Can't really say. I've only listened to a couple songs by them. They sounded decent at least, if not necessarily groundbreaking. I seem to remember a few good riffs, but nothing that set my world on fire right off the bat.

Its that one of the metal sites I often look at, had their debut album "Wolfheart" as one of the very best metal albums of 1995!!!! I mean when people think of metal, they`re never going to think of Portugal.

all I can say about black metal is that the more albums of this sub-genre that I get, the more I'm enjoying it

Just finished listening to the Moonspell album Wolfheart and man its a great album, doesnt belong in black metal as its a gothic metal album with folk metal influences and some extreme metal influences especially in the vocals. Basically I`d say its one of the best gothic metal albums I`ve heard but I appreciate its probably not going to be to everybodys taste.

I actually do like Bathory, but the "tr00" "kvlt" elite (aka metalhead elitist morons on metal-archives) hardly count them as black metal, because they sound too much like thrash. Haven't really listened to them in a while though.

I don't think that it's fair to call them morons, seeing that every person into music is an elitist, more or less. You won't go to the shop and buy an album you absolutely hate, and then proceed to listen to it over and over.
Besides if it sounds more like thrash than black metal, then it's fair to call it thrash metal even if it had a huge influence on black metal, I mean you don't call NWOBHM thrash metal even if it had a huge influence on it.
Of course I haven't listened to all of the albums by Bathory, but the early albums sure sound more thrash than black metal.

^^genre Nazi!

^ Believe me, I am far from that. ;D

I've never really understood why people like black metal so much. Songs sound pretty good when the opening riffs are being played, but then someone starts hollering stuff like "BHLAAAAAH THE BEAST SHALL RISE AAARGH" and I can't stop myself laughing.

I think it's pretty stupid to say that Bathory aren't a black metal band just cause they don't sound like Darkthrone. Bathory, probably more than any other band, built the whole black metal template before any of the second wave of black metal bands ever even existed. Of course they don't sound like the second wave of black metal (the Norwegian scene) because they were too busy setting the groundwork for those bands to not just be a third rate version of the Swedish death metal scene.

I don't think it's that stupid. I personally don't care whether people consider the first wave of black metal black metal or thrash metal. Surely it's opinionated, very much so, but do you see people calling Slayer and Kreator death metal because they had a big influence on death metal?

Which causes me to think you haven't listened to much black metal. Why should the norsecore sound be viewed as the golden standard of what "black metal" sounds like instead of the sound forged by the first wave bands?

Because Bathory is thrash metal.

No, they are black metal. For second wave black metal bands with a similar sound, see: Order from Chaos, Sarco***o, Blasphemy. For current bands: Midnight, Barbatos, Absurd.

Norsecore is not the be all, end all of black metal - thank god, otherwise the genre would suck.

EDIT:

I present to you Midnight. This is Bathory's debut in the 21st century.... pure ****ing black metal.

In that case all music should be called tribal music because the first kind of music was tribal music.

Slayer and Kreator may have been influential, but they did not basically invent the whole style that the next wave of bands would run with. Without Slayer, death metal would still have pretty much been the same. Without Bathory, who knows if there would be a black metal genre today, cause they pretty much invented it.

I enjoy your hyperbole, but really, why are you insinuating that the 2nd wave somehow defined the sound? If they had created the black metal sound, we'd be referring to them as first wave, would we not?

I disagree with that, someone would have came up with it sooner or later.

Edit: Please, I cannot converse with two-three people at once without producing spam.

I mean that they invented the whole style that the Norwegian bands used, not black metal in general. I mean that if Bathory hadn't developed black metal as they did, black metal may have just stayed an uglier version of thrash metal and may have died out when death metal came along.

What album(s) are we discussing about then?

Why? When Venom and Hellhammer came along, black metal was just really ugly and noisy rock and roll. Bands like Sarco***o and Necrovore were basically just really ugly and noisy thrash bands. Without Bathory (and to a lesser extent Celtic Frost) developing black metal into it's own sound that was distinct from thrash and death metal (regardless of the similarities), black metal may (keyword, "may") have been rendered obsolete by the development of death metal.

Edit: (I posted my post just after you posted this):

Bathory's first four albums. Bathory, The Return..., Under the Sign of the Black Mark, and Blood, Fire, Death.

