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Gemini 7 Rising
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:29 am 
 

greywanderer7 wrote:
First wave discussions aside, I don't know how else to convince people in this thread that there was, indeed, black metal before Norway, so I'm putting musical samples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgn8ONza3NM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo8Cx2h0cLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSvfFrhgj3Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI1ItXX3QV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODbxYjuYfqc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45CYUYXS-mo

And before you talk to me about death metal influences, remember that the same could be said about Deathcrush. People seem to ignore that Euronymous was obsessed with finding raw and crude extreme metal from every part of the world, from South America to Eastern Europe and even Japan, because he wanted to create a similar thing in Norway, as he didn't felt there was good music in his country during death metal's heyday. And to quote the man himself: "I’d like to see a scene … where the people in the scene all look like Hellhammer or old Sarcófago, spikes and chains." Far away from the "True Norwegian Black Metal" bullshit that would invade the scene years later.


Exactly. Well done. And Euronymous, Fenriz & others were well aware of & into this stuff. That's evolution for you.

Without taking anything away from their individual contributions, they knew exactly where to steal from.
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Gemini 7 Rising
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:53 am 
 

funeralravens wrote:
I am a long time lurker, but I decided to register, since there's a lot of nonsense being posted in this thread.

I'm sorry, but the first wave of black metal and Bathory in particular aren't real black metal. Everybody here talks about Fenriz, but I agree with Chaosmonger that his opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. Varg Vikernes calls Bathory thrash, I believe it was the consensus in those days.

There wasn't really such a genre as black metal back then. If you look at older zines you can see even Mayhem being referred to as brutal death metal. Euronymous used to call bands like Slayer and Deicide as black metal. This alone shows that black metal was just a synonym of "satanic metal" before the second wave, kinda like "pirate metal" or "love metal".

Now if we look at the first wave musically, it's just a bunch of thrash metal and heavy metal bands singing about Satan. Most of those bands have almost nothing to do with the black metal bands of today. The only exception is Bathory and its clones like Master's Hammer and Tormentor, but even they aren't truly black metal. They are more like blackened thrash, with the thrash part being predominant. I would say Bathory's most black metal album is "Under The Sign of The Black Mark", but it's still 50/50 thrash/black. Sure, the song Massacre sounds similar to real black metal, but it's still very thrashy. If it wasn't so raw and the vocals were different, you would never say it's black metal. So Sad by Napalm Death sounds more black metal than that, and you would never call it black metal, would you? And even with all that rawness and harsh vocals a song like Woman of Dark Desires has nothing to do with black metal. If you think it's black metal, then Metallica is black metal.

I was extremely surprised to learn there are people who think Blood Fire Death is black metal. You must be joking, because most riffs on that album could be found in Metallica albums.

If you think black metal was a real genre before the norwegian second wave, you are delusional. Even A Blaze in the Northern Sky isn't 100% black metal, it still has a lot of thrash and death influences. Under a Funeral Moon is a real black metal album, however, and it sounds nothing like anything from the first wave.

If you want to hear the first true black metal album, look no further than Thorns' Grymyrk.


I think I get the angle you're trying to come in from, but it seems rather dismissive of what you can hear in a lot of those bands who were already halfway there before Mayhem & Darkthrone. I'll give you that 'Under a Funeral Moon' kind of brought it to another level but, even there, they weren't exactly reinventing the wheel.

I threw 'Under A Funeral Moon' on before I started this post & you can't tell me there aren't any thrashy moments here or things I've absolutely never heard before (as in chronologically came before). They just pushed it further and stripped out other elements. But UAFM is innovative as fuck, I've always loved this record.

