Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult

by Dayal Patterson

  “I’d argue that the emotions and ideologies of the majority of the second wave are simply being continued by the post-black metal movement,” considers Frank. “Some of the more obvious emotional outpourings are a little distanced from this but, by and large, a sense of landscape, of poetry, of detachment from the herd and an empathy with something less material and more spiritual is always there. In this, there is a direct kinship between bands such as Ulver and Fleurety and the more recent bands. I’d argue the differences are slight. I guess Satanism is the big differentiator but even the more Satanic second-wave bands only ever really flirted with such concepts. Post-black metal for me identifies a sound and an outlook rooted in the second wave but divorced from some of the more cartoonish aspects of traditional black metal.

  Alcest, with drummer Winterhalter pictured on the left and Neige on the right. Photo courtesy of Prophecy Productions.

  “Is it perhaps that post-black metal is really a more acceptable synonym for ‘grown-up black metal,’ pretentious as it sounds to dare voice that?” he continues. “Why not? Black metal has always been pretentious and given that the members of the majority of the acts thus far referenced are well into their thirties, who can honestly express surprise at such thinking? A man in his mid-thirties with a wife, children, and stable job may feel deep unease at screaming about Satan and bedecking himself in spikes, particularly if he does not ‘feel’ it. We always talk of sincerity in music—perhaps post-black metal, for all the accusations of ‘hipsterism’ is in fact one of the most honest expressions of all?”

  It’s an interesting and undoubtedly divisive position, but it does raise an intriguing question—to what extent is Satanic ideology and a “traditional” aesthetic still a defining characteristic of black metal for its practitioners and followers? Obviously many will say—and have said in this very book—that these are essential, yet for some protagonists it clearly is not. Ultimately it’s up to the reader, though it would seem odd to say that the post-prison Burzum metal albums, for example, weren’t black metal. Or much of Mayhem’s output. Or Thorns. Or Drudkh. Whatever perspective one takes, Fen are one act who highlight this transition and expansion of the genre.

  “I personally am keen to ensure that there are no sonic limitations on what Fen is willing to incorporate from within black metal,” Frank concludes. “The core aggression, the rolling sense of furious momentum, this is something that—as it currently stands—has to remain. Sonically, we will dip our toes in whichever soundscape is appropriate for the feeling we are trying to convey, though it must be said that some of the thrashier, deathier elements of the black metal spectrum are not really appropriate for us. What do we leave behind? Silliness, narrow-minded posturing, gang mentality, absurd rhetoric and taking pride in dedication to living life like a raging, disaffected teenager. I can see why some people revel in embracing the chaos but this is not for us… It’s maybe an ideological thing more than anything else—Wolves in the Throne Room, sonically speaking, essentially sound like Nightside-era Emperor minus keyboards and with this in mind, the differences become even less pronounced. Is ideology that important? That is for the listener to decide.”

  Frank’s mention of Wolves in the Throne Room is apt, since this American act are another band who feature a similar displacement of traditional ideological and cultural values but nonetheless retain the sound and spirit of the more transcendental end of the second wave. The band was formed in 2003 by Aaron Weaver (drums and synth) and Nathan Weaver (guitars and vocals), two brothers who grew up in the ecology-conscious DIY punk scene in Olympia in the American northwest, an area containing some of the last bastions of untouched nature and forest. Indeed the two actually formed the outfit at an “Earth First” gathering and Wolves’ own eco-spiritual vision remains very much a lifestyle choice for the brothers, who both live and work on their own organic farm deep in the countryside. While their background was undoubtedly left-wing, the band itself is an apolitical entity, and actually taps into the same rejection of the modern world, reverence for nature, and spiritual overtones that characterized three of the band’s biggest influences—Burzum, Emperor, and Ulver.

  “I really hate to put ourselves in the category of left-wing actually ’cos that’s not how we perceive ourselves at all,” Aaron told me in a 2008 interview for Metal Hammer. “I don’t think politics are an appropriate way to deal with the world’s problems, or one’s community. It’s a lot more effective to define what your values are. I would say we value the earth, a simple ‘country’ lifestyle, we think that should be allowed to continue. I feel explicitly against racism, against fascism. I think that ideology comes from a place of fear and a fear of change, a place of hate and bitterness and these are negative emotions that one should overcome. I also think we’re against modern civilization and the modern scientific-reductionist worldview.”

