I listened to black metal when I was younger. Now I am 28 and I find a lot of new black metal boring. I only like dark throne mayhem burzum shining or dissection now. I also never understood how people could listen to deathspell omega. To me it's just noise you can't hear what they are singing about the lyrics are weird and I can't understand them. Now I only listen to heavy metal or thrash metal and the only death metal I like is Death. Cannibal Corpse I used to like now I think they are repetitive and boring. Thrash metal is more my style. Anyone who shares my opinions?

Oh, come on! If you used to listen to black metal, how often have you not heard that "it's just noise!" from other people? You should be able to appreciate that different people like different things, and that new and strange sub-genres will sound like noise when you're not used to it.
I used to think harsh vocals sounded like absolute shit, and now it's the vocal style that is featured most in my listening.

I am 27, about your age, and I don't really agree with your larger point. I still discover new bands, old and new. I just found about a relatively obscure Norwegian band called Kvist. It's great. Like early Gehenna with the vocals from Satyr on Nemesis Divina.

I also don't dig black metal and prefer thrash although I spend most of my free time listening to melodic metal. I don't like black metal except from some memorable drum intros and Rotting Christ maybe, because in 80% of the bands I have heard of the vocals sound identical to Bathory or Kreator, but a poor man's version I don't understand the lyrics ( I can comprehend them better with thrash yelling.) and I can't stand listening to those horrible trem riffs with terrible drum engineering on the background (most of the time) and those awful fuzzy 7 sus2 chord based riffs sound awful.

What are you looking for? Validation?
You won't find it here.
You've moved on. That's fine. You don't have to understand anything.

I don't understand these threads

Maybe you just can't emotionally connect to new black metal bands. The reason you can still listen to bands such as Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, Shining and Dissection is likely because their music still evokes paler shades of the feeling that originally got you into them. Your familiarity with the genre makes you less impressionable now, though. So in order to get into new bands you might need something a lot more intense. You might never even get into the genre ever again but that's just fine. When I first got into black metal I was in what I consider a darker stage of my life and it was easier for me to connect with but it might not be possible for me to get into it if I tried it now. And that's fine. I still have that problem with most death, doom and drone metal and I would really like to get into those genres. Besides, lots of black metal is crap anyways. Just try looking for the good bands for a while. If that doesn't work, move on.


It takes a while for people to learn to look for validation inside themselves instead of asking for it. But this might or might not be the case here. He might simply be wondering why he stopped liking something he would thoroughly enjoy in the past. Which is a strange question in itself to ask other people...


Then again, it might indeed be the case here.

I'm the total opposite. Up until a few years ago, I didn't listen to any black metal. Now it takes up over 50% of my total Last.FM scrobbles.

Great. The more black metal listeners, the better. I never was a fan of the over-pretentious, supposedly shocking lyrics but the atmosphere is something else. "Cathedral-like" atmosphere is something that someone labeled it as far as I remember and I completely agree with this description.

So, you started building the house from/by the roof, right?

P.S: That's a set phrase in spanish. Could you understand it, folks?

Other bands that, like Kvist, might have slipped under the radar during the BM heyday of the '90s and early Millennial days are Nagelfar(the Germans) and Azaghal. They're both in the Archives here.

This type of condescending, bully-like attitude by the moderating staff is why I will never visit this shithole forum ever again.

It was nice of you to lift my permanent IP ban but you guys can go fuck yourself. I hope you ban me for life.

When I heard the news of Diamhea's death I was honestly happy because that guy was a complete piece of shit just like all of the people who run this forum. Karma bit his ass and I don't feel the least bit sorry for him.

Have a nice day!

if you have such a thin skin that you need to insult a deceased person just because they were moderately rude to you I don't think anyone will care about your leaving.

I see what you did there.

Ehhhhh... [/Fonzy] Only complete pieces of shit are happy when they get the news of anyone's death.

At any rate, I don't like much black metal at all! Only the hybrid stuff, like later Immortal once they start thrashing it up.

I'm all for raising the average IQ of M-A's userdom, so be banned forever.
Seriously, that's possibly the lowest of the low, and one of the most pieces of shit I've encountered here.

