metal Unique progressive metal music is composed by Arjen Anthony Lucassen. From the long list of his projects, Ayreon is the most famous. Arjen's music is characterised by distinct vocals, storyline concepts and the wide spectrum of musical instruments used. Extreme metal Death metal Similarly, in the last decade of the previous century a more extreme variety of metal, death metal, has had some success. Starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, bands like Pestilence, Sinister, Asphyx, Altar, Gorefest, and God Dethroned gained popularity both inside and outside of Europe. At the present, bands like Pyaemia, Disavowed, Prostitute Disfigurement, Hail of Bullets, The Monolith Deathcult, Inhume, Callenish Circle, Rompeprop, Legion of the Damned, MaYaN and Severe Torture enjoy a similar status. Black metal Several black metal bands have risen to prominence from the Netherlands recently. Carach Angren, Cirith Gorgor, Israthoum, Dodecahedron, Ordo Draconis, Funeral Winds, Lugubre, Slechtvalk and Urfaust are some of the best-known. Israeli group Melechesh have also made the Netherlands their permanent base of operations. Viking/folk metal band Heidevolk are also gaining popularity. Doom metal Dutch doom metal bands include Officium Triste, Deinonychus, The Gathering and to a certain extent Asphyx. Experimental The Dutch musical culture has a small experimental music scene with a few artists that tour international such as Machinefabriek, solo projects of members of The Ex, Toktek, Gijs Gieskes, Knalpot, Yuri Landman, Jaap Blonk, Wessel Westerveld, Wouter van Veldhoven, Michiel van de Weerthof, Bram Stadhouders, his brother Jasper Stadhouders, Lukas Simonis and Michel Banabila . Also Pierre Bastien lives and works in The Netherlands, although not strongly connected to the Dutch scene. Venues like WORM in Rotterdam, Extrapool in Nijmegen and STEIM, OT301 and Mediamatic in Amsterdam are the main venues for this musical niche. Electronic dance music In the early 1990s, Dutch DJs developed a style of electronic dance music called gabber. The style was developed in reaction to the commercialization of house music and was heavily influenced by early hardcore from Frankfurt and New York City. The DJs stripped the music of what they perceived as excess sounds, songs were reduced to a high-speed monotonous beat, of sometimes over 260 beats per minute. The first ever record to be labeled gabber was "Amsterdam waar lech dat dan?" by Rotterdam-based 'The Euromasters' as a reaction to the media always focusing on Amsterdam. It has to be said that Amsterdam-based D-Shake was probably to