6 ms·

Night’s Nirvana: On Norwegian Black Metal

23 points by tintinnabula 10y ago

smcl 10y ago
This is a really good subject - there's an interesting documentary about it called Until The Light Takes Us, which I highly recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_Light_Takes_Us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_Light_Takes_Us
- chriswoodford 10y ago
  I found that Until the Light Takes Us was a bit skewed in their take on the scene. I feel like the creators had a clear thesis and highlighted only the information that backed their particular POV. I would recommend Lords of Chaos first, as a primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Chaos_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Chaos_(book) Before digging into Until the Light Takes Us.
  - berntb 10y ago
    How do you guys see the interviews with Fenriz? I think most of them are on Youtube now. He have a special place in my personal music history. I started to listen to a bit extreme metal in the 90s and was a bit shocked by my own taste. From the early Metallica to death metal, it got steadily more extreme. The limit was Darkthrone -- I got an album and (at least at the time) I felt physically sick if I used headphones! Years later, I saw that series of youtube interviews with Fenriz, discussing the music. He was so knowledgeable and, more or less, dismissed most genres I love in metal (Meshuggah, Nile, etc) as not really that interesting. :-) These days, I can enjoy the early Darkthrone stuff, but it was a funny reality check to realize early that I'm not really that metal, I just like the music. :-)
    - chriswoodford 10y ago
      I've always thought Fenriz comes across just like any elitist music nerd. He seems to have an interesting sense of humour, which I find kind of endearing. The first album, for me, that gave me that physically sick feeling like you describe was Portal's Vexovoid record. We can debate whether or not Portal fits into the general category of Black Metal, but damn that album is just frightening.
      - kup0 10y ago
        There is something perplexing about Portal in that way that only a few other bands (Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord) have been able to match IMO. I don't know that I've reached the "physically sick" state but I do find myself transported into something akin to a Lovecraftian world and sense of darkness. Some records, while enjoyable, can be physically exhausting for sure. Something about Portal reaches deep. It's odd because I'm not necessarily a huge fan of their music in terms of just listening to it as music, but I like how there's something exhaustively serene (in a twisted way) about the atmosphere, like a dark meditation/trance almost.
        berntb 10y ago
        Well, todays work music is selected. When I heard Portal before, I was more into a bit faster.
        chriswoodford 10y ago
        Very well put! Portal's whole aesthetic plus the music really creates this inexplicable atmosphere, what I picture as if I had been tapped into the degrading mental state of Jack Torrance. Deathspell Omega is a band that I can't get enough of. I remember listening to Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice during an overnight drive from Halifax, NS to Sydney, NS and just experiencing moments of fear or sheer terror. Something that I can't say that any other album has done for me. The new Deathspell Omega record is brilliant. IMHO they are at the forefront of current Black Metal.
  - smcl 10y ago
    Ahhhh yeh I do remember my friends who recommended me the doc had also suggested Lords of Chaos first - but I was impatient and hungover when I decided to watch it :)
3131s 10y ago
Norwegian black metal gets all the attention because of the church burnings, suicides, and murders, but musically there were much better scenes, IMO. The two that I like are Greek and Czech black metal, each of which had their own distinct sound. You could not pay me to listen to Burzum. Mayhem hit on some nice atmospheres early on, as did Darkthrone though I prefer their first album (which was death metal), but other more popular bands from Norway like Enslaved, Satyricon, Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth, etc. never did anything for me. A few of the more experimental bands from Norway like Ulver and Arcturus are worth checking out, but all in all black metal is not my cup of tea :)
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  > You could not pay me to listen to Burzum There's no room for Nazis in metal.
  - 3131s 10y ago
    Well, I actually didn't mean it that way. While I don't like Nazis either and think that Varg is a pseudo-intellectual tool, I just find Burzum to be musically boring. I do actually welcome controversial lyrics and imagery in metal. I see it as sort of a canary in the coal mine for freedom of speech. With lyrics that are racist, misogynistic, militant, or even pedophilic, it's hard to tell how these bands straddle the line as far as actually advocating the ideas in their lyrics vs. wanting to evoke negative emotions and shine a light on the ugliness of humanity. The band Cynic summed up my view of extreme metal nicely with one of their demos titled "Reflections of a Dying World", and so in that sense I think even the most heinous lyrics have their place in metal, because anything else would be ignoring who we really are collectively as humans. I also find it a bit odd that the metal scene gets particularly worked up about racism, whereas murder, rape, torture, etc. are more-or-less par for the course in extreme metal nowadays.
  - LordFrith 10y ago
    Varg got out of jail, moved to France, changed his name, got married, makes weird videos. https://www.youtube.com/user/ThuleanPerspective/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ThuleanPerspective/videos
AndrewKemendo 10y ago
I've been a Black Metal fan since first hearing Bathory in the early 90s [1] and have met maybe one other black metal fan ever in person outside of a show. Two major stories that I have about Black Metal scene that might be illuminating. I had heard through the grapevine that there was an obscure black metal festival deep in the woods somewhere. After digging around I found the Shadowoods metal festival [2] which turned out to be an invite only philosophically anarchist inspired one night show, now a two day festival of the most obscure "kvlt" black metal bands around. I never got the chance to go but from what I understand the best of the genre comes out to play and members of the top black metal bands in the world come to attend. The other story is about people's reaction to black metal. I typically wear a metal shirt around, even as an undershirt and whenever someone sees one they often inquire about it. I'm even wearing my favorite Bathory shirt prominently on TechCrunch [3]! Anyway someone came up and asked me about Bathory and I enthusiastically went into the whole tale about countess Bathory bathing in blood [4] and why it inspired the band. At the end of the story the person looked totally horrified and basically turned and walked away. Typically happens when describing any black metal band. [1] https://youtu.be/OJeLYvc7sXk?t=8m46s https://youtu.be/OJeLYvc7sXk?t=8m46s [2] https://shadowwoodsmetalfest.com/about/ https://shadowwoodsmetalfest.com/about/ [3] https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/batch17.jpg?w=1290 https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/batch17... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory
- roryrjb 10y ago
  The TechCrunch photo is cool. Unfortunately I missed out on a photo, when our company was part of Microsoft Accelerator, where I would have been wearing a Mayhem or Darkthrone t-shirt.
- berntb 10y ago
  I have a bit of a trauma, regarding this whole niche thing. 10-15 years ago, I used to tell people about Meshuggah -- something like "My favorite of all time. It is the greatest thing since sliced <Cough>. Think of it as like modern jazz, but played a bit faster and heavier. I'm not that musical, I have to listen to a song dozens and dozens of times to get half of the stuff happening (I think, I probably get less). It is just efficient, you listen one minute and you get at least two or three minutes of other music." They looked at me as if I was an idiot or was trolling them. (Both true, arguably. :-) ) Today, half of the university kids around where I am now seems to know more about Meshuggah than me. Literally. For an old favorite band. Sigh, it is hard being a hipster when your stuff gets mainstream. :-)
fermigier 10y ago
The word "satanic" or "satanism" appears 10 times in the article, several times in the context of black metal acts. From what I had gathered from watching the couple of documentaries and books mentioned in the comments, the Norwegian black metal acts that made headlines for their criminal acts were not "satanists" as they rejected christianity altogether.