Someone give this person a hug.

As for op, does it matter? Obviously blackmetal just isn't your taste, there is nothing "to get".

You like Darkthrone, Burzum and so on, so your thread title isn't entirely true. And you don't like DSO because the lyrics are incomprehensible? And you don't like death metal? So aren't you just basically saying that you don't like most extreme metal and that thrash is your cut off point? Or do you like grindcore? Don't think that would be all that unusual. Black and death metal will never appeal to everybody.

That's the exact type of reaction that always makes matters worse. A lack of self-confidence is something that I learned, in my five years of being part of this community, is always frowned upon on this forum. The thing is, it's being done rightfully so. One key reason is that insecure people tend to get defensive real quickly and could resort to very offensive and unnecessary counterattacks, such as even insulting a person who passed away. That is a terrible thing and you can easily see why people tend to point out the problem really quickly: dude, you gotta do something about your self-confidence; stop seeking validation. It's not them being condescending, it's them pointing out a problem. Now that they've done you the favor of pointing it out, it's your job to solve it.

This thread has become only tangentially related to black metal, though. So back on topic.

The way I understand it, my own preference towards this genre is due to it having a sort of addictive type of intensity. That is an essential requirement in my black metal. Whether it's the crushing, dense atmosphere of Dark Funeral; the hypnotic riffing of the Under a Funeral Moon-era Darthrone; the cold and chilling music of Immortal; the vortex-like riffing of Darkspace; the epic, tale-like atmosphere of Darkestrah; the evil and vicious style of Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult; or the tempestuous, scorching sound of 1349's Hellfire, there's always this kind of addictive intensity that makes be come back for more. It's something I never managed to find in any other genre and, as far as I remember, I tried everything I could between 70's hard rock and pornogrind (not bands, but different styles). As far as I know, it's unique to black metal.

Response to the original post on this thread: Me too.

Edit: I do like more death metal than just Death, though.

This is my experience as well. I could almost distill the essence of black metal down to a feeling rather than a musical style. It's the overlap between technical intense bands like 1349 and hazy ambient bands like Lustre. When a band gets that feeling right, it becomes exactly why it's my favourite genre. I'm sure others have similar experiences with other genres, but to me it's unique to black metal.
The first 3 Gorgoroth albums nails this to absolute perfection.

Very valuable words in these two posts. I personally kind of feel that "addictive intensity" you speak of in other genres too, but it feels different in every context, if that makes sense (so yes, the "black metal" version of it is indeed unique any way you slice it).

Are you sure? I thought DSO had some of the more intelligible lyrics for black metal in that style. I also don’t get how lyrics being different was ever a problem anywhere unless you’re starting to feel subconscious walking into church every Sunday after listening to this kind of music.

See I dig this feeling, but I need there to be musical senses to it as well (since someone said that it's more of an atmospheric feeling than a musical one). So this is when I start digging up noise rock, really thick doom metal, and the likes.

You, on the other hand, seem like a really good person.

I don't listen to Gorgoroth very often but whenever I do I always have a good time. With masterpieces such as (Under) a Pagan Megalith there's a lot to be enjoyed in their music. Also, I got into them when all that conflict between Infernus, Ghaal and King ov Hell was already over so I could not care less which era the music belongs to; to me it's simply quality black metal.


Death metal is a weird thing for me. I can enjoy the hell out of small bands such Abiosis and Aortix but I have problems with the big ones such as Death, Incantation, Morbid Angel, Immolation etc. I do get a moderate amount of enjoyment out of their music but there's still something that hasn't yet clicked. I do, however, greatly enjoy hybrid death metal bands like Behemoth, Belphegor, Acheron, Archgoat and Hooded Menace.


Well, I am open to recommendations as far as this "addictive intensity" of another genres is regarded, particularly death, doom and drone metal. I'm pretty sure it's real but I have yet to find it. So I am rather a fan of certain bands belonging to those genres rather than a fan of the genres themselves. For example I believe Bolt Thrower (death), Solitude Aeturnus (doom) and Black Boned Angel (drone) are great representatives of their genres.

