"Symphonic" "metal" is not metal.

This is extremely cringe. I'm all for enjoy what you like but this makes me feel second hand embarrassment.

I don't know how to talk about music without sounding like an insufferable hipster. I wouldn't ever call myself a metalhead and I find the communities and aesthetics around a lot of the various niches and subgenres really unappealing and smelly, neckbeardy moid-coded, but I do listen to a lot of aggressive underground rock music including a fair amount of doom metal and doom-adjacent stuff.

It's not for me. Most symphonic metal to me is neither good at being metal nor at being whatever style of classical it's trying to ape, it's all the corniness of metal without the cool riffs, so idk. Only exception I can think of is Emperor.

>how many of you are metalheads?

I feel like it's against RS ethos in a way because it's a very nerdy and kitschy genre but then again, no one who posts on here is cool so whatever.

I like metal the most when it hits that sweet spot between both aggression and mournfulness

Its like an ever gayer version of gothic metal. I'm not huge into metal but I like this band

i don't listen to metal regularly but have been to a surprising number of metal shows… yeah the symphonic stuff is kinda too try hard for me

Most of it just sucks, the symphonic part clashes with the sound and aesthetic.

Maybe the way Nocturnus uses it is somewhat acceptable, to give this uneasy space atmosphere

This doesn't really sound any different or better for having horns

Symphonic metal is USUALLY metal, whether you like it or not. Where I draw the line is bands like Summoning which are 90% synth-based.

This is my kind of symphonic metal, where the metal itself is very symphonic and not totally overpowered by synths:

I secretly really like this kind of music, get fucked purists.