A lot of this debate is fairly subjective, I suppose.
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Last edited by Gemini 7 Rising on Sat Feb 15, 2020 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Gemini 7 Rising
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 2:17 am 
 

Also, not that it necessarily "proves" anything, but you go to Darkthrone's page on this site and the first two bands that come up under 'Similar Artists' are Bathory & Celtic Frost. Mayhem's #3, but then it's Hellhammer.
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Metal Minds
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 4:30 am 
 

UNDER A FUNERAL MOON: way less black metal than Celtic Frost, Bathory, or Venom. Even the Motörhead bits are way, way worst than Motörhead or even Venom. And even Destruction from the first album is more black metal as well. Actually, anything from Welcome to Hell to the epic black journey of At War With Satan is more black metal than this album. And Sodom is as well. As well as Hellhammer and Possessed. It's not a benchmark for anything at all.

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Unorthodox
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:04 am 
 

Meh, I have a hard time with this. People always want to call Bathory black metal, or Venom, but really, I think the Norwegians in the 90s started it. I see a lot of first wave as basically low-fi speed metal with raw vocals. There's no tremelo picking, no blast beats. There's "satanic imagery", but if that's what constitutes as genre-defining, then Kiss might as well be black metal because their face paint influenced corpse paint.
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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:12 am 
 

Unorthodox wrote:
Meh, I have a hard time with this. People always want to call Bathory black metal, or Venom, but really, I think the Norwegians in the 90s started it. I see a lot of first wave as basically low-fi speed metal with raw vocals. There's no tremelo picking, no blast beats. There's "satanic imagery", but if that's what constitutes as genre-defining, then Kiss might as well be black metal because their face paint influenced corpse paint.

I think actual black metal came around a little bit earlier than the 90s Norwegian scene, around 1987 or so, with bands like the ones greywanderer7 mentioned. Venom and Celtic Frost might have been influential, but they're about as much black metal as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden are power metal. Late 80s Sarcofago and Rotting Christ, though? Shit, that's just straight-up black metal as we know it today.
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Metal Minds
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:27 am 
 

No. This is full on black metal.

[youtube] https://youtu.be/I3o6ZQEI6bM[/youtube]

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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:38 am 
 

Metal Minds wrote:
No. This is full on black metal.

https://youtu.be/I3o6ZQEI6bM

Nah, this is heavy/speed metal with gritty lo-fi production. Sounds more like Speedwolf than Sargeist.
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Metal Minds
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:32 am 
 

No. It’s black metal. If you can’t get it, you’ can’t get it.

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Gravetemplar
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:45 am 
 

Yeah, that Venom song sounds nothing like black metal. They're not a black metal band and they've never been. Were they influential? Sure. Coining the term doesn't make you black metal though. Black metal is all about the tremolo riffs and that song sounds like a heavy metal band.

Bathory's Under the Sign of the Black Mark on the other hand, I get why people are saying it's the first black metal album and I think I have to agree even though it still has a very strong thrash influence. For me it's clearly Bathory and bands like early Rotting Christ, Mystifier, Sarcofago and Master's Hammer.

As a matter of fact I think the Norwegian scene gets too much credit because of extramusical reasons.

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Metal Minds
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:49 am 
 

Yeah that all sounds cute, but in real life, Venom comprehends all that is to be black metal.

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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:50 am 
 

Metal Minds wrote:
Yeah that all sounds cute, but in real life, Venom comprehends all that is to be black metal.

Just because they influenced the creation of the thing doesn't mean that they are the thing.

Blue Cheer was hugely influential in the creation of heavy metal, but Blue Cheer are not a heavy metal band.
Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were hugely influential in the creation of power metal, but Judas Priest and Iron Maiden are not power metal bands.
Venom was hugely influential in the creation of black metal, but Venom are not a black metal band.

Aesthetics and clothing and coining of words means absolutely nothing--all that matters is the sound. And Venom sound like heavy/speed metal with gritty lo-fi production.
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Metal Minds
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:06 am 
 

Nope. Venom sounds like black metal. And that’s what they are.

