Its very interesting that these are the real first examples of the minor chord obsession in Norway, and the first examples of the tremolo picked arpeggiated minor chords (a direct rebuttal to the "Euroymous created black metal" narrative); however there is no blast beats, the vocals are deep, the bass is huge, and the feeling is one of desolation and the abyss, rather than "winter" and the grandiose. Snorre seemed to have solely created the black metal riffing style that everyone stole from, yet his direction and purpose was completely different from theirs. The dark and empty sound that are found on these two releases are something that I think have never really been found again. As if they could take the playing, but not the mind behind it. From the wailing leads in "Funeral Marches to the Grave" to the creeping bass breaching out from the deep oceans in "Aerie Descent", nothing sounded like this again, not even the self-titled released in 2001 by the man himself.

Personally I believe Snorre going to jail left a genuine dark age in black metal, and in its place was a frail imitation masquerading the original blackness that spewed from one man's visions. What started off as a serious art, quickly became a degenerated form lead by power chord fanatics and the usual gaggle of drunkards that comprise most of the "riff" obsessed metal fans. From a "black metal", to a low fi punk.

bump

"From a "black metal", to a low fi punk."

So anything but obscvre abyssic darkness = punk? You made a point or two, but then make leaps like this. You can tell me Taake, Gorgoroth, etc. are falses, followers, phonies, etc and I won't bother arguing, but they're simply not punk at all. Describing any era of the genre as "a gaggle of drunks" or whatever isn't useful because it says nothing about music, it's projecting out-group social stigmas onto music. Idiots can create and enjoy good art, smart people can create and enjoy terrible art. And vice versa. So '(insert music here) is for (insert group of people I don't like here)' isn't a useful lens.

If that old Snorre Ruch stuff did what it did so well (which you very vaguely and subjectively describe as "evoking a desolate abyss"), I have no real objections to the fact later bands went in other directions and tried depicting viking age stuff, nature, fantasy, etc. while keeping a few Snorre riffing techniques in their musical vocabulary. Who needs endless clones of a release that already nailed what it set out to do?

Although a lot of stuff does try to reference the old Thorns atmosphere, particularly Mayhem, both in their classic lineup (DMDS) and then in later lineups as well (Ordo Ad Chao). Arguably some "orthodox" black metal from the 2000s gestured at the old Thorns feel too. (Just forget all the surface level mangled Latin and goofy biblical stuff for a second and the use of dissonance to create a sense of "darkness" is often very similar.)

I will agree Thorns itself lost the plot when they went outer space/industrial.

Let's be real, the vocals are probably just deep because deep guttural vocals were a death metal signifier at the time, and death metal predates second wave black metal. Same reason a lot of these Norwegian black metal guys had deeper vocals in their old bands and demos from the late 80s/early 90s. It's valid to think those vocals help create a compelling atmosphere, but I seriously doubt there was a lot of thought behind it.

What is Fenriz if not a drunken baffoon who played overglorified punk music, the "primitive" movement in the second wave is a punk anthem reborn in another genre. So much so that he finally admitted this fact and started making music that he himself called punk. What other end result could there be for such practitioners of that movement? Illjarn, Gorgoroth, and the endless waves of punk metal is a disgrace to what black metal ought to have been if Snorre had been its face and not Fenriz. They paraded around the call of "no trends" and yet each one was vomiting the leftovers of the others around them, what else was the second wave if not a trend, if not a failed movement that resulted in some of the least talented works in metal history not under the brutal or slam genres? Funny to call Snorre's vocals a mere accident when every other "black metal" style vocal of the time was higher pitch the second they became "black metal", for from Quorthon's gargles came Dead's wraith-like breaths, Nocturno Culto's howls, and Abbath's froggy croaks. It took 10 years for Snorre's vocals to be almost rediscovered as a trend itself with orthodox bands like Watain and Funeral Mist.

