If there's a band I like, I've probably already heard of them. I know a lot of bands. Sometimes I hear of more good ones on metal websites, but for the most part, I'm knowledgable about the genres of music I listen to.
I look at my favorite radio station's website and see what's popular, and listen to the 30-second snippets on iTunes. If anything catches my ear, I download it. It's that simple. :)
I use methods to look up genres I'm unfamiliar with, and then the most popular bands from the underground and mainstream seperately from those genres and listen to their 'best songs', if i'm interested I will pursue the genre further, and repeat the process more thoroughly. I have done this to most black metal, industrial, dark wave, and different forms of underground metal. It works well to also make a topic asking for 'similar bandsto a band/genre you like'.
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