u/Possible_Buffalo5177

This one from Finland will stand as a pillar for "Pagan Black Metal" or "Viking Black Metal" in the league of Enslaved, first Borknagar, Kampfar etc.

Certain places become associated with events, with cultures, with history - places and countries become the embodiment of these elements. 

When it comes to extreme metal you of course have the inflection points which essentially have become the subject of books: Black Sabbath in England, thrash metal in the Bay Area, Florida Death metal, Norwegian Black metal etc. These things have become inextricably linked, but clicking in few layers deeper - and now that more time has passed to create a clearer regional map of metal styles - some stranger and more subtle patterns emerge. 

Maybe the more interesting pattern is why certain countries do not resonate with a particular style. For example the UK seems to be a hotbed for its strain of peace punk and Riot City style punk, and crust punk in the 80s, but in the 90s there was barely any sign of UK black metal. There was Cradle of Filth, sure - but in the end they aren’t even really a black metal band aside from their visual style. Why was the UK never really able to make a definitive statement of black metal? 

Same goes for Japan - almost no black metal scene in the 90s or a definitive sound (Sabbat, Sigh, and Abigail all feel like Islands to me), yet with hardcore and crust you have an explosion of Japanese bands in the 80s. Japan seemed to be much more susceptible to British influence than from other areas - and the power electronics and early noise movements of England (.ie Whitehouse) also seemed to start a movement in Japan. 

I am not really interested in the actual reason as to why this happens - maybe it could be boiled down to what is imported, international trade channels etc. These types of explanations will still not get any closer to the “why” does a band from this region have a distinct sound.

And it certainly could not explain the phenomenon of Norway.

Looking back at certain eras though, you are left wondering why does France have such a diverse and immense black metal scene while the UK has basically none (looking at the 90s here). You also have an explosion of Finnish BM in the late 90s into the 2000s, but literally nothing happening in Denmark, etc. 

Spain, Portugal, UK, Ireland, Hungary, Slovakia, South American etc - and you probably have to start diving into the Soviet occupation happening in countries further east - but you have a kind of drought of styles there. Whereas black metal in Poland and Czech Republic have their very distinct regional quality and a sizable group of different bands. 

The most fascinating (in terms of sound) is Polish black metal - and it all culminates around the involvement of one individual: Karcharoth (or Anextiomarus, RIP). Two-piece Graveland is absolutely foundational, but the appearance of Karcharoth (Grzegorz Jurgielewicz — a true Ellis Island head-scratcher) is what changed the sound of Graveland on Thousand Swords, and further solidified the style with his own project Infernum. Which hints to “regionality” actually just being the contributions of one or maybe two individuals. Still, these starting points have such resonance - that it spreads out into a regional sound. 

Is USBM a regional style or is it simply a reflection of certain European strains? I might actually say that a band like Acheron is really pure USBM because they embody the transition from Florida death metal into USBM- sharing members and close ties with Incubus, Nocturnus etc. Acheron are 100% black metal in image and intent, but their style is a lot chunkier like death metal - and has the heft of music more typical of the USA. 

The same goes for Czech BM, Brazilian BM, Canadian BM - they all tend to skew more into death metal territories and represent that first wave era of BM that happens before Norway - something more deathrashing and brutal - than focused on melodicism and freezing clinical atmosphere. 

Greece is a probably the best example of this - embodying an alternate history of black metal if essentially Norway never happened. They span that same stretch of time from mid 80s through the inflection of 1991, and their style actually blossoms into the Greek sound, almost unaffected by the global scene, which is regal in how metallic it is, and it is very atmospheric, but the riffing is clear and does not give way to a “wash” of guitar distortion which Scandinavia seemed to favor. Again, it probably comes down to the contributions of two or three people - but it creates an identity which other musicians can comfortably take on - especially if its drawing from the ancient culture of the area for its themes. 

I do think it says something about a place, the spirit of a place to understand the regional styles and the “flavor” in their sound. But when you are looking at genres like punk, hardcore, death metal, black metal, etc. - it becomes even more interesting because a distinct sound will quickly emerge - while the “style” of another country will always be more of a pantomime of somewhere else. 

Certain places become associated with events, with cultures, with history - places and countries become the embodiment of these elements. 

When it comes to extreme metal you of course have the inflection points which essentially have become the subject of many books: Black Sabbath in England, thrash metal in the Bay Area, Florida Death metal, Norwegian Black metal etc. These things have become inextricably linked, but clicking a few times deeper - and now that more time has passed to create a clearer regional map of metal styles - some stranger and more subtle patterns emerge. 

