sly2kusa

That is more than I ever hoped for! Historical perspective to the music with a fuller understanding. Thank you!

The Batlord

I have this irrational thing where I think that if I see an album in a store that it must therefore be easy to find. I don't know why. I've seen Bathory albums in stores but I was always looking for something else and just said "Next time". And then of course when I get around to it it's gone. I'm pretty sure I'd have every one of their early albums except for their first, not to mention all of their nineties and 00's albums. Makes me want to kick myself.


Almost impossible to say. This is gonna be long winded so bear with me, In the early eighties black metal was just kind of a part of the thrash metal movement with a dirtier, darker sound played by people who didn't know how to play their instruments and so couldn't make something more sophisticated like Slayer, who were a black metal band at heart in the early days. Consequently a lot of the early black metal music basically sounds like hardcore punk with metal riffs. Stuff like...









Then you have the more late mid-to-late eighties stuff which was generally a primitive form of the extreme metal movement. Again, largely unsophisticated, but while Bathory and Hellhammer had largely predated or come out just as the thrash metal movement was developing, bands like Sarcofago and Blasphemy were much more influenced thrash and death metal and were therefore more extreme.







But none of those bands were really a part of any kind of greater black metal scene, and were generally isolated from one another. They were just extreme metal bands in a time when the lines between black, thrash, and death metal hadn't been drawn yet, and so a lot of those bands could almost be called death or thrash metal. They just had a slightly different aesthetic (i.e. they concentrated on a darker atmosphere and/or a more stripped down, simplistic approach that made them more raw than other, more technically proficent bands). You also had bands that would eventually gain more sophistication and become straight-up thrash or death metal bands...









It wasn't really until the Second Wave of black bands (the Norwegian black metal scene) that you really had black metal like you think of today. They were influenced by death metal and thrash metal just like Sarcofago and Blasphemy but they'd basically just become bored with that music and decided to make something even more uncompromising and evil sounding. The earliest stuff was much more stripped down and concerned with atmosphere than the death metal scene that was big at the time, but unlike the eighties bands they were consciously against sounding anything like death metal or thrash. You can hear on Mayhem's debut full-length that they basically just sounded like Sarcofago but without the thrash metal influences and a much bigger emphasis on an "evil" atmosphere...





Along the same lines you had Darkthrone...





And then the scene basically went into left field. A lot of bands kept the sound pioneered by Mayhem and Darkthrone and just beat it into the ground with almost zero innovation. But a lot of others decided to take different influences and really made stuff that was truly individual and almost uncategorizable. You had Emperor who created symphonic black metal (which sounds like what you were talking about)...





...and then there's folk black metal...





And on, and on, and on, ad infinitum.

So, TLDR black metal is hard to categorize.

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Mondo Bungle

And then there's WINDIR


Windir - Arntor full album - YouTube

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The Batlord

Is that supposed to be a sunwheel on that wood panel? I know nothing about Windir but I'm always on the lookout for Nazi imagery with black metal bands now that I know just how prevalent that kind of thing is in that scene.

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Mondo Bungle

Windir are pretty non-Nazi. The band Vreid, formed by remaining Windir members, have an album based off of poems by an anti-Nazi activist. That also doesn't look like one.



Either way, Windir are the epicest.

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Primeval Scum

Windir aren't Nazi. They write about nature and ancient folklore.

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Last.fm
RateYourMusic

Don't grieve for me, I'm not there. I am the gentle autumn rain. Hold up my lamp to light your way. Farewell to thee...

The Batlord

Actually it kinda does...







And sometimes it's kinda hard to tell since a lot of the Nazi bands out there talk about ancient folklore and hide their ideology behind metaphors of nature. But if Windir aren't Nazis then that's all well and good. Of course I kind of have a thing for NSBM. Cannibal Corpse can sing about gore and raping women all they want but you know they're probably pretty well adjusted in real life. But you don't get much more out there and ****ed up than Nazis.


Edit: And speaking of racist black metal bands, if you can get past the obvious then Absurd are pretty fantastic. They're murderers too, so extra kvlt points.

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Crinn

hoping we can keep this thread alive since this is my favorite type of music.

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"Your God died on a cross. Mine holds a hammer in his hand. Make your own conclusions." - Nergal (Behemoth)


http://www.nylon-ice.blogspot.com

anorexorcist

Love a bit of black metal, although was a bit frightened of black metal forums as most of the members were a tad elitist, to say the least. Haven't listened to any old school stuff in a while though so would love some recommendations.

Forward To Death

Black metal scenes are just full of delusional idiots. Some of these people legitimately think that it's okay to burn down churches and act violently towards people who have views different from their own. I realize that this is true of many human beings who don't listen to black metal, but it's very prominent in black metal cliques.

Watch out for anyone who idolizes Varg Vikernes.

With that said, there is some good black metal. As a genre though, it's pretty limited by those linear song structures. I like the black metal artists that incorporate dynamics and progressive, symphonic or atmospheric elements into their music. Like this: