I often hear bands with a Cascadian BM sound like Ash Borer, Panopticon, Krallice, and WITTR said to crust influenced. When people say this, is it just in aesthetic and ideology or is there some musical similarity in there? I'm not too familiar with crust but I know the sound it refers too. I can hear the crust influence in bands like Darkthrone, Celtic Frost, Bathory, and the 'old guard' of black metal but not in this ambient influenced Cascadian sound. Can someone please point out some musical examples if there are any?

I've never heard anyone say that, and I don't quite see the similarity at all.

There's, broadly speaking, two forms of crust. Everyone's familiar with the oldschool sound. There's also a newer, more epic/melodic branch of the genre thats often seperated off into the neo-crust genre (bands like Fall of Efrafa, Oroku, bunch of others). Any comparisions - and they're still exaggerated - are generally to the second branch.

^ What he said, coupled with the fact a large portion of the Pacific Northwest BM scene at least, is/were crust punks.

It comes from lyrical content and that these bands will often tour and play with Crust bands. Some members in Wolves were also in Crust bands prior to forming wittr.

So yes, to answer your question it's mostly idealistic and doesn't play a major role in the music itself.

That's not completly the case There's a pretty big division going on here in the Pac NW. That's more true in the southern Pudget Sound area including Olympia where's there's a good crossover between Experimental/Noise/Ambient/Black Metal/ and even folk. The actual Crust scene stays primarily within it's own ranks and is not in general supportive or supported by the more traditional or extreme metal supporters/bands. There's always some good stuff out there sound wise anywhere in the underground but I think it's more of a cultural unity than a musical one. I think noise has more of an influence to the Cascadian sound but that's just me.

Most of the Black Metal bands around here are a newer generation of musicians who I don't think really get it. I got lucky, I didn't become a musician until years after I was into Black Metal and I have nothing in common with most of the musicians around here.

All those "Cascadian" black metal bands are associated with crust because they're all left-wing college kids who come from the punk scene but decided to make nice and tolerant kumbaya black metal.

That's not really my experience having spent a number of my younger years there in either "scene" - they were both pretty fluid back then, at least in the underground. Things may have changed now, but a good portion of the "crusties" I knew back in the day have moved onto black metal. What happens when you grow up listening to Amebix, and realize trainhopping isn't a viable career, I guess.

That's funny but true. I fugured they were more in line with hippies than punks though. I got exiled for being un-PC, it was funny as hell.

My stated observations are from the last 7 or 8 years or so as a show goer, anything before that I couldn't speak to. I started playing live and actually meeting people about 6 years ago. My first show was at a Mutant Fest, so the Cascadian BM scene was the first to welcome my former band.

Really? While I was living in Seattle Extreme Metal bands and Crust bands would share the same venue regularly. Or at least the venue I volunteered at and at Black Lodge. Of course there would be a lot of shows where it would be nothing but Black Metal or Drone, but you have an equal amount of local and regional bands playing alongside each other who haven't much in common.

So they don't get it because they don't play in the traditional bm style? I think they get it just fine but are consciously deciding they don't want to play like that. Many of them have even said that while what they play is influenced by bm, they don't really think of it as bm, or at least purely as bm.



In what way are anarchy and anti modern civilization ideas nice and tolerant? Because they don't worship satan? If anything they're the opposite of that. Maybe what you said applies to some Agalloch and Wolves in the Throne Room songs.

Because Liturgy are often lumped together with these bands.

Anyone associating Liturgy with cascadian BM is a fool.

You wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard that.

Panopticon is the only Cascadian style (yes I know Panopticon is not from the Cascade region, but they share a similar sound) USBM band that I can think of where you can hear crust influence. I recall one song of the self-titled that goes into a total crust riff backed by d-beats on the drums. Plus he covered Amebix (with The Baron doing vox). Otherwise most Cascadian style bands are more a mix of BM, post-rock, and neo-folk rather than crust.

Outside of the Cascadian style, Cobalt are heavily influenced by Nausea with their riffing style. They even covered Nausea's song Extinction.

And of course there is Iskra, who really pioneered the whole BM/Crust crossover. Their newer stuff is more just pure BM, but their self-titled, split with Against Empire, and Pig in Every Home 7" have very noticeable crust influence.

How do you know that was the reason? Did they say; "Hey! You're not PCt! Get out!" If that's the case, which I doubt, I fail to see the "fun".

How does Amebix fit into this picture? They've been pretty epic/melodic since 1985.

This is a pretty interesting thread; I'm not sure I have much to contribute, and I don't know a lot about these new crustyBM bands, however I've recently started hanging out with more punk/crust guys and associating with their local scenes and gigs, and it's been kind of enlightening. A lot of them do seem to like black metal a great deal, but are quick to shun certain bands due to rumours or perceived political matters that are basically a lot more significant to them (the listeners) than the bands themselves. Still, some of the music is very good...

