"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.

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.

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)

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 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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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're not worth talking to given your other nonsense posts in this thread.

This is just pretty much a Fenriz hate thread.

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.

what black metal ought to have been if Snorre had been its face and not Fenriz

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

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.

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.

...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.

But I don't think he necessarily made leaps and bounds forward causing tons of bands to directly descend from it like Burzum

I do appreciate how you looked at this and how you're considering things differently.

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.

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.

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.