Professional level? Black metal? In the mid and late 80s? If you want professionally performed material, you're listening to the wrong genre. The first two Bathory albums take the sloppiness and rawness of Venom and bringing it to a completely new level. Probably quite accidentally really due to their very low budget and lack of skill, but still they manage that and that's what makes them really superb. I think Quorthon did re-record a song here and there for the Jubileums, at least I remember hearing a more coherent and cleaner version of The Return of Darkness and Evil that you might like. It's more professional and more deliberate in its malevolence rather than the sloppy original. As for bands claiming Bathory as a significant influence, well, I don't really read up that much on reviews, but there's not much black metal that hasn't been significantly influenced by Bathory, whether it's direct or indirect influence.



They pretty much gave Quorthon the blueprint for early Bathory so while they might not have that much direct influence on later black metal, the indirect one is huge.



Considering Quorthon's tendency to deny his obvious influences, his denial is almost concrete evidence.

It means the wanker from Liturgy loves to masturbate (shocker!), and his favorite niche of literary porn is bullshit musicology.

@Veracs: Your ears. That's what you should trust when it comes to music. Not your eyes, not your anus (pun! haha) and certainly not your heart, in this case, since you clearly are biased against Manowar. You want them not to be influential, because you despise them. Sorry, that's not how it works. Read all the interviews you want, compare all the wardrobes you want, talk all the shit you feel like, that's not how you'll know whether a band's music influenced others' or not.

Simply put, Manowar is the prime reference point for all types of epic heavy metal. Limiting it to Bathory's Manowar worship period is cute, and generally paved with good intentions, but (early) Manowar's influence is far bigger than that. Clones aren't the most important measure, it's more relevant to consider all the bands who borrowed bits and pieces of their style. Like the hundreds of power, heavy or doom bands who took cues from them, for starters.

As for Bathory, well, they don't belong in this thread. Quorthon was many things, but I don't recall him bragging about his project's influence, let alone overestimate it.

The poor production doesn't bother me that much (although I'm not one to deliberately look for poor production) but the lack of skills, as you put it, does.

I'm sure you're right and they've influenced almost the whole BM movement. But although I gave a listen to a lot of BM bands back in the days, very few of them caught my interest except Emperor and Dissection. Stuff like Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Marduk, Satyricon, etc... it's all gibberish to me. I like Immortal and Rotting Christ a lot but I only like their modern stuff, which seems removed from "true BM".

I don't know, maybe Bathory's genius is for those who really like that early Black Metal stuff it reportedly influenced? I'll try to give a listen to the Jubileums and see if I can relocate old songs. Thanks for giving me pointers, Mac!

You're confusing "being influenced by" with "cloning".

I'm currently listening to Hammerheart on youtube and finding the "weakest song" is like trying to find the fattest person on The Biggest Loser.

But I'll give Bathory this, at least. This is far from the worse album I have heard from them. I guess Bathory are more tolerable when they take cues from Manowar, despite your wish that reality was different.

While Mustaine almost always overestimates his own importance, many metalhead cynics also greatly underestimate it. Kerry King doesn't dispute Mustaine's claim either, about the latter teaching the former how to write songs with diminished patterns(which to be fair, show up in a lot of Slayer riffs.)

@Riffs: I haven't followed this discussion, but if you're taking shits on Bathory, particularly Hammerheart and BFD, expect my wrath

You're a dumb meanie and smell like elderberries!

There's no poor production to be found on the first Bathory albums. It may not be clean, it may not be up to professional standards (certainly not of today's metal and not metal of the day either) as far as sound and cleanliness goes, but it is superb for the music. Raw and underproduced, yes, unintentional most likely, but much better this than say the sound Maiden had on Piece of Mind or Priest on Screaming for Vengeance or even Metallica on Ride the Lightning or Slayer on Hell Awaits.

Well, the Bathory influence on Emperor is pretty huge. On Immortal as well, though they moved away from it with the later albums. But if modern (or even middle-era) Immortal and Rotting Christ are the kind of 'black' metal you go for, I'd certainly advise against listening to Bathory. They aren't your thing.

