I was thinking of the turn of the century in terms of the catch-all term dark metal, when Century Media had bands signed such as Tiamat, Moonspell, Rotting Christ, and other bands had metamorphosed from their youthful forays of extreme metal with the gothic influence that meshed both sounds together. It was sound that existed for a few albums and with the exceptions of two of the aforementioned bands, stopped and the bands went about the creative cycle. What is a sound of metal that existed for a few albums between similar bands, that caught broader attention but literally fell of the radar. Please no mentions of the derided culprits of metalcore, retro thrash, and similar trends as they are still quite active, rather a type of sound that caught your ear but subsequently vanished and exists only today in the band's back catalogue.

In the case of "dark metal", I'm guessing that mainstream gothic metal as a movement happened. A lot of the bands that you could associate with the term went on to play gothic metal because that could earn them more money, at least in the short term. Whether this resulted in quality music is up for debate.

Anyways, the widespread availability of internet access from the early '90s onwards probably kept a lot of genres from actually dying, so it would've taken a good deal of obscurity for a whole substyle to fall into obscurity. I guess it'd be good to distinguish between genres that actually fell off the radar, and genres where the bands simply stopped producing much of anything.

Death 'n Roll.

There are still dark metal albums around I think. Its a pretty non descript term though, so I might just be shoehorning stuff into it.

As for one to add, torture doom. Sure Sektarism put out a very Bunkur-esque album last year, but by and large tue genre is dead. Obviously it was unpopular as the plague, and not many people were into it, but I actuqlly liked it with all the screechy vocals, random, goofy drumming and guitar feedback in the place of keyboardy tones. Even Funeraliums new one, which seems like it'll be hateful as all hell has abandoned the pure torture mindset. Most bands weren't brilliant, but I'm sad it died before many bands got around to doing full lengths with dense production, would have loved a Senthil or Munn full length with more guitar weight.

To a lesser extent, perhaps Black 'n Roll, as well.

I could be wrong, but Dungeon Synth doesn't seem to have a lot of releases coming from it these days.

Because dungeon synth is awful and people wised up.

Torture Doom?? Never heard about that before?

Wormphlegm, Bunkur, etc.

Battle ambient kind of disappeared as well. It was like Summoning without the metal. I remember a bunch of artists sprung up (for some reason, Uruk-Hai is the only one I can remember) but the interest from fans seemed pretty limited. I thought it was all pretty boring.

What about the ever lovin' "speed" metal? Only 2% of bands in the archves have "speed" as even part of their listed genre, and I would guess most of them are older bands. I remember speed metal being a thing back in the 80s. Did it die out when everyone realized that playing fast wasn't a genre?

Speed metal? You have to understand that speed metal spawned both power and thrash metal. Then think of neoclassical metal. Also realize that thrash spawned black and death. Rather than just died out, I'd say speed metal paved the way for the majority of metal's subgenres.

There aren't really any new NYDM style bands anymore.. stuff along the lines of Suffo, Pyrexia, Internal Bleeding, Morpheus Descends, early Immolation, Dehumanized, Eternal Suffering, Baphomet, Torture Krypt.. plus a bunch more that never really made it past the local circuit/demo stage. The majority of the older bands playing this style or went full on wigger (see: Internal Bleeding, Dehumanized). Definitely a niche sound that's not really around anymore post-2000s, bands that claim to be influenced by all these bands usually end up being some shitty kind of slam and/or beatdown hardcore influenced metal.

I think maybe the same could also be said for the classic Finnish dm sound, like Demigod, Convulse, etc.. there are a few bands attempting to recapture it, including a couple actually from Finland, but aside from the reformed ones the number of bands playing this style it's basically in the single digits.

The late 80's/early 90's tech thrash bands (Toxik, Coroner, Deathrow, Realm, ect) didn't seem to last very long, and Vektor is the only newer band I know of that does anything similar to what those bands were doing.

It was extremely slow and repetitive funeral doom/drone, with some black metal influences in sound, extremely low riff counts (most torture doom songs were at least 20 minutes long and would rarely feature more than five riffs), and extremely simplistic riffs. As such most attention grabbing stuff waa brought on by the styles shrieking "guy getting tortured" vocals and often oddly busy drumming for such a slow style. Started by Wormpleghm primarily, most bands put out a half hour demo or two then vanished.