Maybe the more interesting pattern is why certain countries do not resonate with a particular style. For example the UK seems to be a hotbed for its strain of peace punk and Riot City style punk, and crust punk in the 80s, but in the 90s there was barely any sign of UK black metal. There was Cradle of Filth, sure - but in the end they aren’t even really a black metal band aside from their visual style. Why was the UK never really able to make a definitive statement of black metal? 

Why was Norway the place for this happen? 

You have an explosion of Finnish BM in the late 90s into the 2000s, but literally nothing happening in Denmark, etc. 

Why does France have such a diverse and immense black metal scene while the UK has basically none (looking at the 90s here). 

Spain, Portugal, UK, Ireland, Hungary, Slovakia, South American etc - and you probably have to start diving into the Soviet occupation happening in countries further east - but you have a kind of drought of styles there. Whereas black metal in Poland and Czech Republic have their very distinct regional quality. 

The most fascinating is Polish black metal - and it all culminates around the involvement of one individual: Karcharoth (or Anextiomarus, RIP). His appearance into Polish black metal changed the sound of Graveland on Thousand Swords, and further solidified the style with his own project Infernum. Which hints to “regionality” actually just being the contributions of one or maybe two individuals. Still, these starting points have such resonance - that it spreads out into a regional sound. 

Is USBM a regional style or is it simply a reflection of certain European strains? I might actually say that a band like Acheron is really pure USBM because they embody the transition from Florida death metal into USBM- sharing members and close ties with Incubus, Nocturnus etc. Acheron are 100% black metal in image and intent, but their style is a lot chunkier like death metal - and has the heft of music more typical of the USA. 

The same goes for Czech BM, Brazilian BM, Canadian BM - they all tend to skew more into death metal territories and represent that first wave era of BM that happens before Norway - something more deathrashing and brutal - than focused on melodicism and freezing clinical atmosphere. 

Greece is a probably the best example of this - embodying an alternate history of black metal if essentially Norway never happened. They span that same stretch of time from mid 80s through the inflection of 1991, and their style actually blossoms into the Greek sound, almost unaffected by the global scene, which is regal in how metallic it is, and it is very atmospheric, but the riffing is clear and does not give way to a “wash” of guitar distortion which Scandinavia seemed to favor. Again, it probably comes down to the contributions of two or three people - but it creates an identity which other musicians can comfortably take on - especially if its drawing from the ancient culture of the area for its themes. 

I do think it says something about a place, the spirit of a place to understand the regional styles and the “flavor” in their sound. But when you are looking at genres like punk, hardcore, death metal, black metal, etc. - it becomes even more interesting because one thing will quickly emerge - while another style will always be more of a pantomime of somewhere else. 

See also: Those who are in competition with the past will be crushed by it. 

I would assume that the consensus of “Is music from the past, old music, just better than anything being made now?” Is, even amongst young people, a resounding “Yes”.

Now I would also assume that this was not the case in the past (1980s, 90s, 200_s). I can easily imagine youth culture devotees confident in their INSISTENCE that what they were doing was the front line, something new, and music from the past was boring, irrelevant and outdated, 

Would a young band do that now? 

I mean, absolutely not, they will first need to prove that they have a refined and very “in tune” taste of what are good bands and essential bands from a subculture’s past. 

You carry the culture forward, but at what cost? 

Someone said recently it’s called a movement (in music / art) because you must move away from something (and that person was quoting a cliche).

What are we moving away from right now? 

I would say that we are walking away from the idea that “you must do something new, because you cannot repeat the past.” And what we are walking toward is the effort to maintain the archetypes of this music / art form. It seems like part of some life cycle, to be honest, that things have cooled off - we are in the hardening era, and it will stay like this until it crumbles away. Crumbles away and is washed into the stream of all media and media celebrity. 

or it forms an island, an archipelago.

Now that I have the oblivionated idea out of the way…

I think things would look different if we had “droughts” of music. And surely there is something like this naturally happening on a small scale - but there used to be droughts of music in that certain music and releases would simply not be available. Saying this now where at any moment some media can be archived easily onto the world mind of  internet servers - doesn’t make any sense. 

But there is the simple fact of - if you are not aware of something it will have less influence on you. Personally - I know how important it is to “keep many things out” - but I don’t think this will even occur as a concern for the modern young person. These people will be utterly refined in their ability to discriminate media because it will be their language from birth onwards. 

Reissue culture is important, and I will not exclude myself from still wanting to hear music and put records on my turn table — but it does create the problem of “culture consensus” or the “overwhelming pressure of a culture’s particular moment” - previously this entity was not a monolith of a YouTube algorithm pouring onto your computer - it was not a monolith on social media - and it was, in its pure form, the thing that you learned from friends who were older and distinguished themselves as actual borough satyrs with the occult knowledge. 