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~Guest 285196
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:40 am 
 

I can understand it if your definition of black metal is wide enough to include Venom, but you lose me when you say that Venom is more black metal than Darkthrone's Under a Funeral Moon. To me that is one of the absolute purest expressions of black metal, at least the style associated with the Norwegian scene.
Like this one. Every single riff is dripping with evil and atmosphere that is the essence of the genre.
If you take a Venom-centric view, and define black metal as the music they played, then I understand your position, but I don't think it will catch on, and will probably give you many headaches in discussions like this.
Metal Minds wrote:
Nope. Venom sounds like black metal. And that’s what they are.
Metal Minds wrote:
Yeah that all sounds cute, but in real life, Venom comprehends all that is to be black metal.
Metal Minds wrote:
No. It’s black metal. If you can’t get it, you’ can’t get it.

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~Guest 454771
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:51 am 
 

With everyone, I think, memories of early childhood consist of a series of visual impressions, many very clear but lacking any sense of chronology.


Last edited by ~Guest 454771 on Sun Feb 16, 2020 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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HamburgerBoy
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:59 am 
 

Black metal started with Into Glory Ride, which Bathory took after heavily.

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Sedition and Pockets
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 8:17 am 
 

HamburgerBoy wrote:
Black metal started with Into Glory Ride, which Bathory took after heavily.


Love it!
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~Guest 454771
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 8:24 am 
 

Manowar were so true they accidentally became that which they most despise. :(

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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 8:37 am 
 

Oh shit, you guys!

Image

Running Wild and Helloween are death metal! It's on the cover, so it must be true!
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~Guest 454771
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 8:44 am 
 

"Onward to Golgotha" is just a minor variation of "Keeper of the Seven Keys". Wake up sheeple! Ok this joke has gone on too long. :P

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Sedition and Pockets
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 8:44 am 
 

Zelkiiro wrote:
Oh shit, you guys!

Image

Running Wild and Helloween are death metal! It's on the cover, so it must be true!


And this is why we need a basic bitch heart emoji among the smiley options.
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Sedition and Pockets
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 8:45 am 
 

Mellifleur wrote:
"Onward to Golgotha" is just a minor variation of "Keeper of the Seven Keys". Wake up sheeple! Ok this joke has gone on too long. :P


Image
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HamburgerBoy
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:03 am 
 

To be clear, I'm not referring really to musical influence (of which Bathory's is questionable) but of cultural influence. Manowar explored new frontiers of self-aggrandizement and denial of one's influences, and then Bathory stole that framework and ran with it, inspiring an entire scene of musical hacks whose main contribution was the metal sub-genre equivalent of "Great Man" theory. There's very little about Scandinavian black metal musically-speaking that couldn't be found elsewhere at the same time or earlier.

But anyone that still believes that Quorthon wasn't aping the shit out of early Manowar for his more epic songs (which began with Under the Sign of the Black Mark) is willfully deaf. The entire Viking metal basis comes from Into Glory Ride.

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~Guest 454771
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:11 am 
 

I disagree with the general thrust of your post, but the comment about great man theory in black metal is interesting. It probably is the metal genre in which fans place the most credit undeservedly in the hands of the lone auteur, and not just in regards to solo projects. There are a lot of solo projects, but I think that may be more a function of the lower technical demands for most of the instrumentation and that there is a bit less emphasis on developing songs through jamming than in other metal genres. Most of the best black metal bands are collaborative projects even if they are headed by a single person. It's pretty rare indeed that an entire album (of any genuine quality) doesn't have at least a few extra folks involved in the editorial and production processes. The theatrics of black metal (even with the bands that eschew the corpsepaint and mortal kombat poses) does lean heavily on the character of the "creative mind" behind the music, and that does tend to lead to the notion that the music is entirely prefigured in that single mind when in reality that is very rarely the case.

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Sedition and Pockets
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:15 am 
 

It's almost like a bunch of narcissistic sociopaths defined the template, or something.
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HamburgerBoy
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:28 am 
 

Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Sarcofago, Bulldozer, Master's Hammer, etc seemed to get by just fine creatively without being murderous try-hards, to say nothing of the other various metal sub-genres. While I do enjoy and appreciate some of the Scandinavian output (especially DMDS and the Darkthrone trilogy), they are not and never have been ground zero for black metal except with respect to the most detestable aspects of black metal culture.

