EXTREME METAL
 

Black Metal is more than just music to me it's my life. I love most metal and a lot of other genres if music but Black Metal runs through my veins. The first time I saw Venom on In To The Pit a half hour extreme metal show that followed Headbangers Ball every week on MTV I was hooked it was both scary and exciting for a young teenager. I taped that show every week but watched Venom play Black Metal over and over until the tape snapped. That was the day I would lay down my soul to the gods rock n roll :rockon:

I'll be using this thread to talk about my love obsession and devotion to all things BLAAAAAAACK METAL. If you have an interest in this genre of music please stop by and contribute.

Can't say it's my favorite genre, but it's certainly up there. Love old style thrash/black (Venom, Hellhammer/C Frost/Decayed...) and squizo BM like early-Filii Nigrantium Infernalium. Not so much into Norwegian BM, find it kind of repetitive, but I like classic Mayhem.

In fact, I remember you sent me some Arrow postcards and I wanted to send somethimng related to BM back to you, but you didn't give me your address ;)

Filii Nigrantium Infernalium Rebanho de Lobos 2013 - YouTube

Nivathe - Veins Of Death And Hunger - YouTube

Those were gifts I didn't want anything in return that's why I never gave my address :nod:.

I hope this thread takes off Nordic.

There's a whole world of underground music i am no longer in touch with.

..................

I hope this doesn't bore you too much but it's a little background to my musical history where Black Metal is concerned.

I got into Black Metal around 97 / 98 because i was bored with and never really got on with the whole Grunge and Nu-Metal wave.

I was at a bit of a loss with the whole music scene full stop. Metal as i knew it (Glam, thrash etc) was basically dead in the water. Mercilessly butchered by a lumberjack shirt wearing group whose singer ended up taking his own life because his own band ended up exactly the same as the whole movement they rebelled against in the first place.

Grunge was extremely dull - Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam apart, it was hollow and miserable, seemingly without energy and the vitality of what had gone before it. Nu-Metal took this ethos and ran with it. The mags suddenly disliked everything i still loved, even Maiden seemed in a state of decay so i needed to get a musical fix elsewhere.

I explored American country music and really took a liking to the wave of female singers/bands breaking through such as Dixie Chicks and Faith Hill. These artists brought the fun back into music and their use of rock guitar rather than banjo's helped, along with Oasis, fill the void left by Motley Crue, Kiss, etc.

What about the heavier stuff though? Slayer hadn't released a great album for ten years, the same went for Anthrax (Sound of White Noise is an exception), Megadeth, Testament etc. Even Quorthon went Brit-pop for one album. :(

I'm not sure how but someone introduced me to an album called Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk by Emperor and i was blown away. Certainly the vocals took a bit of getting used to, but the music was fantastic. Amazingly fast guitar, ridiculous blast beat drumming and even a hint of synthesizer. The next album i took a chance with was Rebel Extravaganza by Satyricon and from then on the more popular bands of this underground genre known as Black Metal all became favourites - Mayhem, Immortal, Dark Funeral, Darkthrone etc.

From this i moved into Gothic metal and as time went on the music industry changed. Grunge / Nu-metal died off apart from the cream of the crop and the old music returned. Bands such as Motorhead, Maiden, and Saxon had a whole new lease of life and i've never looked back.

In short i now listen to every form of music i've ever enjoyed, be it Kiss, Leppard, Satyricon, Primal Scream, but have unfortunately lost touch with the underground scene so hopefully Nordic and this excellent thread can destroy me with more blast beats than i can ever hope for and have me on the look out for many great acts with indecipherable band logos. :clap:

Satyricon - Phoenix.

SATYRICON - Phoenix (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) feat. Sivert Høyem - YouTube

Black Metal but not as you know it but still absolute class.

Dimmu Borgir - The Chosen Legacy

DIMMU BORGIR - The Chosen Legacy (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) - YouTube

No pressure then Dem :lol:

I hope that I can introduce people to new band and get some people back into the older bands they may have lost touch with over the years. Some will be to some peoples taste most I'm sure won't be but this is my thread I'll do what I want :lol:

But seriously I really appreciate the interest so far:clap:

Not a massive fan myself, but I'm always up for giving new bands help and publicity, so I highly recommend checking out these guys (nothing to do with the fact I recorded the drums ;) )

http://hryre.bandcamp.com/releases

My mate, who is the vocalist/bass player also runs a Black Metal UK Facebook group, which is worth seeking out for new talent too. I can't link to it because I'm on my phone, but it's easily found on there as British Black Metal Society

Just in from work lets get cracking with where it all started for me.

