Black Metal................................................Rossi

Norway, 1992:

A Black Metal Odyssey

by Lucas Rossi artwork by Bob Otsuka

I. PRELUDE

Snow drifts piled up around the dirt trail in the center, framed by the white outline of the window. Empty apartment buildings hung in the background while the street below sat in a chilled darkness, the kind of darkness characteristic of December nights past a 40 degree latitude. Inside, another window opened up on the computer screen in front of me. In that was another landscape, poorly drawn in black and white, skeletal body sitting by a snowy roadside while a black bird flies over. Curious, I hit play. First, some generic “ambient” keyboard notes that could have been played by a five-year old. Guitar drone that sounded like it was coming through a flip phone speaker. The pounding drums came in, over another poorly-produced riff, drowning out much of the other sound. Then, the vocals. I would have called them screaming if they weren’t so pathetically out-ofrhythm, so unbearably shrieky, and so flat-out unmusical. I couldn’t help but laugh; who in the world would actually subject themselves to this? I closed the window after a few minutes and typed back to the person who told me to give the track a listen: “Dude, this sucks.” Fast-forward five years: December 20th, 2014. Snow is building up again, this time around abandoned pieces of construction on the way to venue while wisps of paper drift on the empty windows. Inside the dingy room, longhaired guitarists play furiously distorted riffs, the drums pound at inhuman

speeds, and vocalists howl their throats out. I take in the sound, survey the room, and smile, hunkering down for one of the best shows I’ve been to all year. Legitimately enjoying this is but one of the symptoms of a predilection for black metal.

II. WHAT IS BLACK METAL?

“Extreme metal” is the kind of stuff that is most likely to prompt the question “Is this even music?” from those unacquainted with the style. The term “extreme metal” doesn’t have any strict definitions, but it’s usually applied to the genres thrash, doom, death and black metal—all of which entail a ‘radical’ approach to sound that distances them from more accessible, listenable forms of music, metal or otherwise. Of these “extreme” styles, black metal is far and away the most extreme. The genre takes its name from the 1982 release Black Metal by British band Venom, whose extreme take on thrash metal and dark, ‘Satanic’ aesthetic inspired many of the musicians who would go on to found back metal proper--a young circle of artists working in Norway in the early 1990s. In terms of the actual sound, inspiration largely came from proto-extreme metal group Celtic Frost and Viking/ black metal pioneer Bathory. What resulted from these influences was an incredibly harsh and abrasive sound, one driven by tremolo-picked, repetitive guitar riffs and a constant use of blast beats in the drumming to create a grim and despairing atmosphere. Most iconic is the vocal style, which deviated from the already-established punk yelling and death metal growling. Black metal vocalists usually employ a highpitched shriek, screech, or wail, which often sounds quite literally like somebody dying. On top of all of

this, one of the aims of the early black metal scene was to have production that was intentionally terrible (by conventional standards). It’s lo-fi in a way that would make most lo-fi indie artists squeamish (one could even go so far as to call it... no-fi). In the most extreme cases this meant replacing guitar amps with stereo amps and old fuzz pedals, and using early 90s computer headsets as microphones. Basically, the goal was to sound as inaccessible and as ‘bad’ as possible. Black metal also has an extremely interesting (and simultaneously extremely problematic) history as a movement and an ideology. In its formative years black metal really was defined more by that ideology than its musical qualities; Norwegian black metal developed itself as the antithesis to trends like Swedish death metal, which was derided as too polished and ‘mainstream.’ Artists frequently attached themselves to pagan or Satanist spiritual views, and sometimes fascist or communist ideologies. What united them was a general disdain for JuA TIMELINE OF deo-Christian culture, jection of the perceived a revices EXCELLENT BM: of the mainstream, modern world, and an extreme em1994 phasis on nonconformity Burzum - Hvis lyset tar oss and individualism. Performers wore ‘corpse paint’ to 1995 make themselves look dead Ulver - Bergtatt – Et eeventyr i 5 capitler on stage and adopted other Drudkh 2004 Autumn Aurora unique visual adornments. At times this resulted in a hateful, misanthropic, and Agalloch 2006 Ashes Against the Grain violent underground culture, though I would not go so far as to say these things 2007 defined the early scene. Wolves in the Throne Room – Two Hunters I won’t recount all this history in its entirety be2010 cause it’s a very long and Alcest - Écailles de Lune complex tale. It is also re2011 Dopamine - Dying Away in the Deep Fall Ash Borer - Ash Borer Fell Voices - Untitled markably interesting from so many perspectives (sociology, religious studies, media studies, philosophy of art, etc) and I heavily rec2013 comend looking exploring Gris - À l’âme enflammée, l’âme constellée... the topic. Even when I hated the music, I was drawn into many late-night Wikipedia marathons on black metal and the sampling of countless amateur documentaries on YouTube. In the end, anyway, this early scene ended up completely self-destructing, a fate that it

seemed doomed to suffer from the very beginning. Members of the scene were involved in a number of violent events, including a suicide, two murders, and the burning-down of several churches. The ‘inner circle’ of musicians disbanded, people went to jail, and the culture of the movement became the butt of jokes among metal fans for years to come.