Stuff like this I think would qualify as "torture doom". Extremely slow, extremely repetitive, very long, "blackened" vocals, and no riffs; just various droning frequencies.

Death n'roll doesn't exist anymore??

I could have sworn there were still bands occasionally putting out albums or at least individual tracks with this sound.

I've never even heard of Black n'Roll or Dungeon Synth.

Could you give examples of band/albums/tracks with this sound that I could look up?

Kvelertak, newer Satyricon for black 'n roll. As for dungeon synth, no idea.

I haven't heard that much of the newer Satyricon stuff, but some of it has sounded to me quite similar to Blackened Crust which is a subgenre I really enjoy and which continues to exist (Wolvhammer in particular).

Not sure what the difference is between the two sub genres, maybe I'll have to hear more new Satyricon to distinguish.

Black 'n roll = Newer Darkthrone. Basically punk and black metal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFN8O0KaOcs

Kvelertak is the only big band I know that's carrying the black 'n roll banner right now (aside from Darkthrone of course).

@GravityLapse
The NYDM-style is popping back up. Rottrevore and Morpheus Descends got back together. There are some new bands in this style too such as Encoffination and Undergang.

Yeah, I miss torture doom too. I'm quite fond of the style. But people really need to stop mentioning Bunkur as one of the first examples, they're the worst band to have ever existed.

I LOVED that Darkthrone track! More bands should play that shit.

However, other than the vocals being clean, it does sound quite similar instrumentally to blackened crust like Wolvhammer, Dishammer, Disfear, Skitsystem, Martydod, a sub genre I have recently come to love.

The clean vox do give it a different and more traditional "punk" as opposed to crust punk feel though.

I actually don't hate them. Admittedly I can only handle ~25 minutes of them, I find the sloppy, simplistic drum fills pretty interesting and fun for a while. And that one riff change they have in the first album is pretty rad. They're not the best by any means though, there are far better bands.

Motherfucker, I'm gonna have to grab all of their later stuff now, aren't I?

I thought Darkthrone claimed they were NWOBHM - New Wave of Black Heavy Metal. They even titled a demo with that 'genre'.
Anyway, Kvelertak is certainly black n' roll. In my opinion, newer darkthrone lacks a bit of the 'roll' in their music to be called that

I haven't heard the genre 'Black Gaze' being thrown around much these days. Good riddance perhaps?

Sometimes I get a little nostalgic for that brief time around the turn of the millennium when metal bands tried to "modernize" their sound through any number of affectations, usually in the area of production. I always associate it with Akkerhaugen Studio. Some were more successful at it than others: Zyklon's World ov Worms, Cadaver Inc's Discipline, Myrkskog's Deathmachine, and, arguably, Abigor's Satanized are some of the more interesting ones from that era. I suppose Dimmu's Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia and Emperor's IX Equilibrium fit here as well, though both of those felt like downward steps for the bands.

Of course it also gave us eternally dull bands like Sirius and Tidfall, who I'm betting nobody remembers. Rightfully.

The backlash to this stylistic experimentation, though, the "return to roots" organic grimefest that still goes on today, is pretty overdue for its own evolution. I wish more bands would take the approach of Spite Extreme Wing's Vltra and, rather than try to recreate a specific band's sound, channel some original and inspired ideas through the throwback aesthetic of their choice. I guess Horrendous and Binah were successful at this. Oh and Ataraxy, I love that Ataraxy. Maybe a lot of these OSDM revival bands are well on their way to finding their own voice.

Then I realize my hypocrisy as I gleefully listen to the 99,999th rehash of Transilvanian Hunger.

Yeah, last year had a lot of actually fresh music coming out of the OSDM revival movement, due to improving productions and less of a focus on simply trying to out murk each other, hopefully this continues. With that said I don't think Binah did much, they were one of the duller ones for me actually, and I'm not into Horrendous' Death worship either, but the point still stands.

Is this different from Martial Industrial as it exists seperate from the Metal scene? I'm guessing from the description its more LOTR than WW2 themed?

When I think of "torture Doom" I think of Abruptum- didn't that band allegedly practice wierd acts of Sado-masochisim during theirrecording sessions? They fit the description anyway, slow ambient droning noise, they were somewhat related to black metal and were lumped in with that scene.