  “We always question the concept of civilization,” Aaron also told me in a 2009 Terrorizer interview. “We look around and wonder if something went horribly wrong, maybe around four hundred years ago when the world began to change so rapidly, at the birth of modernity. There are perfectly fine things about the modern world, the modern way of looking at things, the scientific and mechanical way of understanding the universe. But I think it’s also spiritually shallow, that’s a big problem the human race needs to deal with.”

  UK post black-metal outfit Fen, pictured in late 2012.

  Photo: Tom Huskinson.

  Given such perspectives one might expect the band to incorporate folk overtones into their sound as many of their like-minded peers have, yet the ferocious wall of sound on their first two albums—Diadem of 12 Stars (2006) and Two Hunters (2007)—proved to audiences that the Ulver influence was definitely secondary to that of Burzum. Varg Vikernes has long decried the modern world of course, and as Aaron explained to me in the aforementioned Metal Hammer interview, though Varg himself may not be seen as a particularly like-minded protagonist, within his records lies an expression the band can relate to wholeheartedly, what he described as a “cry for the utter destruction of the modern world, for wiping it out of your mind and wiping it off the face of the earth and replacing it with something ancient, simple and more primal.” For Wolves the negativity and darkness of black metal is therefore not merely a means to an end, but a starting point for something broader.

  “What I’ve always taken from occult study and spiritual practice is that one should attempt to transcend misery, hatred, and bitterness, the feelings black metal expresses so effectively and so purely,” he explained. “That utter void, that hopeless morass of boundless sadness found in Burzum is something to be experienced and explored as the beginning of a path to transcendence and spiritual growth. I think it’s really wrong to look at that as the end of a spiritual journey. I’m not trying to judge anyone—I have a lot of friends who are deeply into left-hand-path magick and Satanic occult spiritual practice and I think it makes a lot of sense to them, it works for someone who wants to be alone, a hermit. But not for someone like me, who wants to build a life that reflects a spiritual set of values, things that I think are real and true.”

  The forest whispers my name: Wolves In The Throne Room in their natural setting.

  Practicalities remain a focus for Wolves—as they once asked on their website, how does one go about raising Satanic children? What does a Satanic farm look like? Yet while they may not embrace the Satanic roots of the movement, by actually living off the land in relative isolation the group do take many of black metal’s values to their logical conclusion, perhaps more so than those bands who claim to despise modern civilization and worship nature, then choose to live and work in a bustling metropolis.

  Musically the group have continued to stay close to the Nordic black sound, and while 2009’s Malevolent Grain EP saw the band showcasing a sound with more obvious post-black tendencies, the same year also saw the release of the Black Cascade album, perhaps their most single-minded release to date, with 2011 follow-up C
elestial Lineage also maintaining the meditative ambient passages as well as clearly identifiable Burzum/Ulver traits. Like Fen, the band choose to deviate significantly from the traditional face of the genre, while holding onto what they consider its essential traits.

  “Black metal is about a lot of things, on the surface it’s very much about nihilism, despair, Satanism, left-hand path magic and all this sort of thing,” Aaron told me in Metal Hammer, “but we were interested in something a little bit deeper in the music, which was an uncompromising call to destroy the modern world. We saw black metal as a cleansing fire, something to destroy everything you believe and that people have told you, something that would allow you to really gaze inwards and find some deeper, more ancient sense of truth.

  AFTERWORD

  THOUGH THE FINAL CHAPTERS of this book have sought to illustrate the concept of “post-black metal,” it’s extremely important to keep in mind that in the bigger picture there really is no post-black metal, no after the event, no building from the ashes, as much as some might wish to believe otherwise. There’s no denying that black metal has always continued to evolve and take new shapes—that’s a large part of what this book has been about after all. Thrash and death metal, as exciting as those genres can be, are now at a point where genuinely original acts have been a rarity for almost two decades, yet black metal’s boundaries have continually expanded as new acts appear—who, after all, could have predicted the sound of bands such as Negură Bunget or Deathspell Omega back in the early nineties?

