10 pts. for the most knowledgable metal head on here.
What exactly would you consider metalcore and how is it not metal? Bands like August Burns Red and As I Lay Dying have just as much a right to be considered metal as anything else. Elitists that ask questions like this are the reason metal is so fragmented in the first place. Hard rock nu-metal bands like Disturbed and Korn I can see being excluded but I don't understand one of the heaviest genres being left out.
False metal is basically the musicians who try to make heavy music using the most basic, formulaic templates. The only reason many of these artist joined the genre is to treat it as a business and make some financial gain. Even if a band is technically metal, they can still do a disservice to the genre by watering it down, oversimplifying it, or making it a commodity. Glam metal, nu-metal, deathcore, and some metalcore bands have done exactly that. However, I feel it's worth mentioning that some metalcore bands are perfectly acceptable, such as Botch, Converge or Zao. However, all of those groups lean more towards the hardcore side, and their goal isn't really to wade heavily into the metal genre. They're composing very respectable music, but it's so focused in the hardcore genre that it doesn't really matter. However, when it comes to bands like Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium, I know exactly where you're coming from. Those sorts of bands have provided metal with a terrible facade in the mainstream eye, and it's very unfortunate. False metal can also describe some modern bands who do nothing but worship the old styles. They're incapable of coming up with anything original or fresh, so they resort to repeating the past in a very stale, boring manner. Take, for example, bands like Warbringer and Municipal Waste; both of these bands were formed after 2000, but they're trying to sound as if they're from the 80's. I love 80's thrash metal as much as the next metalhead, but we need fresh material, not the regurgitation of other artists' past glories. You should read the articles from the metal journalist website, Lamentations of the Flame Princess. They have a lot of very interesting (although incredibly long) articles about false metal and other similar subjects. They're all a great read, and go incredibly in-depth.
To me, there is not a thing as fake metal. Things such as nu metal, deathcore, and metalcore are only MIS-CATEGORIZED by people as metal. Thus, the music is not fake metal, the fans just have a skewed perception of what metal is.
The -cores (with the exception of grindcore).
Fake metal is bands like; Bring me the horizon, Suicide Silence, Blessthefall, The Devil Wears Prada... bands like that