Anyone remember thrash-funk? It was this short lived trend among a few northern California metal bands for a while. Mordred were probably the best known example but there were a few others, and some bands like Death Angel even started incorporating slap-bass beats into their sound.

Black n' roll is hardly dead - as far as I know, there are still plenty of underground bands mixing really minimalistic black metal and punk rock.

You need to listen more stuff. For instance, I recommend you Rome. The style is hardly dead.

NO.

Don't forget Scatterbrain, which I think was made of Mordred members or something. But yeah, this is a dead genre. Dead dead dead.



I think there was "backlash" but I look at Blut Aus Nord as basically continuing that lineage of "modernized" black metal or whatever you want to term it. I think because there wasn't really a second wave of records from those particular bands in the mid 2000s that was worth half a shit, we basically forget Dodheimsgard, Fleurety, and the last December Wolves record (as examples). There hasn't been, for example, anyone demanding we revisit Diabolical Masquerade's Death's Design, and that was among the most critically acclaimed albums of 2001. So it sits there forgotten while people go on about how exciting bands doing something similar now are.

I'm not familiar with the band in question, but I'd say that the style needs some doom to it and a droning guitar basis. I'm listening to Obscuritatem right now, and while I wouldn't call it torture doom, due to the lack of doom and overwhelming droning guitar, and the frequent noisy outbursts, considering it's for nineteen ninety fucking three it's surprisingly close and fucking crazy. Definitely an influence to the style, and a band I really, really want to hear more of. I think that a wall of guitar feedback is an important part of the genre's traits, which is why something like Locrian's The Clearing would not be torture doom, despite having the screechy vocals and a torturous atmosphere, the dark ambient basis for the music isn't what I would consider torture doom. Also, TD has two different schools as far as I'm concerned, both easily defined by Wormphlegm. Wormphleghm's demo to me is a perfect example of the more drone based, more simplistic original form, which is what the Bunkur's, the Senthil's and the Munn's are like. Then you've got the full length, which retains the low riff count, and the shrieking vocals, but replaces a lot of the formless droning and nonsense drumming with a more recognisable funeral doom streak, which leads to heavier sounds, and riffier songs, this is what Funeralium, Lordamor and vaguely, The Funeral Orchestra do.

Well, we'll see if Morpheus Descends decides to release any new material. As for the latter two, Encoffination is just another Incantaclone, and Undergang.. I can kinda see what you mean, but still, not really NYDM.



Not quite, I wouldn't really consider Raspberry Bulbs and whoever else black n roll. More Circle Jerks, and way less Motorhead.



Yes! Moonfog black metal especially was a part of this, what with the "industrial" (mostly just techno) influences and the overall futurized black metal aesthetic. You totally skipped over the best one though - Thorns. Was the best then, still the best now and just in general holds up as great record. Still waiting on that mythical second album. As far as I know Snorre Ruch was supposed to have a complete band together, but still managed to make no progress whatsoever. I haven't even heard anything about his art sort of side project, Thorns Ltd. I guess he's still just doing web design stuff.

Dude I agree. And Spite Extreme Wing's Vltra is so amazing that I think it stands among the greatest black metal records of all time. And a huge reason why is the PERFECT 70's retro-ish production.


I was/am a fan of the whole "black-gaze" thing, though I think the bigger bands associated with this really had nothing to do with shoegaze and were more influenced by post-rock, and so more fitting (and convoluted) terms have been attached to them. Though there was still a few bands that mixed shoegaze with black metal in a very honest way, and a majority of them are still in their demo-phase, so perhaps it may build up again when/if some of the better names release full-lengths (Soliness, Shyy, Dernier Martyr, Onryo...).

There's actually plenty going on in Dungeon Synth lately, thanks in part to the excellent Dungeon Synth blog. Erang, Abandoned Places, Lord Lovidicus are all good examples of recent DS acts, plus many others.

That was just an EP (not a demo!) title. They never actually claimed it was a genre.



Sirius are awesome! You mean this band, yes? http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Sirius/1428. Their album Spectral Dimensions was heavy.

How many bands really did what Darkthrone did on Transilvanian Hunger, though? Rather few. People are generally thinking of the title track, and any black metal song consisting of a fairly minimalistic melodic main riff, a second riff and a usually pointless bridge is labelled as a TH clone. Of course the production must be raw and the rhythmical aspects quite unchanging.