Black Metal: War against the World
The Metal scene in Norway is most famous for being the spawning grounds of the controversial subgenre of music, Black Metal. Norwegian Black Metal has roots in Thrash and Death metal, and commonly includes very extreme, violent and misandric lyrics with heavy Satanic themes. It’s characteristics include fast tempos, shrieking vocals, heavily distorted guitars, and a very dark atmosphere brought on by the use of ‘corpse paint’, death/satanic themed pseudonyms adopted by band members and gory stage decorations.
Norwegian Black Metal was first founded in the 1980’s by what is now commonly referred to as the first wave of black metal. Bands which contributed to this include ‘Venom’, ‘Hellhammer’, ‘Bathory’ and ‘Celtic Frost’. These bands were the first to start including extreme lyrics with many references to the satanic, acts of anarchy and violence.
The second wave of Norwegian Black Metal came in the early 1990’s, brought on by the success and controversy of the first wave Black Metal bands. This era spawned one of the most infamous Norwegian Black Metal bands in history, “Mayhem”, along with “Darkthrone”, “Burzum”, “Immortal” and “Emperor”. This is when the genre really started to gain traction and the themes and styles of the first wave Black Metal bands were developed into a defined genre and subculture.
As a genre, Black Metal is quite different from other forms of extreme Metal, such as Death Metal and Thrash Metal, because of its philosophy and culture. However in terms of pure sound, Black Metal can be mistaken for other forms of extreme Metal by those not familiar with the subtle differences between genres. Black Metal’s most easily recognizable feature is the musical innovation of playing full chords instead of power chords. This innovation has largely been credited to Black Metal figureheads, Snorre 'Blackthorn' Ruch and Øystein 'Euronymous' Aarseth. Furthermore, most fans agree that Black Metal vocals are often in a higher register and contain ‘shrieks’ rather than ‘growling’ which is used more widely in Death Metal. Black Metal, and a few other Metal genres, also do not have a clear song structure, and rarely follow the traditional verse-chorus format. Large parts of the songs are often devoted to atmospheric and heavy instrumental sections.
With the rise in popularity for Black Metal, the main audience for Black Metal has shifted from youths from Anglo-Saxon countries, to youths in general. The non conformism and exclusiveness of Black Metal appeal a lot to modern audiences because of the commercial nature of music today. In an age where the success of a band depends on the amount of ‘likes’ they get on Facebook and pandering to gigantic record labels, a genre of music which is all about authenticity and shunning the mainstream is a breath of fresh air.
What makes Norwegian Black Metal so distinctive and interesting is not simply the music, but also the culture which the music surrounds. The core values of the Black Metal culture are anti christian, individualistic, maintaining authenticity and barring entry to those who are ‘uncommitted’. The idea of keeping Black Metal out of the mainstream is heavily centric to the Black metal culture. As a result, Black Metal bands will often choose to record in ‘lo-fi’ with very low production quality to ensure a ‘raw’ and ‘cold’ sound, shunning anything which would make the genre more accessible to the mainstream. One of the main founding members of Norwegian Black Metal ‘Euronymous’ would even go so far as to name the founding members of the genre “The Black Circle” to further the image of Black Metal being cult-like, non conformist and separatist, even though the scene was never really organized enough to be anything like a cult.
The idea of being separatist and keeping out of the mainstream is taken to such extremes that many ‘Purist’ Black Metal bands don’t treat their concerts as performances to entertain the audience, but rather as rituals, where authenticity and sincerity are the most important factors. In general, audience participation in Black Metal concerts varies from band to band. However Black Metal bands like ‘Watain’ and ‘Mayhem’ have been known to throw animal blood and heads on to their audiences, and cast ‘spells’ during their performances. Furthermore audience members commonly ‘scream’ and or ‘growl’ along with the beast like vocals of Black Metal performances, and make the iconic ‘sign of the horns’ gesture with their hands.
In most forms of Metal, there are some themes of class superiority and individualism based on music and culture. What makes Black Metal unique is that those themes and ideals are taken to the extreme. In Norwegian Black Metal, authenticity and barring the mainstream are of the utmost importance. This is normally practiced by those in the Norwegian Black Metal scene by intentionally making their music as radical and controversial as possible (which in the highly Christian country of Norway means singing about Satanism) in order to place a firm barrier of entry against those not ‘evil’ or ‘Metal’ enough. It doesn't stop there.
Not only does the Norwegian Black Metal shun those outside of the Black Metal circle, but there is also constant contention within the scene itself over what is ‘real’ Black Metal, and whether or not certain bands and songs are ‘evil’ and authentic enough. This constant quest to play the ‘blackest’ music and be the most ‘evil’ has even created fatal schisms within the founding members of the Black Metal scene, ‘The Black Circle’. On August 10th 1993 renowned Black Metalist Varg Vikernes killed prominent Black Metal figure ‘Euronymous’. There are still multiple theories as to why Varg killed Euronymous. According to Varg Vikernes himself, he learned from mutual friends of Euronymous that Euronymous was planning to ‘...meet me, knock me out with a stun-gun, tie me up and put me in the trunk of a car. He would then drive into the countryside, tie me to a tree and torture me to death while videotaping everything.’ Varg then proceeded to confront Euronymous in the middle of the night at Euronymous’s home. During the confrontation, Euronymous attacked him first, then went running for a kitchen knife, prompting Varg to pull out his own knife and chase Euronymous out of the apartment before stabbing him in the forehead.
At its heart, Black Metal is a war against the world. It started off as the response of lost youths in the highly religious country of Norway, trying to find their identity. Now, it has come to symbolize the rejection of everything, and the universal desire to rebel against the broken world those before you have created, and return it to its natural state. Many forms of music also express this feeling of primal rebellion, like punk, rock, and even pop music today.
This feeling and desire to break free of the mold that society dictates to us and change the world is a timeless one. Black Metal expresses this dissatisfaction of the world in its extreme music and associating with the Devil, the universes first rebel. And this sometimes leads to people in the Black Metal scene committing heinous acts, due to the the cultures constant quest to be more apart form society, and be more authentic.
Though the acts and music of the Black Metal scene may seem extreme or evil, make no mistake, we all have a bit of Black Metal in us.