23 points by tintinnabula 10y ago

smcl 10y ago

This is a really good subject - there's an interesting documentary about it called Until The Light Takes Us, which I highly recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_Light_Takes_Us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_Light_Takes_Us

chriswoodford 10y ago
I found that Until the Light Takes Us was a bit skewed in their take on the scene. I feel like the creators had a clear thesis and highlighted only the information that backed their particular POV. I would recommend Lords of Chaos first, as a primer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Chaos_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Chaos_(book) Before digging into Until the Light Takes Us.
- berntb 10y ago
  How do you guys see the interviews with Fenriz? I think most of them are on Youtube now. He have a special place in my personal music history. I started to listen to a bit extreme metal in the 90s and was a bit shocked by my own taste. From the early Metallica to death metal, it got steadily more extreme. The limit was Darkthrone -- I got an album and (at least at the time) I felt physically sick if I used headphones! Years later, I saw that series of youtube interviews with Fenriz, discussing the music. He was so knowledgeable and, more or less, dismissed most genres I love in metal (Meshuggah, Nile, etc) as not really that interesting. :-) These days, I can enjoy the early Darkthrone stuff, but it was a funny reality check to realize early that I'm not really that metal, I just like the music. :-)
  - chriswoodford 10y ago
    I've always thought Fenriz comes across just like any elitist music nerd. He seems to have an interesting sense of humour, which I find kind of endearing. The first album, for me, that gave me that physically sick feeling like you describe was Portal's Vexovoid record. We can debate whether or not Portal fits into the general category of Black Metal, but damn that album is just frightening.
    - kup0 10y ago
      There is something perplexing about Portal in that way that only a few other bands (Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord) have been able to match IMO. I don't know that I've reached the "physically sick" state but I do find myself transported into something akin to a Lovecraftian world and sense of darkness. Some records, while enjoyable, can be physically exhausting for sure. Something about Portal reaches deep. It's odd because I'm not necessarily a huge fan of their music in terms of just listening to it as music, but I like how there's something exhaustively serene (in a twisted way) about the atmosphere, like a dark meditation/trance almost.
      - berntb 10y ago
        Well, todays work music is selected. When I heard Portal before, I was more into a bit faster.
      - chriswoodford 10y ago
        Very well put! Portal's whole aesthetic plus the music really creates this inexplicable atmosphere, what I picture as if I had been tapped into the degrading mental state of Jack Torrance. Deathspell Omega is a band that I can't get enough of. I remember listening to Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice during an overnight drive from Halifax, NS to Sydney, NS and just experiencing moments of fear or sheer terror. Something that I can't say that any other album has done for me. The new Deathspell Omega record is brilliant. IMHO they are at the forefront of current Black Metal.
- smcl 10y ago
  Ahhhh yeh I do remember my friends who recommended me the doc had also suggested Lords of Chaos first - but I was impatient and hungover when I decided to watch it :)

