okay boys and girls, what's some of your favorite Black Metal bands and why? feel free to name drop songs and albums. Or you can hate on 'em, which is all good too!
Beherit - "Drawing Down The Moon" is my absolute favorite BM album. Beherit's first demos (released as "The Oath of Black Blood" record) are decent, super raw BM, but DDTM is the shit. I could go on about this record forever. A friend and I used to listen to it constantly, and when we weren't listening to it, we were talking about it. Granted, I smoked pot back then but it still holds up for me. My poor girlfriend had to listen to this, and us, over and over again. It's minimalistic songwriting creates an almost hypnotic effect, taking the primitive bashing of bands like Sarcofago and turning it into something just as simple but much more refined, creating a truly original piece of art that has proved to be unable to duplicate, despite many tries. The songs take totally unexpected twists and turns, going from harsh metal to droning atmospherics with ease, and it was so far ahead of everyone else that even though you can pick up some influences, it's so unique as a whole you have to wonder what was going on in Holocausto's (Beherit main man) mind when he wrote this stuff. DDTM was very different from what everyone else was doing at the time, it just blew my mind. After DDTM, Holocausto could never pull together a full band again, so he took Beherit into electronic territory. Electric Doom Synthesis (their last album) is particularly good for this era, with hints of Sisters of Mercy/Sisterhood and the more trance inducing material from Sleep Chamber amongst the electronic BM. I don't know if those bands had any influence on him at all, but it has the same feel. Holocausto was not only an originator in the second wave Black Metal scene, but was one of the OGs in the Scandinavian techno scene (concurrent with Beherit), and he eventually gave up on ever reforming Beherit as a band and just concentrated on his DJ'ing and making techno records. Too bad. For the classic 80's/early 90's BM, my other favorites are - Darkthrone (pretty much anything) Unholy (Black Doom from Finland. They later morphed into a more goth-ish band and they were still fantastic) Immortal (Battles In The North is my favorite, but I like almost all of their records) Mayhem (Live In Leipzig, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas are classics. Deathcrush and the stuff without Euronymous is trash IMO) Blasphemy Black Crucifixion Goat Penis (sick BM grindcore from Brasil) Profanatica & Havohej Setherial and if you want to throw bands like Hellhammer and Celtic Frost into the BM category, then I have to put them on the list, both bands being legendary. I think Bathory were good for a GBH copycat, and I think Venom is generally overrated. I kept meaning to check out Root, but never got around to it. Now Burzum. I feel the first couple of records captured a definite atmosphere, but no great songs. As time has gone on, I listen to them less and less. There are a couple of songs on the s/t, Aske and Det Som Engang Var that I can still listen to, but beyond that I'm out. Him killing someone infinitely more talented over scene bullshit and his fake nazi act really turned me off too, but that doesn't affect my opinion of his music, I just don't think he's a very good songwriter. I think that if he hadn't burned churches down, no one would give a shit about Burzum at all. Newer bands, most notably Leviathan and Xasthur, have taken his sound and done so much more with it. And beyond their first demo, I was never a huge Emperor fan. I can see that they are a talented band, but frankly I don't get it. I like listening to Zyklon much more. I liked Impaled Nazarene, Gorgoroth and Marduk too, but I don't listen to them very often now. Newer bands - Goatwhore (I heard about these guys, but never checked them out until I saw them open for Celtic Frost a few weeks ago. Their new album is awesome Black/Death Metal and it blew me away. So good!) Craft Urgehal 1349 Khold (Norwegian band that sounds to me like a mix of grim BM with early "Bleach"-era Nirvana) Thunderbolt (Poland) Tangorodrim Azaghal I've heard Merrimack is good, and there are also a bunch of super "kult" French bands that I need to check out but haven't gotten to any of them. Any opinions? I generally dislike the keyboard oriented stuff, bands like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth for example, and I also don't like more "commercial" BM, with the same bands being the example. Although I own a copy, I think the "Lords of Chaos" book is generally not very good. Personally I think it was Nazi propaganda designed to bring fascists into the BM scene or to influence kids from the scene into that direction, and it unfortunately worked too well on that level. As a piece of true crime it's not too bad, and it has some interesting pictures and memorabilia, but as an overview of the Black Metal scene, it is beyond horrible. It written by someone who had absolutely nothing to do with the scene until Christian from Burzum came out and declared himself a Nazi. I know this is about BM, but I have to mention these three non-BM bands Za Frumi - A Swedish band who do what I can only describe as a Orc radio play. Their first 2 records are "orc" music with occasional orc dialog. It's like D&D nerd-dom taken to a whole new level. You have to check this stuff out. Bohren Und Der Club Gore - A BM influenced Jazz band. The don't sound like BM musically at all, they just have a great dark vibe to their music. Super mellow, slow doomy jazz. Most of their stuff is imports, but Ipecac released a domestic copy of their "Black Earth" album. If I had a lounge bar, this is the music I'd play in it. I really recommend these guys. Tenhornedbeast - Super evil dark ambient. I think the guy who does this was in another significant band in the Industrial/Ambient scene, but I don't remember who it is off the top of my head. Both of their CD's are worth hunting down and finding. I picked one up from a distro in Poland, and it was well worth the search.
