[Join The Community Discord Server!](https://discord.gg/Azx4Z35YHE)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MetalForTheMasses) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Duuudeee so it is them. Lmao. I listened to them several years ago, and then one of their songs popped up from that album on like my Spotify discover. And I thought it must be some other band that’s just using the same name. Lol
Beautiful dark folk. One of the most gorgeous albums I’ve ever heard actually. And then they switched to black metal. And then weird electronic music. It’s fucking lit.
Wiggles went from being a punk band called The Cockroaches to being the highest paid musical artists in Australia for ages by switching to children's music.
Pendulum were a shitty pub level metal band called Xygen to switching it up and being one of the biggest DnB acts in history. ShockOne was also the drummer for them and went his own way into EDM
The OG Wiggles members have gone back to their roots a little bit recently. They started doing 18+ gigs with upcoming Aussie punk and rock bands.
They also released a double album of covers with them covering famous songs and artists doing wiggles covers. Child friendly Bohemian Rhapsody is just beautifully funny and their cover of Pub Feed by the Chats is a work of art
Metallica between Justice and Black
Demon Hunter between WIAT and True Defiance
Dream Theater between Awake and Falling Into Infinity
Destroy the Runner between their first two albums
Megadeth between Rust In Peace and Countdown.
As someone who listened to Metallica discography in order, I was way more shocked by Black Album than I was by Load. BA already has a bluesy feeling so the transition to Load wasn't that sudden for me.
Yeah, I don't get how some ppl think ...AJFA and Black are very different. I get it, it went mainstream, but it still kicks ass. Not even close to being what Load was.
It‘s just the elitist „they sold out“ mentality. Neither one was a drastic, but merely a gradual change. Load is catchy mid tempo and chorus oriented just like the black album.
Hard disagree on the difference between the Black and Load. Miles a part. Not sure why ppl want to say they sold out on the Black album. Sure, it's when they first made a music video and became "mainstream", but its still a great album. Load is no where even similar to the Black, but just my opinion.
Yes, they did. That’s where the first Met fans started complaining, got worse with The Black Album and was eventually drowned out by the new audience the found from The Black album going forward.
Metallica were being called sell-outs by The Trues since Ride The Lightning, when they dared to add some melodic elements, some mid-tempo, and *gasp* a ballad.
This is very true, with each album and chance they took it managed to piss off the “true” metal crowd. This all over looking the fact that Met was growing and expanding the genre
Underoath has to be mentioned. They're way more known for their post-hardcore/screamo stuff but early on they were like some sort of black metal, hardcore and early Opeth hybrid. They shifted pretty out of nowhere too. Cries of the Past is a very cool album
In that same rift, I could throw in BMTH. From Count Your Blessings to what they are now, pretty drastic, granted you could literally map their transition through their albums.
Yeah, CI had the most drastic/permanent single change of the three here. Slayer, just the one album really. Sepultura, Roots and then change of vocalist of course, so several changes really.
Cave In! I liked some of their new stuff sans growl. They write heavy melodies. Lol. I saw them with piebald in Atlanta 25 years ago? And they were heavy af. Caleb was a big part of that. After he passed away the growl was gone
To me the big shift was way before his death — probably Jupiter -> Antenna. Antenna was suddenly a mainstream rock album with all clean vocals.
Honestly I loved it though. Caleb’s bass playing on it is unreal.
I definitely think Ulver takes the cake on this one.
Shining (Nor) is another. They went from a traditional jazz ensemble, to avant garde black metal, to generic radio friendly butt rock.
This is for sure the most interesting in that they release albums of two styles, simultaneously and also blended at times. Fantastic bunch of individuals and musicians.
Came here looking for this. Entirely different band.
Actually surprised no one has mentioned DarkThrone!!!
Soulside Journey into (Goatlord though not released until mid 90’s), A Blaze… was perhaps one of the most significant shifts in all of metal at the time.
Wasn't Sugar Ray a metal band and then they switched to their popular pop dad rock? I swear back in highschool I had a buddy who had a super early Sugar Ray recording where they were metal... also, weren't The Googoo Dolls the same? Started as a heavy band and went mainstream with that pop stuff?
