I posted a similar thread before the crash.

I too listen to heavy metal (along with lots of other genres)

I think it depends on the music. I realised about 18 months ago that a lot of what I call "emo music" (My Dying Bride, Bullet for my Valentine etc) has chords in it that actually brings my mood down.

I will say, I know very little about the technical side of music.. that's my soul sis's forte... but she did say that "minor chords" are the ones that are used in music that expresses sadness.. and if you listen to the emo music there is a lot of this.. this means that in listening to it your mood is lowered.. made me wonder if all these kids that are self harming and in a mess are actually making it worse by listening to this stuff.

Paradoxically the heavier faster stuff (Disturbed, SiOL etc) has more upbeat chords and actually enlivens me. When I come out of a "wallowing so much I can't listen to music" phase I find this stuff cheers me up.

I also think it depends on the lyrics.. I like lyrics that aren't connected to emotions.. bands like Monster Magnet and Terrorvision write very random music, about aliens or funny stuff.. this is going to help my mood much more than listening to songs about death and hate.

Proof of this (to me anyway) is the english folk genre... when I was in a bad place I listened to Kate Rusby a LOT.. it's all about unrequited love, lovers that couldn't be together, cheating lovers, lovers dying... all that stuff, and I loved it... when I was in a happier place I found that listening to it just made me feel worse... and not an electric instrument in sight!!!!

I also, personally dislike "empty music".. songs about love that have just been churned out because they sell... they could sound high vibrational, and have lovely sentiments but because the intention when they were written was "just write another love song" they are totally ineffectual.

Another interesting example is a band called Ministry.... they are an industrial band and in their time considered VERY heavy and VERY dark sounding.. but they were writing about environmental issues, human rights, how the american government were getting it soo wrong. It sounded very bad, but it was actually quite important stuff they were saying.

So, yes.. I think there is an energy to music that can affect us... but I don't think that any one genre can be said to have a negative effect. I used to worry about what I listenend to when.... now I listen to what I like but be aware of whether it is having a negative effect on me at that time.

An interesting note is, I have an 8Gb mp3 player with about 1400 tracks on it and I play them on random... they range from pure folk to industrial through some silly stuff, pop, metal, goth, techno (and if I could fit it on baroque classical too) and I swear it knows what mood I am in... it has no special programmes that group songs together but at times it will play mellow stuff when I need to chill and will play mental stuff when I need to bounce!!!!