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Sedition and Pockets
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:35 am 
 

HamburgerBoy wrote:
Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Sarcofago, Bulldozer, Master's Hammer, etc seemed to get by just fine creatively without being murderous try-hards, to say nothing of the other various metal sub-genres. While I do enjoy and appreciate some of the Scandinavian output (especially DMDS and the Darkthrone trilogy), they are not and never have been ground zero for black metal except with respect to the most detestable aspects of black metal culture.


Agreed.

And yet, there's not a single one of those acts that I would rather listen to than the Norwegian classics. I think I may just have a thing for sociopaths.
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funeralravens
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:14 am 
 

greywanderer7 wrote:
First wave discussions aside, I don't know how else to convince people in this thread that there was, indeed, black metal before Norway, so I'm putting musical samples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgn8ONza3NM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo8Cx2h0cLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSvfFrhgj3Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI1ItXX3QV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODbxYjuYfqc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45CYUYXS-mo

And before you talk to me about death metal influences, remember that the same could be said about Deathcrush. People seem to ignore that Euronymous was obsessed with finding raw and crude extreme metal from every part of the world, from South America to Eastern Europe and even Japan, because he wanted to create a similar thing in Norway, as he didn't felt there was good music in his country during death metal's heyday. And to quote the man himself: "I’d like to see a scene … where the people in the scene all look like Hellhammer or old Sarcófago, spikes and chains." Far away from the "True Norwegian Black Metal" bullshit that would invade the scene years later.

I'll give you that, those albums sound more black metal than they are not. They are on par with A Blaze in the Northern Sky. But still the aspects that fully separated black metal from death and thrash were developed by the Norwegian bands. Constant cold tremolo riffs, the emphasis on atmosphere and so on.
HamburgerBoy wrote:
Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Sarcofago, Bulldozer, Master's Hammer, etc seemed to get by just fine creatively without being murderous try-hards, to say nothing of the other various metal sub-genres. While I do enjoy and appreciate some of the Scandinavian output (especially DMDS and the Darkthrone trilogy), they are not and never have been ground zero for black metal except with respect to the most detestable aspects of black metal culture.

The fact is that almost all black metal bands starting from 1994 sound like the Norwegian bands, unless they are war metal. If you don't like the Norwegian bands, you can't say you are truly a fan of black metal, since you are only going to enjoy the 1% that sounds like the first wave.

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Gravetemplar
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:57 am 
 

funeralravens wrote:
The fact is that almost all black metal bands starting from 1994 sound like the Norwegian bands, unless they are war metal. If you don't like the Norwegian bands, you can't say you are truly a fan of black metal, since you are only going to enjoy the 1% that sounds like the first wave.

I don't really agree with this. Norwegian bands were very diverse and kind of a mixed bag, not some unified scene with a stablished sound every band followed. It wasn't homogeneous in terms of quality either, there was some amazing stuff but also some stuff that wasn't as good. I don't think I've seen anyone disregarding the whole scene but even if you don't like a single Norwegian band there was more black metal being done at that moment that was very influential: Blut aus Nord, Rotting Christ, Varathron, Samael, Dissection, Arckanum, Beherit, Profanatica...

I don't think it's fair to say that 99% of black metal is just stuff that sounds like the Norwegian bands. Of course the Norwegian bands were important but it's not like black metal wouldn't exist without them.

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HviteGuden
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 11:39 am 
 

Zelkiiro wrote:
Oh shit, you guys!

Image

Running Wild and Helloween are death metal! It's on the cover, so it must be true!

Lol, so true. Why not, if it's like that with black metal?!

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Metal Minds
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:01 pm 
 

raumr wrote:
I can understand it if your definition of black metal is wide enough to include Venom, but you lose me when you say that Venom is more black metal than Darkthrone's Under a Funeral Moon.


A lot of stuff sounds more like black metal than under a funeral moon. Not only Venom. Even Slayer’s show no mercy is more black metal than that album. It’s one type of black metal, and is very derivative.

I’ve already established and dissected why and how black metal existed before the Norwegians. There were hundreds of bands and all elements of the sound were there already. Facts are facts.