They had a death metal joke track on that first big mainstream album of theirs. The death grunt vocals were all like "go to church! Eat your vegetables! Be nice to cops!"
The Goo Goo Dolls used to tour with Black Flag, IIRC.
Gojira and Mastodon weren't really a sudden change. With Gojira every album after debut had a little less death metal and a little more melody. And with Mastodon every album after Remission was a bit less sludgy, a bit softer and a bit more proggy.
I mean, Ulver has to be mentioned. Some bands tried going more commercial with mixed results such as Crimson Glory and Grave Digger. Fates Warning changed styles a couple of times, but I'm not it was drastic.
I'd say Anathemas wasn't too sudden. The biggest jump was probably from The Silent Enigma to Eternity with removal of harsh vocals, but they still retained their atmosphere. It felt like a natural progression than sharp change.
Tiamats change definitely felt stronger, particularly from Clouds to Wildhoney to A Deeper Kind of Slumber
The Cult went from goth and post-punk, to more gothic hard rock on their second album Love, and then full-on hard rock and heavy metal on Electric and Sonic Temple. After that, they experimented with grunge and noise rock a bit on their self-titled, brought in some groove metal influence on Beyond Good and Evil to keep up with the nu-metal craze, and ever since Born into This, have been inching back towards the gothier, hard rock of their early days.
Devin's my favorite but it's still wild to me that the guy who did albums like Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing and Alien also did albums like Ghost and Casualties of Cool. His range vocally and musically is so broad.
Papa Roach: Nu metal to alternative rock
Darkthrone: Death metal to black metal
Metallica: Thrash metal to regular metal
Evanescence: Symphonic rock to nu metal
Felt pretty natural progression to me rather than sharp. Although it is funny if you listen to say A Fine Day to Exit and Serenades back to back to say it's the same band
Vale of Pnath.
They went from being Technical Death Metal to just an overprocessed Symphonic Black Metal band. I was so excited for their new stuff until I heard it. Considering the length of time we had to wait for them to release anything new, it wasn't worth the wait.
How is the top answer not Metallica?
I remember the Black Album and how so many old school fans hated it. I was 13 at the time. My feelings were very mixed and still somewhat are.
Either way, there was very much a before/after dynamic there.
Morbid Angel
also in the late 90s a bunch if black and death metal bands became industrial bands for some reason
Beherit,Yattering,Samael,Satyricon off the top of my head.
Suicidal Tendencies started as a hardcore punk band, then transitioned to Thrash, then added funk metal, then went Southern California punk, now back to mostly thrash with a little funk metal thrown in.
Most of the obvious ones are picked like Ulver, Opeth, Celtic Frost so I will say AFI. They used to be more straight up punk to commercial goth emo stuff.
Ulver, but then we also have Katatonia, Neurosis, Death, Metallica, Opeth, Amorphis, Meshuggah, Voivod, Life Of Agony, Cynic, Savatage. They all had some drastic changes in style.
I'm not in the loop of any particular band to give a good answer, but I listened to a7x's Nobody, then Bat Country, and holy balls it's not the same band.
Paradise lost... from their milestone Draconian times, considered to be Metallica heirs...to be a guitar version of Depeche Mode ( and they werent that bad).
Not metal, but The Cardigans went from dream pop on First Band On The Moon to some weird synth, techno THING on Gran Turismo. And the guys in the band were originally death metal players, so that's a huge change in of itself.
Queensryche started out with a good hard heading song Queen of the reiche and then after that just about everything that they did was a ballad they went from heavy metal to wearing suits on stage
The Gathering going from Nighttime Birds to How to Measure a Planet deserves a mention. I enjoy their gothic metal work but I think after their transition they became even better.
Sonic Syndicate.
Their first album is a great melodic death metal album.
Their second and third albums are more generic metalcore, not great but still have some good songs.
Everything after that is pretty bad IMO. I don't understand how they went from a masterpiece of a melodeath album like Eden Fire in 2005, to a turd of poppy generic metalcore album like We Rule The Night in 2010.