You'll have to get in line like everybody else, I'm afraid

Surprised you prefer that kind of production over the classics you listed. I much prefer the production on those, even if I agree it is flawed.

You're right, though. I'm not the main audience for Bathory's music. I just find it bizarre because I've been a fan of stuff like Venom, Manowar and Motorhead since around 1984. But I just can't dig where Quorthon took those influences at all. I'd much rather listen to Celtic Frost, even if they are short on good albums.

Do you like (early) Samael? it's one of the most direct influences from both first Immortal album and also the whole Hellenic scene. If you can relate Samael to Hellhammer/Celtic Frost and then go back to Bathory, you might appreciate it better.

I heard somewhere, probably here, that Phil Anselmo said Pantera was the most important band of the 90's. I'm not sure if it's true, but I certainly wouldn't put it past him.

And Ironsword is awesome.

About Pantera, I don't know man, every single groove/southern tough-guy wannabe modern band worships them, I mean, we have Machine Head and Lamb of God thanks to these cowboys. Phil Anselmo maybe full of himself, but Pantera was certainly important.

I'm only familiar with Passage, which was pretty big for a fairly underground scene back in the days. It was very interesting, although not exactly my cup of tea. But at least I could understand what the deal was about. I've been meaning to give Samael another listen anyway. Should I go earlier than Passage? And once I'm done with Samael, which Bathory album should I choose?

Thanks, Kveldulfr! I really appreciate constructive posts like that.

You're welcome! All 4 first Samael albums are excellent and since you have some idea about Passage, go for Ceremony of Opposites, which has some same traits with the keys but is more old school-ish. If not, pick Worship Him and get drowned by its evil and heavy atmosphere.

Bathory's Under the Sign of the Black Mark is the one I like the best from the pre-Hammerheart era, but probably Blood Fire Death will work better for you. Like Samael, go in reverse chronologic order to fully understand/appreciate its evolution and elements that made the band unique and influential.

@Riffs: You just don't like (raw) black metal. So what?
@MacMoney: You just don't like extremely solid, visceral, organic-sounding 80s production values. So what?

I would agree with that, actually!

I know that in The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years, one of the guys from Odin claims that their band would one day be bigger than The Doors. I imagine people said that sort of shit all the time in the 80s but it never fails to amuse me.

As much as I hate to admit that
1-Machine Head is not as great as they claim to be, i must say they run on a reputation from the first 2 album more than anything. I'm a die hard fan but I cringe when I hear "Super Charger, The Burning Red most of The Blackening and Locust". I do like "Through the Ashes...." thou, I do feel its a very well composed album.

2-Another band (which I love) is Testament, I mean they are really good (specially Legacy, New Order albums) but I feel that out of every album then recorded there are more filler than actually memorable tunes. The Ritual and Demonic are probably their least popular albums and there is a good reason for this...they suck! I love Skolnick's lead work and I guess that is the sole reason they always end up in my player for some reason. Im not sure the band per-se say they are the shit, but some fans seem to place Testament on top of the list of all time best bands. For some reason they are still considered thrash Gods but haven't had a real fully thrash album in a long time.

3-Deicide- Sorry dudes, but Glen Benton considers himself bigger than the death metal scene and I have a serious issue with that. We can argue that they are probably one of the best bands from Florida death metal scene, but Cannibal Corpse, Death, Obituary, Malevolent Creation are definitely more influential bands. Mr.Benton has become a diva where he doesn't give a shit about his fan base and acts almost like Axl Rose with ridiculous demands and antics, and I know I'm ruffling some feathers on this one but that my 2 cents.

Well, some people think that Legacy, New Order, PWYP, Low, The Gathering and Dark Roots are more than average material. Most thrash bands stopped being thrash at the 90's to play pussified rock, many never recovered from that and still are considered the best. Testament has been getting heavier and heavier and now they're an almost death/thrash band, with all the growls, blasts, tremolo picking riffs and stuff, not losing steam and delivering solid albums, with a more consistent quality than other more 'revered' bands (see Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Destruction, etc). For instance, listen the last one, which is fast, brutal and overall well written, produced and performed.



Deicide has been hugely influential and that can't be argued. You might say that Benton is an asshole, that they released 2 feces after Serpents, but most of their discography consists of solid and brutal death metal and at least, the debut and Legion are considered landmarks of the genre.