DMDS recalls nothing of any atmosphere besides that of Oystein's continued "trend" of simply taking from others; at first it was Venom and Bathory for his frankly awful power chord obsessed Deathcrush EP, and then it was a failed attempt to incorporate Snorre's playing after they met. Portal captures more of Snorre's atmosphere than DMDS could ever hope to have with such a person at its helm, Parabellum too another example of something truly dark enough to have horror come alive; listen to the below video at the time I have linked it (4:19). Despite a lack of musical training, it is far beyond the idiocy needed to have covered a Venom track and played it as a faster speed as your "artistic signature".


It is only during the early 2000's that a return to real black metal was even glimpsed upon with BAN at the helm, a full decade after the fact. A 10 year dark age spent making punk music for drunken masses.

We know Snorre Ruch was a trend follower, he was convicted for being an accomplice to murder. How does that make him less of a degenerate buffoon than Fenriz for drinking too much? I'm moderately sorry for teasing, it's interesting to think about different directions music could have developed into, but the moralizing isn't productive or relevant to musical output.

I'd be interested in hearing how Samael or Master's Hammer fit into this Thorns arrest to black metal dark ages theory.

It's cool that you clearly like what you really like, but these just read like marketing fluff with not really anything concrete beneath it besides a vibe. Which, don't get me wrong, I can love - DMP's bombastic album descriptions are great. But the "trve" act is tiresome. This is a lot of words to say very, very little besides shitting on other bands.

Literally no need to bring up Brutal or Slam bands. If you don’t like a genre that’s completely fine, but to say they aren’t talented to try and make a point isn’t the truth in the slightest. Maybe you just haven’t listened to the right Brutal or Slam band to enjoy it. Always keep your eyes open to any genre.

Fenriz is a drunken buffoon for his ideas of music (which were nothing more than a punk anthem destined to lead to stagnation) and through it the damage he caused to the newly born black metal scene. Snorre was an accomplice to murder, but I don't think a murder means someone is stupid.

As for Samael they are an uninteresting and untalented band, a doomy take on the thrash metal bands such as Bathory or more importantly Celtic Frost. For the sake of this reply I went through their 87-91 discog, in case I had missed or forgotten something, however it was a fruitless effort. There are two potential moments in the demos, on the later half of the track "Into the Pentagram", and "The Dark" too has a moment of arpeggio that was almost ok. Obviously the further on you go into their discog past 91 the more embarrassing they become.

Master's Hammer are a band that should be mentioned more, but ultimately still trapped within their thrashy compounds, their symphonic elements were new and certainly enjoyable for some, but that is to me where their influence and important ends.

Snorre seemed like a fairly talented/visionary musician, but not the most intelligent of people...like being caught up in the whole Varg murdering Euronymous thing.

Not sure if he had a genuine condition like autisim or aspergers that effected his decision making.

First of all, bravo for giving Blackthorn some of his rightful credit, I don't see that enough, without Blackthorn black metal might not have evolved how it did, too many give Euronymous all of the credit. Back before any Norwegian had come up with a debut album, it has been said that the two would often play together and exchange riffs and ideas.

Now I have responses to a few points below:



Would not Funeral Fog be the first example of this? It dates back to 1990, whereas the earliest known construction of AErie Descent was in 1991. Even so, much of DMDS was composed by 1989/1990 which competes with Stigma Diabolicum(which had some of the elements that would become Thorns mixed with a lot of death and thrash)



I get the idea that Snorre was running out of passion for the project sometime before the murder, after all it was over a year since the Trondertun tape. I seem to remember this interview shedding some light on that subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz62dLR-a5w

If anything I would say losing Vikernes was a bigger blow, he was on a spree, how does one follow up to HLTO anyway?(and to a lesser degree Emperor, three years of supposed 'maturation' left a lot to be desired)



Ildjarn aside; Darkthrone, Gorgoroth and DMDS were far beyond punk music, I find the assertion absurd on its face as some of their heights have never been recaptured. Gorgoroth rediscovered Baroque melodies and at the peak of their prowess wrote sweeping epics. DMDS was an laborious work of six years and many hands, Blackthorn himself was on the album as we know, its details of composion are fantastic and often overlooked, its darkness remains unmarred. Transilvanian Hunger remains a peak, for its structural ordering of riff, expressing a pulse of mysticism through minimalism with carefully metered repetitions. I would like to concur with the idea that black metal had a serious dumbing down and punk retrograde movement in many sectors after the initial thrust of the Norwegians, namely 1994 with Hvis lyset tar oss oft considered the highest pinnacle.

