I was actually enjoying this debate and hearing people's thoughts on the band, and I was surprised at how it hadn't devolved yet. Thanks for proving that all such conversations bring out folks like you who must resort to name-calling and absurd (heh) hyperbole instead of any actual argument or thoughtful discussion. I'm glad you reminded me that the only thing more ignorant than NSBM bands are fans who try to defend NSBM bands.

Please quote the poster who said they were afraid of becoming racist from listening to NSBM.

It isn't cultish, and I'm not afraid of "catching" racism. I view supporting openly racist or fascist artists as essentially supporting racism or fascism, which I find for myself to be morally unjustifiable. I understand that others don't share this viewpoint. They may think that listening or even buying the music is simply an aesthetic choice with no bearing on social/political issues. Or they may think that the support is so negligible that it doesn't matter.

If we're going to throw around labels, being cultish is believing your particular music is so precious that you must look down on and denigrate anyone who refuses to support it, as if Peste Noire needs you to attack others who dare to question it. I love how those critical of racism and fascism get dismissed as self-righteous hypocrites by black metal elitists who are some of the most self-righteous hypocrites out there. As I said, I know that I support artists who do things I'm morally opposed to; it's not always a clear-cut situation. For me, I find that clarity in not supporting artists who are openly embrace racist or fascist beliefs.

It's one thing to like the music or support the band for your own reasons. It's another to think you're superior to anyone who doesn't. That "me vs. them" mentality is true cult mentality.

Well said.

1. I would say there are a group of people who do consider post-black to still be black metal, though I do not agree with this at all.

2. Why are you throwing in anti christians with orcs? It's actually a small but legit movement I am sure. As you may be aware, there have been deaths connected to anti christian/black metal musicians. A small amount, just like the small amount of deaths caused by neo-nazis. I bet the numbers would be very similar in fact. The chances of Nazism returning and resulting in many deaths are as likely as the case of Anti Christians becoming a trend and resulting in as many deaths. Both ideals are real life, you're just trying to discredit one, to make the other more "offensive".

3. I would LOVE to meet or come across metal heads who don't assume that being anti Islam is related to racial hatred. You can hate the ideal or the religion and seperate that from race. Not all Muslims are Arab or middle eastern and vice versa. A lot of the problem is that it's tied in with this liberal belief that Muslims or Islam in general must be "protected", for whatever reasons. So I guess in general, I do not agree with your post except the post black part. Especially that!

There are neo-nazi parties and nazi sympathizing parties in many countries' governments. Neither nationalism nor ethnocentrism are dead ideologies, indeed they have gained more adherents lately as the failures of neoliberalism have become manifest. On the other hand, there is no organized anti-christianity in the places were metal is coming from with any political or militant wing. All killings based on anti-xtianity in those countries have been by kooky kids. Outside of those countries anti-christian violence is mainly carried out by crazy extreme islamic terrorists and governments, which is an unrelated phenomenon. In the western culture where metal exists, there *is* organized, genuine opposition to, violence, and ethnic animus directed towards muslims, but not against christians. That is the distinction I'm drawing by comparing anti-xtianity in the west to Tolkien orc playacting.

Such metalheads are posting on this forum, in this thread. You can also find such metalheads at any metal show. You may have noticed my criticism of crazy muslims earlier in my post. You need to start hearing what metalheads are actually saying before saying what you imagine they would say. Don't base your assumptions about metalheads on whatever stereotype of a "liberal" that you have internalized. This is the same stereotyping behavior directed at metalheads you would undoubtedly criticize if it came from a kooky christian calling metalheads dangerous devil worshipers.

Here's a list of 100 crimes committed by people with far-right leanings. This is a partial list, and limited to the past 22 years and the United States.
https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default ... _web_0.pdf
Please pass on your numbers regarding anti-christian crime, since you assure us they are "very similar in fact".

It’s a tad lame that the same “discussion” predictably pops up in threads dedicated to music/updates on certain controversial bands. If you want to tangentially have that discussion while contributing to the overarching discussion on the bands new album/video/music as was intended by the thread then that’s totally jive, brotherman. What I don’t understand is people coming out of the woodwork solely to say they don’t support the band or to point and scream “NAZI!”. Like, ok, Peste Noire is in your “nope pile” and you don’t support racists. Cool. So you just needed to have that on record or what? What’s the point? It’s also weird how Peste Noire and Anselmo always bring that out but you don’t see much of it in a thread for Nokturnal Mortum or Drudkh. But hey I’m not complaining, because that’s the way it should be. Let people who have reconciled their differing opinions or flat out don’t care talk about the actual MUSIC instead of derailing threads about artists you don’t even listen to in the first place. It’d be cool if that other shit stayed in one of the 100 other threads explicitly posted to have those types of discussions. That’s probably a pipe dream though


Excessive, ridiculous and overbearing. You pretty much hit the nail on the head there. Wouldn’t have it any other way with KPN. I’m also slightly impressed by seeing a black metal video that didn’t make me cringe the whole way through. I.... I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before.