My own personal view of Testament: When they came out, they were nothing special. They were this second-tier thrash band who were trying to leave their mark on thrash but had totally obvious Bay Area influence they couldn't get away from. It's not that the material wasn't good. But it was under the shadow of pioneer bands. All fans and magazines talked about when trying to differentiate them from the pack was Alex Skolnick. I swear, it's all people talked about when it came to Testament. And I mean, yeah, the leads were really good but that's not enough to really get ahead of the pack. Especially since, as you said, every album tended to have a lot of fillers.

Then the thrash frenzy started to die down, and Testament, still clinging to the bands that inspired them, started dying too. But then Skolnick left, many members were gone and something happened. Eric Peterson really started coming into his own and started to explore his more aggressive side, free from the veto of the wussies who had populated the band. While Low still contains fillers, it marked the beginning of a new direction at a time where most thrash bands were releasing homoerotic albums made of shit. And since then, they have gotten stronger again.

The other great thing about Testament, their main weapon, is Chuck Billy. The guy has gotten better over time. He is miles away from what he used to be, stronger than ever. It's not just the fact he blends aggressive and melodic vocals but how his voice is unmistakable, his tone strong and unique. In his own way, he has become the Ronnie James Dio of this genre of metal. You can try to get close, but he only can do it this way and he runs circles around younger vocalists without gimmicky techniques.

And again, I don't know why Testament is in this thread. This is a very humble band that pays tribute to their influences (many of them who haven't been worth a shit for decades). They're really the epitome of a band that worked hard to get where they were, give honest performances live and have survived many personal and professional struggles along the way. They have been knocked down a few times, have an uneven discography but overall, they've been pretty consistent considering their career and are one of the few bands that most metal fans can at least respect, if not overly enjoy.

I agree.

Ultimately though, only fools never change their mind. That's in great part why I like discussing metal here.

I reserve the right to change my mind about Bathory, although that seems unlikely to me. I'd be crazy not to find more things I can enjoy. Sometimes, it takes more listening or to approach it from a different point of view. And even if you don't change your mind, you can come to a better understand of why you like or dislike certain things, which is cool.

But overall, your sentiment is right on target. It's not a big deal whether I like it or not and whether other people enjoy what I enjoy.

I noticed that my statement was perhaps a bit flawed, so my apologies for that. What I meant is that I much prefer that kind of production on music like Bathory's on those first albums. Though I can't say I'm terribly fond of Piece of Mind's or Screaming's production, but Ride the Lightning has a very sharp guitar sound that's great for the thrashier songs on it: Creeping Death and Fight Fire with Fire which are incidentally the only songs I like from it. And Hell Awaits has a superbly sinister sound to it, but the even dirtier and rawer sound that Bathory's self-titled and The Return and the sharper yet still raw sound of Black Mark fit Bathory's music better. What I'm getting at is, different kinds of production and sound jobs fit different kinds of music. Raw and gritty sound doesn't necessarily mean poor production.



Say what now? I never said anything about not liking any kind of production values.

I won't comment about them being influential, but it takes guts to add "the true" to the logo when there were several bands before them with the same name.

And then also comments like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx3rFr5hsFk

That's just Necrobutcher being drunk and probably quite stressed. Sam Dunn is sensationalising the whole thing, and he's asking dumb questions like "a lot of people say black metal is losing its touch [...]". There's no way to answer that besides pointing out that black metal is no more losing its touch with anything than it was since after the initial second wave boom - it's probably stronger than ever since. Of course, Necrobutcher's way was brash and impolite, and only an idiot says "fuck you" to an interviewer, but in his place, I'd be quite tired of uninformed interviewers who don't have an iota of genuine interest towards the genre, aswell.

Ah OK, I understand what you meant now about production now!

You're a tough crowd if there's only two songs off Ride The Lightning that you like! This has not left my top 5 favorite metal albums of all times since its release.

Well, your clarification at Riffs' address on that same statement served for me as well. Your initial phrasing "better [raw, minimalistic, barely audible prod like on the first 2 Bathory] than [list of varied 80s classics with extremely different but all solid prods]" had also fooled me into thinking that was what you meant. That's all.