Venom (London 1985) [02]. Black Metal - YouTube

I cant remember what age i was when i first saw this video but i was in my early teens and it changed my life. I had no internet no money and no record stores that sold music like this so every week i would tune into the Headbangers Ball without fail just to try find out more about this new music that excited me more than anything i had ever heard.

The first Venom record i owned was a picture disc of the Warhead single.

Still their best song in my opinion. Cronos sounds so evil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7kNRp00G3o

Venom-Buried Alive - YouTube

Hands down my favourite Venom song first time i heard the guitar intro the hairs on my arms stood up and a chill ran down my spine. Not only is the music dark but the subject matter is quite disturbing. Always one of my biggest fears to be locked inside a very small confined space with little or no room for movement but to bed buried alive even worse. Not only was this music touching my soul it was getting inside my head and exposing my fears amazing emotions i had never felt before.

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The first two Black Metal albums i bought Darkthrones A Blaze In The Northern Sky and Under A Funeral Moon. I had saved up money from my first job to go to Dublin on the train to get these albums i had only heard about them and when i seen the covers i could not wait to get home to listen to them they almost jumped off the shelf with those amzing covers they looked so evil i had never seen anything like this before. The covers were not just for show what i would be listening to later that night just felt like pure evil i listened to both albums back to back over and over again everyday. They took me out of the comfort of my bedroom and i felt i was in the forest at night i could feel the cold breeze coming from the speakers and filling the room. The guitars were like the snow blowing over the mountains the vocals like the frozen winds and the drums like the echo of distant thunder. How was it possible for music to make me feel so many different emotions. Also these are two of the greatest album titles of all time both sinister and beautiful in equal measure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvaZWnJL7xI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAajs4oMbpg

I really like the old Norway Black Metal it just seems to sit easier with me and the 1st black album I bought was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l92x443Sfws

Then after that was
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Teb8KoyxQdc

Now normally people would say Transilvanian Hunger after that but not me, mine was
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw-8QJL4Iyw

But here is 2 bands nobody has heard of apparently

Breath of sorrows - Night of the broken glass - YouTube
Aaskereia - Dort, wo das alte Böse ruht (Full Album) - YouTube

Mayhem - Freezing Moon (HQ) - YouTube

Before i had heard about tales of murder and everything else associated with Mayhem at the time i came across this album. I was blown away by the artwork again it looked so sinister and with that pictures of Euronymous on the back wow.

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Attilas vocals are amazing they seem to almost change every word that he sings creating an experience like no other so slow and haunting really crawls under your skin.

The I had made a friend called Jamie and he was the 1 who really got my tastes kickstarted by lending me these albums

Immortal - Pure Holocaust 1993 [Full Album] - YouTube

Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse (1994) full album, vinyl - YouTube

Satyricon Dark Medieval Times [full album] - YouTube

Satyricon - Nemesis Divina (Full Album - Album completo) - YouTube

From there my love just went deep for the music

Then when I started to buy more albums I bought Twilight Of The Idols by Gorgoroth and Hellfire by 1349

Gorgoroth - Exit Through Carved Stones * with lyrics * - YouTube

1349 - Hellfire [Full Album] - YouTube

I'll leave it at that because I could be here forever lol and when I was a child I was always into the darker side of life so when these albums had cool covers I thought I'd buy them just to be different but I never did until about 2007

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This is where i get a lot of my Black Metal from its called the Sound Cellar in Dublin. This place is amazing its about the size of my sitting room but around the corner past the guy in the picture are the vinyl and CDs great selection from the big names in Black Metal all the way down to the lesser known Black Metal bands. So much awesome in such a small space. Its our very own version of Euronymous Helvete ;)

I buy a lot of mine from HMV and I shall admit something here. I have heard ASKE by BURZUM about 10 times but I've never owned the album so I still haven't got any Burzum albums in my collection

I love all Burzum albums but be warned both of these albums were recorded by Varg while he was in prison and they are a step away from Black Metal they are more electronic albums but still great records.