Peste Noire is boring musically, so the other conversation is actually the better of the two.

Nok Mort is good musically, so there's more to talk about.

As for Drudkh...

Metalheads typically agree on that.

It's mostly anarchists, anarcho-communists and other far left folks who seem to believe that you can't be against Islam without being a racist. Just the term islamophobia draws attention to the extremely biased intepretation that these folks do of criticism towards Islam. Islam is an ideology. Typically, left-wing ideologies have always been open to debate and have always sayed that you should remain critical of any and every kind of ideology. It's now that we've tied "criticizing Islam" to a word that suggest medical phobia that we have fucked everything up.

I'm pretty sure that most metalheads agree that you can be anti-islam without being a racist.

And, well said.


I could watch it now.

Quentin Tarantino, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch,...

Famine is fucked up!

Hadn’t realized that. Guess I’ll toss my KPN records in the midst of this revelation. Good lookin’ out, Johnny!

Edit: ya baited me John_Sunlight. I took the hook. You’re good at that sometimes

Glad I could help someone see the light.

Well, can anyone recommend me some good, anti Islamic black metal bands that are not connected to the NSBM scene?

Indeed! Now I don’t have to worry about being a nazi anymore either! Thanks man

Weapon.

Anyway, it probably *is* the case that because more people like Nok Mort and Drudkh musically than Peste Noire, that there will be more people interested in discussing the music in threads about those bands than this one rather than other topics. Nok Mort is balleriffic of course (to use the street parlance of the hip youth), but I'd put PN over D any day. PN may suck, but they do so in that goofy, in-yo-face way that bands like Verge and The True Werewolf do that means they're probably pretty entertaining showmen. Drudkh is just a rehash of a rehash.

The popularity factor may play a role in that. Don’t think it’s entirely to explain why it happens for band x than band y though. Regardless of your feelings on KPN they’re a popular band with a few landmark albums in modern black metal. When you’re discussing underground black metal the popularity differences between them and Nok Mor for example might as well be a flash in the pan. Near negligible. I think there’s just something in the current zeitgeist, or a recency bias that draws these reactions out.

Both NM and D have tens of thousands more listeners than PN, according to last.fm, but not to such a great degree that it would totally explain everything. The zeitgeist argument doesn't work because if that was the case then it would be affecting all bands, whereas we are discussing why it it's really only affecting PN to a significant degree. The zeitgeist argument also goes back to the right wing victim mentality that they are always under unfair attack by everyone who disagrees with them, so that's probably not what's going on. Looking at their song titles, album titles, imagery, and marketing techniques, it's more likely that PN is purposefully more provocative both for the delight of the fans (and famine himself) as well as to generate these kinds of conversations (which if you are believer in such ideologies you would naturally believe would result in creating converts). So, it could be famine's zeitgeist and the zeitgeist of the right which is responsible, if you like.

Are they though? By what measure? This forum is the only place I have ever seen them discussed. Never seen a review, interview, or even a mention on any other site I read. Don't think I've seen a KPN shirt or patch at a show either, now that I think about it.

There's more than just music, especially with a band like Peste Noire. Did you clic on the links? He give an interview, there's a video with violent imagery. If you link those two, it's evident he doesn't do that for laughs. He also played in a show with NAER MATARON. On of those member got elected with The Golden Dawn. Why would he add all of those other elements if he was only in for the music. Even the title is political. I don't think ''the last putsh'' is about getting rid of the orcs from Gondor. It's not in the same league with Phil Anselmo. It's much more serious than that. He is trying to push the enveloppe to the limit of blatantly saing out loud that non whites must be killed. I was just pointing out that his so called ethno nationalist is pretty much rubbish and he is an hypocrit. They may try to sugar coat it, but he just a plain white supremacist. He has as much if not more of an political agenda than a musical one.

If you are curious learning more about Peste Noire and Famine, then I recommend checking out this great documentary about them.