Well, I did mention in the previous sentence that I was talking about this kind of music in particular, and not production in general. But yes, as I conceded previously, my statement could've been clearer.



Well, it's not really the kind of metal I much listen to anyway. For thrash I tend to go for the more intense and savage material rather than what Metallica were doing, trying to straddle the middle.

A little difficult to sift through these pages and see if Down has been mentioned already. I'd say the band is resting high on what they were in the early years and the celebrity star-power of Anselmo. Those are probably the only things helping the band get by. In my opinion, musically, they've been going downhill. The last EP was mediocre at best. Monotonous and boring. But that's just me, they seem to get a king's welcome at live shows

Von. Definitely Von

If this convo is being resurrected, I'll throw in Ne Obliviscaris. Up until last year, they had one demo from 2007. They then proceeded to go on blogs, forums, and social networking stating how awesome and fantastic they were. They then, hilariously, tried to get a French guitarist to emigrate to Australia using an exceptional talent visa. Such visas are usually reserved for world renowned experts who are regarded as geniuses or legends in their field. After the visa got rejected, they went online slamming the Australian government for the decision.

For what its worth, the band has burnt just about all connections to the Melbourne metal scene, and as of late, have been touring with prog rock bands.

What I find absolutely hilarious, cute, and... alittle sad, is that Black Metal scene from Australia. Not the good one, no, the terrible one. Blackline, Forbidden Citadel of Spirits, etc. If you ever have the misfortune of speaking to one of them, you will know what I mean. Very pretentious bunch of people. One FCoS album I bought a while back said something like 'if you bought this for anything but underground worship we hate you'. I mean, they sound like pre-pubescent school boys. Gaaah! If the music was good I could get past it, but it is just terrible!

Gorgoroth. They really only released two classics, pentagram and under the sign of hell, and by the time UTSOH was released it was too late for it to be influential to the development of black metal as a whole. Antichrist is excellent, but I think it's a hair off of being considering any kind of classic,and even if it is one it's also released too late to be hugely influential. Their other material ranges from good to mediocre, and I personally can't remember much of anything of Ad Majoriam, Destroyer, or Twlight of the Idols.

But that's just talking about what I percieve the quality of their material to be but the thing is the drama that revolves around the band always seems to be the main topic on a lot of sites whenever black metal is discussed. I would blame this on ghaal (his whole 'I'm using symbols of christianity both to frighten christians and as a pagan metaphor is bullshit) and to a lesser extent on infernus (the press releases where he claims ghaal 'usurped' the 'true' gorgorth were quite ridiculous, it's a black metal band not a fucking royal line). Though now that both pest and ghaal are out of the way and they have a new vocalist things should quiet down. I like gorgoroth, but they inflate their importance a whole lot.

@Never Stop Milk.
Totally agree, mate! FCoS DTL are good (though not great) with the occasional solid release. But, as a whole, Australia is just... terrible. Austalian Black Metal is a joke. Grim, Cold black metal from the beaches of Sydney! That is like liberal country music, hillbilly rap, conservative punk, or a NSBM from Isreal. It shouldn't happen for everyone's sake.

Not so much a band, but Kanwulf. That guy has spent his entire life trying to claim some revered status, but ends up looking like a spoilt insecure man child. At various points, he's tried claiming to have invented black metal as well as apparently spending time in the infamous Norwegian scene.

Bestial Warlust and all the black/thrash scene says fuck you.

I could have realized you had severe autism even if it weren't in the name. Satanic Blood is just pretty good metal, and clearly has had a fair degree of influence. Yes, the lyrics are idiotic, and the current situation with Von is a total trainwreck, but there is no good reason to hate the music so much.

Destroyer 666 begs to differ.

!!!OPETH!!!

On the other hand he never denied his obvious Motörhead influences. And since Venom was pretty much a satanic, primitivistic version of Motörhead, Bathory's similarities to Venom might be due to both bands sharing the same musical roots rather than one being influenced by the other. But then again, who knows for sure?

If you actually like Von, then that means you have no taste in metal. And why do you hate autistic people so much?