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Vanthos_Anasthasia
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:17 pm 
 

I haven't chimed in in a really long time, but I gotta say Bathory. One thing that really gives Bathory some weight in the argument, too, is the other extremely raw evil bands coming out of Italy and Eastern Europe at the time. I'm thinking of Necrodeath, Bulldozer, Torr, Tormentor, etc. They all had the raspy demonic vocals, filthy minor key tremolo, over the top fast mechanical drums, etc. There weren't any solid scenes, but I get the idea after listening to all these bands that there was a loose sense of trying to form a new genre based on these elements back in the 80s. Could just be coincidence too.

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HeavenDuff
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:30 pm 
 

chuggingpus wrote:
I first heard (read) the term black metal being thrown around in zines in 1984 in reference to Venom, Slayer, Mercyful Fate and I even remember one zine using it to describe Ozzy Osbourne that year. The term death metal I recalled seeing in some zines as early as 1986. It was really just a descriptive term but had not become a defined genre. I guess it’s up to you if you consider Venom and Bathory to be “official black metal” or not. Bathory I did not hear of until 1985 as well as my peers. When we heard that record, we weren’t calling it black metal but it certainly sounds like what was later lumped into the genre black metal. Around ‘85 I also found a copy of the Semen Of Satan demo at Johnny Z’s old record shop, a primitive band that touched upon the black metal idea also.

I had heard bands like Samael, Rotting Christ and Profanatica by like 1992 before bands like Burzum, Emperor, etc. in 1993 the supermarket magazine Alternative Press did an article on Mayhem, the murder, church burnings etc. they hyped up Emperor pretty heavily as well and called all these bands “black metal.” That was the first time I recalled seeing it in print in a large magazine defining these bands into a genre.


Thanks for the insight! It's nice to hear about the era from people who actually experienced it and remember it.

funeralravens wrote:
I'm sorry, but the first wave of black metal and Bathory in particular aren't real black metal. Everybody here talks about Fenriz, but I agree with Chaosmonger that his opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. Varg Vikernes calls Bathory thrash, I believe it was the consensus in those days.There wasn't really such a genre as black metal back then. If you look at older zines you can see even Mayhem being referred to as brutal death metal. Euronymous used to call bands like Slayer and Deicide as black metal.

Now if we look at the first wave musically, it's just a bunch of thrash metal and heavy metal bands singing about Satan. Most of those bands have almost nothing to do with the black metal bands of today. The only exception is Bathory and its clones like Master's Hammer and Tormentor, but even they aren't truly black metal. They are more like blackened thrash, with the thrash part being predominant. I would say Bathory's most black metal album is "Under The Sign of The Black Mark", but it's still 50/50 thrash/black. Sure, the song Massacre sounds similar to real black metal, but it's still very thrashy.

If you think black metal was a real genre before the norwegian second wave, you are delusional. Even A Blaze in the Northern Sky isn't 100% black metal, it still has a lot of thrash and death influences. Under a Funeral Moon is a real black metal album, however, and it sounds nothing like anything from the first wave.


So by your own extremely flawed logic, we should say that Mayhem is brutal death metal. But that would be stupid now, would it? The reason why people didn't refer to Bathory as black metal is because the genre was still extremely young, and it was the 80's, not the 2010's where everyone is on the Internet and has access to everything. And the bottom line is, that the genre that was starting to grow, with bands suchs as Celtic Frost, Venom and Bathory was creating the blueprints of what would eventually be recognized by everyone as black metal. Now when you listen to bands of the 2nd wave that are undoubtebly black metal and than compare them to Under the Sign of The Black Mark, it's OBVIOUS that one such album was EXTREMELY influential to 2nd wave black metal. And what's all this bullshit about taking Fenriz with a grain of salt? Fenriz basically admitts to COPYING 1st wave bands for albums such as Under a Funeral Moon, which you later described in your post as a landmark of black metal. If you don't hear the 1st wave in Under a Funeral Moon you're just not listening to it right, I'm sorry. That's just how it is.