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But if you want to know where my tastes spammed from - it was college with an album called Antichrist Superstar by a Marilyn Manson, then an album called Midian by a little band called Cradle Of Filth. Korn then came into the mix with Untouchable. Vary that with Slipknot. I then met a friend called Stephen who was a full on goth and he introduced me to Darkthrone. I couldn't get enough so I bought the 3 Darkthrone albums he had played me. I then went on holiday with my ex where I bought the box set PRINCE OF DARKNESS from Ozzy Osbourne and while at college I lent a Rammstein album called Mutter and decided to see them live so I bought all their albums all in one go so I wasn't missing out.

Then in 2007 was where I met Jaime and the rest of that story is above. Well he decided to go a bit strange and didn't want to know me anymore for some reason and on my journey was where I had joined up to Supernal Music which was a mail order service and from there I bought albums by Leviathan, Askieria and Gorgoroth. Jaime also introduced me to a band called Von Thronstahl and from there I don't think I will ever fall out of love with the music. At bit later I was introduced to Iron Maiden who I had heard of but had never heard an album so I bought all of them albums and now I have just been introduced to Motorhead as with Maiden I had heard of them but I had only heard of Ace Of Spades. That is where I am at now

I too used to buy a lot from Supernal Music. I got into The Meads of Asphodel due to them.

I also used to buy a lot from Alice's Records i was always on the phone to them. Very knowledgable people.

Supernal were good then it went pear shaped and he shutdown as he owed a lot of people money from albums he didn't send out apparently but his webpage is still open. I got introduced to Drudkh through Supernal

http://shop.supernalmusic.com/

For me, I've never really gotten into Black Metal too much. But I do LOVE early Venom - the masters of Black Metal. I'm a massive fan of their work on the first few albums, especially stuff like Buried Alive, Countess Bathory and this awesome track...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5wUr4Lut4A

There's something so fascinating about the genre though - I'm not sure what it is. Like something is drawing me to it whenever I hear it/read about it. There was this great article in Metal Hammer a couple of years back about Norwegian Black Metal and I just couldn't stop reading it.

:rockon:

Totally agree, buddy! That's one of my faves too - you NEED to crank up the volume all the way, stick in the headphones and listen to that - it's just so creepy.

Speaking of, an elderly guy was believed to have been buried alive the other week, Nordic after the sleeping epidemic in Russia I think...

If you love to read about Black Metal you should get a copy of Lords of Chaos. It deals with the music aswell as the murders and church burnings.


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Just reading about that i start sweating scary stuff.

Nordic. Why don't you tell us your essential ten Black Metal albums.

BURZUM - #2 - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss - YouTube

Burzum the one man band of Varg Vikernes he may have some questionable beleifs but he makes some fantastic primitive Black Metal. His vocals are filled with torment and anguish he really sounds like a tortured soul screaming from beyond the grave.

Maybe i could give my 50 essential albums :lol:

There will be nothing obscure in the 10 essential albums but for a newcoming getting into BM i would suggest the following. Bear in mind there is no real easy way the ease someone into the genre :lol:


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Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
Immotal - Pure Holocaust
Darkthrone - Under A Funeral Moon
Emperor - Wrath Of The Tyrant
Venom - Black Metal
Bathory - Under The Sign Of The Black Mark
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Gorgoroth - Pentagram
Enslaved - Frost
Aura Noir - Black Trash Attack

Until The Light Takes Us (2008) (English and Turkish subtitles) - YouTube

Great documentary with the mighty Fenriz and Varg Vikernes :rockon:

Nocturno Culto`s The Misanthrope (2007) - YouTube

Darkthrones Nocturno Culto and his film The Misanthrope. Some fantastic music and beautiful shots of Norway. This is a beautiful film bursting with atmospheric music and imagery.