You might do well to check out hybrid/affixed/whatever-you-want-to-call-it Black Metal. A lot of stuff that's *only* categorized as "Black Metal" can be difficult to digest without working your way to it in incremental steps. A lot of the below is quite melodic and accessible.

Atmospheric Black: Wolves in the Throne Room/The Ruins of Beverast
Black/Sludge: Cobalt/Coffinworm
Black/Thrash: Destroyer 666/Nifelheim
Black/Doom: Yith/Raventale
Black/Folk: Falkenbach/Nokturnal Mortum
Melodic Black: Sacramentum/Rotting Christ
Symphonic Black: Dark Fortress/Hyperion

It is per se Romanticism, I don't see what's hard.

"As the sun returns
From the shades of night
So am I reborn from my own corruption

I invoke the consuming fire
And from the ashes mould
The renaissance of my decadent self

At the dawn of my rebirth
The heart is overflowing
I indulge and dissipate

And when the cup is empty
I drink from nothingness
The venom by which I disintegrate

This is not merely pride
Or lust for eminence
This is the reoccurring cycle of my existence

As the sun returns
From the shades of night
So am I reborn from my own corruption

Behold - the god returns
Solar balls upon his back
A sacrifice

I invoke the consuming fire
And from the ashes mould
The renaissance of my decadent self

My Sacrifice - My Corruption - My Death"

Imo black metal is a lot more interesting nowadays than it was 20 years ago. Tons of interesting bands and a lot of variety that didn't exist back in the day. I honestly don't understand this "only the classics are good" mentality. Maybe you're not listening to the right stuff or maybe you just don't like black metal anymore. It's OK, I got really bored of stoner and don't listen to it anymore.

That's pretty much me in regards to newer old school death metal. There's occasionally a few bands that impresses me. Blood Incantation, for instance, are fantastic but I've essentially outgrown my interests with OSDM revivalism.

Agree with contemporary BM being better than the original waves. Thantifaxath, Negative Plane, Jordablod and Volahn are my favorites.

It’s fine if you don’t like a certain kind of metal

The entire admin of this site has been characterized by condescension and arrogance since its inception, dude. lol I gave up on them years ago and just came back to check to see if they'd grown up yet. Apparently a zebra doesn't change its stripes.

To get back on topic:

It's really all relative. I find thrash to be boring riff salad, for the most part.

It could be a condition called "being a cynical asshole."

Damn.. maybe I shoulda read the whole thread. Didn't realize it broke into a firing squad taking aim at the staff at one point.

For those who don’t remember or joined the forum after the fact, GuiltySpawn was an idiot and a troll. Exactly nobody wants him back so don’t give him validation by somehow thinking he has a point.

also, there is literally nothing about abom's post that is condescending or arrogant. there's nothing about abom that's condescending or arrogant, really. op asked a question and abom answered rather truthfully. op has simply moved on. tastes change. shit happens.

I'm not really into 90s/Norwegian/non thrash and early death metal sounding black metal either . The type of black metal I like is of the Venom/Sodom/Possessed variety .

Of course some may say that that sort of metal isn't really black metal , but that's a topic unto itself .

How strange, you like Burzum, but Deathspell Omega is just "noise"?! I'd been listening to black metal for 4 years before I was able to decipher Filosofem. D.Omega is far from that buzzing noise, I dislike them because they have frantic riffs that sound like thousand fireworks, but it's not bad and maybe I'll be in a mood for that technical craziness one day.
You should be comfortable with Ulver's Nattens Madrigal, late Immortal, Taake, Mgła, Naglfar's Harvest, Pestifere's Liminal...



If you listen more carefully different subgenres of black metal, you'll be greeted with depression, melancholy, wonder, fury, excitement, joy, sorrow... Atmospheric black metal is always there for different moods (nocturnal, cosmic, phantasmal or phantomic).

Other genres of metal are boring compared to black. Can you achieve this in pure thash?

Black Metal basically started as hardcore punk with spooky vocals and branched out into a million different paths. You don't have to like all of it. You even said that you like Darkthrone, Mayhem, etc. so there you go.

.