Take a nice, long look at those two clowns pictured with this article. What questions immediately come to mind? I’ll go ahead and answer the big three:
1. Yes, they are in fact wearing bullet belts, 2. No, this is not KISS and 3. Sorry, but I really have no idea if they were serious in this or not (though I hope they were). If you can truly view these individuals and think to yourself, “Hey, I could totally take something, anything these guys do seriously,” then you are a better man than I.
However, Fisher Price armory and makeup aside, these clowns are actually reasonably intelligent songwriters that contributed to the birth of one of the most controversial genres of music. Thus, with the best and most evil of holidays approaching rapidly, I introduce you to the most evil of metals: the black metal.
Black metal as it is known today was born in the dungeons (moms’ basements) of Scandinavia in the late 80s as bands like Norway’s Darkthrone, Immortal and Mayhem began taking the influences of 80s speed and thrash metal bands and morphing them into a grim, cold and entirely unique form. This new subgenre of metal is now known today by its extreme primitiveness and minimalism as well as its overbearing abrasiveness and bleakness. Songs consist of breakneck tempos featuring blasting drumming, frenetic tremolo-picked guitars, grim frostbitten riffs, and the genre’s trademark shrieking vocal style that brings to mind everything from screech owls to goblins. Another token characteristic of the genre is the propensity of the musicians to make the production of the music sound as ungodly awful as possible. Seriously, I challenge anyone to find a black metal track that doesn’t sound like it was recorded entirely by a 4-year-old toddler with a styrofoam cup and some string. It typically adds to the dirty, cold, raw atmosphere that they’re going for, but it’s often off-putting and always harsh on the ear.
Despite having such a distinct, polarizing sound, most of black metal’s international recognition stems from its often Satanic lyrical content and the genre’s notorious beginnings in the Norway black metal scene. In Norway, early pioneers of the style held staunch nationalistic and highly anti-Christian ideologies. Black metal fanatics, including both major musicians and fans alike, participated in over fifty church burnings during the genre’s peak years from 1992 to 1996, but that doesn’t even cover half of the bizarre, disturbing occurrences of this time. However, if I had to pick one particular story that encompasses everything this movement was at the time, it’d definitely be this one about a little band called Mayhem.
Mayhem formed in 1984 in Oslo, Norway, with their original vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, or “Dead,” as he was known by band mates and fans. In 1991, Dead committed suicide in “an old house in the forest” that the band was residing in at the time. When fellow band mate Euronymous found Dead…well, dead, he then proceeded to take pictures of the scene. Rumors abound that the band made a stew out of pieces of Dead’s brain, and the band themselves claim that necklaces were made out of pieces of his skull. Two years later, Euronymous was stabbed to death by a former band mate. Somehow this band still exists with only one remaining original member that’s not murdered or a murderer.
Whether that lighthearted anecdote piqued your interest or revolted you, you’d be hard-pressed finding a more dividing, cold and haunting genre of music than black metal. It’s got loathsome production, extremely abrasive instrumentation, and parent-repellant lyrics and subculture. I realize none of that sounds very appealing (at all) and it certainly isn’t easy listening, but maybe when you’re trying to figure out what to listen to on a cloudless, full-moon October night, you might just reach for Darkthrone’s “Transylvanian Hunger” over the Misfits or Screamin’ Jay or whatever else people listen to for Halloween.
