I think it's also relevent to mention that the hate for Death Metal did not extend to all Death Metal bands. I can certainly remember reading interviews where Morbid Angel and Deicide were discussed as "worthy" because of their Satanic stance. I think the antagonism came when the "social consciousness" elements of thrash and grind crept into DM - "world demise" springs to mind for example.the DM bands of the time who were ideologically somewhat aligned with BM's satanic agenda seemed to be spared the spleen.

I have read plenty of interviews in Slayer Mag, IMO one of the worst, but possibly not completely conscious, offenders besides Euronymous in fueling the Scandinavian death metal / black metal war where Deicide and Morbid Angel received major shit too. Satanic image had nothing to do with it. One interview gave them a bit of a break by saying something along the lines " At least Glen Benton promotes self destruction of all those kids that listen to that shit band, so therefore I respect them for at least that, even though their music is shit". I think this was said by Bard Faust of Emperor, but I'm paraphrasing here. Morbid Angel was blasted for being on a major label too many times to count. Other black metallers claimed that death metal can't portray satanic images because they aren't true satanists and don't practice satanic lifestyles like certain members of the Norwegian black circle.

As far as the social commentary, Entombed or Dismember were never social bands, maybe Nicke was with some of his anti-fascist views, but that was outside of the music, and they also received major slagging.

The plain fact of the matter is that Euronymous and his band could not compete technically or musically with the top tier Swedish and US death metal bands. Therefore he chose to strip down his formula with pure speed and violent aggression taking the reins from Sarcofago, Hellhammer, Bathory, early Sodom, etc. All bands who admittedly weren't the most skilled musicians during their early stages. By marketing himself and Mayhem in that direction and promoting that only raw music is true, he created a niche for Mayhem. He then convinced a lot of others that that formula was the only true black metal way. For example at the time of Darkthrone’s conversion from dm to bm they were a far superior band musically to anything Mayhem could have done, but Euronymous convinced them to take his formula. Personally I'm glad not all black metal went that route.

I read an interview where Enslaved said that Cannibal Corpse was the only death metal band which most of the black metallers respected.

Here is an interview where Obituary bashes black metal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4CXvAMFtUM

Isn't it ironic that so many metalheads today enjoy both black and death metal? If only Euronymous could see...hahaha.

Speaking of turmoil amongst bands, I read somewhere that Darkthrone (Fenriz and Nocturno) had a lot of tension with Zephyrous before he left in '93 or so. Apparently he was a heavy drinker and he felt as though he was being left out of the band because Fenriz and Nocturno got along so well. The breakup was supposedly bitter. I think this split of the band is less hyped than Dag's exit because Dag's exit was tied together with the whole "fuck commercial death metal!" thing.

The Nocturnus guys really screwed over Mike Browning by refusing to use his Satanic lyrical ideas in favor of sci-fi stuff, by getting a new singer, and by ultimately kicking him out and I think maybe even getting copyright of the material.

Heh, they're one to talk switching from playing awful death metal influenced by Celtic frost to playing jumpdafuckup riffs with Tardy's awful voice. Screw Obituary, the whole washed up lot of them.

I think it's funny too since Watkins is now in Gorgoroth. Kinda reminds me of how the old Euronymous lot would say black metal is nothing more than metal with satanic lyrics (I've even heard guys like Grutle from Enslaved say that). For some reason that genre is always being trivialized, can't we get over the past people?

You have to be extremely biased to claim Mayhem didn't record better music than any of the early USA/Sweden death metal bands. And we're talking extreme metal there, Euronymous isn't some Petrucci getting pissed he can't shred like Yngwie, he didn't give a fuck about technical abilities, he was (mainly) pissed by death metal's commercial attitude. Hellhammer was very skilled drummer anyway.

On a technical level, yes Euronymous could not meet some of the guitar wizards going on in the early death metal scene. Musically, though, you can't really compare Euronymous and Mayhem to bands like Death or Morbid Angel or Entombed as Mayhem's music was far removed from any of those bands. It's an apples and bricks situation, IMO.

No, Obituary are a great band. They have always been, and still are. Just because they aren't trendy doesn't mean they are "washed up". And I'll just pretend you never said that about the greatest voice in all of death metal.

As for black metal, there is good black metal, and then there is shit black metal.

The FUCK was that Abruptum shit?

I believe there was some bad blood between Electric Wizard and Esoteric, how else do you explain this?



Does anyone know what ever happened to that feud?

Dave Mustaine wrote "Liar" about Chris Poland. I think Metallica's "Holier Than Thou" was at least partly about Mustaine.

Yep I do hold a biased attitude toward Mayhem. I find them to be the most overrated band in metal history. Hellhammer is an accomplished drummer and I love his work with Shining.

Strangely enough even Jon Kristianen, a close friend of Euronymous feels and has publicly stated that the beef he started was more for self promotion and marketing of his band than an actual beef.
His mouth just started a chain of events and the rest is history.

