Neo-classical Metal?
 

Windham Hell: Please tell me someone else somewhere has heard of this avant-garde 90's metal band!

I posted it here and not on the metal or experimental forum because I'd like to discuss the topic of classical music's influence on modern metal, if one exists. I hear people claim their band is rooted in the works of Mozart and Vivaldi, but seldom have I ever heard this claim substantiated aside from in this now-extinct band's work, which on Window of Souls, one of Windham's finer CDs, to be specific, even goes far enough to feature a guitar cover of one of Vivaldi's classics.

So what influences, if any, have you seen in modern metal?

I will check them out - never heard of them before.

I agree that metal music is almost never "rooted" in classical music - rather it is almost invariably rooted in metal.

To take Malmsteen as an example, while the licks and a few techinques (such as cycle of fifths) are taken from (mostly) Baroque music, the music is usually in a hugely simplified song format.

The concept of development is all but lost - and that was a key part of "Classical" music (to use the generic umbrella term!).

Avant-garde rarely truly exists - I'd like to hear some that isn't based on improvisations that use an "old" mode.

Covering Vivaldi isn't new - Dutch band Ekseption were doing that in the early 1970s. ;)

But this is an interesting topic - I tend not to take Classically influenced metal too seriously, as it tends to be metal that sounds a bit Classical rather than truly Classical that sounds metal - but if there is any that really does root itself more in Classical than metal, I'd be interested to hear it.

Naw, but I've heard of Malmsteen