3131s 10y ago

Norwegian black metal gets all the attention because of the church burnings, suicides, and murders, but musically there were much better scenes, IMO. The two that I like are Greek and Czech black metal, each of which had their own distinct sound. You could not pay me to listen to Burzum. Mayhem hit on some nice atmospheres early on, as did Darkthrone though I prefer their first album (which was death metal), but other more popular bands from Norway like Enslaved, Satyricon, Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth, etc. never did anything for me. A few of the more experimental bands from Norway like Ulver and Arcturus are worth checking out, but all in all black metal is not my cup of tea :)

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
> You could not pay me to listen to Burzum There's no room for Nazis in metal.
- 3131s 10y ago
  Well, I actually didn't mean it that way. While I don't like Nazis either and think that Varg is a pseudo-intellectual tool, I just find Burzum to be musically boring. I do actually welcome controversial lyrics and imagery in metal. I see it as sort of a canary in the coal mine for freedom of speech. With lyrics that are racist, misogynistic, militant, or even pedophilic, it's hard to tell how these bands straddle the line as far as actually advocating the ideas in their lyrics vs. wanting to evoke negative emotions and shine a light on the ugliness of humanity. The band Cynic summed up my view of extreme metal nicely with one of their demos titled "Reflections of a Dying World", and so in that sense I think even the most heinous lyrics have their place in metal, because anything else would be ignoring who we really are collectively as humans. I also find it a bit odd that the metal scene gets particularly worked up about racism, whereas murder, rape, torture, etc. are more-or-less par for the course in extreme metal nowadays.
- LordFrith 10y ago
  Varg got out of jail, moved to France, changed his name, got married, makes weird videos. https://www.youtube.com/user/ThuleanPerspective/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ThuleanPerspective/videos

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

I've been a Black Metal fan since first hearing Bathory in the early 90s [1] and have met maybe one other black metal fan ever in person outside of a show. Two major stories that I have about Black Metal scene that might be illuminating. I had heard through the grapevine that there was an obscure black metal festival deep in the woods somewhere. After digging around I found the Shadowoods metal festival [2] which turned out to be an invite only philosophically anarchist inspired one night show, now a two day festival of the most obscure "kvlt" black metal bands around. I never got the chance to go but from what I understand the best of the genre comes out to play and members of the top black metal bands in the world come to attend. The other story is about people's reaction to black metal. I typically wear a metal shirt around, even as an undershirt and whenever someone sees one they often inquire about it. I'm even wearing my favorite Bathory shirt prominently on TechCrunch [3]! Anyway someone came up and asked me about Bathory and I enthusiastically went into the whole tale about countess Bathory bathing in blood [4] and why it inspired the band. At the end of the story the person looked totally horrified and basically turned and walked away. Typically happens when describing any black metal band. [1] https://youtu.be/OJeLYvc7sXk?t=8m46s https://youtu.be/OJeLYvc7sXk?t=8m46s [2] https://shadowwoodsmetalfest.com/about/ https://shadowwoodsmetalfest.com/about/ [3] https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/batch17.jpg?w=1290 https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/batch17... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory

roryrjb 10y ago
The TechCrunch photo is cool. Unfortunately I missed out on a photo, when our company was part of Microsoft Accelerator, where I would have been wearing a Mayhem or Darkthrone t-shirt.
berntb 10y ago
I have a bit of a trauma, regarding this whole niche thing. 10-15 years ago, I used to tell people about Meshuggah -- something like "My favorite of all time. It is the greatest thing since sliced <Cough>. Think of it as like modern jazz, but played a bit faster and heavier. I'm not that musical, I have to listen to a song dozens and dozens of times to get half of the stuff happening (I think, I probably get less). It is just efficient, you listen one minute and you get at least two or three minutes of other music." They looked at me as if I was an idiot or was trolling them. (Both true, arguably. :-) ) Today, half of the university kids around where I am now seems to know more about Meshuggah than me. Literally. For an old favorite band. Sigh, it is hard being a hipster when your stuff gets mainstream. :-)

fermigier 10y ago

The word "satanic" or "satanism" appears 10 times in the article, several times in the context of black metal acts. From what I had gathered from watching the couple of documentaries and books mentioned in the comments, the Norwegian black metal acts that made headlines for their criminal acts were not "satanists" as they rejected christianity altogether.