Also I said top tier bands. I.e. Entombed, Dismember, early Deicide, Morbid Angel. Of course Mayhem was better than plenty of contemporary bands at that time, but still I could give two fucks about
them. Best thing Euro ever did was sign Merciless to DSP.

I do wish Euronymous would have soloed more; this is where I think some of the criticism toward early Mayhem stems from. He was an absolute master of tremolo picked speed riffs, nobody could touch him, but I can only name two or three (out of eight) songs on "De Mysteriis Dom Satanas" which have any sort of lead guitar solos in them-. That is a fatal flaw of that album for me. So to take a balanced view, no I don't think Mayhem or Euronymous were the greatest, most technical musicians ever, but I blame the songwriting on that, partly. And I also don't think it was a deliberate cop out to try and sound that way simply because he couldn't match the mucicianship of the death metalers. They were just trying to do something that was more underground, more extreme, cutting edge, next level shit, etc than anything that was out there at the time- the same way the early thrash/death metal bands previous to them were a reaction agaisnt the perceived limits of "traditional "metal. A lot of the whole "Lets slag off death metal" shit those bands practiced reminded me a lot of the way the thrash bands from the early-mid 1980s would rip on traditional metal and/or glam rock fans as "posers." Sort of like, Look at us, we're "Black Metal" now, were so much more evil, true, and hardcore than you poser fag pussies who still listen to that old stale death metal shit.

Abruptum shit= ambient soundscape music, related to black/death metal but not (in my opinion anyway) really either of those things. I always lumped them in with artists like Non, Nurse With Wound, and some of the ambient industrial music of the 80s. They were trying to create feelings of terror, fear, etc with music in the same fasion that composers write scores for horror films. Trying to lump them in with the rest of the black metal bands was misleading, I think.

Perhaps it was. I could have given a better example of a bad black metal band, such as Blut Aus Nord or Dragged into Sunlight. I decided not to because since I'm not really familiar with those bands (other than having heard them once or twice and not liked it) I felt it wouldn't really be fair or a very meaningful statement. I bought that Abruptum CD expecting some very lo-fi and dark black metal in the same vein as "Mutiilation" or something like that, but instead I got something which was not really music. The point is that black metal can be awesome but it can also be really bad, it just depends on who's playing it.

And on the topic of the Norwegians, those are just dumbasses who are trying to trying to look cool in front of their friends. I am more of a death metal fan anyway, and I can't help but laugh whenever I heard that kind of stuff. It reminds me of how every time I try to hang out with other younger metalheads, all they seem to want to talk about is how much they think "deathcore sucks". Then again, maybe all that hate is what made those early black metal albums sound so good?

I believe he made that statement back then in a reactionary manner, because most of the black metal bands he might have heard would have been rather lo-fi, whereas many death bands were trying to achieve better sound quality in the studio and perform better on a technical level. Maybe black metal grew on him as it evolved or as he opened his mind.

There's a Cryptopsy rehearsal video from 96 where Worm is wearing what appears to be a Burzum t shirt

Correct: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... a8#t=1137s

Apparently there was some fallout between Lee Altus and Doug Piercy of Heathen. Anyone know about this?

Also, is there any truth to the rumors that Jon Oliva and Dave Mustaine exchanged blows back in the 80s?

As for adding to this thread, there was a hilarious back-and-forth between members of Dimmu Borgir when Mustis and ICS Vortex quit/were fired. Then Shagrath started wearing ram's horns and the rest is history lol.

[quote="Oxenkiller"] A lot of the whole "Lets slag off death metal" shit those bands practiced reminded me a lot of the way the thrash bands from the early-mid 1980s would rip on traditional metal and/or glam rock fans as "posers."

Traditional Metal Fans called posers???? I never heard of fans of black sabbath, judas priest, or iron maiden being called a poser. Especially since those bands are very influential.

Here's one from Billy Milano to Charlie Benante, though this could be a bit more tongue in cheek (?):

And not *really* on topic but a letter from Euronymous to Earache (Stolen from the quite frankly excellent 'ask earache' blog) for those interested in the whole black metal vs 'poserwhimptrendy' death metal of the mid 90's:

Billy seems pretty serious about that one. He's mentioned it a number of times. He seems to really despise Charlie.

To continue with Billy Milano. Can't remember where i read or heard this, but he supposedly punched Warrel Dane of Nevermore in the face for whining about his missing/dead girlfriend. Kind of a dick move but don't really know what else may have been said.

Also, probably common knowledge but, there is a video of Glen Danzig getting knocked out by a dude from the North Side Kings. Search it on youtube, there is definitely a vid.

Exactly. As much as we read statements in "the press" and such, we don't really know much of what went on between these bands, assuming the guys actually knew each other. And its' true that dudes like fenriz and the Entombed guys were pretty young in 1990 or so. But I think that stuff has more than cooled down now...Fenriz even gave a shout out to "nNike Andersen having the best taste in the scene in the early days" in a recent interview.

