This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kpjas (talk | contribs) at 01:14, 18 August 2002 (We don't sign our articles. Besides IMO needs more work.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 01:14, 18 August 2002 by Kpjas (talk | contribs) (We don't sign our articles. Besides IMO needs more work.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Black Metal, History, Description and Notable Bands in the Genre.... This is an un-biased article on black metal
Black Metal is a subset of heavy metal.
Black metal generally consists of heavily distorted, extremely fast, frozen sounding, grim guitar playing, harsh vocals, and fast drumming. An abraded, very low-fidelity recording style is used to create an atmosphere of a frozen, harsh enviroment. This genre of metal frequently uses Satanic lyrics in which bands emphasize anger against the Christian religion and, supporting other occult themes.
The main influences of modern black metal are Celtic Frost, Bathory and Venom. The music made by these bands heavilly influenced the re-invented wave of modern black metal as seen today. Their influences are most notable in the satanic imagery, blasphemous lyrics and occult themes.
From there, Norwegian bands such as Darkthrone, Burzum, Mayhem, and Emperor took this style and transformed it into a distinct sound combining elements from metal, classical and other chaotic music styles, creating musical harmonies deemed impossible by many music critiques of the early 80's. Thus creating black metal.
The ring of the origional norwegian scene was known as Euronymous who was also the guitarist in the band Mayhem. In essence he was the godfather of the norwegian black metal scene. The scene or movement, as some called it, was origionally created to get the influences of christianity and other influencial religions out of Norway and to take back the country and instil the almost lost viking lifestyle. The movement was controlled by an inner circle, made up of Euronymous and a few of his trusted collegues. The Movement was run from the cold damp basement of a store known as Helvete. this basement also served as a recording studio for bands such as mayhem, and any other band that was signed to Euronymous' label. Helvete (which translates into Hell) also served as one of the economic foundations for the movement, but the main one was the label "Deathlike Silence", who refused to sign any band that wasn't purley evil.
Also around this time various churches where going up in flames in norway due to the black metal movements distaste for the corruption of the christian influenced government and belief system, that they believed plauged their country. The Most notable church was Norway's Fantoft Church Burned by Varg Vikernes or "Count Grishnackh" as was his inner circle name. The movement also started terrorizing other notable "death metal" bands that where touring their country or in neighboring countries, on the basis of their lack of apparent "evilness".
The real media attention didn't come until Mayhems Frontman "Dead" commited suicide by a shotgun blast to his head. His note simply read "Please Excuse the mess". Instead of calling the police Euronymous ran to the nearest convenience store and bought a disposable camera which he used to then photograph the corpse for a future album cover. Then he took some peices of Dead's splattered brains and made a stew out of them. Then the band proceeded to take bone fragments and made necklaces out of them.
But it doesn't stop there.
It seems a feud sprung up between Varg Vikernes (Euronymous' right hand man" and Euronymous himself. First it was a few arguements here and there about the record deal with Vargs band Burzum. Which eventually led to the murder of Euronymous. He was found dead on 10th 1993. When the police inquired the black metal movement about the murder the tightly organized movement became a bunch of stool pigeon children telling on each other about everything, even events not related to the count. Soon all the fingers started to point to Count Grishnackh which eventually lead to vargs arrest and imprisonment where he distanced himself from black metal and writes aryan neo nazi music at the moment.
From that point the black metal movement deteriorated for a few years but than picked back up as Immortal, Satyricon, Darkthrone and a newer wave of grim black metal brought the underground scene back to life. sinc ethen it has rooted itself in many countries, and influenced dozens of metal subgenres. From well polished black metal dripping with keyboards inspired by the more gothic aspects of black metal to the raving grimness of the furious not so ear friendly crowd.
Some of the most notable bands today come from Norway, Sweden, Canada (can't forget this northern majesty), Australia, Brazil and all over the world.
If you are just getting into the genre than here are some recommendations according to preference (there are many subgenres i will only name the most notable)
Gothic Influenced Keyboard dripping Black metal - The Sins of Thy Beloved, Tristania, etc. The interesting thing about this sub-genre is that it is the easiest to find.
Black influenced gothic Metal or "Norse-core" - (this genre has notable been mistaken for black metal because the bands that are in it have black elements but they are not really totally black metal) this genre features Dimmu Borgir, and the like.
Grim Black Metal - This type is becoming the most common usually with little or no keyboards, it is also the most overlooked and underated subgenre. Som enotable Bands are
Frozen Shadows - Quebec Canada
Hellacaust, Nova Scotia Canada - http://welcome.to/hellacaust
Darkthrone, Norway - http://www.darkthrone.no
Burzum, Norway (R.I.P) - http://www.burzum.com
Immortal, Norway - http://www.immortal.nu
Mayhem, Norway - http://www.thetruemayhem.com
Emperor, Norway - http://www.emperorhorde.com
more information can be found if you search using yahoo or google as this list is massive, so i compiled some of the most notable that i have ever heard.
N.S. Black Metal or National Socialist black metal - This Genre is a very touchy one because it involves the radical ideas of racial seperatism and upholdence of the Aryan race, being applied into the music of black metal. most bands of this type of black metal are fueled by the conservation of pagan beliefs and traditions from total oblitheration by the christian beliefs.
In this genre some very notable bands are
Absurd
Graveland
Infernum
Kataxu
Legion of Doom
Order from Chaos
Thor's Hammer
Thunderbolt
Veles
and the like
for more info on these bands go to http://www.paganfront.net or search using www.google.com or any other search engine
Viking Metal - This style is not really totally black metal but draws upon the same, pagan, wilderness influence as most black metal does. Vintersorg, Norway - http://www.vintersorg.com Finntroll, - http://www.finntroll.com alot more information can be found here http://www.vikingmetal.cjb.net
if you wish to find out more information on black metal bands or record labels than here are some references http://www.barbarianwrath.org/