Early Black Metal - what were the bands?

[daniel]

Good point.

[GJ]

Whether we like it or not we don't live in the 80's anymore so even if in the 80's Black Metal meant something different, nowadays it is a musical genre.

Which is off-topic around here? (Says the closet Pomp Rocker )

[Cochino]

I'm not sure what you meant by that, but what I was saying was quite the contrary. I think that talking about Black Metal as an ideology is not very accurate and pointless in a site like this where most of us care about music over all (I think a similar point was made several times in the nazi thread)

[GJ]

I blame bad english from my side - apart from me being something of a dimwit, that is. Actually I pretty much meant what I said this time - that this particular musical genre (and I don't mean Venom, Bathory, Mercyful Fate or early Running Wild!!!) isn't what this forum is meant to cover anyway (I hope, Dan?). Thus being off-topic (like it's eventual "ideologies").

...the Pomp Rocker thing was me coming out of the closet of sorts (as if no-one would have noticed in the first place).

[Cochino]

Well, I'm not a native English speaker as well so it's a problem in both ends I guess. Even though Black Metal isn't the most liked genre aroud here I don't really think it's off topic, it's Metal after all, several members like it and there are some good albums for sure (I mentioned I.N.R.I. earlier). I don't think this is gonna turn into a discussion about Nattefrost, Carpathian Forest or any of those bands anyway.

[metalmaster]

Metalmaster, I think if you re-read my posts you'll find I already noted your attitude before you expressed it. You hate Norwegian BM so much you can't reason clearly.

Err no, sorry I have to deny this. I dont hate the norwegian bands, I just mentioned (and I will say it as many times I've been asked) that in no way, those Norwegians created Black Metal. And if we take a closer view, they started the death of the genere. If you take an even closer zoom, they made of Black Metal a soup opera and a mock for ages. Who can take as a serious individuals guys like Vikernes for example?? And please, dont tell me he is a musical genious because he is not. Average in my opinion...

And for your information, I published a fanzine almost 20 years ago which dealed with black metal and intreviewed and reviwed many of those Norwegians, whose stuff I still have and play from time to time those old lps, demos and cds. To be a critic towards Black Metal or any kind of music from any country does not mean i hate them. To the contrary, to love so much something makes you blind before anything negative...

[Satan is Our Pal]

spotty 35 year old virgins that still live at home with mum and dad.

Every genre attracts those. Enough prejudice.

How's the parents?

[Dodens Grav]

Err no, sorry I have to deny this. I dont hate the norwegian bands, I just mentioned (and I will say it as many times I've been asked) that in no way, those Norwegians created Black Metal.

They did not create "Black Metal" as a concept no, but, you're still wrong as you claimed before that "they invented nothing, they just ripped off Bathory in many aspects", when in reality, the period of 1991 through 1995 in Norway was in fact arguably the most inventive and creative period in metal's history. Black Metal as in the Norwegian sound that as, de facto, I stress, essentially THE first and largely ONLY MAJOR shift in sound in metal's history. Previously, it was only incremental changes, both in sound and in ideology, that made up the transitional lineage of the genre from Black Sabbath to Judas Priest to Iron Maiden to Metallica and Slayer and Death and Possessed and Celtic Frost and Bathory. The biggest transition up until that point was the advent of thrash metal with the incorporation of punk aesthetics, yet not even that can compare to the quite radical transformation that the 'metal sound' had undergone in a short span of about half of a decade. Loosening the genre from its conventional moorings, bands like Mayhem, Burzum, Thorns, and Enslaved radically derailed the traditional songwriting coda that broke the mould of the "pop" verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure in ways that had never been explored before within the genre, which is one of that movement's least musical accomplishments.

In other words, you may not like Norwegian black metal and what it did to your precious sound, but to deny its artistic quality is to deny a vital part of metal's history.

[MEXDefenderOfSteel]

yea, changing and evolving within the classic metal sound is natural,but i wouldnt take it that far as in the last post....werent anthrax and others experimenting with new sounds that no one have use before in metal music around the same years the norway kids (in that time) were "radically derailing the traidtional songwriting"?.....

and what about today?, theres a super-crappy shitload of new trends mixing and changing music structures and combining,for example,death metal with emo gay music? shouldnt we all give them the same credit as the norwegian bands too?

