Metal Sludge Gossip Board

I listened to a snippet of every country's biggest metal band (based on spotify). Every country that has a metal band, anyway.

My findings:

1. Everyone likes extreme metal, or symphonic metal. No country's top metal band is hair metal, or even just good ol' heavy metal. (Until you get to the top 5, maybe) It's all Black, Death, Blackened Death, Thrash or Nightwish-y. THAT'S IT.

2. I didnt expect to know Uzbeckistan's top metal band, but i thought i might know more than I did. I only knew 15:
(in reverse order of popularity - spoilers)
Rotting Christ
Behemoth
Dimmu
Alestorm
Lacuna
Sepultera
Gojira
Nightwish
Sabaton
Babymetal
Bullet for my Valentine
Volbeat
Rammstein
Black Sabbath
Metallica

3. India, Russia, Argentina and Spain punch way above their weight. India's band is more popular than Lacuna Coil, and Russia's is more popular than Sepultura. Argentina and Spain's bands are just below Babymetal!

4. Volbeat is Danish.

5. I would be interested in if Ham Stroker knows every one of these bands, or only the top 95% of them.

If you wanna also be able to say you've listened to metal from every country, you can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB7L2YZ7cGM
The guy did a great vid. Not sure i became a new fan of any new bands, but it was cool

I know Ham Stroker is a huge fan of Wormrot, who are from Singapore. Have you heard of them before, Huey?

dmbrocker wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 2:15 pm I know Ham Stroker is a huge fan of Wormrot, who are from Singapore. Have you heard of them before, Huey?

I have not, and I lived in singapore off and on for 5 years. Prolly in a pre-Wormrot world, though.

I’m not impressed with this

I’ve had almost every cereal they sell at Vons
Maybe I will list those

I see the comments noting that The HU were a notable miss on the list, for that they get over a million listens.

The band listed for Panama isn't even really metal and they moved to the US nearly 30 years ago.

I'll bet Black Sabbath is top band cuz Ozzy byebyed... Maiden is prolly the top band, no?

Who cares about that shit, it's all noise.

HueyRamone wrote: ↑Thu Aug 28, 2025 2:09 pm I listened to a snippet of every country's biggest metal band (based on spotify). Every country that has a metal band, anyway.

My findings:
1. Everyone likes extreme metal, or symphonic metal. No country's top metal band is hair metal, or even just good ol' heavy metal. (Until you get to the top 5, maybe) It's all Black, Death, Blackened Death, Thrash or Nightwish-y. THAT'S IT.
2. I didnt expect to know Uzbeckistan's top metal band, but i thought i might know more than I did. I only knew 15:
3. India, Russia, Argentina and Spain punch way above their weight. India's band is more popular than Lacuna Coil, and Russia's is more popular than Sepultura. Argentina and Spain's bands are just below Babymetal!
4. Volbeat is Danish.
5. I would be interested in if Ham Stroker knows every one of these bands, or only the top 95% of them.

If you wanna also be able to say you've listened to metal from every country, you can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB7L2YZ7cGM

Thanks for sharing. I thought I had a decent knowledge of international bands but had only heard of 2 from the first 10 minutes, Al Namrood (Saudi Arabia, who I've listened to a bit) and Wormrot (Singapore). I knew extreme metal was popular in parts of Africa but I never thought to hear of a band in that style from Togo.

Some comments to your comments:
1 - There's some folk metal as well - a couple of the Baltic states, Switzerland, Kazakhstan and others. China is a The Hu rip-off. Albania sounds like trad HM, also Ecuador (the guy second-left looks like he could have auditioned for LA Guns during the grunge years), Slovakia, and probably Argentina based on those few seconds of soloing.

2 - I knew 28 of 103 though I only listen to / own songs by 10.

3 - Bloodywood (India) are superb and that snippet doesn't do them justice. They mix metal with traditional Indian instruments and rhythms. They got invited to play Wacken 2019 due to viral demand from a few Youtube videos, having never played live before. Mago De Oz (Spain) have been around for +30 years, regularly release albums and tour the Spanish-speaking world, and they're v popular around Central / South America, which is where I first heard them.

5 - HSE can probably tell us half a dozen from each country that he thinks are far better than what's in this vid.

I am definitely going to be checking some of these new-to-me bands out, probably starting with Ecuador.

GoodJudge wrote: ↑Sun Aug 31, 2025 5:54 am

3 - Bloodywood (India) are superb and that snippet doesn't do them justice. They mix metal with traditional Indian instruments and rhythms. They got invited to play Wacken 2019 due to viral demand from a few Youtube videos, having never played live before. Mago De Oz (Spain) have been around for +30 years, regularly release albums and tour the Spanish-speaking world, and they're v popular around Central / South America, which is where I first heard them.

People in the comments are complaining about the clip they played from Bloodywood, due it being a song where the lead vox are actually Babymetal guesting. I'll have to check out their regular stuff. And hunt down the Ecuador band if they're that good too.

Amazing! Take THAT, Gene.