All of this said however, the genre would have benefitted greatly from a full length in this style, the wave of darkness of Grymyrk(I say Filosofem might not have existed without it, listen to Dunkelheit back to back with Fairytales) But perhaps he said all he could in the style, perhaps the mantle to be taken up did not exist, perhaps it was the furtherest extension of its own sound.

This kind of mythologizing revisionism and kvlter-than-thou posturing is funny.

On: Funeral Fog
There are multiple issues with this, starting with the fact Oystein and Snorre had already at that time spent time together before this period, meaning at this point Oystein was free so do as he does and steal from his peers (before it was Bathory and Venom). The second issue is that in 1989 Trey Azagthoth had already made and released an arpeggiated minor chord tremolo riff https://youtu.be/0xbTWvAlrYg?t=21 in one of the most famous metal albums of all time. Which leads to the third issue, Funeral Fog isn't obsessed with minor chords, there is one (as in singular) minor chord played in a heaping shit sandwich of power chords. Finally for the fourth nail in the coffin, there is no barre usage either, another staple of black metal riffing.


This interview was interesting, although I don't think what he was saying was a lack of passion for it (only that he was to throw away the material on Grymyrk besides Home), but more like a reaction to the politics and drama of the scene he did not wish to be apart of. It seemed as well like Oystein told Snorre he was going to play in Thorns, only to never help with anything or even figure out a spot to practice. I of course imagine this was probably because Oystein secretly wished that it would fail as he did for everyone else (For instance not even sending Varg's albums out to people who paid for them, despite being given the money to do this from Vikernes himself.). Which seems to be the case, because instead of helping with Thorns he simply told Snorre that he could play on Mayhem instead, which was their plan before he was murdered obviously. This of course loops back around to mean that it was indeed the murder that stopped Snorre from making new music (via Mayhem), as well as Oystein being the crafty weasel that he always was and screwing Snorre around.


No, for instance Jesus Tod's riff is a nigh 1 to 1 rip of Aerie Descent, compare the two yourself, same chord, same neck placement, same shift. Varg had already given his influence to the scene at this point anyways, I really doubt he had more to offer, especially since he was not studying any theory and was just relying on inherent talent. Admittedly Umskiptar is my favorite album from him, and comes much later on.


No need to dress any of these bands up, Darkthrone played a barebones style by stealing from their peers in any shape Fenriz could. Maybe you don't believe me, but what is this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHvWX6bLo5A if not a Celtic Frost cover song? Listen to Fenriz himself during his commentaries on his albums, "this is a Bathory riff, this is a Celtic Frost riff, this is a Burzum riff". Transilvanian Hunger itself was in his words an attempt to sound like Burzum. The end result of which you call "minimalist", he calls "primitive", and I call "monotonous".

DMDS; an album mostly composed of thrash style riffs some of which are literally just random throwaways from Snorre's Grymyrk put in without thought. Those riffs were something Snorre was simply going to discard as he believed them to be no good (as he puts it "children music"), and for good reason too since I think since they were still left in the thrash school and were of no real interest beside Home and a few moments here or there. Hellhammer's drumming is certainly good on DMDS, Atilla at that time had not fully come into his own prowess yet (but still far above his peers), and Necrobutcher/Oystein couldn't write a song to save their lives. Arguably one of the most overrated albums of all time, its only saving grace was that they recorded the drums in a concert hall resulting in a frankly fantastic sound to them, and that Hellhammer kept cranking the volume on his drums during the recording process when no one was looking (see the Helvete documentary for that funny piece of history). Seriously one of my favorite drum productions ever.