I'm not sure how reliable last.fm is for that metric (it could be, I just wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket). Youtube views seem to give the edge to KPN, but again this probably is not a reliable metric. Anyways, I'm not going to argue that they're more popular than either NM or Drudkh, because they're not. I just don't think they're soo much more popular that it accounts for fans voices drowning out cries of racism. I'm a tad confused with how you've framed this "zeitgeist argument." Granted I didn't elaborate with much clarity, but I wasn't really attempting to make an argument so much as an observation that KPN and Anselmo are in the current consciousness a bit more due to more recent incidents and so there's a fairly fashionable target on their back right now whereas NM is just old news I guess.


I really don't know what to say to this... They get quite a bit of coverage in publications (including mainstream ones like pitchfork, stereogum, needeldrop etc) and have been a staple in French black metal for 10+ years. As far as your anecdotal experiences, I mean that doesn't really mean much. I have seen a ton of KPN patches throughout the years and I can't think of any member in my real life metal circles who isn't at the very least extremely aware of KPN.

@lost_wanderer
I wasn't trying to make an equivalence between KPN and Anselmo. And believe it or not, I agree with most of what you're saying. I'll backtrack slightly and admit that it is totally fair for you to point out what you did in the context of a Peste Noire thread, since as you've correctly identified, those elements are inextricably linked with the identity of the band. I was just expressing my frustrations with the tendency for threads like these to get derailed by people who don't even listen to or care about the band, while there are some of us who would actually like to discuss a new KPN album and video.

It's not much of a stretch to infer that those who have invested a lot in a particular morality-complex, to the point that their own self-image would be tarnished if they were to even listen to the music of verboten musicians, are exhibiting a kind of cult-like adherence which is afraid of ideological contamination.

So there is no quote, you're just extrapolating based on a bunch of assumptions from your imagination. Like I said to miskatonic, you really gotta learn how to talk to the people you're talking to, rather than the cartoonishly exaggerated versions of them that exist in your head.

"Good to hear after all this Antifa nonsense, Peste Noire is still making new music."

This was the opening line for this thread. Not to say that I'm a big antifa fan... but if you're going to open a thread about such a politically controversial band with a political comment, you're bound to have people who are going to address that.



Janaza. Which doesn't seem to bother a lot of people since it's a female led bm band from the Middle East
Taake has some lines about Islam in his music. Which lead to antifa goons cancelling some of his shows.

I also recommand looking up bands by lyrical themes and typing in "Anti-Abrahamic". Some bands get around the aggressive censorship from antifa and the far-left dummies by criticizing all Abrahamic religions. Since it's only Islam that is a sacred sheep right now, you can be in the safe-zone if you just say that Christianism, Judaism but also Islamism are shit.

You also have to take into account that right now, it's a very sensitive subject to talk badly about Islam, and that is pretty much everywhere in the Occidental world, where most of metal bands come from. So, apart from far-right musicians who really want to push their political ideas, what band would want to see their name associated with racism and nazism? I know that this is a hit against freedom of speech and that there is some auto-censorship going on here... but I can get why musicians would want to focus more on playing music than having to deal with cancelled shows and physical aggression just to be able to say that some specific element of islamism is shit. So if you just write lyrics about how religion is fucking us up, destroying the world and everything, than you'll be fine. Don't get too specific though



You have to take account of all the controversy here. They are a band that is affiliated with far-right ideologies and who have played on countless shows with openly racism and NSBM bands. They are black-listed from a good amount of venues and festivals. Do you think that metal webzines or magazines, or any other journalistic website would want to risk suffering from threats and physical violence just to write stuff about Peste Noire?

Same thing goes for the patches and t-shirts. I live near Montreal, and these days you don't want to wear a Burzum patch when walking around the city. I'm pretty sure it's the same for a lot of places in Europe. Yet, I've seen some patches and t-shirts of the band at concerts.

And yes, they are a very important and influential black metal band. If they were just another lousy NSBM band that no one cares about apart from a few nazi skins, then there wouldn't be talks about them all the time. They are legitimately one of the most influential post 90's black metal bands out there, and most likely the first name that comes to my for most people when talking about french black metal. Their album La sanie des siècles is a real classic.

