Black metal
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- This article is about the musical genre. For the 1982 Venom album, see Black Metal (album).
| Black metal | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins: | Thrash metal, Heavy metal |
| Cultural origins: | Europe, especially Scandinavia Early 1980s |
| Typical instruments: | Guitar - Bass guitar - Drums Keyboard |
| Mainstream popularity: | Underground. |
| Subgenres | |
| NSBM, Symphonic black metal, Viking Metal, | |
| Fusion genres | |
| Blackened death metal, Folk metal, Melodic black metal | |
| Other topics | |
| Blast beat - Extreme metal - Bands | |
Black metal started in the early 1980s with bands such as Bathory, Mayhem, Mercyful Fate, and Hellhammer/Celtic Frost; as well as Venom to a lesser extent (due to their influence on Bathory and Hellhammer/Celtic Frost). These bands were Speed Metal bands that formed the prototype for the later second generation of black metal, some saying that they were motivated by the desire to combat the popular American wave of Death metal that swept through and dominated the metal scene at the time. The second wave of black metal, an essentially Scandinavian movement, started in the late 1980s and early 1990s, primarily in Norway. Black metal has gathered intense criticism from many sectors of society, for its brutal aesthetic, its misanthropic spirit, and the extreme right wing ideologies displayed by some musicians working in the National Socialist Black Metal subgenre. However, at the same time it experienced a meteoric rise in popularity among metal fans during the 1990s.
Contents |
[edit] Characteristics
Black metal can display, but is not limited to, the following characteristics:
[edit] Guitars
- Fast, overdriven, often vaguely melodic guitars played using alternate picking or tremolo picking.
- Highly distorted and drawn out power chords.
- Standard tuned guitars — in contrast to death metal, which typically has guitars downtuned to D standard, C standard, or lower.
- Relatively thin or thick guitar tone — usually not in the middle (mid frequencies are thus scooped out, leaving solely the treble and bass; sometimes with the bass also removed).
- Occasionally, some bands will use a clean amplifier channel (for example, Emperor or Dimmu Borgir).
- Tremolo picking may be applied to fully voiced chords (usually minor) in a denser portion of a piece.
- Frequent use of chromatics, shifted up and down from a central tonal point to create an uneasy atmosphere.
[edit] Drums
- Double bass, blast beat, and D-beat drumming
- Fast, repetitive, aggressive drums, often with blast beats. At other times, the drums can take a slower role usually accompanied by a very dry and empty tone — especially for the effect of the atmosphere of the music. On occasion, some groups such as Burzum and Xasthur will dispense with drums altogether in certain song segments.
[edit] Lyrics and vocals
- A distinct 'rasped' vocal style, a very guttural rasp, which is reminiscent of torture. This is basically standard in every black metal, though there are exceptions, such as Primordial, who are still classed black metal without the rasp vocal. Some bands, particularly symphonic black metal bands, incorporate clean vocals, usually of a male choir sound, though this is used for atmospheric purposes.
- Oftentimes there is a reverb effect on vocals, to make them sound more cavernous and atmospheric
- Lyrics that often take the form of Satanic, Pagan, or occult themes which blaspheme Christianity.
- Lyrics that celebrate the cold, darkness, forests, and other natural surroundings of northern European countries, reflecting modern black metal's origins in Scandinavia.
- Increasingly lyrics are being penned with themes of war, misanthropy, and desolation, sometimes apocalyptic, whose causes are rooted in human nature and actions. However, there are some exceptions (although they usually incorporate these previous themes as well).
- Lyrics are commonly inspired by fantasy, in particular the works of Tolkien set in Middle-earth. For example, the Austrian band Summoning focuses almost exclusively on Middle-earth for their themes and content. Other bands create their own fictional realms, for instance the lyrics of Immortal depict an imaginary kingdom called Blashyrkh (Blash-eerk), which is ruled by a raven king named Ravendark.