As for saying Gorgoroth having "rediscovered classical melodies"; Emperor released the decent ITNE (and their s/t split a year before that) in the same year as Gorgoroth's poorly made debut. No only did Emperor already do what you described in a much more intricate and intelligent manner, but also a more unique one too with their psuedo-symphonic ideas. Now of course one can argue Master's Hammer already created the symphonic style, however the current comparison in this conversation is Gorgoroth, and they were making overglorfied 2 minute long punk tunes with a singer who was somehow even worse than Ihsahn. Don't believe me? Go listen to the first track on Pentagram, just rewind the first 6 seconds over and over again while asking yourself if you turned the vocals into yells and turned down the distortion... would that not just be a hardcore song?


I don't really think so, BAN offers an example of what other avenues could have taken place, MorT being one of the most unique albums to exist in metal and their newest album Nahab having a very interesting bass sound one might only relate to that Trondertun demo from Thorns. Along with this discussion, another interesting idea from Snorre is his immediate fascination with dissonance https://thornsnorway.bandcamp.com/track/lacus-de-luna, there is almost nothing else like that at the time; what could even come close, Voivod? Yet its not the same approach, this was dissonance to spite you, not as a way to make something simply stand out. The creation was due to Snorre's mindset, in his own words (via the Helvete documentary) his goal was to create "anti music", that he "hates your church tones", and that he wanted to "ruin it".

Fenriz a "drunken buffoon" lol. The albums from '92-'95 is one of the most artistic, creative runs in metal history.

Well obviously hardcore punk and thrash metal predate Norwegian black metal, and so those genres left an imprint on it. Black metal songs having "punk riffs" goes back to Hellhammer and Bathory. I guess you know that but I just don't see how pointing out a punk riff in a Gorgoroth song is an own. And in music, context is important. It's how simplistic rhythm parts juxtapose with those ornate higher register melodies that makes early Gorgoroth interesting. You could tell me those melodies actually suck or are cloying or whatever, fine, but by just ignoring them and pointing at a punk riff to make a point of that band being caveman music, you're intentionally ignoring the full picture.

Blut Aus Nord's Mort could be dismissed as a glorified mid-period atonal Gregg Ginn jam with some "creepy" dark ambient production tricks just as easy as Gorgoroth's debut could be dismissed as "hardcore punk" or Funeral Fog could be dismissed as "a bunch of power chords." They're all easy, bad faith readings of what those artists are doing.

It seems like you're glorifying releases that are stylistically fully separated from the 80s punk/"heavy metal" lineage as being somehow "more evolved," or using them as tokens of cultural cache. But ultimately Schoenberg, Webern and guys like that were doing all this atonal stuff before your grandparents were born; it's certainly older than rock n roll. Doing it in the 80s or 90s wasn't revolutionary, let alone doing it now. So in many ways, full blown dissonance, fucking around with western harmony as your main gimmick, etc. is more conservative and backwards-looking than "power chord idiocy."

Do you actually just inherently hate how all power chords sound, in any context? Or are you just using it as a "dirty word"? If anything, early Mayhem using power chords is proof that power chords don't automatically make a song sound or feel anything like the Sex Pistols.

Your first premise fails because Hellhammer and Bathory are not black metal to begin with, they are thrash bands. Sure influential to black metal in some ways, but you can hardly call them worthy of being filed under a completely new genre. You may begin to speak about the "first wave", but the "first wave" is a collection of thrash and speed metal bands that have more in common with Motorhead than they do with real black metal. I just have to ask, whats the point in a "black metal" if your music just sounds like hardcore or crust punk? I might even argue actual crust punk sounds more metal than Gorgoroth do. Don't believe me? Listen to Amebix:


As for Gregg ginn, I would find it hard to believe he managed to get his hands on a fretless guitar and composed an album solely of otherworldly glissando, but do share it if he did. Truly I do mean that, MorT is a very interesting album to me so finding out it had already been done before somewhere else would be fascinating.