I'm not an expert on crust, but it seems to me that the neo-crust sound tends to incorporate some post-rock influence and have longer songs, which sort of distinguishes the neo-crust bands from the old-school bands. (I would agree that Amebix is fairly epic/melodic as well, even on Arise and while those adjectives do describe the neo-crust sound, I don't think they're specific enough)

This is very true. I've met countless Punk kids who like Black Metal, but are very skeptical of the Fascist ideals many bands share. When it comes to Death Metal, it's really hit or miss. About your question of Amebix- there are many, including myself, who dislike the new direction they took especially on their latest album and believe that they should stick to their roots. They made much more of an impact with Arise than anything else they've released.

What about Palace of Worms? They are a USBM band that is more traditional in terms of a black metal sound and style, but the production on the first album (The Forgotten) has a real crusty sound to it…almost like a Skitsystem or a Wolfbrigade.

I seriously don’t understand the fascination with some of these Cascadian style USBM bands though…I’ve tried my hardest to get into WITTR, Falls of Rauros, Agalloch (probably the better of the bunch), etc., but it all just sounds mediocre and bland to me. Two Hunters has to be one of the most overrated albums I have heard in the entire genre… The only USBM Cascadian style band I could honestly tolerate was Alda….other than that, the genre is done 10x better and more beautifully in other countries.

About Amebix, you're probably right that <i>Arise</i> has had a huge impact on a big swath of both metal and crust punk. I don't think it was really possible for them to stick to their roots in the sense that you mean, but you can still tell on Sonic Mass that it's Amebix you're listening to, so it doesn't seem that far off to me. Basically what you'd expect from a band that's stayed dormant but kept an interest in music for the past twenty-three years. I really like it, myself.

It's one thing to not like the style, but to not understand the appeal? The scene consists of bombastic eco black metal groups with a knack for playing dramatic post-rock influenced riffs. How cool is that?

This.
Especially when your singer has spent the last 21 years blacksmithing on a small island with not much, if any, connection to "the scene".
It sounds different, in the sense that 23 years passed, the guys are older, and it wasn't produced/recorded in a make-shift studio/someone's basement.

Not my favourite album - but the sentimental value of Arise can't really be competed with, for me.

Whoever brought up d-beat makes a good point as well - the d-beat influence is obvious in a lot of bands. Though not American, Svikt is a good example of this. But I mean, how many of the early bm bands even cite punk in general, or even Discharge in particular, as influences?

But I think the idea of the "scenes" being completely segregated is a bit exaggerated anyway, especially when we're talking about the more underground bands.

An idea I had, based on the different ideologies fitting together.

Crust - Environmental Issues, anarchy, equality, anti-war, leftist politics, ect.
"Cascadian" Black metal - Anarchist Primitivism, love of nature, spiritual subjects.

I think that a reason they fit together is, anyone fighting to save the environment/world in general would have an appreciation for nature, and also anarchist primitivism is just an extreme extension of anarchism. And vice versa, someone with a great appreciation for nature would want to fight to protect it, and an anarcho-primitivist would fit in well with anarchist, because anarchy would be the first step to their political ideas.

Add in the slight similaritys in the music, and the fact that crust punks and metal fans tend to get along pretty well (or at least at the local punk house I go to a lot) It would make a lot of sense.

Another example would be http://www.cvltnation.com/embrace-the-c ... ca-review/ (I couldn't find a youtube link so this will have to do) As the comment states, that a member of Ash Borer provided the photography for the album art, this kind of shows that at least these sorts of bands know each other. Although Nux Vomica are more of a cleaner production neo-crust band than an actual old school crust band.

Isn't it great, there are so many different genres of metal in 2012 to the point where half the crowd don't know what to expect if they're rockin up to a gig with different types of metal on the roster. Fuck genres man. Outside of death, thrash, black, grind and doom (styles of metal which can clearly be defined) it's just a big wank. Sorry for the negative post but that's how I feel.

I don't feel your post was negative at all! You're comments were quite accurate and intelligent. Variety is the spice of life and the fact that metal is always growing, morphing and progressing means that it will ALWAYS exist for us to enjoy. Granted, some of us might not like some of the newer sub-genres that have developed, but that's ok. You can't like everything, but you can always learn something from it. Personally, the whole WITTR, drone, whatever style bores me to death, but I still respect it because they've taken something and pushed it forward to create something new.

As for Crust, I'm surprised NO ONE has mentioned the U.K's DOOM, who are legends of the genre, or the newbreed of crust like BLACK BREATH, who sounds like a punk'd up version of Dismember or early Entombed. Good stuff.

Uuhhmmm... because this thread is about Crust influence on USBM? Why do YOU think a deadpan obvious and legendary crust/grind band should be mentioned in this context? Or are we just throwing around names?

Doom definitely influenced grindcore, but I'm not sure I'd really mention them in reference to black metal? I mean, Jim Whitley played on A Vile Peace, and with Stick and Nash joining Extreme Noise Terror in 80s/early 90s. They've always been more thrashy than obviously Venom-influenced Amebix.