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National Socialist Black Metal - how is it still tolerated?

Well, not surprisingly, I don't agree with that!

He Will Fall - Lidaverken Del I: Att I Vådeld Förgås

Well I did you the courtesy of listening to that.. and it didn't sound significantly different to the two other recommendations I heard last night. To these ears, it is shite.

Growling 'devilish' voices..power chords.. all but unintelligible lyrics. So bad that as I said previously..I can't identify any message, so at least I can't definitely ID it as AS or Fascist. I'm just stunned that people would actually besmirch a decent hi fi with such cobblers.
 
Not my choice of music - however, I am sure that you will find examples of anti semitic, generally racist, misogynistic, violent, criminal, insulting etc etc lyrics in just about any genre.
Its a form of self expression, not "tolerating" (or banning? ) is just counter productive in my view.
 
The viking/pagan thing is where I start to get uncomfortable tbh. Not because I have anything again pagans(!) but for some bands it seems to be about a pre-christian white ethnic nationalist worldview that can cross over into anti-semitism and the far-right - see Graveland etc. (see also some neofolk!)

As soon as I see a band doing the pagan bit I find myself asking whether they're racists. Crazy. But I'm not alone - I just found someone posting online asking for a list of non-nazi pagan metal bands. Indie rock or jazz funk fans don't have to tread so carefully!

Darkthrone are/were great (I still have an original test pressing of A Blaze In The Northern Sky) but as I'm sure you know Transilvanian Hunger initially had 'Norwegian Aryan black metal' printed on the sleeve and came with an anti-semitic press release that Peaceville distanced themselves from.

Fenriz has since said he held racist views at the time and now regrets it. A number of the classic Scandinavian bands said some very stupid things early on. I see a difference though between the ignorance of small town teenagers in a pre-internet age and grown men holding racist/fascist views in 2021.

So I agree - the vast majority of black metal bands aren't total nazis, and nether are the vast majority of the listeners. So why do they put up with the badduns? Why is a label like Nuclear Blast putting out records by a band that had to fire it's guitarist for repeatedly giving nazi salutes on camera? I don't get it.

One of the reasons I got pissed off with Roon was that it kept suggesting Graveland to me. Clearly one of the 4 or so black metal listeners its big data approach is based on quite likes them.

And I’d forgotten that about Transilvanian Hunger -‘this is beyond criticism and anyone who tries should be patronised for this obviously Jewish behaviour’ or something like that, IIRC?

I do think there’s a difference between people pursuing confrontational artistic outlets occasionally straying into dodgy territory one the one hand, and Absurd or Rob Darken’s antics on the other. But for all the column inches over the years, those are minor figures. So I don’t think BM in general has an inherent problem with NS particularly any more than eg punk does because Skrewdriver exist, or metal as a whole because of that pillock who tried to storm the Capitol building in January (or classical music because of what some people think of Wagner, for that matter). BM is never going to be mainstream or nice, and confrontational art is important IMO.

The more troubling thing for me is more broadly cultural - that NS seems to be the mode of youthful rebellion in some parts of the world, and (IME especially in Eastern Europe) that can somehow tie in with BM in those kids’ minds. So although to me NS and BM are incompatible and I don’t see the point either conceptually or musically (because most NSBM sounds crap to me), for some people they’re natural bedfellows. I don’t see that as BM’s problem (even if BM does have other problems), but rather as a much wider and deeper issue which happens to overlap with a tiny part of the BM map.
 
Thanks Dave. I think your last paragraph is probably about right.

In the case of punk I remain a bit wary of Oi bands specifically because of Skrewdriver, Brutal Attack and all the rest. Though a member of a quite high profile Oi band was a music tech classmate for a bit and was absolutely lovely.
 
Not really up to speed on so-called "black metal", so reading this thread has been informative.

To tell the truth, I'm not really up to speed on "metal"...full stop. Did go through a Metallica phase about 15 years ago. Seemed like most of it came down to adding an extra syllable at the end of certain words. For example, the word "right" was consistently scream/sung as "right-tuh". Ok, my phase only lasted a few weeks and ended abruptly. Too much other music to listen to. Admittedly, I did like their version of "Whiskey in a Jar".


Ooops, make that "Whiskey in a Jar-ruh". Funny, but I do like a fair bit of punk, and that also involves screaming. Oh well, am not exactly a model of consistency I suppose. :cool:
 
Anyway @paulfromcamden , thanks for bringing this up as a point of debate; it's something that had been playing on my mind for some time

..it is shite.