On Schoenberg and modern classical: Blut Aus Nord is not Serialist nor 12 tone. I believe Ron Jarzombek and Jute Gyte might be what you ought to mention here instead of BAN. If you wished to speak about conservatism you would also have to state using regular scales and focusing on 5ths(eg power chords) is much more conservative than Schoenberg or the microtonality of BAN. Yet this would still all only begin as a criticism if I had suggested that the past was always worse.

In regards to your final paragraph, I think anyone can be tired of the endless power chords, the most intrinsic part of black metal was exactly that - the riffs went towards the tremolo minor chord arpeggios. Without that shift there is no such thing as "black metal", at least in the "second wave" sense. You may argue about atmosphere, but then you must admit too that then most crust punk or industrial punk is actually "black metal". The main separation between punk and metal is the celebration of simplicity by punk, while metal has nearly always idolized highly skilled playing and more intricate structures, its fans even frequently wish to say that metal is a type of classical (regardless of the accuracy of such statement, or their own actual enjoyment of classical) or at least equal to it. As I said before, the "primitive" movement of Fenriz and his gaggle of drunkards was that of punk, and the resulting stagnation was predestined with such a mindset.

I'm glad this Thorns demo didn't end up being the defining sound of black metal, it's not very good. And I say that as a fan of MoRT. Caveman power chords and idiotic tremolos work just fine. Let's all enjoy them.

Ah yes, the creative genius of plagiarizing other artists, my favorite was the Celtic Frost cover song.

Fenriz's buffoonery is only matched by his worshipers.

Eh, industrial black metal era Thorns is fucking awesome

For sure. The only response I have to someone who tries to write off some really great stuff like A Blaze in the Northern Sky or stuff like that as "drunken buffoonery" is to tell them to remove the stick from up their ass and let me buy them a fucking drink.

This is just pretty much a Fenriz hate thread.

way to cherry-pick. Obviously there's a few Celtic Frost homage songs on Panzerfaust. But you know, they also have other albums. Anyway, you've got an odd agenda judging by your other posts in this thread.

Ah yes, its a "homage" if Fenriz does it, hell he can even devote half his album to "homage"s for one artist and apparently this is still enough to be qualified as one of the "most artistic, creative runs in metal history". Crazy how celeb worship distorts reality to such a degree. Even more hilarious is when you realize Samael had been making Celtic Frost/Bathory worship years before Fenriz does it, but when the mythologized and idolized celeb is involved, we need not consider such things!


Most of my longer posts (the ones that actually matter and go into detail about things) have very little to do with Fenriz, lass.

One of the edgiest posts to ever come out of this forum. Black metal truly attracts the weirdest fans.
Edit: it's the same troll who created the "Metal was birthed in 2005" thread. Perhaps we should stop entertaining him any more.

Black metal has been a disgrace for metal as a whole, at least since the 2000s. And I like the music, but the fans have always been pure cancer.

I too enjoy intellectual contortions.

Having listened to his post-prison work, I'm glad he wasn't. As it was, the face of black metal was, and still is to an even greater extent than Fenriz, that of Varg and Euronymous, both "rip-offs" of Snorre's style. But, as fate would have it, unlike Snorre both were stopped from making metal music before they could come to the conclusion that robot and spaceship sounds actually belonged in black metal.

...And those Samael albums are considered classic, canon black metal albums and are widely enjoyed. Nobody complains that they "rip off" CF/Bathory by taking some CF/Bathory influence. So what's your point again? Your Samael example disproves your whole claim that people only defend Darkthrone because Fenriz is a minor celeb or whatever.
This is going in circles lol.

On top of which, the early Thorns style becoming the defining sound of black metal would have meant legions of followers ripping it off and debasing its exalted purity with their pinheaded plagiarist's ways, drowning what was once immaculate and true in a titanic bukkake session of unoriginality, and that in turn would have been sad. I guess. Happily we won't ever know.