[edit] Atmospheric and structural elements
- Unconventional song structures that are devoid of verse and chorus segments, and contain extended and repetitive instrumental passages, with less use of vocals than other styles of metal.
- Less focus on dynamic rhythm than death metal. Very few black metal bands exhibit the rhythmic complexity inherent in death metal, and even if they do, they usually exhibit at least a few of the above-listed criteria if they are still generally classified as black metal.
- Occasional electronic keyboard use. The harpsichord, violin, organ, and choir settings are most common, which gives the music an orchestral feel or a cathedral-like setting. Some bands tend to use keyboards very frequently, whether it be as an instrument or even as the basis of their entire sound. They are generally placed under the symphonic black metal label.
- Certain bands have taken to recording with full symphony orchestras, but these bands are regarded by more austere black metal fans as not being 'true', i.e. Dimmu Borgir (however this has nothing to do with the use of the orchestra but how the band now conduct themselves seemingly out of the black metal genre).
- Limited production used intentionally as a statement against mainstream music and/or to reflect the mood of the music by creating a certain atmosphere. As mentioned earlier, this 'underproduced' effect is often achieved by cutting out mid frequencies, leaving just the treble and/or bass frequency range. It is often said that this was due to a low budget, but this often wasn't the case. This production style is often considered an essential element of 'true' black metal, with Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger album being a highly influential example of this production style.
[edit] Aesthetics
- Cold, dark, sad, melancholy, reflective, tragic, meditative, or gloomy atmosphere.
- Many black metal musicians adopt a 'neo-medieval' costume style that may include leather, spikes, bondage gear, "archaic" armor and weaponry, and facial corpse paint.
- Many black metal musicians choose to adopt stage names, typically patterned after occult and/or fantasy characters; however, this practice is not universal.
[edit] The First Wave
The seeds of black metal were planted in the early 1980s, known as the "First Wave", the earliest inspiration being that of the British band Venom. Their debut full-length album, Welcome To Hell was released in 1981, and is a huge inspiration for the future black metal scene (not to emerge for around a decade later), along with their 1982 follow-up, aptly titled Black Metal (then a pun on the phrase Black Magic). The music was in many ways similar to the future black metal music; the under-production, harsh music, and the vocals were relatively growly, similar to the future rasp of black metal vocalists, though Venom took on a more NWOBHM/thrash metal style, rather than the future sound. Venom's clothing style was also similar to that of the future black metal bands; leather trousers, spiked wrist accessories etc. Venom's members also adopted pseudonyms, the original lineup being Cronos, Mantas and Abaddon.
Though a more direct insipiration would be that of the Swedish one-man band Bathory, lead by Quorthon (real name Thomas Forsberg). Early Bathory was pure black metal, with under-production, fast tempos, sketchy playing and a rasped vocal style. Bathory seemingly performed this completely out of the blue, the debut self-titled album and the second album The Return are perfect examples. Though Bathory later evolved into a very artistic black metal band round the late-1980s, with black metal music scattered with acoustic parts and Norse melodies, with Norse mythology-based lyrics. At this time, such classic songs as A Fine Day To Die were recorded, a song later to be covered by the symphonic black metal band, Emperor. Quorthon suffered from heart problems all his life, and died from heart failure at the age of 38 on June 7, 2004.
Other big influences include the Danish band Mercyful Fate,which featured heavily occult themes, a huge factor of future black metal. King Diamond, Mercyful Fate's vocalist, however, provided the first corpsepaint-esque look, which would be used by many future black metal bands. Mercyful Fate also provided a blasphemous image, which was also a largely influential factor for future black metal.
[edit] The Second Wave
Black metal congealed in its current form (known as the second wave of black metal, which is rooted much more heavily in classical musical theory) through the influence of Norwegian bands such as Darkthrone, Enslaved, Burzum, Satyricon, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Immortal, and Emperor, who began with the earlier style and introduced elements from mainstream heavy metal, classical music and popularised the style to a growing underground audience. Their influence is most apparent in the Satanic or pagan imagery, anti-Christian lyrics and occult themes. Besides the influence of Norwegian bands, in the beginning of the 1990's the black metal scene in Sweden grew and became important with bands such as Marduk and Dissection and in Finland with bands like Beherit and Impaled Nazarene. Elsewhere, band such as Samael, Master's Hammer and Blasphemy had a big influence on the second wave of black metal.
