Roots Metal is a kind of metal that, similarly to roots rock, takes strong influence from genres that helped form rock like blues, folk, and country.

It has its start back in the 70s when heavy metal was first developing and still took more obvious influence from blues. As the sound of metal has gotten more diverse, roots metal has expanded to include things like folk metal and smaller one-off styles/fusions that don’t have full names yet. It can also be similar to psychobilly, though without the more specifically punk rock focus.

In addition to acts that are consistently some style of roots metal, many more experimental acts have one or two songs that fit the style without dedicating their whole discography to it.

Examples:

• Led Zeppelin
• Alestorm
• Kvelertak
• “Michael” – Rob Zombie
• “The Black Grass Plague” – John 5 and The Creatures