I was really excited to read that Thorn (the guy - see Vital Remains) had released some material unknown to me.
And then it turns out it was just poor spelling in the header.

Incidentally, I am hearing a few parallels with said band here!

I'm pretty sure Aldrahn from Dodheimsgard said he already recorded the vox to the next Thorns album and it was a long time ago and he didn't seem too optimistic about it ever actually seeing the light of day haha. Friggin' Chinese Democracy.

Snorre also has a patreon like thing where he still puts updates out on the creation of his new album, of course its been coming out "soon" for years now so I doubt it will ever release. Doesn't matter too much to me if that ever comes out or not, hes far behind the modern scene now anyways.

I've listened to 2 of the songs from the album, when it was played in exclusive at Unholy Congregation 5. A friend of mine even recorded the songs (audio) but it would be disrespectful to Snorre to post those somewhere. All I can say is if the other tracks are like those, the album will be amazing. Slagmaur's guitarist, General, mentioned that both albums (Thorns & Slagmaur) will come out this year.

No one calls early Samael's streak of boring CF worship "one of most artistic, creative runs in metal history" either, and thats the point I was making. Samael copied Celtic Frost and Bathory first before Fenriz, yet only the famous celeb gets heaps of unworthy praise for their regurgitation, while lesser known bands like Samael are left as the guys who simply copied another band.

Dude is really pissed because Fenriz is a micro-celebrity, you really should touch some grass.

I would imagine that Thorns' stuff affected many who were making music at the time, as the scene was so small and tapes were being passed around pretty religiously. He may have even been pivotal in some of the early guys playing like that. But I don't think he necessarily made leaps and bounds forward causing tons of bands to directly descend from it like Burzum did with the most atmospheric stuff (I'm sure there's a better example but it's not coming to mind).

I still really like Grymrk and it reminds me of when I eas first getting into BM and would listen to it while driving around/hiking at night (very kvlt indeed). I do appreciate how you looked at this and how you're considering things differently.

Jesus Tod's riff is a nigh 1 to 1 rip of Aerie Descent, I think he was very ahead of his peers, however it was in a lateral way than a longitudinal fashion. The reason I say that is because your idea of "forward" would be the second wave, and I think most of that was backwards towards punk and thrash, not forwards towards a new form of metal. Varg's atmospheric styling was interesting for sure, moving towards an ambient form of metal I suppose, but all of his playing still hinges on the things he learned from Snorre's early demos., which is why he is so fond of that very classic Am/Em chord barre shape.


I was hoping for some other interesting opinions from others to chew on by making this thread, but I guess most people here are just standard copy pastes more concerned with defending the honor of celebrities than thinking about music.

When deigning to make conversation with us lowly buffoonish peasants, you must lighten the condescension in order to make us feel more comfortable with addressing your magnificence.

If you're goal was to sincerely drum up some serious discussion, here's a little tip: don't try to conduct yourself with such a massively snobbish attitude.

It seems like the point has been made (Thorns genius, 98% of the rest of black metal stupid), so where does this go from here? The idea doesn't seem to be gaining much traction, nor converts. Anyone want to hoist that flag for the sake of argument? Guessing not.

Shall we all just listen to Memoria Vetusta and call it a day?

I can hear where Varg would have been inspired by Aerie Descent, but I'm not hearing the riff itself. I will give it to Thorns though; that stuff is really dark. That song in particular sounded much more genuinely and seriously dark than much of the first wave BM I've listened to. I'm sure Thorns had a distinct impact on their contemporaries.

To your second point, I think the motivation here is good, but I don't think that's necessarily what's happening here. I know there's some cases where artists are criminally under-represented or underrated (Weakling comes to mind), and people get really weird with the celebrity stuff, but to play devil's advocate, I think it does kind of happen for a reason. There's a reason why nobody's ever heard of the BM band from Iowa, "Prolapsed Nazerine Impaled vpon the Vpside down Cross".