page_title: Post-metal
section_title: Aesthetic and culture
hierarchical_section_title: Post-metal / Characteristics / Aesthetic and culture
caption_attribution_description: Pelican performing live. 04.08 Sant Feliu Fest 2004 Sant feliu de guixols, girona
context_page_description: Post-metal is a style of music that is rooted in heavy metal but explores approaches beyond the genre's conventions. It emerged in the 1990s through the work of bands such as Neurosis and Godflesh who transformed metal texture through experimental composition. Associated with and inspired by post-rock and post-hardcore, the genre employs the darkness and intensity of extreme metal but emphasizes atmosphere, emotion, and even "revelation", drawing on a wide range of sources including ambient, noise, psychedelic, progressive, and classical music to develop an expansive but introspective sound. Post-metal songs are typically long, with loose and layered structures that discard the verse–chorus form in favor of crescendos and repeating themes. The sound centres on guitars and drums; any vocals are usually screamed or growled and resemble an additional instrument.
  Post-metal is closely related to avant-garde metal and has also been associated with sludge metal, drone metal, progressive metal, and industrial metal. Alternative names that have been used to describe the genre include art metal and metalgaze, highlighting its connection to art music and shoegazing, respectively.
context_section_description: While Simon Reynolds locates the connection between post-metal and conventional metal in attitude and aesthetic over musical approach, others have emphasized differences in these very areas. Noting the divergence from typical metal fashion, The New York Times described a 2005 Pelican show at the Knitting Factory in New York City: "Instead of long hair and all-black outfits, the crowd was displaying the trappings of brainy, slightly nerdy indie rock. Young men wore artistically cropped hair and tight-legged jeans, and there was even a smattering of young women in librarian glasses and worn-out Chuck Taylor sneakers." Jon Wiederhorn describes the post-metal scene as a "global community of artists" positioned on the "fringes of the underground." Pelican's Trevor de Brauw stated in 2007:
  I have an affinity [f]or metal, but I don't think of Pelican as a metal band. So when people call us 'instrumetal', or post-metal, or metalcore or whatever, I can see why they say that, but it's not something that I feel a close connection with. I feel we're part of a community with some bands – Mono are good friends of ours, but I don't feel that we're that similar musically. Their music is more similar to classical music, whereas I feel ours has more in common with punk and hardcore.
caption: Pelican, also instrumental, diverge from heavy metal conventions in all aspects of their style and approach.
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