An abraded, very low fidelity recording style is common in most black metal. Modern evolution of many of the older 'genre leading' bands have had a vast change in sound, and by many - and most of the times, even the band - are no longer considered black metal. Such examples include Mayhem's career that began mostly in the death/black roots, moved to almost pure black, then towards death again in their later career. Also, Behemoth who started off as black metal, moved to a hybrid of black metal AND death metal, known as Blackened Death Metal, and with their newest release, Demigod, now play pure, brutal Death Metal. Modern offshoots of this original black metal sound have incorporated atmospheric elements using ambient guitar and keyboard passages such as organ sounds or other miscellaneous instruments.
A distinct (but not intrinsic) feature of black metal is the use of corpse paint, a special kind of black and white make-up which was used to make the wearer look like a decomposing corpse or plague victim. Immortal referred to their make-up as "war paint", not carrying the same connotation as corpse paint. Another distinct feature of black metal is the use of dark, Nordic or Satanic monikers pioneered by Venom (the original line up being Cronos, Mantas & Abbadon). Examples of this include Quorthon (Bathory) and Euronymous (Mayhem).
Earlier bands tended to dwell on themes of fantasy, mythology, and folklore in their songs, as well as Satanism, darkness, evil, and so on as many of their direct musical and cultural roots included these topics.
[edit] History
One of the major influences of the first black metal bands were the English band Venom. Although Venom cannot be credited as a true black metal band or the sole founders of the genre, they were a major influence and one of the first bands to use Satanic and dark lyrical themes in their music. Even though Venom's musical style had more in common with thrash metal or NWOBHM, they did have a great influence on the first black metal bands of the late 80's/early 90's.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, one of the most prominent figures of the Norwegian scene was [[studio, where Mayhem and a number of other bands that were signed to Aarseth's independent label, Deathlike Silence Productions, began to record. Deathlike Silence's stated goal was to release records by bands "that incarnated evil in its most pure state."
In 1991 the attention increased when Mayhem's frontman Dead committed suicide by a shotgun blast to his head. His note simply read "Excuse all the blood". The ammunition was supplied by Varg Vikernes, who played bass guitar for Mayhem. Dead's suicide can be considered as the beginning of the Second wave as more Death Metal bands started to play Black Metal. These include for example Darkthrone, Emperor, Burzum and Immortal.
Dead's body was discovered by Aarseth who, instead of calling the police, ran to a nearby convenience store and bought a disposable camera which he used to photograph the corpse for a future Mayhem album cover (Dawn of the Black Hearts). Apocryphal reports also claim that he then took some pieces of Dead's splattered brains and made a stew out of them and/or members of the band took bone fragments from their friend's skull and made necklaces out of them.
The way's Fantoft stave church, which the police believed was burned by a member of Euronymous's inner circle; the man behind the one-man band Burzum, Varg Vikernes, aka "Count Grishnackh", but he was acquitted by the court. Burzum's second release, Aske, had a cover which depicted Fantoft stave church after the arson. Vikernes claims to have taken this picture, but this has not been verified. The first 1000 records sold came with a Zippo lighter bearing the same picture as the album.
Black metal enthusiasts also started to terrorize other notable "death metal" bands that were touring their country or in neighboring countries, on the basis of their lack of apparent "evilness". Many recall a strong Swedish death metal and Norwegian black metal rivalry.