Your opinion on Back Metal or any similar genre, isn't relevant to the point in question tbh; as ever, it's purely a matter of personal taste.
 
Your opinion on Back Metal or any similar genre, isn't relevant to the point in question tbh; as ever, it's purely a matter of personal taste.

Yep. That's true. I lost interest in almost everything which might come under the heading of 'metal' or 'heavy rock' many many years ago.. apart from some residual interest in some of the pioneers, ranging from the Kinks through Hendrix, Cream, etc.

Still.. something is going on here with this particular sub genre of a sub genre of ..etc... I have this theory that all new and initially 'subversive' musical and other cultural expressions eventually become stylised and rule bound. Which of course also means formulaic. YMMV

There are numerous genres of music which don't appeal to me, such as 'free' jazz, most funk, all of Rap, most Hip Hop and no doubt many others which I couldn't even name. I do however sort of understand how most can appeal to some folks. What I can't understand is how this 'Black Metal' appeals..since I've now listened to three or four recommended samples which all sound the same..in ways I've already described. But I'll just leave the fans of this stuff to continue.. whilst I wonder if they are the folks I see wandering about in full length leather coats and 'rock' boots. :)
 
that NS seems to be the mode of youthful rebellion in some parts of the world, and (IME especially in Eastern Europe) that can somehow tie in with BM in those kids’ minds.

What worries me more is that in many Eastern European countries, Nazi inspired 'youthful rebellion', seems to be closely aligned with Govt. thinking and is therefore less 'youthful rebellion', and more exploitation..in the same way that the far right in the UK happily exploits a certain kind of thug.
 
Yep. That's true. I lost interest in almost everything which might come under the heading of 'metal' or 'heavy rock' many many years ago.. apart from some residual interest in some of the pioneers, ranging from the Kinks through Hendrix, Cream, etc.

Still.. something is going on here with this particular sub genre of a sub genre of ..etc... I have this theory that all new and initially 'subversive' musical and other cultural expressions eventually become stylised and rule bound. Which of course also means formulaic. YMMV

There are numerous genres of music which don't appeal to me, such as 'free' jazz, most funk, all of Rap, most Hip Hop and no doubt many others which I couldn't even name. I do however sort of understand how most can appeal to some folks. What I can't understand is how this 'Black Metal' appeals..since I've now listened to three or four recommended samples which all sound the same..in ways I've already described. But I'll just leave the fans of this stuff to continue.. whilst I wonder if they are the folks I see wandering about in full length leather coats and 'rock' boots. :)

You should hear some of the stuff I listen to that comes under the heading experimental. My wife thinks that all of the stuff that I listen to is shite, but that's a different story!
 
Splitting Hairs here, but I agree.



Yes, sad imv, I love the HEAVY Opeth, Ghost Reveries and what went before.

It’s not splitting hairs really, calling Opeth a BM band is like calling Dream Theatre hard core punk - they just simply aren’t.

Mull’s point about genres becoming rigid over time is quite right in many cases, but BM was ultra-rigid from the start, and has actually got much broader over time. Emperor were officially not ‘true’ BM in the early days FFS.

Anyway, sorry, pedantry corner over and out!
 
What worries me more is that in many Eastern European countries, Nazi inspired 'youthful rebellion', seems to be closely aligned with Govt. thinking and is therefore less 'youthful rebellion', and more exploitation..in the same way that the far right in the UK happily exploits a certain kind of thug.

Agreed. It’s hard not to see most far right movements as exploitative IMO, and yes, given the dire state of politics in some of that area of the world, I’d agree.

I was shocked to see Reichsadler tshirts in Poland, but no one there that night (at an extreme metal gig) seemed to bat an eyelid. A bit of low grade ‘being a complete nazi’ was apparently common.

That said, with an eye on the thread topic, I’ve seen full on Nazi punks here in the U.K. too, and watched BM in a venue in Austria that’s reputedly so left wing the police tend not to go there. I’ve also spoken to BM musicians with a rep for that kind of thing who turned out to be nothing of the sort, and known accusations of far right sympathies be thrown at BM(ish) musicians who loathe that sort of thing.

My point (apart from the fact that my tinnitus is pretty understandable!) is that we should be just as careful with assumptions about Eastern European black metallers as we’d want them to be about assuming that we agree with everything our own government does.
 


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