  It would, however, be misguided to suggest that the history of black metal is some sort of linear timeline tending toward improvement. As reactionary as it might sound, it’s also true that in recent times black metal has been appropriated by those who have little connection with its roots. Consequently, there are attempts to present black metal as having reinvented itself or transcended its beginnings, improving on what came before and leaving behind the efforts of the early pioneers. One example has been the attempt by some writers and musicians to present both post-black metal and the entire burgeoning USBM scene—which exploded in the mid-2000s after some years of relative silence, barring the efforts of bands such as VON, Profanatica, Demoncy, and Absu—as some sort of new beginning for the movement, or as the embodiment of the genre’s most extreme, forward-thinking, or artistically relevant face.

  Clearly this is nonsense. Ultimately, black metal is, and has always been, as much about revitalizing old inspirations as it is about innovation. While this book has tended to focus on the most influential or pioneering artists in order to track the development of both the music and culture (as well as the human stories behind it), there continue to appear equally worthy bands who instead tap into specific areas of the genre’s past. Be it the South American legions who draw upon the first wave of the genre and breathe life into it, or the huge number of bands still creating masterpieces from the second-wave template (Behexen, Taake, Arckanum, the list goes on and on), the most memorable and well-crafted works have often been those working with familiar forms. Indeed, even in Norway, a territory now famous for its progressive undercurrents, a new underground has surfaced in the shape of the so-called Nidrosian black metal scene, with bands such Vemod and One Tail, One Head keeping the black flame of an earlier generation alive.

  Black metal will surely continue to innovate and evolve, and this should be celebrated, but it should also be remembered that many of the most powerful efforts have come from bands utilizing conventional black metal frameworks and traditional ideologies, and this will likely continue, even if the spikes, Satanism, misanthropy, and other trappings are a barrier for some listeners outside the genre. And as fascinating and enjoyable as the last decade or so has been, have any bands really surpassed Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse, Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, or Burzum’s Filosofem? Or, for that matter, Welcome to Hell?

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Written between 2009 and 2013 in various parts of Norway, Brazil, Turkey and England.

  Special thanks to Ester Segarra and to Adrian, Trisha, and Ian Hunt for their hospitality and for providing spaces where large portions of this book could be written. Huge thanks to Joel McIver for his patience and wisdom on the finer details of book writing and publishing. Thanks also to the members of Next Big Thing. And of course special thanks to Adam Parfrey, Bess Lovejoy, and Feral House for allowing this project to see the light of day.

