Black Metal!

Yea don't hate on Viking-era Bathory

Im just saying the video i saw back then was cheesy and most definitely not black metal. I didn't say it was Cold Lake cheesy.

Is this the video in question?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDpc-831GPs

Because I think it's a total classic.

If only Quorthon were alive to defend himself ;_;

Im not sure, we're talking seeing a video in 92/93, cant remember.

Yeah, Black One wasn't black metal, but there was the Immortal cover, and Malefic singing his vocal parts from a closed coffin. I guess it just made me want to explore.

For reasons unexplained, I stopped listening to metal in the early 90s, and explored lots of other genres. Unfortunately I missed out on tons of good stuff. I was busy listening to early Sub-Pop grunge, Am Rep and Touch & Go stuff for most of the 90s.

Bathory is pretty unfuckwithable. I like the viking era just as much as the filthy black stuff.

I stopped listening to metal in the early 90s, and explored lots of other genres. Unfortunately I missed out on tons of good stuff. I was busy listening to early Sub-Pop grunge, Am Rep and Touch & Go stuff for most of the 90s.

I didn't explore BM etc, the metal i was into was industrial and yeah obv grunge alt/indie rock and stuff like you said but I still bought metal mags and was listening stoner then doom along with discovering funk,jazz,prog,punk,techno/idm, older stuff 80s indie rock and pretty much everything i could get my hands on. With napster/audiogalaxy/soulseek not only did I discover more of those bands in those genres I got into heavier and more experimental stuff.

I listened to bathory and celtic frost in the 80s but for some reason I just thought of them as metal bands, never really pegged them as "black metal" or part of some movement... seems kinda revisionist to me but I dunno, I wasn't paying that close attention

was eh on most black metal from the 90s until I heard de mysteriis dom sathanas

De Mysteriis is a classic. Funeral Fog/Freezing Moon is a great 1-2 punch

"one rode to asa bay" is 100% amazing

hammerheart - also 100% amazing

Just d/led "A Blaze in the Northern Sky". Looking forward to hearing some classic BM!

man i envy you getting to hear that for the first time

I like the cover, band name and album title, so the omens are good...

really one of a kind in their collection as it blends their old death metal and new black metal sound and the results....well just sit back and listen and love it.

(obv I mean "new at the time" black metal)

arent they on spotify, neil?

first thing i remember actively hearing (other than venom which a)i didnt like and b)kinda didnt count imo) was def anthems to the welkin etc

Big horns up for Bathory - Hammerheart. I bought that cassette and wore it out.

Taake are v good too

I like how defensive you guys are of bathory. i didn't even slag them off

Bathory fans very sensitive.

It's all that chafing chainmail.

xp to AG don't think the earlier ones are on Spotify, they are however on eMusic.

don't have emusic

it appears i missed wittr in glasgow recently :(

damn man

really like new Enslaved

http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2010/12/bullpen-bulletins-3-metal-hardcore-regurging-the-merging/

Out of the merging of metal and punk (or hardcore), we ended up with stuff like nu-metal (of course, the merging of rap and metal is partially responsible for this as well, something I have not the time, patience, nor thankfully the knowledge to expound upon——but I will admit that the inception of this merger was a good thing in theory as well) and grindcore (sorry, guys, but you know how I feel about this….). I’d hate to blame Henry Rollins for the tough-guy Pantera/Machine Head vocal style that became so popular in the ’90s, but I suppose he’s ostensibly one of the biggest influences on it—–although I’m sure he’d try to disclaim it—–and understandably so (but then Jesus Christ did say, “By their fruits ye shall know them”, not by their disclaimers….).

...

In the late ’80s and ’90s, I thought hardcore was partially to blame for the lack of songwriting and imagination developing in metal—–bands like Anthrax (after the first two albums) became the standard for goateed, shorts-wearing thrashers by playing cookie-cutter riffs with unimaginative lyrics, and eventually Machine Head and contemporaries brought “metal” to its lowest point with the whole “urban metal” hard-guy approach. Although these styles took a lot from rap and hip-hop, I think hardcore was an equal if not larger contributor to their origins. But these are just the negative examples.

