A number of bands identify themselves as "symphonic metal". The same label is used by fans, critics, and internet forums devoted to the genre. But scholars have rarely discussed what this genre label means or how it intersects with pre-existing literature on tonality and form in metal styles. Symphonic metal, as a genre, is difficult to define because its features overlap with several others — many writers, like Metal Music Archives, suggest that it is a subgenre of some other "parent" genre (2025).

My presentation illustrates how a band with multiple overlapping genre features can still stake out a specific aesthetic through recurring compositional devices, expanding our concept of genre in metal styles. I argue, through a corpus study of the band Epica, that their songs are distinguished by recurring methods of large-scale harmonic change, formal expansion and play on expectations, and thematic development and cross-reference.