There also was a conflict known as the Dark War between Norwegian and Finnish black metal scenes during 1992-1993. This started when Nuclear Holocausto of Beherit started to make prank calls in the middle of the night to Samoth of Emperor and to Mika Luttinen of Impaled Nazarene. The calls were mainly just babbling and playing of children's songs.[1] Luttinen somehow got the idea that the language babbled was Norwegian and they were making death threats to him. These speculations were made by him probably because of the tensions between Finnish and Norwegian scenes in that time, as Euronymous wanted to lead his black metal movement into more religious type of Black Metal Mafia, where as Finnish scene continued with the more easy going attitude and LaVey-satanism.
The "war" itself was also more just about talk than action. In the album cover of the Impaled Nazarene's Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz you can find texts like "No orders from Norway accepted" and "Kuolema Norjan kusipäille!" (Death to Norwegian assholes!). After their first LP, Impaled Nazarene quit playing black metal and defined their style as "Satanic death metal", disassociating themselves from the church burnings in Norway. The Finnish band Black Crucifixion also became known to criticize Darkthrone as "posers" and "trendies" in every possible interview..[2] Beherit didn't really participate in the conflict, yet in Norway there was a band called Fuck Beherit which released two demos mocking the band. The conflict is also said to have had an effect on Beherit's decision to quit black metal, but there isn't anything concrete to this, only the somewhat same date. The conflict ended as both scenes withered.
The 'Inner Circle' received even more exposure in 1993, when Vikernes killed Aarseth in Aarseth's home. Vikernes claims that Aarseth plotted to torture and kill him out of jealousy (Vikernes got more attention than Aarseth), and the murder was purely out of self-defence. The circumstances surrounding the reason for the murder are not entirely clear, but have mainly been attributed to ideological differences and a power struggle between Vikernes and Aarseth. Vikernes also claimed that there was a financial dispute over the profits from Burzum's first two full-length records (Burzum and Det Som Engang Var) as well as the first Burzum EP (Aske) that were released through Aarseth's record label, Deathlike Silence Records. Some sources say that Aarseth intentionally delayed the release of Burzum's records, because Burzum was getting more attention than Mayhem. Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison and has since distanced himself from the black metal movement and has allegedly been involved in racist movements, many claim Vikernes is a Neo-Nazi - he claims not to be as his beliefs are different, especially his admiration of Slavic people - Burzum's site is also in Russian as well as English.[3] Vikernes has released two albums of a much more ambient and electronic kind of music, Dauði Baldrs in 1997 and Hliðskjálf in 1999, although he implied in a recent interview that he would write material similar to his older works upon his release from prison.
By the last few years of the 1990s, the black metal scene had lost much of the violence that had gained it so much attention just a few years before. Bands began to take new directions and an increase in production quality and electronic indstruments like synthesisers meant the end of the first wave.
However, since the mid-1990s, an Eastern European black metal scene has been developing. Bands from the former Communist Bloc are recording material more in-keeping with the primitive nature of the early Norwegian artists. Many of these bands' lyrics glorify the pagan roots of their home countries, occasionally injecting elements of indigenous folk music into their arrangements. The Latvian band Skyforger is a prime example of this new aesthetic. The black metal scene in Russia and Ukraine has produced many bands more in keeping with the carefully arranged sounds coming from Scandinavia, but with more appreciation for the low fidelity aesthetic of early black metal. The Czech band Trollech are a perfect example of the "old-school" Pagan black metal band. The Ukrainian neo-Nazi Nokturnal Mortum has achieved very large recognition in the west; their earlier albums relied heavily on synthesizers, but their current work has a grimmer, more abrasive feel flavored with Slavic folk instruments. Poland's neo-Nazi band Graveland has, in recent albums, striven for a 'medieval' feel, resembling a more developed version of later 'viking' Bathory albums, but in the past made much rawer music which still held a certain intangible folk flavor. From Romania, Negură Bunget is a prime example of traditional black metal, injecting their own indigenous mix of Dacian and Latin elements creating something original, along with a Scandinavian sound. Also notable are Serbian bands The Stone and May Result.
