Most Underrated Metal Subgenres

Metal inspired by early Black Sabbath. Down tuned guitars, slow tempos, and dark lyrics.
-Candlemass
-Katatonia
-Electric Wizard
-Draconian
-Melvins

Metal, but with synthesizers and sometimes distorted voices. A mix between electronic and Metal.
-Nine Inch Nails
-Rob Zombie/White Zombie
-Skinny Puppy
-Marilyn Manson
-Rammstein
-Oomph!

Electronic + metal = perfection.

Distorted guitars, slow tempos, and it is exactly what the name says it is. Also similar to Doom Metal
-Black Sabbath
-Sleep
-Electric Wizard
-Acid Bath

Many people tend to categorize thrash bands like Megadeth and Slayer as speed metal. It is actually less aggressive and has less Hardcore Punk elements than Thrash. Also, many Speed Metal bands are also Power Metal bands.
-Motorhead
-Helloween
-Anvil
-Accept
-Blind Guardian
-Gamma Ray
-Metal Church

I have to add Deep Purple - the inventors of this subgenre who are always forgotten.
Hard Lovin' Man (1970) was the first speed metal song in music history. It's a pretty cool song with all speed metal elements - it's non bluesy and has gallops, great operatic vox, extended instrumental section, etc.
Highway Star (1972) is their best song from this subgenre but Fireball (1971) is also a very important song in metal invention - you can hear the first double bass drumming on a metal song.

Mix between Doom Metal and Hardcore Punk.
-Black Label Society
-Melvins
-Acid Bath
-Flipper
-Mastodon
-Weedeater

I do not like this genre. All these bands do is play fast for the sake of playing fast. And most of their lyrical themes are about partying, drinking, head banging, moshing, playing their own genre, rebelling against society, and other stupid random crap. There's no creativity and originality at all. If you hear one crossover thrash song, you basically heard it all. I wouldn't even say the first crossover thrash band is original, because thrash metal has always had a hardcore punk sound to it, and crossover thrash has even MORE of a hardcore punk sound. Wow! So amazing And original. There are some terrible thrash metal bands that aren't really crossover, but actually fits within the genre. (I'm looking at you... Tankard) Thrash metal like Slayer, Sadus, Dark Angel, and Sepultura pre-Chaos A.D. is far superior than this crossover trash piss.

Crossover Thrash is pure power in form of a song, energy that comes with it is unbelievable!

A mixture of Thrash Metal and Hardcore Punk, mostly influenced from thrash metal bands such as Anthrax and Overkill.
-Suicidal Tendencies
-Nuclear Assault
-DRI
-SOD
-Municipal Waste
-Toxic Holocaust

The tone of this amazing genre, rooted in the classical composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, bach, etc. And guitarist who play this genre is very admirable, but how sad they underestimated covered by regular guitarist excessive popularity. Who play this genre is not mainstream like other bands and this mostly genius, unique, quite different from the others. Anyway, I really like the Neo Classical Metal genre. m/

This subgenre offers the best guitarists: Yngwie Malmsteen, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Jeff Loomis, Chris Broderick and of course - Ritchie Blackmore, the creator of this subgenre.
It's a pretty complex subgenre and I guess it's not for everybody. Mostly instrumentals.

Not best, most underrated. I've seen this one get forgotten so long. It's one of my favorite subgenres.

This genre is actually a masterpiece. (just my opinion)

Drone isn't a genre you can sing along or headbang to, which as a result, makes Drone Metal a very unpopular genre. It consists of chords that can be minutes long, and lots of dark ambient sounds. Drone Metal takes patience and appreciation to listen to. It surely isn't for everyone. Some of the best Drone bands are Sunn O))), Earth, Growing, and Boris

Strange form of metal, contains slow tempos and and lots of stoner influence.
-Melvins
-Sunn O)))
-Burning Witch

Pretty large fanbase (which doesn't speak underrated) but it's overlooked because it doesn't sound like serious metal. It's lots of fun but very often musicianship is insufficient. Folk metal plays folk melodies and not metal melodies, but those folk melodies are played with metal arrangements.

It is basically just folk music in heavy metal form.
-Ensiferum
-Finntroll
-Korpiklaani

I'd add the band Alestorm.

Bands like Nile, Cryptopsy, Obscura, Brain Drill, to name a few. Very heavy and brutal sound, great technical skills.

I was surprised to see Power Metal on this list because it's not entirely underrated - it's one of the top 5 most popular subgenres (based on votes) and the fanbase is huge.

However, I agree it's overlooked - some metalheads think it's not heavy enough because there are no growls, blast beats, etc. Also bands like Dragon Force create a very misleading impression of this subgenre - true power metal is not that cheezy. Blind Guardian's power metal is not cheezy at all.

Power Metal does get a lot of crap from the metal community, and while it is really, REALLY geeky, there is merit to the musicianship of Power Metal bands.

I like power metal a lot because of how epic it is. Blind Guardian is one of my favorite bands and they are power metal. I’m on a metal chat on Amino apps with a bunch of black and death metal fans who consider power metal to be “gay” (and not using the archaic definition of happy).