Easy
Start on the twelve the crowd knows from the first down-tuned chug.
A riff, a double-kick, a growl — name the metal guessable songs from the attack alone.
What they are
Metal is built on the riff, and the riff usually arrives in the first second. A tenth of a second hands you the attack — a down-tuned chug, a blast beat, a growl — and asks you to name the track from it.
The 400-track pool spans heavy, thrash, death and beyond, so the subgenre is the real test: the tuning, the tempo and the drum pattern tell you whether you're in thrash or death before the vocal does.
It's a Heardle-style song guessing game tuned for the pit, where a chug and a kick do the naming.
Turn the dial
The dial only changes how far past the festival anthems you are willing to dig, toward the deep-catalog rarities.
Start on the twelve the crowd knows from the first down-tuned chug.
Then twenty-five, the singles that carried the album without ever opening the set.
Fifty songs now, where the tuning and the drum style have to name the subgenre on their own.
The opening chug is the whole clue now, before the blast beat arrives.
Nothing but the noise floor to go on — a tenth of a second and no groove yet.
Game highlights
Metal's signatures — the down-tuned riff, the blast beat, the growl — give a subgenre away in an instant across all 400 tracks. For a change of pace, the song guesser opens every other genre.
Train the ear
A thrash gallop, a melodic sweep and a slam riff are three different bands. The riff is a more honest ID than the band photo.
Double-kick and blast-beat are not the same school. The first drum fill declares the subgenre before the vocal.
A growl, a scream and a clean belt live in different rooms of the same genre. The voice is the fastest filter.
How to play
Name the song from the attack — the riff, the double-kick or the growl. Ask for more audio only when the subgenre won't place itself.
Questions about this quiz
The riff and the drum pattern. A down-tuned chug, a blast beat or a growl usually names the subgenre before the vocal does.
400 tracks across heavy, thrash, death and beyond. The rotation stays inside the genre and mixes sub-styles.
It can be — metal subgenres share a lot of DNA, so the opening slice of a guessable song asks you to separate thrash from death by ear alone.
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