III. WHY BLACK METAL IS ACTUALLY GOOD

If you were to read the preceding section of this piece alone you would probably resceive a portrait of black metal as an extremely unpleasant cacophony of intentionally bad-sounding noise over which some basement-dwelling Scandinavian teenagers, psychopaths, and white supremacists shrieked unintelligibly. Fortunately, not everyone was actually a psychopath; some were just guys hearing a new, interesting sound and going with it. And even the ones who were were psychopaths were actually taking this aesthetic and writing good music with it. Not everything was good, but there was a remarkable amount of experimentation and genuinely new ideas being thrown around during that early period. Several releases stand out, including Darkthrone’s groundbreaking A Blaze in the Northern Sky, which really established black metal as a unique sound: dark, aggressive (and good) riffs, cold, impactful howls—pretty much the sound of pure evil. Later on, Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse introduced progressive and symphonic elements to lend an atmosphere and grandiosity to this rough, raw style. Above all, Burzum’s Hvis lyset tar oss is usually held up as the absolute pinnacle not just of early Norwegian black metal, but of black metal period. The first track, “Det som en gang var,” is the one described in the first portion of this piece, and something I was so, so wrong about on first impression. The synths are gorgeous and melancholic, blending perfectly with the sorrowful texture of the guitar. When the riffs come in they are aggressive but not mindlessly so, rising and falling with the flow of the piece. The drumming is soul-crushing. The riffs repeat, but never get boring, creating a trance-like atmosphere. Though the shrieking is off-putting at first, I can think of almost no vocal performance more emotive. There is a deathly beauty to it; though a modern production, it all sounds primal, somehow ancient, and remarkably compelling. It gives atmosphere and ambience to heavy metal, drenches it in sadness, and creates something generally moving. This is what all great black metal aspires to be. Also of note: the sole member of Burzum, Varg Vikernes, committed one of the aforementioned murders and burned down several of those churches. He spent 15 years in prison and also happens to harbor far-right and arguably racist ideological views. Is it wrong to praise music made by a fascist murderer? I don’t know. I know we still listen to and praise Richard Wagner’s operas. I know that it is possible to look past the views of the artist to appreciate the art. And what I really know is that this album is the foundation of everything nuanced and intelligent in black metal music, and is one hell of a musical landmark. The other work I would point to in terms of ‘enlightened’ black metal has to be Ulver’s Bergtatt – Et eeventyr i 5 capitler. Fortunately, Ulver had practically no involvement with any of the previously mentioned artists or the black metal scene at all. Garm, the

creative anchor behind Ulver, seemed to recognize the affinity that black metal had with Northern European folk music, given that both were pretty much unique cultural creations out of those regions. The black metal on this album, amazingly, isn’t even aggressive. It is pure melancholy, employing clean, chanted vocals alongside harsh wails, as well as acoustic interludes that work flawlessly with the heaviermoments. The melodies are hauntingly beautiful, and Ulver’s early work advanced Burzum’s atmospheric approach even further, moving beyond harshness and anger into something else entirely. These albums laid the groundwork for what would eventually become a multitude of trends and styles that evolved out of the black metal aesthetic, taking it to amazing and often unpredictable heights. Artists heard the acoustic folk elements in Ulver and recognized a similarity with neofolk music; they looked at the extended structure of Burzum’s songs and connected it with the dark, brooding post-rock of projects like Godspeed You! Black Emperor. American band Agalloch, working mostly in the 2000s, updated Ulver’s folk formula with some post-rock flavor in their song structures on Pale Folklore, an essential release in bringing quality black metal to North America and inspiring countless American acts for years after. Agalloch would go on to drop a lot of the metal from their sound on their follow-up The Mantle, a blackened neofolk and post-rock opus. They tied it all together with Ashes Against the Grain, a post-metal epic pushing the melancholy and heaviness of black metal to perhaps their furthest extents, transcending the bounds of the genre in the process. This is a body of work that really sparked the development of styles like folk black metal, atmospheric black metal, and Cascadian black metal, all generally styles of ‘nature-loving’ black metal that above all celebrate the beauty of the natural world, at times in contrast with the perceived ugliness of humanity. The Cascadian style, kickstarted by Americans Wolves in the Throne Room, especially