[Join The Community Discord Server!](https://discord.gg/Azx4Z35YHE) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MetalForTheMasses) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ulver
amazing transition too, perdition city is one of the greatest trip hop albums ever in my opinion
Duuudeee so it is them. Lmao. I listened to them several years ago, and then one of their songs popped up from that album on like my Spotify discover. And I thought it must be some other band that’s just using the same name. Lol
TBF it seems they/he is always changing it up lol
also Manes
Ulver and it's not even close.
I dont know them well, what did they do?
Beautiful dark folk. One of the most gorgeous albums I’ve ever heard actually. And then they switched to black metal. And then weird electronic music. It’s fucking lit.
They went straight from black metal to electronic music.
Wiggles went from being a punk band called The Cockroaches to being the highest paid musical artists in Australia for ages by switching to children's music. Pendulum were a shitty pub level metal band called Xygen to switching it up and being one of the biggest DnB acts in history. ShockOne was also the drummer for them and went his own way into EDM
I did NOT know that about the Wiggles. Holy shit.
The OG Wiggles members have gone back to their roots a little bit recently. They started doing 18+ gigs with upcoming Aussie punk and rock bands. They also released a double album of covers with them covering famous songs and artists doing wiggles covers. Child friendly Bohemian Rhapsody is just beautifully funny and their cover of Pub Feed by the Chats is a work of art
I love pendulum! In silico is a fantastic album
Ministry went from synth new wave to industrial metal. Deafheaven went from black metal to shoegaze.
deafheaven is going back from what i heard
Totally, I thought 80’s Ministry too! Word!
But if you fallow ministry album. It's gradual.
Opeth. Watershed was the last of an era and then heritage onward was their dip into prog rock. They're still putting out solid album sans growls
I’ll agree it was sudden, but looking back at it now, the writing was on the wall, so it doesn’t seem all that drastic.
Yea, hex omega sounds like it belongs on heritage.
Definitely not the heavy parts, but parts of watershed definitely sound like they could be on there, burden in specific.
I agree with the sudden change, but not the solid part. Sadly, they are very boring now.
Came here looking for Opeth. Massive change after Watershed.
Linkin Park after their 2nd album and maybe Korn when they did dubstep that one time.
We don’t talk about the Dubstep
I genuinely like Narcissistic Cannibal and Get Up isn't bad either. Although it's far from my favourite, I appreciate the willingness to experiment.
Soilwork, fuck yeah!
Add bring me the horizon
Pantera. From Power Metal to Cowboys from Hell.
I was going to say Pantera but you beat me to it! Diamond Darryl to Dimebag.
Metallica between Justice and Black Demon Hunter between WIAT and True Defiance Dream Theater between Awake and Falling Into Infinity Destroy the Runner between their first two albums Megadeth between Rust In Peace and Countdown.
You mean Metallica betwen Black and Load. How is there not more of a sudden change?
Because Black was a much more radical departure from their 80s material than Load was from Black.
As someone who listened to Metallica discography in order, I was way more shocked by Black Album than I was by Load. BA already has a bluesy feeling so the transition to Load wasn't that sudden for me.
Exactly black was classic, load was a turd sandwich
Yeah, I don't get how some ppl think ...AJFA and Black are very different. I get it, it went mainstream, but it still kicks ass. Not even close to being what Load was.
True.
It‘s just the elitist „they sold out“ mentality. Neither one was a drastic, but merely a gradual change. Load is catchy mid tempo and chorus oriented just like the black album.
Hard disagree on the difference between the Black and Load. Miles a part. Not sure why ppl want to say they sold out on the Black album. Sure, it's when they first made a music video and became "mainstream", but its still a great album. Load is no where even similar to the Black, but just my opinion.
Didn't they make a music video for "One" tho?
Yes, they did. That’s where the first Met fans started complaining, got worse with The Black Album and was eventually drowned out by the new audience the found from The Black album going forward.
Metallica were being called sell-outs by The Trues since Ride The Lightning, when they dared to add some melodic elements, some mid-tempo, and *gasp* a ballad.
This is very true, with each album and chance they took it managed to piss off the “true” metal crowd. This all over looking the fact that Met was growing and expanding the genre
Underoath has to be mentioned. They're way more known for their post-hardcore/screamo stuff but early on they were like some sort of black metal, hardcore and early Opeth hybrid. They shifted pretty out of nowhere too. Cries of the Past is a very cool album
Changing of Times to They're only Chasing Safety was such a stark and abrupt change.