Oh yeah, the girl that Dreaming Neon Black was based on. It seems like that whole situation really traumatized Dane, and only fueled his hate for organized religion (she apparently was taken away by a cult or something similar). If such a thing is true, and happpend the way that I imagine, then yeah, that's a serious dick move for Milano to make.

Love Danzig's music, but he has a huge ego and can be quite the asshole most of the time. Not surprised that someone finally got fed up with his bullshit.

To be fair, Dane has a reputation for being a drunken asshole, but most of what I've heard about it seems to point to his being one only when he's around his little buddy Sheppard, who's just an all-around dick. Dane's apparently cool whenever he isn't near him.

Heard a bit about that too, yeah. I sometimes have doubts about Dane's mental health, to be honest.

I don't think he was a bad musician as such, but i'm pretty sure the reason he didn't really solo was that he didn't want to, or felt he couldn't do it. I like the "Freezing Moon" solo but I can see why he didn't want to do stuff like that throughout the album....it's definitely not one of his real skills, though that never stopped TOm Warrior, who couldn't really solo either......but Mayhem's music just never needed that stuff as far as I'm concerned. Leave the soloing to Darkthrone, who pulled it off with some style, much of the time...

Isn't the riff from Indians lifted from A Passage to Bangkok anyway?

I dunno how good Euronymous actually was, but I always thought his solos were incredibly fitting. And he played a pretty cool solo on Burzum's War... lol

Wow, harassing someone (to the point of physical violence, no less) because he's going through serious emotional distress - really, that's the sublimation of extreme gratuitious dickishness. If that did indeed happen, I hope messer Milano will one day learn the hard way that provoking a distraught "pussy" (no doubt that's what he thought about Dane in that context) can be a very, very bad idea. You're pushing someone who may well be over the edge already, and their reactions can be rather extreme and unpredictable.

I've heard that Wagner Antichrist thinks Max Cavalera is a turd, don't know how true it is, but then, no one likes Max.

Anyway, from Euro and Snorre, the latter was better guitarist but Euro was a pretty good composer.

I dunno, maybe I'm speaking something different since my location at the time (late 80's early 90's), but I recall that the death metal hate came, among other reasons, for the ever-growing over polished production. I remember that Deicide was very respected when the S/T and Legion came out and they, along with Morbid Angel, were lumped among the black metal tag, being for the music itself, the lyrics, aesthetics and overall impression. If I remember well, Morbid Angel was cited for many black metal musicians as an influence.

About Mayhem I dunno, Blasphemy were already there way before them doing their back-to basics hellish black/thrash metal thing, just like southamerican acts like Sarcofago and Pentagram were already pushing the boundaries to some death/black extent.

From another thing I remember, the change from death to black for many early norwegian bands was just the fact that death metal was the novelty becoming a trend and they just wanted to do something more personal and different. In fact,almost every single member of the most influential norwegian black metal bands played death metal before doing black metal. Maybe Euro was the only one not doing so, but the rest did.

Actually, Milano punched Dane because Dane was being a dick. I've read multiple versions, but the gist of it seems to be that Dane got drunk, said some things he shouldn't have and was punched by Milano.

That is literally the first time I've ever heard of Dane being the offender. The story has always been Dane was whining about his girlfriend and so Billy Milano punched him in the face because he's an asshole. Considering that Warrel is known to be both a dick and a whiner, and Billy is a well known cunt, I believe both version are possible, but I'll stick with the one that everybody knows.

I have been told that Dane has definitely gotten better, but that the dude still has a lot of issues that aren't helped by Sheppard bringing out the asshole in him (I've never, ever heard anyone say anything nice about Sheppard; everything points to his being a perpetually drunken douchebag and general bad influence on Dane). And yeah, Billy Milano is a fucking prick, but everyone knows that.

Billy Milano used to live in my old hometown back in the 80s. I can't believe he punched anyone and didn't get his ass kicked thoroughly. He was the kind of guy that used to hang out in dive bars weekday afternoons eating pickled eggs.

Well, to be fair, Blasphemy did their thing later than Mayhem. Deathcrush was a couple of years before Blasphemy had even released a demo and a lot of the material for De Mysteriis was written by the time Fallen Angel of Doom came out. There was the South-American scene with the aforementioned Sarcofago as well as Sepultura. But really, it's Deathcrush that's the comparable to that material from Mayhem, not the stuff they did afterwards.

Maybe this was mentioned before, but I'm not reading through the entire thread... I don't really understand Darkthrone's hatred/disgust with black metal these days. First they were a key figure in basically creating a new style of music, rebelling against other types of music and religion and what not. Now they are basically rebelling against the style of music that they originally helped create. I can understand if they are upset about people "copying" them or whatever, but personally I think they should be proud that they were creators of a new and revolutionary style of music. Most black metal bands are not copying Darkthrone, they have their own style, but I'm sure most of them would mention Darkthrone as one of their influences/inspirations. I don't know, I just feel like they should look at it as more of an honor than being pissed about it.