You can draw a straight line from folk music to the birth of metal. They use a lot of the same melodies and structures, and they’re both often built around storytelling and symbolism. Before the metal gatekeepers jump on me with “but but but most metal has a classical influence”, what we call “classical music” is heavily influenced by European folk music. Over time it just became more complex and incorporated more instruments and so on. Classical is just fancypants folk.
The reason folk music blends so well with metal is the same reason classical music blends so well with metal: The common ancestor of both classical and metal is folk.
You can draw a straight line from folk music to the birth of metal. They use a lot of the same melodies and structures, and they’re both often built around storytelling and symbolism. Before the metal gatekeepers jump on me with “but but but most metal has a classical influence”, what we call “classical music” is heavily influenced by European folk music. Over time it just became more complex and incorporated more instruments and so on. Classical is just fancypants folk.
The reason folk music blends so well with metal is the same reason classical music blends so well with metal: The common ancestor of both classical and metal is folk.