This whole point about Bathory still having thrash metal elements in their mix with black metal elements making Quorthon's music not black metal is just plain silly! Even if just half the album was black metal, would you argue that the guy didn't participate in creating black metal because he still mixed the ELEMENTS HE FUCKING CREATED with other things? So yeah, these guys kind of played black metal, but we shouldn't say they created it, we should give full credits to those who took massive influence from them instead, cause in 2020, we like to rewrite history.

Go blast Call from the Grave and tell me it's not a direct influence to Under a Funeral Moon, ffs.


Last edited by HeavenDuff on Sat Feb 15, 2020 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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cultofkraken
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 3:53 pm 
 

HeavenDuff wrote:
chuggingpus wrote:
I first heard (read) the term black metal being thrown around in zines in 1984 in reference to Venom, Slayer, Mercyful Fate and I even remember one zine using it to describe Ozzy Osbourne that year. The term death metal I recalled seeing in some zines as early as 1986. It was really just a descriptive term but had not become a defined genre. I guess it’s up to you if you consider Venom and Bathory to be “official black metal” or not. Bathory I did not hear of until 1985 as well as my peers. When we heard that record, we weren’t calling it black metal but it certainly sounds like what was later lumped into the genre black metal. Around ‘85 I also found a copy of the Semen Of Satan demo at Johnny Z’s old record shop, a primitive band that touched upon the black metal idea also.

I had heard bands like Samael, Rotting Christ and Profanatica by like 1992 before bands like Burzum, Emperor, etc. in 1993 the supermarket magazine Alternative Press did an article on Mayhem, the murder, church burnings etc. they hyped up Emperor pretty heavily as well and called all these bands “black metal.” That was the first time I recalled seeing it in print in a large magazine defining these bands into a genre.


Thanks for the insight! It's nice to hear about the era from people who actually experienced it and remember it.

funeralravens wrote:
I'm sorry, but the first wave of black metal and Bathory in particular aren't real black metal. Everybody here talks about Fenriz, but I agree with Chaosmonger that his opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. Varg Vikernes calls Bathory thrash, I believe it was the consensus in those days.There wasn't really such a genre as black metal back then. If you look at older zines you can see even Mayhem being referred to as brutal death metal. Euronymous used to call bands like Slayer and Deicide as black metal.

Now if we look at the first wave musically, it's just a bunch of thrash metal and heavy metal bands singing about Satan. Most of those bands have almost nothing to do with the black metal bands of today. The only exception is Bathory and its clones like Master's Hammer and Tormentor, but even they aren't truly black metal. They are more like blackened thrash, with the thrash part being predominant. I would say Bathory's most black metal album is "Under The Sign of The Black Mark", but it's still 50/50 thrash/black. Sure, the song Massacre sounds similar to real black metal, but it's still very thrashy.

If you think black metal was a real genre before the norwegian second wave, you are delusional. Even A Blaze in the Northern Sky isn't 100% black metal, it still has a lot of thrash and death influences. Under a Funeral Moon is a real black metal album, however, and it sounds nothing like anything from the first wave.


So by your own extremely flawed logic, we should say that Mayhem is brutal death metal. But that would be stupid now, would it? The reason why people didn't refer to Bathory as black metal is because the genre was still extremely young, and it was the 80's, not the 2010's where everyone is on the Internet and has access to everything. And the bottom line is, that the genre that was starting to grow, with bands suchs as Celtic Frost, Venom and Bathory was creating the blueprints of what would eventually be recognized by everyone as black metal. Now, the bottom line is that when you listen to bands of the 2nd wave that are undoubtebly black metal and than compare them to Under the Sign of The Black Mark, it's OBVIOUS that one such album was EXTREMELY influential to 2nd wave black metal. And what's all this bullshit about taking Fenriz with a grain of salt? Fenriz basically admitts to COPYING 1st wave bands for albums such as Under a Funeral Moon, which you later described in your post as a landmark of black metal. If you don't hear the 1st wave in Under a Funeral Moon you're just not listening to it right, I'm sorry. That's just how it is.

