Black metal bands deliberately recorded badly to keep outsiders away
Early black metal musicians could afford only basements and cheap tape, but many kept the murky sound even after studios opened their doors. The fuzz was a gatekeeper: raw, cold recordings pushed casual listeners away, and one former Gorgoroth singer said the music was never meant for a wide audience at all.
The genre takes its name from a 1982 album, Black Metal, by the English band Venom, which launched what fans call the first wave. Swiss and Scandinavian acts such as Celtic Frost and Bathory pushed it further, drawing on the grit of Motörhead and on punk; Tom G. Warrior of Celtic Frost said hearing Discharge's first records showed him how far music could go. By 1987 that wave had faded.
A second wave rose in Norway in the early 1990s, led by groups like Mayhem and Darkthrone, and it is this scene that fixed black metal as a separate style. Its sound is recognisable at once: trebly, heavily distorted guitars played with rapid tremolo picking, dissonant intervals such as the tritone to create dread, and almost no guitar solos. Drummers use blast beats and double bass pedals at tempos that can near 300 beats per minute, though Darkthrone's Fenriz argued for primitive simplicity over polish. Vocals are shrieks and snarls rather than death metal growls, and songs often abandon verse and chorus for long repetitive passages.
The look matters as much as the noise. Corpse paint, black and white makeup meant to look ghoulish, is the defining visual signature, and early album sleeves were photocopied black-and-white images, partly a rebuke to death metal's bright artwork. Lyrics attack Christianity and organised religion, but they also dwell on forests, mountains, winter storms and the folklore of the bands' homelands, and some groups write only in their native or even archaic languages.
Controversy has shadowed the scene. In the 1990s some of its members were behind church burnings and murders, and a small neo-Nazi fringe persists, although many prominent artists reject it. Plenty of bands refuse to play live at all, and those that do often frame their concerts as rituals rather than entertainment.
Source: Black metal