Urgehal rulz... as an add in: >think the "Lords of Chaos" book is generally not very good. >Nazi propaganda designed to bring fascists into the BM scene What exactly are you trying to say? I am way confused. Before we begin, I must say I like that book (and get thanked in the credits so I am biased) but I don't mind discussion so fire away...
Yeah, that's it. In hindsight I should have picked something easier to pronounce as a screen name though. Rick
Chad while I wont go as far as to say that "Lords Of Chaos" is "Nazi Propaganda", Moynihan definitely throws in some "esoteric excuses" for BM supremacy and the lunacy of some of there beliefs. Things like genetic memory are written about almost as if they are fact. While I am a huge fan of most of Moynihan's music, he holds some sketchy* beliefs. I would never ever call him a "Nazi" but he definitely make supernatural excuses for nationalism... *when I say sketchy I don't mean racist I just mean questionable as I would say of any sort of relegionist or believer in magic...
There will be no firing away. I'm not angry at you for liking it or anything And I do have to agree with jawkdna, calling it "Nazi Propaganda" was a bit overdoing it on my part. Also, you'll have to forgive me because it's been quite awhile since I read Lords Of Chaos so I'm going totally off of memory here, but.. On a musical and social level, I thought that Mr. Moynihan's historical look at Black Metal was pretty inaccurate regarding what the early scene was like. I think it paints a totally distorted picture of what was going on, and a lot of people who got into the BM after reading the book won't have any idea of what the old scene was really like. I remember thinking his description of Black Metal's roots was partially off target too. I was immersed in the scene and it was not how he portrayed it. If he had done proper research and read tons of zines and talked to a lot of people involved, I simply cannot figure out how he came to the conclusions he did, because it's a lot different than I or many other people involved at the time remember it. I think he may have been better off writing a book about BM if he simply focused on the scene current at the time of his writing or the true crime aspect of it (church burnings, the murders), but he got a lot of the "historical" stuff wrong, and the fact that it is the only semi-scholarly work about a scene that was pretty isolated in the beginning makes people take it as fact. It's like considering Fox News' spin on politics as historical fact. As far as politics go, I can guarantee that you know much more about Michael Moynihan's politics than I do, but he comes off as pro-fascism, and possibly a neo-nazi. I know he has denied some of this in interviews I've read, but that's really how it appears. School me if I'm wrong, but he seems to cultivate that appearance to people it will appeal to, and deny it to people it won't. It would explain why he totally overblows the role of fascism and nazi politics in the Black Metal scene. His book gives a lot of coverage to the band Absurd, most likely because of their politics and the murder they commited, but before the book came out they were an insignifcant band in the scene. His coverage of old fascist occultists (something he spent a lot of pages covering) or the gang that gave the book its name were odd, considering that neither had anything to do with Black Metal, but they were good to cover if you are pushing a political agenda. Those chapters may have been fine in another book, but they had no place in a book about Black Metal. Now I will say that the Black Metal scene was super extreme and it was by definition all about "evil", so of course some radical people on both sides of the fence were attracted to it, but I really don't think right wing ideology was as much of a significant part of the BM scene until two things happened. First was Christian declaring himself a nazi after being sent to Norwegian prison. I'm not sure I believe he was ever a nazi (or a satanist for that matter), it just seems like he does what gets him attention and what will serve him best. Being a Satanist is what worked best when he was trying to be the king of the scene, and although I have never been in a Norwegian prison, I would imagine being a nazi is what would work best in that environment. The second, and I believe more significant reason fascism became a big part of the Black Metal scene is this book, with it's strong overemphasis on bands and ideology that were not a big deal before the book came out. Imagine if someone wrote a popular, widely distributed book about the hardcore scene back in 1982 or 1983 and put an unusually strong focus on Skrewdriver and other white power bands. People who were into that ideology would have been turned onto the HC scene, and people who weren't would have been turned off to it. The hardcore scene would be totally different now, and the one we know now would never have existed. I think Lords of Chaos had this effect on the Black Metal scene. After it came out the NSBM scene exploded, and it has turned off a lot of people to BM. Thankfully there were plenty of bands, including some of the biggest ones, who distanced themselves from this. Now having said all that, I own a copy of the book which I purchased soon after its release. On some level it is enjoyable and there is some interesting material in it, but I think the political undercurrent, which I attribute to Moynihan, was disruptive to the scene, inaccurate and ruined (for me at least) what could have been an awesome book.
I am expecting some shit for this and probably someone saying EMO! but what the hell, these guys rock the fuck out: THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: MIASMA!!!!!!!!!!!!
fuck BM. I mean Goatwhore is pretty cool and shit but...give me DOOM. Electric Wizard Sleep Church Of Misery..... I've known the dude that wrote Lords Of Chaos for 20 years and he's definately not a Nazi. fucking weirdo genius, but not a Nazi.
I've been listening to Striborg's "Embittered Darkness/Isle Des Mortes" albums constantly for the past few weeks.
I went to Stockholm around 1998 and I was sort of totally obsessed with the corpspaint thing. didnt see one. I asked the dudes I was hanging with about it and they where ' all those dudes are "I'M ABOUT TO BE BANNED" from the suburbs and whenever they come into town we beat their asses'. I was very dissapointed.
