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fvckinnefor · 1 year ago

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how can i get more into black metal and the culture? coming from someone whos most heavy band in my wrapped last year and probably this year was cannibal corpse

Hii, I've had this in my inbox for a while I'm sorry :(

Well there are no rules when it comes to listening to music. It's really up to you whether you like it or not and that's totally understandable. I've been in the scene for a while now, and I've listened to a lot of other genres before, needless to say in some aspects of the music it can sound relatively similar to other genres. There are black metal bands that are less melodic and ones that are more melodic. As well as a decent amount of subgenres. ↓

Quick guide to black metal ★

Starting off from the history that black metal is quite known for, I'd say Mayhem and Burzum as well as Darkthrone had the biggest impact on it. You're probably familiar with Pelle's suicide and the album cover so I will not get that much into the whole story as well as pretty much any conversation regarding Mayhem since I'm not really a fan of the band. — Summarized: Lots of murder, lots of suicide, lots of sacrifices, and burning churches. There are documentaries that explain it quite well, and I recommend you to watch "Until the light takes us" rather than wasting time watching "lords of chaos".

Instead of getting into the scene with Mayhem as most people do, try listening to bands that overlap with your favourite genre. For an example, if you like thrash maybe try checking out blackened thrash metal. If you're a fan of stuff that is more melodic maybe go with symphonic or melodic black metal. My personal favourite when I first started listening to black metal was Bathory, Burzum came second and from then on I took a liking into Darkthrone.

As I mentioned, there are numerous genres that you can explore and every band has a different execution !! — Lifelover and Xasthur are both DSBM but are fairly different.

I'd say the scene is the most important part of it. Ranging from the way they dress, how they act on stage, their personal beliefs and so much more.

Corpse paint: Corpse paint is the face paint worn amongst the black metal community, it is used to, of course, make you look like a corpse. Necrobutcher from the band "Mayhem" insisted that they were the first in the scene to wear corpse paint, with Pelle (Dead) Ohlin (their vocalist) being the origin. Today it is heavily mistaken for other styles of face paint. It is not clown paint, it is not anything similar to Jazmin Bean's old makeup style, it is not Joey Jordison's mask style and it definitely isn't the juggalo face paint. For reference, here's a sheet of numerous corpse paint designs:

No paint on the nose, black all around the eyes and usually lines exaggerating your mouth into a frown, as mentioned before it is called corpse paint because it is supposed to make you look like a corpse.

Themes: Black metal's main themes are anti-religion, Satanism, nature, suicide, darkness, and many more. It all depends on the subgenre, really.

DSBM → Depressive Suicidal Black Metal

NSBM → National Socialist Black Metal

It has a high range of genres, as I said. For an example Kellersynth, which still falls under the black metal umbrella (because it branches from DS) even though it sounds NOTHING like it and has no elements of black metal. It originated from Dungeon synth. Now I am not so familiar with the scene of KS as I only got into it last year but it is mainly known for it's designs with the contrast between the dark colours and the highly saturated neon ones, witch hats, gnomes, mushrooms, etc. Pretty sure Kellersynth started the whole gnome hunting trend on TikTok that was popular a while ago but I'm not so sure on that? If someone could tell me more about it, I'd be thankful. It branched off the Dungeon Synth subgenre, except DS is usually gloomy and mysterious sounding whereas KS sounds sort of like techno according to the newer versions of it at least, one of my friends even compared it to the "Jumpstyle" music or whatever it's called. Pretty sure Kellersynth was started by friedhof/grollfried or so I've read a while ago.

Note - Just like with DSBM and other genres, KS also ranges depending on what artist you are listening to. For example Hexenmeister is a lot different than B.S.o.D (mentioning him because he had, I'd say, a great impact on both DS and KS)

PS !! For more info about Grausamkeit here is an article that I think really does a great job at explaining his discography.

[ 1 ] - Wizard of uralia [ 2 ] - Hexenmeister [ 3 ] - Hirtenmörder

Note - Hirtenmörder is tanzelcore but I'm still gonna include it

The difference between KS and Tanzelcore is that Tanzelcore draws from techno and KS draws from dungeon synth, most of the examples I've named up there are pretty much more tanzelcore than Kellersynth but I am putting them out as a perfect example of the cover art. → Bright neon colours, contrast.

These were the first few bands I came across, but my personal favourite is Morkesis. If you happen to like this kind of music and want to find more bands like these, check out the official DEATH FETISH youtube channel.

DSBM is a subgenre that's main themes are suicide, self mutilation, heartbreak, sadness, depression, etc. Again, there are a lot of bands and each one has their own execution. Here is my playlist with some of my favourite DSBM songs!!