I'm still fairly uneducated with a lot of Black Metal, but I think my first dabble in it was hearing Cradle of Filth's "Her Ghost In The Fog" on Kerrang! TV. I realise that they weren't really Black Metal by that point, but that was really my first taste of anything remotely outside the mainstream. I got their "Lovecraft and Witchhearts" album and had a few favourites on there (despite not being much of a CoF fan anymore, "For Those Who Died" is still a cracking song).
Then I kind of stuck with the mainstream for a few more years. Found a few bands like GWAR and Manowar thanks to the internet, but not really any Black Metal (I'd heard about the church burnings and murders but never really thought to listen to any of it). Until I read Metal Hammer's review of Wacken 2006, anyway.
I remember I was sat in my work experience placement's staff room on my lunch break, when suddenly I was greeted by an image of a band (I forget who. I thought Emperor but it probably wasn't) performing onstage with a goat's head on a spike. I then went to my best mate Adam (who was - and still is - a bigger metalhead than me) and told him we had to go next year. So we did.
I'd heard the odd Immortal track before, but when we knew we were going to Wacken and they were headlining, I bought "Sons of Northern Darkness", "Damned in Black" and "At The Heart of Winter" - the former being probably my favourite Black Metal album and the latter being the most atmospheric metal music I had ever heard at that point.
Weirdly, Wacken that year didn't introduce me to any new Black Metal, but it did increase my interest in Power Metal. However over the next year (with plans to return for Wacken 2008) I looked up more bands (1349, Emperor, Belphegor to name a few). Seeing Gorgoroth (as they were named at the time) live at Wacken '08 was a pretty awesome experience, too.
I pretty much stuck with what I knew for a few years after that. Then Adam mentioned that one of his old uni mates had joined a Black Metal band called Winterfylleth and we checked them out at Bloodstock 2010 - I've been a fan of theirs since. Not long after that, a mate of mine from Peterborough formed a band called The Infernal Sea and their shows introduced me to a lot more underground extreme metal (their show in a pub in King's Lynn with Old Corpse Road and Aloeswood springs to mind).
Nowadays I really only listen to Immortal, Winterfylleth and The Infernal Sea, but given the chance I'd love to go see more live Black Metal. In my time at festivals I've seen a bunch of bands, but always seem to forget to really look them up afterwards. Then when I do, I'm not in the mood to listen to Black Metal. Weird.

In fact, here's The Infernal Sea's "Ritual Incantation" from their debut album "Call of The Augr"
The Infernal Sea - Ritual Incantation - YouTube

As well as Winterfylleth's "Mam Tor: The Shivering Mountain" from their "Ghost of Heritage" album.
Winterfylleth - Mam Tor (The Shivering Mountain) - YouTube

My favourite Venom song

Not just Black metal - pretty much ever genre of rock included!

VENOM "At War With SATAN" ( With Intro...) - YouTube

Emperor - Alsvartr (The Oath) + Ye Entrancemprium - YouTube

My first Emperor album i must admit the first time i heard it i was overwhelmed there just seemed to be so much going on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdK-LFDkyWg

Bathory took what Venom started and pushed it even further with more extreme vocals and satanic subject matter that felt more heartfelt and genuine.

Mayhem - Live In Leipzig (Full Album) - YouTube

Mayhem Live in Leipzig is an amazing record that captures the feeling the anger the fury the darkness the rawness and the evil spirit of the Black Metal scene at that time. The album cover is one of the most iconic images of Black Metal it captures all the feeling you get from the music in just that one picture of Dead.

Immortal - Cold Winds Of Funeral Dust - YouTube

From Immortals debut album

Abruptum - Obscuritatem... Part I (1) - YouTube

Getting a bit more obsure with Abruptum. This is really not for everyone but they stood out from all the other Black Metal bands on the scene in the early 90s.

Blood, Fire, Death was my first real introduction to Black Metal.

Forget Venom and their dodgy production, this was the real deal. Tracks such as A Fine Day to Die and Holocaust just knocked me for six.

It still stands head and shoulders above 98% of the BM genre today, much the same as Slayer's Reign in Blood does with Thrash metal.

Bathory - For All Those Who Died - YouTube

Gotta admit the previous years Under The Sign of The Black Mark is even more evil and thunderous in it's production.

Bathory - 13 Candles - YouTube

13 Candles is probably my favourite of all Quorthon's songs. - Just fearsome.