What is it with metalmusic that makes it blend so well with traditional folk music?

You can draw a straight line from folk music to the birth of metal. They use a lot of the same melodies and structures, and they're both often built around storytelling and symbolism. Before the metal gatekeepers jump on me with "but but but most metal has a classical influence", what we call "classical music" is heavily influenced by European folk music. Over time it just became more complex and incorporated more instruments and so on. Classical is just fancypants folk.

The reason folk music blends so well with metal is the same reason classical music blends so well with metal: The common ancestor of both classical and metal is folk.

Metal is born from rock, which itself is born from blues and american folk.
Blues itself is born from African-American folk music.

Metal takes inspiration from lots of different types of music. A lot of guitar solos have clear inspiration from Classical music

The hair.

It's all roots music. Blue grass, outlaw country, folk, metal, reggae, lots of pop, the first 2 iterations of ska, list goes on. It's all based on the same formula. Im not saying thats a bad thing, I dig roots music. It's simple, groovy, infectious, and gets you moving.

Both Are extremly easy when it comes to chords. Jokes are you only need three chords to play all metal songs ever written.

Finntroll

I used to talk about this all the time back in college but everyone always looked at me like I was crazy.