It's crazy the amount of time he spends trying to prove that he's not part of the NSBM movement. I'm thinking it also most likely has more to do with terminology than actually being against fascism. Like previously stated in the thread, Famine said he feels closer to Italian fascists than he does to German fascism aka Nazism. He also stated in older interviews that he couldn't imagine himself as being a Nazi because of what the Nazis did to France. So again, not so much a real firm opposition to the ideology, but rather for the fact that Nazi Germany's expansionist nationalism was pretty much in direct opposition with France's own nationalism.

But seriously... I don't understand who's trying to prove that he's not a far-right fascist. It's crazy the amount of intellectual gymnastics we see around here. The guy made an album entitled Aryan Supremacy. And even if, with time, he got more subtle about it, there is still very clear and distinct ultra-nationalist and racist shit in his later material. Not to mention the fact that he hangs out with openly NSBM musicians (He's also been working on the band Vouïvre with Sün, the guy from NSBM french band Aktion Totenkopf) if not playing alongside openly racist and NSBM bands on stage.

Sorry if I am one of the posters you had in mind with this comment. I realize it got off track discussing the actual music, but I came here mainly because I saw it at the top of recent threads on the forum, and I remembered the band name mentioned elsewhere as NSBM, so I was curious to see what people were saying about them, and whether the NSBM label was truly deserved. In this case, I wouldn't call them NSBM but still put them in my "nope" pile.

I also find this topic of NSBM, fascist, racist, nationalist, or just ultra-right-leaning black metal bands to be fascinating, if abhorrent to me. It's one of the last things a band can do to make me feel I'm indulging in something forbidden by listening to them, which was the appeal of metal for me in the first place, so it still has a perverse draw for me. I don't want to listen to bands like Peste Noire, Absurd, Graveland, Drudkh, Goatmoon, etc., but I do want to know about them, what they actually do with their music, what the band members believe (and whether that's carried into the music or not), and what fans think of it...if they like such bands, why, and if not, why not. Sorry if that aspect got too far off the actual music discussion.

To the actual music - I watched "Le Dernier Putsch," and can safely say that the music doesn't appeal to me at all. Not sure how to describe it, but there is something hardcore-tinged about it, which sounds weird for a black metal band, but it just put me off. Maybe that impression was inspired by the visuals though.



Don't know much about Drudkh. From what I read on Wikipedia they're secretive and there doesn't seem to be much to associate them with NSBM but maybe that's more known among those who are really into black metal (which is honestly not one of my favorite subgenres).

As for Nokturnal Mortum, they're one of the only bands I've heard that I actually regret forcing myself not to listen to, because I actually do like their music. I have an older album of theirs (forget which). I saw the statement about them using a new logo and distancing themselves from their past anti-Semitic and NSBM leanings, or at least that NM would not be an overtly "political" band, so I gave Verity a listen, and thought it decent. But on second thought, that statement is kind of wishy-washy, and I still don't feel good about enjoying music by a guy who referred to non-Europeans as "subhuman," even if that's not part of his band anymore. There's a bunch of other black/folk bands out there I can put on instead.

But I'm not the OP and the idea is that Peste Noire's musical project continues despite the Antifa boycott. See?




This is what I was talking about, which is sad. Let ME choose what music I listen to.
They're. Could we continue talking about their music, please?

..."and most likely the first name that comes to my for most people when talking about french black metal"... Other than the somewhat broken sentence structure, that quoted statement is probably the highlight bullshit of the year. There are so many, so much infinitely better French black metal bands than this bunch of talentless, amateurish, attention-whoring bunch of illiterate French rednecks you so obviousley like to lick the assholes of, that I cannot even begin (and won't, and don't care too much to do so) to list those aformentioned better bands. So telling me PN is the hallmark of French BM, is a joke. A sad one, but still a joke.

I balked when this was like $15.

Janaza. Which doesn't seem to bother a lot of people since it's a female led bm band from the Middle East
Taake has some lines about Islam in his music. Which lead to antifa goons cancelling some of his shows.

I also recommand looking up bands by lyrical themes and typing in "Anti-Abrahamic". Some bands get around the aggressive censorship from antifa and the far-left dummies by criticizing all Abrahamic religions. Since it's only Islam that is a sacred sheep right now, you can be in the safe-zone if you just say that Christianism, Judaism but also Islamism are shit.