[Dodens Grav]

Unlike what you're talking about, the Norwegian scene didn't take metal and add elements from other genres (other than, arguably, classical). What Anthrax did and what many other bands do today is take metal and some other genre and put them on opposite ends of a rail line and let them smash into each other. What you get is a conventional song structure that contains different vocal styles and beats. What you don't get is a reconfiguration of the songwriting form. Not many bands today are actually experimenting with form, or successfully at least, in ways that the Norwegian scene did not or did not already set the precedent for. And none of it is being done or has been done in an artistic movement the way that Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Thorns, Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth, and Ulver did. The Norwegian scene certainly accomplished something special, and I don't think it's fair for people to deny that, whether or not it's to their liking.

[MEXDefenderOfSteel]

Unlike what you're talking about, the Norwegian scene didn't take metal and add elements from other genres (other than, arguably, classical). What Anthrax did and what many other bands do today is take metal and some other genre and put them on opposite ends of a rail line and let them smash into each other. What you get is a conventional song structure that contains different vocal styles and beats. What you don't get is a reconfiguration of the songwriting form. Not many bands today are actually experimenting with form, or successfully at least, in ways that the Norwegian scene did not or did not already set the precedent for. And none of it is being done or has been done in an artistic movement the way that Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Thorns, Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth, and Ulver did. The Norwegian scene certainly accomplished something special, and I don't think it's fair for people to deny that, whether or not it's to their liking.

your point is very valid, i respect your way of thinking, maybe to some people is very original what they did....for me
(very) few albums are actually good from all those bands, and trust me, is not exactly because of their ideals,lyrics,looks (which again,for me is a bunch of crap,few exceptions tho),...just their music

...imma do some heavy drugs the coming week and get a synth a mic and a (crappy) guitar amp see if i can come up with anything groundbreaking...imma paint myself in a funny but "serious" way in the process too

[metalmaster]

Err no, sorry I have to deny this. I dont hate the norwegian bands, I just mentioned (and I will say it as many times I've been asked) that in no way, those Norwegians created Black Metal.

They did not create "Black Metal" as a concept no, but, you're still wrong as you claimed before that "they invented nothing, they just ripped off Bathory in many aspects", when in reality, the period of 1991 through 1995 in Norway was in fact arguably the most inventive and creative period in metal's history. Black Metal as in the Norwegian sound that as, de facto, I stress, essentially THE first and largely ONLY MAJOR shift in sound in metal's history. Previously, it was only incremental changes, both in sound and in ideology, that made up the transitional lineage of the genre from Black Sabbath to Judas Priest to Iron Maiden to Metallica and Slayer and Death and Possessed and Celtic Frost and Bathory. The biggest transition up until that point was the advent of thrash metal with the incorporation of punk aesthetics, yet not even that can compare to the quite radical transformation that the 'metal sound' had undergone in a short span of about half of a decade. Loosening the genre from its conventional moorings, bands like Mayhem, Burzum, Thorns, and Enslaved radically derailed the traditional songwriting coda that broke the mould of the "pop" verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure in ways that had never been explored before within the genre, which is one of that movement's least musical accomplishments.

In other words, you may not like Norwegian black metal and what it did to your precious sound, but to deny its artistic quality is to deny a vital part of metal's history.

Is inventive to copy Bathory? I beat you havent listened to "The return.." and "Under The Sign of...", both cornerstones in the "Norwegian sound". Quorthon alone did it 5-6 years before; and not to mention the "viking" albums which the Norwegians and others tried to immitate, but couldnt succed. I cant remember what's the innovation of the norwegians... you mention that broke the mould of verse-chorus-verse... I think Bathory did it before in songs like Dies Irae and One Rode to Asa bay, or even before with Reap of Evil and Son of Damaned from The return. Or even Venom with the epic At war with Satan. Due to reasons like these is why Quorthon is considered as a visionary and an innovator, while the other guys just tried to follow him.

I think that the first Norwegian Black Metal album was Immortal's Diabolical Fullmoon... (that Deathcrush albums sound more like a very bad HC band) which is is very Bathorysh, and then came Mayhem's and Burzum's and Dark Throne's + etc albums which all of them sound like Bathory, arent they? So, cant find the "THE first and largely ONLY MAJOR shift in sound in metal's history" you mention.

