Just about any genre or style of music has had skillful crossover artists who managed to win won over some nonbelievers.
Grover Washington, Jr.
's tasteful
jazz-funk
reached a lot of people who hadn't necessarily developed a taste for the straight-ahead
bop
of
Clifford Brown
and
Sonny Stitt
;
Willie Nelson
's
country-pop
reached a lot of listeners who weren't necessarily into the hardcore
honky tonk
Buck Owens
Lefty Frizzell
. And in the
metal
world,
In Flames
has served as a bridge between the
death metal/black metal
underground and the more melodic
power metal
Iron Maiden
,
Judas Priest
, and
Queensryche
. Originally released in Europe in 1994,
' debut album,
Lunar Strain
, attracted an interesting mixture of
thrash
enthusiasts. Like the early releases of
At the Gates
helped write the book on what came to be known as "melodic
death metal
" -- an approach that combines
elements (extreme vocals, blastbeats) with the type of intricacy, musicality, and craftsmanship one expects from old-school masters like
Dio
Maiden
Priest
Black Sabbath
. Most
favors brutality for the sake of brutality, but
does not govern by brute force alone and is -- by
standards -- much more accessible than the albums that extreme bands like
Cannibal Corpse
Deicide
Carcass
were coming out with at the time. In 1994, the best was yet to come for
; even so, this was a promising debut that had a major impact on melodic
symphonic black metal
. ~ Alex Henderson