You also have to take into account that right now, it's a very sensitive subject to talk badly about Islam, and that is pretty much everywhere in the Occidental world, where most of metal bands come from. So, apart from far-right musicians who really want to push their political ideas, what band would want to see their name associated with racism and nazism? I know that this is a hit against freedom of speech and that there is some auto-censorship going on here... but I can get why musicians would want to focus more on playing music than having to deal with cancelled shows and physical aggression just to be able to say that some specific element of islamism is shit. So if you just write lyrics about how religion is fucking us up, destroying the world and everything, than you'll be fine. Don't get too specific though



You have to take account of all the controversy here. They are a band that is affiliated with far-right ideologies and who have played on countless shows with openly racism and NSBM bands. They are black-listed from a good amount of venues and festivals. Do you think that metal webzines or magazines, or any other journalistic website would want to risk suffering from threats and physical violence just to write stuff about Peste Noire?

Same thing goes for the patches and t-shirts. I live near Montreal, and these days you don't want to wear a Burzum patch when walking around the city. I'm pretty sure it's the same for a lot of places in Europe. Yet, I've seen some patches and t-shirts of the band at concerts.

And yes, they are a very important and influential black metal band. If they were just another lousy NSBM band that no one cares about apart from a few nazi skins, then there wouldn't be talks about them all the time. They are legitimately one of the most influential post 90's black metal bands out there, and most likely the first name that comes to my for most people when talking about french black metal. Their album La sanie des siècles is a real classic.[/quote]

Thanks for the recommendation. No need for me to worry about safe zones or ANTIFA or crazy left wingers, I can take care of myself.

It's funny that if he's against Germany's expensionist nationalism, he still sing and want to do a split cd with a band whose one of its song is ''Germanien über alles''. He's so proud to be a conservative french and talks about middle ages and yet he has a sweater with a viking drakkar on it. Vikings invaded and plundered France. They where illegals immigrants in a way and it got so bad that the king of France had to give them the Normandy. If the Viking were blacks, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't wore that sweater, and he would have been really against them.




I don't know if he really likes Hardcore music himself or he just want to panders to the alt right because a lot of skinhead and Rac bands are playing some types of hardcore music. I thought that the music didn't match the video. There was not enough hardcore and to much of whiny black metal to fit in that kind of fighting ambiance. It seems that he doesn't want to completly turn off his old fan base while trying to find a new niche.

A gotcha quote isn't necessary, I'm sure you know that people are often capable of eluding a complete understanding of their motivations.

So you know what's really going on in people's minds across the internet even when they don't know and say something completely different? Whatever you say, man.

I did dig the song behind that "trashy" video. What album is that from? Is it possible to order any of their stuff at a reasonable price at this point?

It's from their last album so I'd imagine it's still readily available.

But, as you said, attention-whoring. And attention-getting. Being the first name that comes to mind says nothing about the quality, just the infamy.

Much like how the first bands that come to (a non-metalhead's) mind when thinking of metal are hardly what anyone here on MA would consider the best metal bands, but that doesn't change that those not-exactly-stellar bands are the ones that have, if not necessarily the most then certainly the widest influence; and even if within their actual genre or scene they're neither considered the best nor the most important, they're still names everyone in the genre/scene knows.

Peste Noir is one of those bands that pretty much everyone actually into French BM knows of even if plenty don't like them; and it's one of the bands people who aren't into French BM are most likely to have heard of. In the latter case, I suspect they're more likely to have heard of the name in connection to their political stance and behaviour than based on musical merit alone, but there nonetheless are a large enough amount of people who genuinely enjoy their musical output or part of it that people bother paying attention to said behaviour.

Considering there is a fairly sizeable contingent of listeners who feel it necessarily to justify enjoying the band in spite of their leanings or who describe it as a "guilty pleasure", I highly doubt the entirety of Peste Noir's listening base is made up of white supremacists and immature edgelords pretending to enjoy the music for shock value, unlike what seems to be the case with a large number of the somewhat more obscure NSBM bedroom projects. They are just finding musical merit and value into it that neither you nor I see.

Peste Noir is hardly the only band where that happens, I'm sure, and no doubt the reverse--you or me enjoying a band they can't see merit in--occurs as well. Just because Peste Noir consists of a bunch of white supremacist arses doesn't mean behaving like arses towards people who believe said white supremacist arses happen to manage making good music is at all useful. Name-calling hardly convinces anyone that oh wait no, whatever merit they see in the music must've been imaginary.

Well that came out of nowhere.



Than you are virtually contributing nothing to this thread. You could have addressed my post in an intelligent way if you didn't agree with me (not to mention the fact that I've never said they were the best french bm band, just the most well-known, but whatever). but you chose to make an ass of yourself instead. Congrats.

You'd be wrong. Nothing for KPN is "readily available."