  Hails must also go out to the following people who—directly or indirectly—assisted in the making of this tome: Edward Ruff, Ilia Rodriguez, Jonathan Selzer, Sandra dos Santos, Ranth Patterson, Isabelle Uller, Vlad Spisak, Sinem and Kazım Uzunoglu, Marte Hennie, Jonathan Butlin, Alexander Milas, Niall Scott, Tommy Udo, Darrell Mayhew, Miranda Yardley, Louise Brown, Jonathan Horsley, Jill Liebisch, Adam Sagir, Dante Bonutto, Gareth Elliot, Matthew Vickerstaff, Jaap Wagemaker, Darren Toms, Lee Barrett, Dan Tobin, Jarne Brauns, Patricia Thomas, Andy Turner, Mathias Løken, Paul Groundwell, Sandra Hagblom, Michael S. Berberian, Gunnar Sauermann, Michelle Kerr, Gus Ratcliffe, Angela Davey, Dave Pybus, Guillaume Warren, Guro Juul Anderson, Eleanor Goodman, Ryan Förster, Talita Jenman, Martin Kvam, Yvette Uhlmann, Stefan Belda, Vanessa Thorpe, Mighell Necroriser, Duff Battye, Jon Luis Jon, Vincent (Black Metal Museum Germany), Martin Beerwölf (Black Death Nostalgia), Etienne Durth (Baron Von Durth), Christina Gajny, Jannicke Langård, Bill Connoly, Rodrigo Jimenez, Emily Power, Christian Misje, Neil Harding, Warren Schofield, Mikko Aspa, Ville Pystynen (Shatraug), Einar Einz Sjursø, Christophe Szpajdel, Jon Kristiansen (Metalion), Peter Tägtgren, Conrad Lant (Cronos), Jonas Åkerlund, Kim Petersen (King Diamond), Tom Gabriel Fischer, Ole Moe (Apollyon), Zhema Rodero, Gerry (Nocturnal Grave Desecrator and Black Winds), Michael Locher (Vorph), Sakis Tolis, George Zacharopoulos (Magus), Jason Ventura (Venien), Shawn Calizo (Goat), Attila Csihar, František Štorm, Marko Laiho (Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance), Jørn Stubberud (Necrobutcher), Kjetil Manheim, Sven Erik Kristiansen (Maniac), Rune Eriksen (Blasphemer), Gylve Nagell (Fenriz), Tomas Haugen (Samoth), Håvard Ellefsen (Mortiis), Terje Vik Schei (Tchort), Kai Johnny Mosaker (Trym), Vegard Tveitan (Ihsahn), Eirik Hundvin (Pytten), Steffen Simestad (Dolgar), Roger Tiegs (Infernus), Tom Cato Visnes (King), Kristian Espedal (Gaahl), Thomas Kronenes (Pest), Ivar Bjørnson, Grutle Kjellson, Daniel Davey, Paul Ryan, Gregory Moffitt, Robin Eaglestone, Sven Kopperud (Silenoz), Ian Kenneth Åkesson (Tjodalv), Simen Hestnæs (ICS Vortex), Willy Roussel (Meyhna’ch), Morgan Håkansson (Evil), Hans Rostén (Mortuus), Niklas Kvarforth, Robert Fudali (Darken), Adam Darski (Nergal), Kristoffer Rygg (Garm), Jørn Tunsberg, Jarle Kvåle (Hváll), Alan Averill (A.A. Nemtheanga), Tor-Helge Skei (Cernunnus), Svein Egil Hatlevik, Mirai Kawashima and Dr. Mikannibal, Yusaf Parvez (Vikotnik), Robin Malmberg (Mean), Preben (Prime Evil), Benny (Cerastes), Fabrizio Giannese (Malfeitor Fabban), Saint Vincent, Jonas Bergqvist (B), and Frank Allain (The Watcher). Thanks to the following for support: Metal Hammer, Record Collector, Decibel, The Quietus, Terrorizer, Thrash Hits, Zero Tolerance, Iron Fist, Revolver, Venia Mag, Metal Rules, Shu-izmz Radio, Lachryma Christi, Ave Noctum, Louder Than War, SoundShock, Rock Hard, Currentzz, Ruído Sonoro, Bizarre, Blunt, Norway Rock, Imperiumi, and of course anyone else who has helped in a personal or professional capacity since this list was written. Finally, respect goes to all those devoted souls who have helped keep this movement alive in one way or another since its inception.

  Table of Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  1 Roots of Evil

  2 Venom

  3 Mercyful Fate

  4 Bathory

  5 Hellhammer

  6 Celtic Frost

  7 The First Wave of Black Thrash

  8 Blasphemy

  9 Samael

  10 Rotting Christ and Greek Black Metal

  11 Tormentor

  12 Master’s Hammer

  13 VON

  14 Beherit

  15 Mayhem Part I

  16 Mayhem Part II

  17 (Re)Birth of a Movement: Norway Part I


  18 A Fist in the Face of Christianity: Norway Part II

  19 Death of a Legend: Norway Part III

  20 Thorns

  21 Darkthrone

  22 Burzum

  23 Emperor

  24 Gehenna

  25 Gorgoroth

  26 Trelldom

  27 The Opus Magnum: Mayhem Part III

  28 The Beast Reawakens: Mayhem Part IV

  29 Cradle of Filth: Black Metal Enters the Mainstream Part I

  30 Dimmu Borgir: Black Metal Enters the Mainstream Part II

  31 Underground Ethics

  32 Les Légions Noires

  33 Marduk: Sweden Part I

  34 Dissection and Watain: Sweden Part II

  35 Shining: Sweden Part III

  36 Politics, Poland, and the Rise of NSBM

  37 Graveland and Infernum: Polish Black Metal Part I

  38 Behemoth: Polish Black Metal Part II

  39 Enslaved: Folk and Folklore in Black Metal Part I

  40 Moonfog and Ulver: Folk and Folklore in Black Metal Part II