So what is it about Black Metal?

I definitely feel that it is a minority and possibly extreme genre of Metal music, and somewhat underground, but according to the pretty definitive Metal Archives there has been at least 20,560 Black Metal bands to date, now i will admit that although i'm forty years of age and i've been listening to metal music most of my life and i had heard of the happenings surrounding the scene, the murders, the church burnings etc, the First Wave of Black Metal still passed me by. It wasn't until i heard Emperor's "In The Nightside Eclipse" a few years after its release that i became intrigued, amazed by the astonishing atmosphere created, it was simply majestic and so i considered Black Metal a worthy sub-genre of that beast called Heavy Metal, and one i chose not to ignore, (it definitely had more substance than some of that Nu-Metal rubbish that reared its ugly head about that time when i first discovered it).

So i decided to delve further and purchased some Mayhem ("De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas"), Darkthrone ("Under A Funeral Moon" & "Transylvanian Hunger") and Burzum ("Burzum" & "Aske") which naturally led me to on Immortal ("Pure Holocaust") and Satyricon ("Nemesis Divina") amongst others. I must now admit though for years all i listened to was Emperor, of course, Dimmu Borgir, Gorgoroth, Behemoth, and now i'd even consider them a bit lame Cradle Of Filth, as the only record shop we had in the town didn't stock that much Metal, unless you listened to Nu-Metal or Iron Maiden or Sepultura (but i'll freely admit there's nothing wrong with a blast of "Roots" every now and then), and which is now closed maybe ten plus years and i had to travel to Peterborough or Northampton to buy records so thank god the devil hehe, for the internet and the advent of downloading as it just made the whole Black Metal scene more accessible, it could also be mentioned that it'll probably be always a little uncommercial, no bad thing i'm sure, i like it that way.

As it might be said that Black metal was created with the purpose to be the most inaccessible music possible, notoriously difficult for those listening to it for the first time,this could be true as early black metal was raw and (was it even knowingly?) very poorly produced, with blast beat drumming and distorted guitars and vocal styles that are high pitched rasps and guttural growls that are completely or mostly intelligible, and certainly that rawness was its calling card, some bands today still try to keep that sound (even though production values have improved) as to me Satanic Warmaster's "Nachzehrer" sounds like it was recorded in a cave, and Negative Plane's "Stained Glass Revelations", which i'm listening to at the moment, certainly has that early Black Metal sound but both are worthy examples of good modern Black Metal. Other bands which i consider to illustrate what is good about modern Black Metal are NunFuckRitual, Septicflesh and Ordo Obsidium (mentioned in a previous post), Throne Of Katarsis, Gnaw Their Tongues, Haemoth, Dodsferd, and the return of Archgoat.

And then there's these variations on Black Metal, such as Atmospheric Black Metal, Ambient Black Metal, Depressive Black Metal, and Post- Black Metal (sometimes called Shoegaze Black Metal - which might even possibly be considered bordering a little on mainstream) which are all deserving of merit and appeal to my tastes, as even though i consider Black Metal to be very atmospheric music there is nothing wrong at all with innovations that are a lot more melodic (hypnotic and ambient even) while maintaing a cetain rawness and the harsh sound, but with less aggression, and as such have re-kindled my love of Black Metal, bands such as Alcest, Falloch, Agalloch, So Hideous...., My Love, Thy Light, Lifelover, Deafhaven, Weakling, Lantlos, Heretoir, October Falls, An Autumn For Crippled Children and loads more, too many to mention, maybe in another post, and even Wolves In The Throne Room (the band that really got me into that atmospheric hypnotic wall of sound that can be created by the guitars, while still being firmly grounded in the Black Metal framework).

At the beginning of this post i stated that Black Metal is a minority genre but now as a genre it occupies at least half of my music collection (so now its definitely the majority!) and if you looked at my previous posts below about my recent purchases and downloads it's plain to see how that is, i'm always looking for new Black Metal music, hence this blog. (When i say new Black Metal music, i don't just mean new releases, as i'm sure there's loads of great Black Metal music out there, both old and new that i've not heard, as can be seen also with my wish-list).