Yes, may, but without Kreator and Slayer death metal might have never born either.

Edit: And I don't know about Under the Sign of the Black Mark and Blood Fire Death, I've been talking about Bathory and The Return.

Based on what I know, when I think of black metal I think of the major influence on the genre being Celtic Frost and the Morbid Tales album. But I pretty much think of Bathory being The first true black metal artist, as their debut album came out the same year as the CF one in 1984. I pretty much think of Bathory being the essential black metal act before their switch to viking metal. Also Sarcofago are another first wave band that helped pave the way for the Norweigen scene (the second wave) and the wave that most people associate with black metal.

Yes it would've. Death metal was just the logical conclusion of thrash metal. It was just thrash metal faster, heavier, more brutal, with more ****ed up vocals and lyrics. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but as long as there was someone trying to up the ante, death metal was inevitable.

Hail Caesar!!!:laughing:

Seeing that there were people trying to up the ante with black metal I don't see it as an impossibility either.

Edit: But this conversation is getting out of hands, seeing that we were simply discussing the label of Bathory's first albums, not whether there would be black metal without it or not.

But those bands, like Bathory and Celtic Frost, I see as being much more individualistic. They weren't part of some black metal movement like the thrash and DM bands were. Thrash and death metal evolved much more by committee than black metal did. Black metal evolved because of a few fringe weirdos. One or two bands going under for whatever reason, or deciding that they could make more money by just playing straight thrash or hair metal or whatever may very well have doomed the entire black metal genre to extinction.

Yes, but some key bands missing might not only be a bad thing, because it might as well be a positive thing, who knows?

Huh?

If Bathory, Celtic Frost etc. were not there, people would have obviously taken other influences and produced another sounds, which gets complicated at this point, but it's only obvious that there would be black metal / some sort of replacement for it for it because of the weirdos like Tom Gabriel Fisher / Quorthon.

Why is it obvious? We might have a mildly popular sub-genre of thrash metal that was influenced more by Sarco***o than by Metallica. But without such ground breaking and genre defying bands as Bathory and Celtic Frost, I see no reason to believe that black metal would necessarily have evolved to the uber genre it is now.

I doubt that an uber-genre would remain buried forever due the lack of some key artists, it would probably take more time for it to come up with, but that's the same with death metal without influential artists. I don't see why you take it so black and white, because about nothing in this universe is black and white.

Bathory, especially the first album, are central and amazing; but I don't get this worship over Norwegian black metal. The 2nd generation, in particular, had as it's major contribution to the genre a series of idiotic, headline grabbing actions. Even if we don't debate the quality of some of these bands, look at what followed - a horde of me-too bands.

It may not have become as popular, but there's no shortage of bands that are tapping anything but the Norwegian vein - Midnight, Black Witchery, Barbatos, Conqueror, Revenge, Angelcorpse, etc. You know, bands that recognize punk/grindcore roots of black metal.

Finally got around to listening to a Dimmu Borgir album their third Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, whats the opinion on this band as I know they appeal to people who listen to COF (who really are bad)

I don`t really dig any type of symphonic metal, but thought the Dimmu Borgir album pretty good for a symphonic black metal album, not as good as the Therion album Theli though which I was listening to recently, which was symphonic but not symphonic black metal.

I listened to it a while back. It was pretty sweet, but symphonic black metal is also not my thing.

Its all rock n roll to meeeeee!!!!!!!

i don't like Dimmo Burger much, it sounds rather bland to me

i also don't really like Therion, until they adopted a more easier-listening sound

the only symphonic black metal which I think is great is still Emperor

Dimmu described as Bland? First time I heard that, if anyone has any more Symphonic BM they want to share I need more!

I'm not massively into symphonic BM, but Odium are a band I have A LOT of time for.





Emperor is a great call too.

Dimmu Borgir to me just sounds like a thousand screams, blastbeats, and guitar solos thrown randomly over a Danny Elfman soundtrack. There's seemingly no real connection between the symphonic, and rock part in my ears.

Albeit, half of the members of Borgir are also members of Arcturus which fuses classical, and European folk with black metal perfectly(well, at least when Garm is involved).