Metal Fusion Genres I'd Like To See

I like every kind of music, as long as it's metal.

This Ford-esque statement is not as silly as it may sound. Metal has been combined with countless other music genres. Classical music and opera were obvious combinations, which worked really well. Rap was also obvious, but thankfully that was a short-lived fad. Folk music was less obvious, and it works well, but there are many different folk music styles which haven't yet been combined with metal (how about it, India, can you help us out?).

Metal has also been combined with industrial music, punk music, and even Oriental music. But there are others I'd like to see, which haven't been explored much, or at all.

Death Funk

Funk metal has been explored a very little bit, mostly by Primus. Rage Against the Machine did it too, but I can't stand their vocalist. Mudvayne also very, very briefly explored it on part of "Nothing to Gein".

But nobody has ever, to my knowledge, combined death metal with funk. I think it would be a very difficult thing to do, without merely switching back and forth between the two styles, but I think it could be done, and I'd be the first in line to check it out.

Latin Metal

Right now, "Latin metal" is essentially a term used to describe metal from Latin countries or with Hispanic band members, such as Sepultura or Asesino. But these bands rarely incorporate any Latin music influence.

It was explored a tiny bit by Sigh (oddly enough, a Japanese band), but I'd like to see more metal bands incorporating Mexican-style horns, and it would also be interesting to hear a Latin-style singer on a metal record. You could even replace the bass with a tuba, and see how that works. Rock guitar virtuoso Santana has already given us a view of how the lead guitar might sound, so why hasn't anyone done this?

Jazz Metal

Yes, a few groups, such as Cynic, have used some jazz elements in their music. Ephel Duath, Solefald, and (again) Sigh, along with a few others, have even included saxophones in their music. But it's an area which could bear a lot more exploration, especially given how enormous the Jazz world is. It's really unbelievable no one has tried bebop metal, for example. Come on, music world. Do something awesome.

Drum and Doom

In metal, drums are usually background noise to the guitars and vocals. They're second-to-last, right ahead of the bass. But Bassinvaders has shown us that there can be bass-focused metal (at least kind of metal)--by dropping guitars entirely. So, why not a drum-based metal album?

Obviously, you can't have only drums and call it metal. What you do, instead, is have the other instruments play funeral doom, the slowest and heaviest form of metal, but allow the drumming to go at a faster pace--maybe not all the time, but it could have a lot of drum solos. I would buy it.