Thoughts?
I assume all the black metal bands hated that style of 90s american tough guy metal and I know there was always a mistrust of each other by BM & DM bands.

was and eventually Machine Head and contemporaries brought “metal” to its lowest point with the whole “urban metal” hard-guy approach. a low point for metal or keeping the metal flame burning as it's fans like to proclaim?

I'd say, MH dropped the flag during that time but now has picked it back up...

I was in a band that was managed by their same guy, and I saw them influenced by a lot of surrounding things, including my band at the time. I'm glad they are doing some quality Metal now, but it was pretty hurting for awhile..

Isn't Scalzi talking about all MH though? esp the 1st album

funnily enough i didn't mind machine head at the time.

I would rather listen to any Machine Head album than any Slough Feg album.

you sound like bill magill!

i just keep playing that new inquisition album. man, i cannot get enough of that.

― scott seward, Saturday, February 19, 2011 6:28 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

man, these guys ARE really good!

Theyve probably been mentioned but Agalloch are really amazing, and not just for a local (Portland) band. I love how their songs begin with lovely, shimmering appregios that'd catch Johnny Marr's attention.....and then the vocals kick in

I bet Inquisition are great live. There's no way that guy can keep up that croak in a live setting.

Bike Snob NYC
@bikesnobnyc

Just read a Sasha Frere-Jones article about black metal in the New Yorker. Ugh. Feel like I just ate a gallon of artisanal mayo.
8 hours ago

Liturgy have done a masterful job of having journalists posit them as the only American black metal band to exist.

not sure I've seen a single piece that gives off that impression, which ones were you thinking of?

Just got sent a new album by Venom ...

Used to be huuuuge into black metal back in the 90s. All this talk about Liturgy got me into reexploring it ... kinda forgot about it as a bad memory of teen angst. Liturgy's alright, music's not bad... has the sound of black metal but lacks the spirit, I guess.

Used to really like this album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wxLD5vULaI

Kinda got out of it when I realized a lot of the bands I liked were fascists/nazis ... but it's not a surprise since some of this stuff sounds like watching Conan the Barbarian. I remember being recruited by some white supremacist group back in the day, it was weird learning some of your friends were actually part of these hate groups. I think that's around when I started leaving it behind and got into bands like Stereolab and Soul Coughing.

Of course, now all the Stereolab and Soul Coughing fans back then are into black metal now. (I might lie.)

that's not inaccurate

I'm admittedly a pretty serious metal n00b, and while I've spent the past year or so digging into classic stuff--Maiden, Mercyful Fate, Venom, Celtic Frost, Megadeth, etc--to supplement the very limited stuff I already knew and loved (Slayer, Priest, Motorhead, a few other obvious suspects), I hadn't up until this past week even begun to dip my toes into the waters of Black Metal. I'm actually sort of embarrassed to say this, but I picked up last year's Wolves in the Throne Room record since it struck me after reading various things that it might be a good "gateway drug"... Well, I was so put off by its frilliness and what I felt to be this sort of overwarmed hippie vibe that I spent all of yesteday (and well into the after-midnight hours) reading this thread and listening to Darkthrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky several times through on Spotify. Okay, now THAT'S more like it... I'm ready to keep exploring now! (I should know at this point in my listening life that I usually hate "gateway drugs"!)

Listen to more Darkthrone. Mayhem are great too. Agalloch are kind of proggy but have BM influences. Liturgy, if you don't care about "authenticity" (I don't, personally).

Thanks for the rec's... I've actually heard a few Liturgy tracks. I loved one I recall that was sans-vocals; it actually reminded me more of a sort of mathy Glenn Branca, super cyclical and rocking. I had a hard time getting with the dude's voice, though, which I know is such a cliche Stumbling Block for BM n00bs, but still. It struck me as both far too strident yet totally and completely mannered, lacking a certain roughness or rawness even though it was "raw"--it's hard to explain. It seemed to be wearing its Will to Catharsis too obviously and openly, the same way Wolves in the Throne Room was wearing its woodland mysticism-y vibe. I've been wrestling with the whole importance-of-authenticity thing a lot lately, as I've always hated the idea of being hung up on it but I'm slowly realizing that it actually is something that matters to me on some level... I'm still working it out.