I know young people are going through this in their own way - but you can easily see the drought on the other side where nothing feels like a conhesive "new movement" - where each band stepped forward and made its crucial contribution.

Again I will remark on the extraordinary event of EVERY black metal band in Norway switching from death metal to black metal and putting on the paint (or the experiencing of evolution in real time - is one of the great thrills of life). 

But I think music is being eclipsed - and hopefully most people I know would tell me this on their own accord.  Music is a lower and lower bullet point.

But as long as people have ears 👀

Surely I am not the only BM fan who is a bit perplexed by a detailed and light-shedding history of DSO being rolled out in a multi-part and difficult to follow interview for a Timo Ketola book. It's a head scratching moment - and to be honest I've been scratching my head regarding DSO for over 20 years now.

I have been following DSO since the beginning, and I remember clearly the grimness and austerity of their dual debut LPs on Northern Heritage, each one limited to 100, impossible to get as a person in the USA, and each embodied a stark black and white layout with old english logo. Eventually, I think years later the LPs came out on CD by NH and we were able to hear the music. It was very good, but did not really stand out at the time. In fact it seemed to embody the style and sound of Sombre records, EAL, Moonblood etc, - level of the underground which most aficionados decried as "dark clones" . I even remember buying an Ulver CD from Century media on sale and the description for "Nattens Madrigal" said "A poor man's darkthrone" ... and that was all!

Darkclone was a term that was used by the overground to discredit this approach to black metal, which was not unwarranted. Pretty much all the bands surrounding this movement in Europe around EAL and Sombre were labelled as "Darkclones" - and much of the sound is directly indebted to DT's raw style of BM. This label failed to recognize the fertility and potency of the style which I think has really successfully flourished and branched out to more defined species of and regions of BM (see: USBM, French BM, German BM, Finnish BM, etc etc).

At some point I was able to hear the Mutiilation / Deathspell Omega 10" (Gallows 👀 ), and hear their excellent track "Insanity Supreme" - it's not groundbreaking - just a perfect example of great black metal song structure. The song goes up and the song goes down, all great BM songs are Pyramids or Ziggurats - and 'Insanity Supreme' has an expertly timed cut, and climax moment - like all great BM songs must have. There is even a subtle hint at the end of the song which reflects the color and tone that later DSO would take on.

After this release, the rest of DSO happens. And I know plenty of people who hold "Si Circumspice" as a progressive BM breakthrough, but the band has lost me personally ever since they took this move toward dissonant and angular black metal. When bands stray into this territory I am immediately reminded of "math rock" or "tech death metal", things of this nature - a point when bands start to play music for the idea rather than the sound - and sure the sound is dark and challenging, but it is a very unnatural listen to person who even can deeply enjoy King Crimson "Red".

It makes me think of freestyle skateboarding - you can take the skateboard and turn it on its head and start bouncing on it like a pogo stick - and people called that a professional sport for about a decade. I would rather just ride the skateboard wheels down and go somewhere.

The point of much of this writing is retrospection - and looking back now, when I think of technically impressive BM, with stellar playing, and unpredictble song structures - I need not go further than something like Kvist "For Kunsten Maa Vi Evig Vike". The technical level of playing on a record like this is extremely high, and yet the drama and atmosphere are even higher. It feels spiritual and charged with the same pathos as other great serious BM albums. Again, Norway takes the gold for atmosphere and just sheer mastery of playing - and the Kvist debut is no exception to that ruling.

One thing that I cannot stand - as a black metal song - are songs that don't go anywhere. I think there is a kind of contract that BM song must fulfill - it has to deliver on some promise if it wants to be very effective.

Writing this out - it feels like many of these ideas probably are violating some rule of DSO song writing for their second movement and beyond. This breadth of analysis and impression is not taking into account blank and blank and blank. But that is exactly my point - I must first be convinced by the music, then I will proceed to philosophy and "story of the band". The upside down and heavily knotty steel fence of DSO does a fine job keeping me out.

"Circle of 7 Infernal Pacts" 1993 LP hit much later for me - I only ever knew the "Conquering what was once ours" MCD on the notorious Woodnymph / Shiver label.

It's too bad because 7 infernal pacts is a much more interesting and foundational German BM album. Listening to the song linked here, you can hear the energy of German BM, the energy of Moonblood, Katharsis and Odal emerging in this music.

This music is deeply indebted to Under a Funeral Moon, and that seems to be at the core of this sound - "Magicus Tulis Damnation " is a stand out moment on the LP, and much of the 7 Infernal LP has the Celtic Frost rocking pace that is another play from the book of Darkthrone - and seems to be something that Ungod leaned into more on the next release while still helping define the German BM sound.