This whole point about Bathory still having thrash metal elements in their mix with black metal elements making Quorthon's music not black metal is just plain silly! Even if just half the album was black metal, would you argue that the guy didn't participate in creating black metal because he still mixed the ELEMENTS HE FUCKING CREATED with other things? So yeah, these guys kind of played black metal, but we shouldn't say they created it, we should give full credits to those who took massive influence from them instead, cause in 2020, we like to rewrite history.

Go blast Call from the Grave and tell me it's not a direct influence to Under a Funeral Moon, ffs.


This should literally be the end of this debate. Fin.
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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:18 pm 
 

HeavenDuff wrote:
chuggingpus wrote:
Go blast Call from the Grave and tell me it's not a direct influence to Under a Funeral Moon, ffs.


yeah but without the Norwegians taking the influence and running with it, no one would be calling that Bathory album black metal, ya know? Kind of a chicken and the egg semantic thing, I guess.

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lloyd93
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:13 pm 
 

Just like how Black Sabbath invented metal, Judas Priest perfected it.
Venom invented black metal, Bathory perfected it.
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tomcat_ha
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2020 10:47 am 
 

How are the Return or Under the Sign of the Black Mark less black metal than say Scream Bloody Gore or Consuming Impulse are death metal?

It is true that the 1st wave bands mostly did not really have blast beats nor the melodic tremolo riffs but then again how much of that is present on Drawing Down the Moon. A song like Gate of Nanna is if anything maybe the most bare bones stripped down pure example of black metal there is.

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Chaosmonger
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2020 12:41 pm 
 

tomcat_ha wrote:
How are the Return or Under the Sign of the Black Mark less black metal than say Scream Bloody Gore or Consuming Impulse are death metal?


well yeah, I think we can agree to grandfather the first three Bathory's into the BM category due to it resembling what the genre ended up sounding like. But Venom? Celtic Frost? Mercyful Fate? Ehhh.

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Metal Minds
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2020 3:53 pm 
 

Again, if you can’t see why Venom and Celtic Frost are black metal. You can’t see a lot of stuff.

Another element that gets my attention is that the most famous and successful black metal bands EVER don’t sound that much like black metal. Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir musically owe much, much more to Danny Elfman/Tim Burton soundtracks, Alan Menken (Disney soundtracks), Andrew Lloyd - Webber the phantom of the opera, classical 19th century romantic music, horror soundtracks, mixed with metal and a lot of pop gothic rock THAN they owe their music to TRUE BLACK METAL like VENOM. And even the metal bits of these bands sound very poppy and mechanical, a bit like Japanese computer metal.

The whole “Symphonic/melodic black metal” things sounds much more like a broadway play or Disney musical/ride with shrieking vocals and guitars, inspired in musical structures taken from symphonic pop and Danny Elfman’s soundtrack for the Simpsons Halloween special, than they sound like black metal.

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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2020 4:12 pm 
 

Metal Minds wrote:
TRUE BLACK METAL like VENOM.

You're not getting it. Music genres have nothing to do with influence or aesthetics--music genres are purely about the sound and nothing else. That's it. Literally nothing else matters.

This does not sound like black metal. It sounds like bouncy heavy metal.
This does not sound like black metal. It sounds like textbook heavy/speed metal.
This is a bit darker, but still sounds nothing like black metal. It's heavy/speed metal, once again.
This does not sound like black metal. Yet again, it's heavy/speed metal. ARE WE SENSING A THEME YET?!

Now, let's switch gears and look at what's going on around the exact same time--oh shit, would you look at that, it's black metal! Fully-formed and sounding 0% like Venom!
And lo, more black metal from the exact same time period that sounds nothing like Venom!
Hark, and what is this? Tremolo picking, frigid atmosphere, and shrieking vocals that bear no resemblance to Venom at all despite occurring at the same time? How mysterious!

VENOM. DO. NOT. SOUND. LIKE. BLACK. METAL. AT. ALL.
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