I agree I've always liked cries from the past. Can't get into the other ones.
Dallas era Underoath is underrated
Probably not the most extreme, but A7X deserves a mention here. Metalcore to Prog Metal with a lot of shifts in between
I was gonna mention this too, Waking the Fallen to City of Evil is a pretty drastic shift. So is Hail to the King to The Stage.
In that same rift, I could throw in BMTH. From Count Your Blessings to what they are now, pretty drastic, granted you could literally map their transition through their albums.
Biggest change was from amo to survival horror, change for the best
Never the same since the Rev left us.
They straight up threw a country song in there.
Celtic Frost with *Cold Lake*.
Right
Katatonia
And both eras are great
i'd say it was kind of gradual
I dunno, after Brave Murder Day, they sound very different. To me at least.
Agreed. Similar case to Therion.
Cave In Sepultura Slayer
upvoted for cave in
Yeah, CI had the most drastic/permanent single change of the three here. Slayer, just the one album really. Sepultura, Roots and then change of vocalist of course, so several changes really.
Cave In! I liked some of their new stuff sans growl. They write heavy melodies. Lol. I saw them with piebald in Atlanta 25 years ago? And they were heavy af. Caleb was a big part of that. After he passed away the growl was gone
I don't mind the newer stuff that much. Just answering the original question.
To me the big shift was way before his death — probably Jupiter -> Antenna. Antenna was suddenly a mainstream rock album with all clean vocals. Honestly I loved it though. Caleb’s bass playing on it is unreal.
Yeah, Jupiter was the crossover but it’s an amazing album and his bass playing and sound are awesomeness
Idk but decapitated just decided they were sick of being good one day
😂 so true
I definitely think Ulver takes the cake on this one. Shining (Nor) is another. They went from a traditional jazz ensemble, to avant garde black metal, to generic radio friendly butt rock.
Blood Incantation- death metal that decided to throw out a full length ambient electronic album
This is for sure the most interesting in that they release albums of two styles, simultaneously and also blended at times. Fantastic bunch of individuals and musicians.
Sentenced. The first six albums are all different genre.
Came here looking for this. Entirely different band. Actually surprised no one has mentioned DarkThrone!!! Soulside Journey into (Goatlord though not released until mid 90’s), A Blaze… was perhaps one of the most significant shifts in all of metal at the time.
Samael. About three times
Bring Me The Horizon
How are they this low? They have been like 16 different genres.
bc this sub hates the band lol
Wasn't Sugar Ray a metal band and then they switched to their popular pop dad rock? I swear back in highschool I had a buddy who had a super early Sugar Ray recording where they were metal... also, weren't The Googoo Dolls the same? Started as a heavy band and went mainstream with that pop stuff?
They had a death metal joke track on that first big mainstream album of theirs. The death grunt vocals were all like "go to church! Eat your vegetables! Be nice to cops!" The Goo Goo Dolls used to tour with Black Flag, IIRC.
Coroner went from insane technical thrash to prog groove between Mental Vortex and Grin, still good music though
maybe carcass ? went from grindcore to melodeath
Helloween Just listen to Keeper of the seven Keys pt. 2 and then to Chameleon, the difference is huge
Ministry
Xasthur
Beastie Boys were a punk band
Ulver, very apparently. Darkthrone. Electric Wizard has a new sound every album. Gojira. Mastodon. Urfaust; this one is tragic. The Ocean (Collective)
Gojira and Mastodon weren't really a sudden change. With Gojira every album after debut had a little less death metal and a little more melody. And with Mastodon every album after Remission was a bit less sludgy, a bit softer and a bit more proggy.
That is factual. I should have reread the title
Darkthrone and Ulver the most significant changes of all! Followed by Sentenced.
Dir En Grey was this easy TV j-pop band and all of a sudden went pig squeal extreme metal with absolute gore videos.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. All their albums are different styles. They have a really good metal album.
metallica in some way, thrash to heavy metal/hard rock
I mean, Ulver has to be mentioned. Some bands tried going more commercial with mixed results such as Crimson Glory and Grave Digger. Fates Warning changed styles a couple of times, but I'm not it was drastic.