In one of the parts i think Norwegians failed in a notorious way was they tried to unite Metal with other kinds of music. Wasn't a trend for every BM musician to have a electro or goth/dark side project (Neptune Towers, Thou Shalt Suffer, Mortiis himself)? (Now the trend is to play old school -or better said, pretend to-). The result of that were some very forgeteable albums. Quorthon innovated in almost every album, but most immportant, all his albums are Metal. Innovation inside metal music it self.

perhaps the real contributions of Norwegians (and others, of course) were two questionable elements: monotony and fascism, and never to forget the mix of satan-odin-hitler... Nothing to be very proud of actually...

And again, I dont hate Norwegians BM bands. I have already mentioned that. But they are far, very far of being gods for me like they are for many very impressionable guys out there.

[Dodens Grav]

I said that "you may not like Norwegian black metal and what it did to your precious sound", not "you may not like Norwegian black metal." Anyway, to continue to assert that everything in the Norwegian black metal sphere had already been done by Quorthon is ridiculous. There are so many elements to be found in Transilvanian Hunger, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, Hvis lyset tar oss, Nattens Madrigal, Pure Holocaust, Vikingligr Veldi, and In the Nightside Eclipse that Quorthon hadn't even touched upon that I really can't even take your comment seriously. Your reductionist philosophy is merely an attempt to trivialize the importance of an artistic movement in the genre that you don't seem to find favorable, and that's really all it amounts to. To say that Burzum is just a retread of The Return... because you heard "War", meanwhile dismissing "Burzum", "Det som engang var", "Snu Mikrokosmos Tegn", and My Journey to the Stars" shows what your intention is, and that is to dismiss out of hand the innovation that bands like Burzum actually brought to the table that went beyond what Quorthon or anybody before them had done. Giving examples of songs that don't have a standard chorus utterly misses the point, and accusing me of not being familiar with Bathory's material is a waste of both of our time, as does insinuating that I and others are merely "impressionable guys". Of course Quorthon had some influence on the Norwegian scene. He had an influence on just about all 'extreme' metal that came after him. But to be so obtusely reductionist about it is dishonest.

The first officially releases Norwegian black metal album was A Blaze in the Northern Sky, by the way, though admittedly the archetype that Darkthrone was to be known for was developed further on Under a Funeral Moon and epitomized on Transilvanian Hunger. Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism is also much more related to Bathory than is Pure Holocaust. Perhaps the most noteworthy element of Norwegian black metal is not their homogeneity, as you imply, but rather their heterogeneity. Each of the forerunners of the movement had their own individual visions and articulated them in different ways. You cannot generalize that they all were Satanic, Pagan/Asatru/Odinist, Fascist, or any other ideology. In fact, NONE of the forerunners in any way expressed fascism or racism in their music, and I would like for you to attempt to contradict me. Some, like Vikernes, are openly racist, but it does not reflect in their music. There was minimal reference to Satan or Satanism in their lyrics as well, the primary exception being Emperor. Amusingly, there is not even a single reference to Norse religion/myth in the entirety of Burzum's seminal works.

As far as side projects go, how is that relevant to their black metal work? Neptune Towers was an ambient project. Mortiis' project was the result of his loss of interest in black metal. Thou Shalt Suffer was a death metal band that largely pre-dated the black metal scene, its members later forming Emperor and Ildjarn, much like members of Old Funeral later forming the bands Burzum, Immortal, and Hades. It's no secret that most of the notable Norwegian black metal musicians started out playing death metal, as is most evident in Soulside Journey. Again, none of this has to do with the discussion on Norwegian black metal that we're holding right now. Burzum was not a purely metal band, as he delved into ambient on occasion (Channeling the Power of Souls into a New God, Han Som Reiste, Tomhet, etc.), but other than that, there is virtually no crossover.

[doomedplanet]

Rich, that 1980-86 list is solid, I'm brainstorming to think of bands missing. Beyond that I'm forced to ignore most of the replies, though while some are thought provoking, a few are quite inane.

[Dodens Grav]

The only things I could even think to add would be Slaughter Lord and Renegade (they had a demo in 1985, though I've never heard it, Total Armageddon hits the '87 cutoff mark). I'm not sure I would put them on there, but they may be worth considering, unless they were already discussed and I just missed them.

edit: Infernal Majesty too, with a demo in 1986.