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This page should only
be read by those who like to pigeonhole bands in a certain
music genre, and by music critics looking for an aid to describe
what we do.
1. Why call it Dance Metal?
Since at the time we started we didn't find
any bands on the Internet that mixed Dance
with elements of Heavy Rock and Heavy
Metal in the way we did, we decided to invent a name
for our hybrid type of music ourselves. We could've called
it 'Heavy Dance Rock', 'Metal Dance', 'Guitar Techno', 'Sweaty
guitar riff induced dance compositions from Mars' or whatever,
but none of these terms had a nice ring to it, so we chose
to call it Dance Metal. To avoid confusion and negative critics of hardcore Metalheads we later decided to also start using Electro Dance Rock as a description, since not all songs (go here to download them) are as clearly Metal influenced.
2. Is it Heavy Metal?
No. Not to us. What we do has influences of Heavy Metal, but it's
not in Metal we would pigeonhole our music. Of course everyone will
have his own idea of what Dance Metal is, due to the fact
that everyone also has his own idea of what True Metal is.
For fans of Death Metal and Black
Metal (the most extreme genres in the Heavy Metal
landscape), we are so far away of what to them constitutes
'Metal' that they might even by angered by our usage of the
word 'Metal' (as was proven by some reactions on certain forums
- see 'Forum Quotes' in the right column). On the other hand, no-one has ever
been able to tell where Heavy Metal starts and where it ends.
There are thousands of bands out there that work in the shadow
zone of the genre, by mixing it with other genres. Unk! is
simply one of those bands.
3. Is it Dance?
Again it depends on how wide your definition of the
genre is. It's true that we do use dance drum patterns and
synths to make our music danceable, but most of our songs
are still exactly that: songs. They are not the kind of pure
dance tracks that go on forever, because
of the way Unk!-songs are structured. We build many of our
songs like real Rock or Metal songs, with a mixed bag of rather
poppy, Rock or Metal style vocals in a classic structure of
phrases and choruses. In this sense we can be compared to
electronic Rock bands like 'Pop Will Eat Itself' or Industrial
Metal bands such as 'Die Krupps'. We do have a certain amount
of songs that more closely follow the real Dance matrix, where
vocals are much less important, and where the emphasis lies
solely on keeping the beat going in a trance-inducing way.
4. Is it Industrial Metal?
That depends on your personal view. In fact, one of the genre's
icons, the German band Rammstein calls their
music 'Tanz Metal', German for 'Dance Metal'. But you may
be among those who think that Industrial Metal does not have
enough aspects of real Dance music (Techno, Trance, Jungle,...)
to be considered Dance music. Ph. of Beyond Webzine
is one of them. He wrote in his review about our first CD:
"Rammstein has tried to seduce the public with their
"Tanz Metal", but it was too square, too repititive, too industrial
and in the end not very danceable. The CD of Unk! on the other
hand is filled with major dance tracks". His review
proves that it's indeed all a matter of perspective. We ourselves
do not feel we are an Industrial band either.
4. Is Unk! the first Dance
Metal band ever?
If your definition of Dance includes Industrial
music, then we are most certainly not the
first Dance Metal band (read also previous question). We are
also not the first band to mix dance-like drums and heavy
use of electronics with distorted guitars. Other bands predate
us in that aspect: Atari Teenage Riot for
example. Waltari did a few dance tracks too.
And of course Kong was very danceable as
well. But at the moment Unk! started working on the first
song, we didn't find another band on the Internet that mixed
real computer generated Dance drum patterns like those of
Chemical Brothers or Prodigy
with classic Metal or Rock guitar riffs (*). That doesn't necessarily
mean that we were the first to do what we do. There were most
likely already other bands doing the same experiments, but
we simply didn't find them at the time. It would therefore
be extremely arrogant to simply say we are the first Dance
Metal band ever. We believe we are among
the first though, in the genre that we
perceive to be Dance Metal.
(*) = PS: Recently someone from the United States told us our music sounded similar to the music of the Swiss band No Religion (who were founded in 1996). We think he's right. So, if you really are looking for the first Dance Metal band, they may be it (it just depends on how their music sounded like in 1996, I guess). Anyway, they are a terrific band. Go visit them here.
5. If Unk isn't an Industrial
Metal band, why are they listed as such on most MP3 sites?
Because none of the MP3 sites allow us to catalogue Unk! under
a genre called 'Dance Metal' or 'Electro Dance Rock', simply because to them those genres do not exist. So, we were forced to catalogue Unk!
under the nearest genre that combines rather repititive drum
rhythms and heavy use of electronics with distorted guitars,
which is Industrial Rock or Industrial Metal. Unfortunately
this will put people on the wrong foot. That doesn't necessarily mean
Industrial fans dismiss our music when they find out that
what we do is not what they expected. Many enjoy what we do
despite the differences.
6. Is Unk! an ElectroGoth band?
No. Mixing Dance rhythms or Industrial rhythms with Goth
Rock and Goth Metal has already
been popular for a few years now. There is a lively ElectroGoth
scene with lots of interesting bands. We are however not a
Goth band. Unk! mixes Dance with classic Metal and with Rock, not with Gothic
music. A few of our songs do appeal to Goth Dance freaks though.
Especially the ones where the vocals sound vaguely Gothic, or
where the atmosphere is slightly darker.
7. What other bands has Unk! already
been compared to?
Everyone of course compares Unk! based on the bands they know.
People often recognise aspects of what other bands do in our
music. As a result Goth fans compare us to bands like BlutEngel.
Some Industrial fans compare us to Front 242. Industrial Metal
fans sometimes mention Rob Zombie. The fact that the comparisons
are so varied, is a good sign to us. It means it isn't easy
to pigeonhole us in the classic genres.
Here's a list of bands we have already been compared to (some
of these names seem very far-fetched, we know): Dope Stars
Inc., No Religion, White Zombie, Rob Zombie, Front 242, Xe-None, Rammstein,
Hawkwind, BlutEngel, Funker Vogt, The Prodigy, Massive Attack,
Killing Joke, Oomph!, Front 242, Apoptygma Berzerk, Atari
Teenage Riot, Laibach, Nacht und Nebel, Linkin Park, SUN Project,
Hanzel Und Gretyl, Dark Soho, Eisbrecher, Pop Will Eat Itself,
Chemical Brothers, ZZ Top, Cubanate, Prong, Die Krupps, Flip Kowlier (what the f**...?), Kraftwerk, Jesus Jones,...
One of the most interesting comparisons so far is the one
made by a person called Bregt on the Studio Brussel forum:
"it's a bit Front 242 meets Atari Teenage Riot meets
psytrance-with-guitars".
But while there is a bit of truth in each of these comparisons,
none of them completely captures the true nature of what we
do. So we advice people to download the songs, before making
up their minds about us, and to not have any ideas
upfront of what we will sound like. If you come to our site,
thinking we are a Killing Joke-clone or something, you might be very disappointed.
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