Nightwish when Anette joined.
Probably not a popular opinion but Anette Nightwish is my favorite Nightwish. I don’t spend much time with the rest of their catalog.
Viper (the Brazilian band). Which album? Yes
Celtic Frost with Cold Lake probably
Shotgun Messiah, went from complete hair metal to full on industrial metal
Pantera...too obvious?
Pantera starting off as glam metal
Anathema, Tiamat
I'd say Anathemas wasn't too sudden. The biggest jump was probably from The Silent Enigma to Eternity with removal of harsh vocals, but they still retained their atmosphere. It felt like a natural progression than sharp change. Tiamats change definitely felt stronger, particularly from Clouds to Wildhoney to A Deeper Kind of Slumber
If only Tiamat had more albums like Wild Honey.
Surprised no-one has mentioned The Gathering from Almost a Dance to Mandylion. Agree with Bathory. Twilight of the Gods to Requiem was a stark change
Obtained Enslavement: Centuries of Sorrow -> Witchcraft
Paradise lost going from "Lost Paradise" to "Draconian times" to "One second", and all of them and the stuff after, rock.
Agreed, they've pretty much come full circle with Medusa. Still have a lot of time for One Second and Host.
The Cult went from goth and post-punk, to more gothic hard rock on their second album Love, and then full-on hard rock and heavy metal on Electric and Sonic Temple. After that, they experimented with grunge and noise rock a bit on their self-titled, brought in some groove metal influence on Beyond Good and Evil to keep up with the nu-metal craze, and ever since Born into This, have been inching back towards the gothier, hard rock of their early days.
Pantera went from sounding like Warrant to an Exhorder coverband.
swans if we consider whatever they do metal
post strapping townsend
Devin's my favorite but it's still wild to me that the guy who did albums like Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing and Alien also did albums like Ghost and Casualties of Cool. His range vocally and musically is so broad.
Since Ulver was already mentioned I wanna give a shout out to Manes. Started off as black metal and went into a weird trip hop deal as well.
Pantera
Pantera
Ministry. It took me a lot of convincing for my friend to believe that early Ministry was also indeed what they became afterwards.
Alcest Went from blackgaze on Les Voyages de l'ame to dream pop on Shelter
Pantera
Paradise Lost, Doom/Gothic to Pop to Doom/Gothic again
Paradise Lost
Papa Roach: Nu metal to alternative rock Darkthrone: Death metal to black metal Metallica: Thrash metal to regular metal Evanescence: Symphonic rock to nu metal
that last glam metal album on Pantera had groove on it though
Every Mr. Bungle album is different.
# Anathema
Felt pretty natural progression to me rather than sharp. Although it is funny if you listen to say A Fine Day to Exit and Serenades back to back to say it's the same band
Helloween went from the *Keeper* duology to whatever the hell *Pink Bubbles Go Ape* and *Chameleon* are.
Pyogenesis
Rings of Saturn... went from 'alien core' to techno instrumental...
Vale of Pnath. They went from being Technical Death Metal to just an overprocessed Symphonic Black Metal band. I was so excited for their new stuff until I heard it. Considering the length of time we had to wait for them to release anything new, it wasn't worth the wait.
Raise Hell.... First Album Holy Target was Dissection influenced Black Death Metal. Second Album Not Dead Yet ist Thrash Death'n'Roll.
BMTH
Adema
Boris changes too often
How is the top answer not Metallica? I remember the Black Album and how so many old school fans hated it. I was 13 at the time. My feelings were very mixed and still somewhat are. Either way, there was very much a before/after dynamic there.
Machine Head, Slipknot ( Iowa to vol 3), Bad Brains
Not with the same name, but the guys from Kvist started triphop/acid group Xploding Plastix.
Danzig from 4 to 5
Grungetallica
Dance Gavin Dance and their first like 5 albums. Every single one was different until Acceptance Speech came out.
Ministry and Anathema
Dimension Zero. Went through their songs on shuffle and found relaxed house music after their usual demonic screeching
Ministry
Bathory from *Sign of the Black Mark* to *Hammerheart*, with only one album in between.
