The Importance of a Bass Player in Heavy Metal Music

When heavy metal music was first invented bands continued to play with a bass player. The position was perpetuated by means of institutional inertia and metal music with no bass at all in the mix does tend to sound a little thin as we shall see in the fourth Metallica album. Even if the bass player is just doubling what the rhythm guitar player is doing at least thebass player is doing it an octave lower which has the effect of beefing out the sound of the guitar.