Bands such as Dark Funeral and extreme metal magazines such as Terrorizer believe that a third wave of influential black metal bands is emerging[citation needed], this time from France and Sweden. These include Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, Arkhon Infaustus, Anorexia Nervosa, Antaeus and Ofermod. These bands all claim to be much more interested in Satanism and/or Occultism than previous artists[citation needed] and generally play a very raw extreme style. However, just as with the earlier second wave Norwegian bands they have started to experiment, Deathspell Omega are influenced by Gregorian chant and Blut Aus Nord now incorporate elements of ambient industrial. There is much controversy surrounding these new aspects; many black metal fans feel that this industrial influence and the increased production mean such bands do not fit within the black metal genre.
[edit] Ideology
Any attempt to lay out the ideology of a musical genre is bound to generalise to the extent that some traits are unfairly played up with respect to certain artists, while others are laid out which do not apply to all. Nonetheless, there is a clear ideological thrust which can be sketched out which captures the essence of the thought behind black metal music.
Black metal is generally held to embrace anti-christian sentiment, misanthropy, nihilism, Paganism, Satanic imagery, as well as in some cases racism and nationalism. In actuality most black metal musicians view their craft as a natural result of their inherent misanthropy and anti-establishment Weltanschauung. More generally, most black metal musicians are strongly anti-collectivist, critics of religion and are advocates of individualism and rational egoism, but Nationalist Socialist black metal is an exception to this case. The philosophy of Nietzsche is perhaps that which has had the most profound influence on black metal ideology, with strong ties between the production of art as an expression of living, the hatred for 'the bungled and the botched', and the doctrine of the übermensch as seen by Nietzsche and as expressed in black metal aesthetics.
The attitude taken to art in black metal is complex. To a large extent, aesthetics are ideology. It carries over from death metal the notion that death and similarly macabre 'taboos' are in actuality essential aspects of life which grant it meaning and direction. To ignore these things is to ignore an important and fulfilling facet of what it is to be alive. Similarly, there is often a deep link to nature which is emphasised, being a type of naturalism.
The majority of those involved in the scene are not outspoken with regard to either nationalism or xenophobia (these values are almost exclusive to the sub-genre of National Socialist black metal), perhaps because standard black metal ideology is influenced by anti-idealist philosophers who often regarded racism as a form of idealism or philanthropy. Nonetheless, many black metal bands espouse a weak form of nationalism that is not racism: they are merely proud of their nation, but do not deny the right of other people of other nations to be proud of theirs. This is part of the anti-collectivist mindset which is sometimes held. It follows logically that homogenisation between cultures (irrespective of race) is something to be avoided, and the way to avoid this is to take pride in being a representative of one's own culture, and produce art that is distinct to it. This weak form of nationalism is manifested musically by the incorporation of folk elements to some black metal bands' work. This often occurs well outside of the National Socialist subgenre.
[edit] Developments
[edit] National Socialist black metal
A black metal movement that deals with Neo-Nazi ideologies, often mixed in with topics pertaining to European pagan religions, National Socialist black metal (NSBM) is more interpreted as an ideology than a sub-genre as there is not any developed "style" to play black metal in a National Socialist way, however NSBM bands actually often tend to have crystal clear production, something very unlike the regular bands. However, the term has stuck around not only because there are traceable movements and labels that sell NSBM exclusively, but also because it is such a hotly debated topic; giving rise to questions like whether it does or does not coincide with traditional black metal characteristics, or whether it should even be considered a subform as most black metal bands do not adhere to the ideology. Some black metal bands have been wrongly labelled NSBM, as there is little to no evidence in the bands lyrics to prove their ideologies. Even though NSBM bands usually have topics that concern Paganism, it should be noted that not all Black Metal bands which have lyrics about paganism are NSBM.
[edit] See also
[edit] Literature
- Michael Moynihan, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground (Feral House) ISBN 0-922915-48-2
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The Origins of Black Metal Publication > Articles > The Origins of Black Metal
- Black Metal: A Brief Guide at Chronicles of Chaos
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