Heavy Metal Genre Guide to Black Metal
A Brief History of Black Metal and its Most Influential Bands
Nov 19, 2008
Black metal is a form of extreme metal characterised by misanthropic, often anti-theistic or outright Satanic themes. This is coupled with a raw, simplistic musical approach.
Blast beats, high shrieked vocals (as opposed to the more guttural growls of death metal) and heavily distorted walls of guitar are all common motifs, but the form has evolved since its inception. While there is much debate amongst fans about what does or does not constitute black metal, many bands have taken the sound in a more progressive direction or combined it with other elements to make strange hybrid styles.
The First Wave of Black Metal
Black metal’s beginnings can be traced back to the early 1980s when a number of European bands, including the likes of England’s Venom, Sweden’s Bathory and Switzerland’s Hellhammer (who would later mutate into Celtic Frost) took the nascent thrash metal blueprint and twisted it into ever darker and more extreme shapes.
Although Venom’s dense, riff-driven rumble was arguably the furthest from the higher pitched tremolo picking and shrieking vocal approach that would come to define black metal through the 90s and beyond, the Geordie three-piece did bequeath the genre its name with their second album, 1982’s Black Metal.
Venom’s Cronos on Black Metal’s Early Days
In a recent interview with Suite 101 on Venom’s influence on the black metal scene, frontman Cronos said: “When people go on about Venom creating the whole black metal movement or whatever, it's a big burden to carry. It's a difficult one to get big-headed about because I always thought Venom were just a catalyst for what was going to happen anyway. With there being so many bands that were copying everybody, it made so much sense that there was gonna be some sh*t come out that was gonna be different. Because I knew I couldn't be the only person on the planet thinking the way I was. Venom was a catalyst for what was inevitable and that was for rock music to get all dirty again and for people to say 'f*ck this sticking a f*cking sock down your f*cking spandex, let's turn the amps up and get the snot and the spit back into it’.”
Black Metal Arson and Murder
Inspired by the aforementioned bands and what would come to be known as the First Wave of black metal, the Second Wave began to coalesce in the early 1990s and was centred around the Norwegian scene. The decade saw number of seminal works released, including the likes of Darkthrone’s A Blaze In The Northern Sky, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas by Mayhem, and Emperor’s Anthem To The Welkin At Dusk but the music was overshadowed by a spate of church burnings, suicide and even murders centred around the scene and linked to the so-called (and much disputed) Black Metal Inner Circle.
The most infamous incidents to occur in this period were the suicide of Mayhem vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin (aka Dead, ironically) and the subsequent murder of Mayhem guitarist Oystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous) by Varg Vikernes (Count Grishnackh) of one-man black metal project Burzum.
The Black Metal Scene Today
Today there still exists a thriving underground black metal scene while other bands have enjoyed more mainstream success mixing black metal elements with other deviations and styles. Kvlter-than-thou purists might balk at the symphonic output of Cradle Of Filth or Dimmu Borgir or the ‘black ‘n’ roll’ of latterday Satyricon being associated with the scene but others see black metal as an umbrella term that has expanded to encompass a number of stylistic divisions.
Click here for the full interview with Venom’s Cronos on the roots of black metal.
 |
