Matthew Zumwalt Section 13 Group 4 Final Report: The Philosophy of Black Metal 1/2

Beginning in the late 1980’s, there arose a strange new form of extreme music.  Fostered by Norwegian mythology, a harsh climate, and an utter distaste for the Christian culture of southern Europe, black metal emerged as one of the most baffling, polarizing, and shocking artistic expressions of the twentieth century.  It was birthed in underground metal’s storied tape trading scene but quickly achieved international notoriety due to shocking tales of murder, suicide, and arson which spread like wildfire and ultimately led to black metal’s rebirth as one of the most popular off-shoots of the 1990’s heavy metal renaissance.  Motivated by extreme misanthropy and a distaste for popular music, a small clique of socially awkward teens gave rise to a nationwide movement which some have reviled as blasphemous garbage and others championed as one of the few remaining niches of music unsullied by commercialism and corporate greed. Black metal grew from its primitive roots into a rich and diverse culture encompassing such disparate ideologies as reclamation of native culture, natural socialism, and even environmental ethics. More than music and fashion, black metal is a lifestyle for many who view it as a rejection of mainstream society and its morals and norms.

            Shrill, repetitive, atonal, evil: these are just a few words that one might use to describe the output of a typical black metal artist.  The music is marked by piercing, screamed vocals which often give the impression that the singer is undergoing intense physical and emotional anguish.  In its earliest incarnation, black metal was inspired by the most extreme of 80’s thrash metal, bands like Venom, Hellhammer, and Bathory who intensified heavy metal’s flirtation with themes of Satanism, pagan ritualism, and fascination with death and gore to never before seen heights of exaltation in evil, hatred, and all other negative emotions which are often suppressed by society as unseemly and unpleasant. 

Quorthon (vocalist/guitarist of proto-black metallers Bathory)

 The first true black metal bands arose in Norway in small, rural towns.  Norway, with its history of pagan Scandinavian conquest and eventual defeat at the hands of Christian entities from the south, proved the perfect breeding ground for a form of music which, at its core, prides itself on the rejection of Christian values and traditions in favor of mock-Satanic ritual or pagan idolatry so long maligned by the dominant churches of Europe.  The first wave of Norwegian black metal was centered around a small group of friends who shared an interest in underground music and pre-Christian Scandinavian culture.  These young men, most of them in their late teens, formed bands such as Burzum, Mayhem, Emperor, Immortal, and Satyricon as an outlet of expression for their teenage angst and dissatisfaction with the Christian paradigm presented to them since they were children. 

Black metal sought to be anti-everything.  As death metal rose in prominence largely due to the highly technical nature of its composition, black metal encouraged primitivism and simplicity.  The primary means of artistic output for black metal musicians in those days was the poorly dubbed, home-recorded, demo cassette.  The electric guitar is transformed by practitioners of black metal into a droning wave of white noise with only the faintest hints of melody still present in the unholy assault.  Likewise, drum machines provide a steady and unrelenting stream of blast beats as a form of rhythmic accompaniment.  As the sound and aesthetic of this genre grew more well-defined and distinctive from other musical forms, the Norwegian inner circle of black metal musicians developed a very particular style of dress for themselves and an artistic style which supported their grim, frostbitten mystique.  Traditional black metal garb, as witnessed by album artwork and promotional photos of the day, consists of tattered and beaten medieval battle gear, often buried underground for weeks to imbue it with just the right essence of death and decay.  Musicians will paint their faces in startling masks of black and white, referred to practitioners as “corpse paint”. 

Nattefrost in traditional corpse paint and brandishing the ubiquitous inverted crucifix

Enzifer of Urgehal

 These traditions were not original to black metal but were elevated to a new extreme during this period.  Imagery of Vikings and Norse mythology are adopted to underscore black metal’s emphasis on war, violence, and death.  It is an intensely negative and misanthropic genre with topics such as human extinction, holocaust, and suicide finding their way into many songs by black metal’s most well-respected artists.  Black metal displays a penchant for theatricality despite its emphasis on minimalist musical forms.  Artists often adopt monikers and personae which enable them to act as caricatures of evil, completely consumed by blasphemy and reveling in all that is unholy and vile.  Names such an Euronymous, Count Grishnack, and Dead conjure images of evil spirits and pagan warlords from an ancient past.  Black metal became a lifestyle for its fans, an all-encompassing worldview which motivated and drove its followers onward toward ever greater heights of gore and doom.

Logos of popular Black Metal bands