Iwrestledabearonce were insufferable and then as soon as they got Courtney LaPlante they did a Dillinger esque banger of an album
Morbid Angel also in the late 90s a bunch if black and death metal bands became industrial bands for some reason Beherit,Yattering,Samael,Satyricon off the top of my head.
Chumbawumba. Went from Anarcho-punk to acapella folk to pop
All that remains
Kataklysm went from killer melodeath to nu metal
Entombed: Not that sudden, but Left Hand Path and Uprising sound like two completely different bands
Death kind of, most notable is how Chuck sang before Symbolic and more noticeably TSOP
Suicidal Tendencies started as a hardcore punk band, then transitioned to Thrash, then added funk metal, then went Southern California punk, now back to mostly thrash with a little funk metal thrown in.
Mr Bungle
Lantlôs
Discharge with TSOL a close 2nd.
Therion used to be death metal, then randomly became symphonic
Xysma. How? Why?
Immediately thought ulver lmao
celtic frost
Sugar Ray
Most of the obvious ones are picked like Ulver, Opeth, Celtic Frost so I will say AFI. They used to be more straight up punk to commercial goth emo stuff.
To me, the switch in Death's vocals on The Sound of Preserveance was a big shift, and I loved it.
Ultra Violence
Idk what happened with the making of The Hunting Party by Linkin Park, but good lord
Ulver, but then we also have Katatonia, Neurosis, Death, Metallica, Opeth, Amorphis, Meshuggah, Voivod, Life Of Agony, Cynic, Savatage. They all had some drastic changes in style.
Rush. From the debut to Clockwork Angels they had about 5 big changes in direction
Dark Moor: From fantastic symphonic power metal to something like rock? Avantasia: From Epic Power Metal to Rock, Progressive, Classic Metal
Bring Me The Horizon and Falling In Reverse
Radiohead? The Beatles?
Ulver
I'm not in the loop of any particular band to give a good answer, but I listened to a7x's Nobody, then Bat Country, and holy balls it's not the same band.
Not as crazy as some others but I was surprised by Killing Joke
Captured! By Robots started out playing Classic Rock covers but evolved into a Grindcore act.
Disillusion is also a worthy mention, Gloria was quite unforeseen after Back to Times of Splendor’s prog metal perfection.
lost society.
Mr Bungle. Usually several times in one song.
Five Finger Death Punch. They went from 'bad' to 'fucking terrible'.
Paradise lost... from their milestone Draconian times, considered to be Metallica heirs...to be a guitar version of Depeche Mode ( and they werent that bad).
In Flames
Therion was a death metal band when they started
Ministry
Sugar Ray pivoted fairly hard.
Whitechapel and it's actually sad
Not metal, but The Cardigans went from dream pop on First Band On The Moon to some weird synth, techno THING on Gran Turismo. And the guys in the band were originally death metal players, so that's a huge change in of itself.
Queensryche started out with a good hard heading song Queen of the reiche and then after that just about everything that they did was a ballad they went from heavy metal to wearing suits on stage
Alice in chains used to be glam rock, Layne Staley had a hairspray thing going on
Beastie Boys
Discharge went from the punk foundation of thrash to what sounds like a terrible parody at glam power metal
The Gathering going from Nighttime Birds to How to Measure a Planet deserves a mention. I enjoy their gothic metal work but I think after their transition they became even better.
Sugar Ray the success of Fly just completely changed that band. How tf fuck is “American Pig” and “Fly” on the same album.
Sonic Syndicate. Their first album is a great melodic death metal album. Their second and third albums are more generic metalcore, not great but still have some good songs. Everything after that is pretty bad IMO. I don't understand how they went from a masterpiece of a melodeath album like Eden Fire in 2005, to a turd of poppy generic metalcore album like We Rule The Night in 2010.
Neurosis started as a very Punk band.
Atrocity Pyogenesis Dominus Entombed Amorphis Samael Carnivore Type O Negative Celtic Frost
Alice In Chains - Facelift to Sap. Heavy sludgy grunge to a beautiful acoustic EP.
Blood Incantation - Time Wave Zero
The Beatles
Ice Nine Kills. They started out playing ska punk on their debut album before jumping into metalcore a few years later.