons from Pierre-Luc Senécal’s Hate.Machine for Growlers Choir
Eric Smialek

19. Song of the Siren, Cry of the Warrior: An Exploration of Song Structures and Female Vocal Techniques in Power Metal
Suzanne Strauss

20. Thine Voice is Oh So Sweet: Gothic Metal and Vocal Timbre Diversity
Vik Squires Donnelly

21. Nu Metal’s Influential Vocal Composition: Tension and Release in the Music of Korn, Incubus, and Machine Head
Clare King

22. Beyond “Beauty and the Beast”: The Evolution of Gendered Clean-Harsh Vocal Pairings in Metal Music
Lori Burns

Part IV. Productions

23. Imagining Future Extremes on the Record Player: Time Axis Manipulation as a Theory of Extreme Metal Creativity and History
Florian Walch

24. Masters of Reality: The (De)construction of Reality in the Production of Metal Music
Niall Thomas

25. Fragmented and Distributed Production Practices in 21st Century Metal Music: From the Studio to the Bedroom (and Back Again?)
Steven Gamble and Lewis Kennedy

26. Electronic Drums in Industrial Metal and Continuing Practices in Contemporary Metal Music
Neyssensas Manuel

27. Guitar Pro or DAW-based Software for Metal Composition
Fulya Celikel

28. Black Metal and the Sonic Search for Nature
David Hemery

29. Contemporary Approaches to Metal Music Production: Traditional Heavy Metal, Death Metal, and Metalcore
Jan Herbst and Mark Mynett

Biography

Lori Burns is Professor of Music at the University of Ottawa. Her interdisciplinary research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, merges musical analysis and cultural theory to explore representations of gender and sexuality in the lyrical, musical, and visual texts of popular music. She co-edited The Pop Palimpsest (2018), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music Video Analysis (2019), Analyzing Recorded Music (2022), and the Routledge Handbook of Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination (2025).

Ciro Scotto is Professor of Music Theory and Chair of the Music Theory Department at Ohio University. His research in music theory includes creating compositional systems, producing analyses and theoretical models of the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, and rock music, especially in the area of timbre studies. He edited The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches (2019). Besides his theoretical work, he is an active composer, and is currently composing a series of works titled Between the Hammer and Anvil for electric guitar and percussion, to be released by Ravello Records.