The Community is quite toxic, by quite I mean really lol. If you decide to dive into the scene don't be surprised when you come across a lot of neo-nazis and white supremacists, ESPECIALLY in the KS and true Norwegian scene (not even gonna mention NSBM). The gatekeeping is a classic, of course. I'm pretty sure there is no community that gatekeeps like the BM community. In conclusion: Keep your favorite underground bands hidden if you don't want death threats coming at you by other fans of the band for making their favourite artists "mainstream". But even though there are a lot of gatekeepers, there are a lot of posers as well. Now don't get me wrong, "poser" is a very harsh label and I truly only intend to put it on those who are apart of the community for the aesthetics and fangirl/boy typa reason. By far, I don't think any band has a worse fandom than Mayhem, just a simple google search of their name will get you into a rabbit hole of fanart, fanfictions and other gross stuff.

Some fun subgenres worth exploring: (★ on my favs!)

psychedelic black metal ★

kellersynth

tanzelcore

DSBM ★

dungeon synth ★

blackened thrash metal ★

Industrial black metal

black gaze ★

war metal

NSBM (only for the music)

atmospheric BM ★

symphonic BM

melodic BM

folk BM

raw BM ★

blackened death metal ★

Blackened speed metal

Blackened gothic metal

Progressive black metal

Viking metal

Orthodox (or any religious) black metal

Black n roll, etc...

Back in the day, "black-metalheads" were referred to as Blacksters, though I am not sure if that term is still used to this day. But you probably came across the term "Trve Kvlt".

→ Trve Kvlt is basically a joke amongst the community now, I have never seen a true black metal enjoyer unironically use the term. I am pretty sure it originated it originated amongst the true Norwegian scene but is today only used as a joke. "That's so trve kvlt."

Note - As I am writing this I searched up the term as I was curious on it's origin and haven't learned about it before, I found this comment from a reddit user (u/noscope360gokuswag) that I feel like provides a decent enough explanation to the term.

"There is a big explanation in the book "Lords of Chaos" which is solely about the rise of Black Metal following the bands Mayhem, Burzum, and all of the chaos that came from them.

The term originated in the Norwegian black metal sub-culture of the early 1990s to describe ground-breaking artists including Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone and Emperor, whose militantly satanic ethos exemplified the era's black metal feel. Non-satanic bands expressing Norse paganism or strong anti-Christian sentiment may still be regarded as kvlt.

It was originally used by early black metal artists and fans to attribute authenticity to certain bands and was spelled that way due to spelling in Old English (v was used instead of u)

Now it has been transformed into a joke word and used to make fun of bands that try way too hard."

So in conclusion, knowing the history of the subculture and enjoying the music is enough to make you a Blackster. The community has a knot up their ass, everybody faces discrimination amongst it no matter what you do at this point lol. But my advice is to slowly start from the genre and/or band that's the most similar to your music taste now.

Melodic music → Melodic black metal, symphonic black metal, dungeonsynth, blackgaze etc

Heavy → Raw black metal, True Norwegian, blackened death metal, war metal etc

Infamous people in the black metal scene;

[ 1 ] - Count Grishnackh / Varg vikernes (Burzum, Mayhem, Old funeral. (I think there were more though)) [ 2 ] - Per Yngve (Pelle/Dead) Ohlin (Mayhem, Morbid) [ 3 ] - Gylve Fenris Nagell / Fenriz (Darkthrone, Valhall, Neptune Towers, Storm, Isengard (And I'm positive that there was more but these are just the ones I know of as of now.)) [ 4 ] - Øystein Aarseth / Euronymous (Mayhem (lmk if there's any that I'm missing))

Since I skipped over Mayhem's history, here is a documentary that you can watch if interested;

youtube

UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US:

youtube

A Playlist You Might Want To Check Out:

(( Another thing is I see a lot of Blacksters online saying that if you don't want to be a poser you have to exclusively listen to black metal only. I don't agree with that and believe you can be into black metal without only limiting your music taste to only black metal and it's subgenres, but then again being a Blackster also includes mainly listening to black metal → So it's your top genre. ))

You can be a black-metalhead and be a Christian, listening to black metal does NOT make you a nazi even if you listen to NSBM (as long as you're not actively supporting the artist and their beliefs) Not everyone in the black metal scene is a nazi and most of those who spread around such bullshit are not even educated about it. Ps to all of the haunted mound, "skinhead", sped up songs retards that are getting into black metal over TikTok and spreading around nazi propaganda YOU ARE A POSER!!!

At the end of the day black metal is only music. Those who like it will like it and those who don't, don't.

That's all I could come up with for now, I am very tired and I don't have the time to proofread all of this. If there are any troubles, grammar mistakes or gaps in my explanation/knowledge LMK!! Hope this helps at least a little bit. ♡

#｡⁠☆*⁠.⁠asks✧∘⁠˚⁠˳⁠°#black metal #☆ﾟ⁠.⁠*⁠･⁠｡ﾟ

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