embraced post-rock and ambient influence to make music than even non-metal fans can enjoy as delicately beautiful, if still at times harsh and sorrowful. Meanwhile, back in Europe, black metal experienced a wide array of imBEST BM OF 2014: pressive innovations. One of the most interesting and influential developments 1. Falls of Rauros - Believe in No Coming Shore in black metal occurred in France, where former raw 2. Panopticon - Roads to the North black metal project Alcest 3. Black Monolith - Passenger took the black metal aesthetic and used it to write music 4. Woods of Desolation - As the Stars that featured major chords, uplifting melodies, and a 5. Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith strange sense of positivity. Starting on the Le Secret EP, 6. Saor - Aura sole member Neige used black metal lo-fi production 7. Spectral Lore - III to create a dreamy, nostalgic atmosphere, layering 8. Fen - Carrion Skies clean crooning on top. He 9. Woman Is The Earth - Depths took and blast beats and shrieks backed them with pos10. The Great Old Ones - Tekeli-Li itive riffs to transform them into, for lack of better words, something ‘transcendental’ or ‘euphoric.’ Listeners realized that what was going on here sounded a lot like shoegaze (think My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive), of all things. Upon further examination, however, the similarities between these two disparate styles became more apparent. Thick, atmospheric walls of guitar sound, vocals were used as a texturing element rather than to deliver lyrics or hooks, and an emphasis on ‘radical’ forms of production all made black metal and shoegaze unlikely friends. Neige invented what would come to be known as post-black metal, or blackgaze. Several ‘Neige-cluster’ groups including Amesouers, Les Discrets, and Lantlôs introduced things like post-punk and urban despair to the black metal sound. A ton of artists followed in their wake, resulting in a lot of amateur work but also some incredibly successful projects like Pitchfork darlings Deafheaven. Incredibly, black metal kind of hit the mainstream, or at least the alternative currents of mainstream culture. The term ‘hipster black metal’ began to see use among black metal purists turned off by the accessibility and pleasantness of certain post-black metal styles. Regardless of personal opinions on the integrity of those trends, this exposure turned out to be an incredible

way to let more people into the world of black metal. (An aside: if you are to listen to any black metal or black metal-related projects, I wholeheartedly suggest ‘Écailles de lune’ Parts 1 and 2 by Alcest. Part 1 is one of the most gorgeous shoegazey post-rock tracks ever made, and Part 2, in my opinion, showcases the highest potential for black metal to reach something higher, something purely emotive. It’s real good.) Black metal’s ambient and atmospheric influence has gone so far as to touch artists completely removed from anything resembling metal like Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie, formerly of The Microphones) who initially styled his 2009 release Wind’s Poem as a black metal album. Off the top of my head, the genres that have been fused with black metal over the past decade include post-rock, shoegaze, alt rock, folk, neofolk, lo-fi, bluegrass, Americana, math rock, post-punk, hardcore, crust punk, doom metal, death metal, sludge metal, post-metal, power metal, folk metal, ambient, drone, and noise rock. A pretty solid selection, and a testament to the creative potential inherent that music that first came to light in those dark Norwegian basements of the 90s.

IV. HVA ER FORMÅLET?

In an interesting twist of fate, black metal, the harshest, most abrasive, and most extreme manifestation of metal actually ended up converting me from a metalhead to someone more inclined towards the alt and indie side of music. Not long after getting into black metal, I ended up dropping most metal from my listening all together (mostly the super cheesy stuff like folk metal and power metal, though there are still records in those genres that I return to frequently). I discovered post-rock, shoegaze, and folk, and through them learned to appreciate the emotionally earnest and nuanced in music. The power to balance the overbearing and the delicate is one of the greatest qualities of black metal. In pushing the sound of metal to its extremes, I think that the early, foundational black metallers actually ended up discovering something about the essence of metal that artists sticking to the mold could never have found. In doing so they created a way to mobilize that essence in the pursuit of greater and greater ends, from the celebration of natural beauty to the affirmation of the human soul and spiritual experience. It’s a little heavy-handed, a little self-important, and a little cliché. But trust me when I say that the music itself is for real. I would never begrudge anyone for not liking black metal. Not too long ago, those harsh sounds simply did not sound good to me, and I can’t fault anyone for holding the same opinions now. At the same time, I think black metal is one of the most compelling arguments for the necessity of radical experimentation in culture, and the importance of making art that is challenging (whether or not you think the ultimate result is ‘good’). I know I feel enriched by having experienced that challenge in black metal. If I could get over those deathly wails and choked production, I thought, I should be willing to give pretty much any kind of music a shot, an attitude that I’m sure has led me to discover music I never would have otherwise. And black metal artists continue to keep that openness and inventiveness alive; this year alone was one of the best for black metal releases in a long time, evidence that this one-of-a-kind style has true artistic vitality. Turning away, looking out the window again, it seems that in those freakish, dark, frozen sounds, those riffs, beats, and shrieks, there was always potential for something really beautiful. With snowdrifts outside, wind howling, and blackened sky; when hearing those roaring, reaching, soaring sounds... it isn’t so hard to see why.