Let's talk about Black Metal

[gRaViJa]

cool, talking about my fav bands here :p

I like both death and black metal bands, but not the mayhem type metal. I like bands that can create an atmosphere. those bands are amon amarth, wintersun, ensiferum, falkenbach, sometimes dimmu borgir, summoning, fintroll, at the gates...
but i listen to other styles of music to, basicly every band that can create that atmosphere.

 

[Fallofthetyrant]

Most of the variations I'm talking about when creativity comes to mind are rhythmic. Most bands of all types of metal are guilty of this- they'll stick to the same rhythms, therefore losing any "feeling" that something more unique would bring. Just dropping an 8th note, or a 16th note would be alright at least. What I meant by "Straight 32 notes" is that there are no complex rhythm changes during a short period, such as slipping some triplets in there. The same goes for a straight line of quarter notes, 8th notes, and 16th notes.

What you gotta remember is that I'm speaking generally. I'm not saying that all the bands in the genre apply, but a lot do.

Another thing that gets me is the cliche of tremelo picking in a lot of black metal music. It's boring to listen to a straight line of notes (rhythmic), even if it is a beautiful melody. In half the cases, its just a washed up, overused melody, though not all the time..

The thing is, that I do know alot about black metal, on a musical level. I can't tell you its history, its current trend, or the names of the musicians. What I can tell you is that I've heard A LOT of black metal in my life. I can listen to it, but it just gets so boring to me- just like most melodic death metal.

I like some of the atmospheric aspects of black metal, but I think other genres have done it better, imo. Check these songs out off of Between the Buried and Me's unreleased album. These guys have so many different styles of playing, from death metal, to jazz, to black metal, to hardcore. This album even features alot of adult contemporary, one part even ranging to some insane bluegrass soloing.

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I do like emperor though, I forgot to mention that before.

Vanguard, when I was reading your post one single thought came to my mind and it was the fact that you simply don't know about music a lot. (No offense intended, but considering I studied music theory, sound design and classical guitar, I think my point of view is somehow credible and slightly valuable).

When you said most metal bands I believe you are not really aware of what you are stating, in fact, I invite you to enlarge your horizons by listening more bands than those that the mainstream got to offer.
I'll go step by step.
First, are you aware of the very definition of art? Well, art by definition is an skill to denote an aesthetic (mood, feeling, sensations).

Black metal emphasizes on melody rather than percussion, and complex, classically inspired song structures that act as 'textures' or 'motifs' which demotes the drums to secondary and allows guitars to function as the primary composition instrument, with vocals being the primary rhythm instrument.

Do you see a lot of percussion in Classical music? not a lot, isn't it? Mostly timpani and snare and rarely.


Just like classical music (and neoclassical), Black metal communicates a theme by using textures or motifs layered together.

If you would know Black Metal as you say, you would know that not only tremolo picking is used, but also strumming among others.

Now, I listened the band you showed us, they play well, but do you know what? they aren't really inspiring anything, their music is empty of meaning.
Is it really art? not really, in my opinion art is whichever that produces a sensation of mood in as. Isn't really about how complex it can get.
Black metal was that, was a call to wake up from the modern life and it's decadent valors.

Black metal showed us a dark world, and inside it, a new light.
You wouldn't understand this since your knowledge of music as art is very low I fear, but I really do invite you to understand it more and find its true meaning and purpose.
I invite you to listen Franz Schubert and one of his masterpieces called Winterreise. Only piano and voice. but still, very evocative and intricate.

When comes to music not only rhythm matters, but also pitch, melody, harmony, dissonance and consonance, texture and structure.

Also, just out of curiosity, if you know music why do you ask for a composer for your game? this got me wondering...

 

[Cruelty]

bleck metal is chaos. @__@ listen to endless dismal moan, and tell me it isn't the soundtrack for the apocalypse.

 

[Anonymous]

man you don't really help your case when you say shit like I THINK YOU DO NOT KNOW MUSIC???BLACK METAL IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN COMPREHEND WITH LIMITED KNOWLEDGE I INVITE YOU

i mean as someone who listens to DRONE and NOISE and shit almost religiously (stars of the lid is like my third favorite band ever) i fully understand and appreciate that MELODY and TEXTURE are as important as rhythm - if not MORE important - but you're trying to pass it off as this (un)HOLY END-ALL PROTO-GENRE that reigns above all other genres simply because it provides a DARK GLIMPSE into the world and you're backing this up largely by namedropping a bunch of shit and saying WELL IM CLASSICALLY TRAINED I THINK I KNOW WHAT I MTALKIN ABOUT. doom metal does the same DARK GLIMPSE thing and does it a fucking LOT better imo (mournful congregation, skepticism, wraith of the ropes, etc.). noise does too - taking the very thing most people view as ANTI-MUSIC and turning it into something beautiful and mesmerizing and uplifting while simultaneously emotionally crushing (zbigniew karkowski's "uexkull", boris & merzbow's "sun baked snow cave", etc.).

my opinion on black metal is pretty mixed. i mean i appreciate it primarily as SILLY MUSIC to listen to (i do that with lots of corpse paint bands) and some of the bands and individual artists are really really good (hellhammer is one of my favorite drummers ever) but a lot of it is really FDGAGD GARBAGE imo. a lot of black metal is guilty of the stereotypical DISSONANT CHORD PROGRESSION MASTURBATION that most people have a problem with. other genres have the ambience thing down and do it much much better. personally my major problem with black metal is the complete trashing of production in favor of this raw shit that destroys your ears with any extended listening.

but yeah man you should really chill with the ad hominem shit it's not helping your argument at all.

 

[Fallofthetyrant]

Wishmoo, does that bothers you everytime knows theory? I mean, you always jump at me for the same reason and try to prove invalid points, now bringing up death/doom metal and calling it drone? lol Skepticism are a Funeral Doom band, Mournful Congregation are just ok since for the most part they've been ripping off some other bands.
Merzbow enters in the category of noise, a aesthetic style quite interesting.

Now, why do you have something against the low-fi sound? you know, not far different from your bedroom band, your so called cd sounds extremely lo-fi to my ears. And musically speaking too simple, so should I bash it like you bash Black Metal?
Now, when I said I invite him to learn some music theory it was in order to SEE the link between METAL and CLASSICAL MUSIC. See?
Never said Black Metal was the king of all the styles, I just said it brings many different moods.
If I would like to talk about Funeral Doom, Death/Doom, Black/Doom, Drone, Noise, or any other style of music, then I would have open a thread concerning those styles rather than Black Metal.
Really, you should chill down, really, please, or this threat will inevitably go down again.

Oh, the low-fi sound was used to avoid hipsters that are looking for cool bands. If you here earlier Dark Throne per example, you'll see the different, they didn't embrace this concept until A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992)
Mayhem -De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas has a good production and sound. Burzum went for a low-fi sound but it sounds amazing.
Is a clich? to say that EVERY band had low-fi production.
Oh, and if you can listen Merzbow then i'm sure you could stand Low-fi RAW bands lol, don't you think? Unless you never heard Merzbow before.

In my opinion, you are merely jealous and you are just satirizing yourself in this post, anyway, I ask you again to stop the non-sense
Thank You.

 

[Andy6000]

Really, you should chill down, really, please, or this threat will inevitably go down again.

sorry, but it already has, this thread has been nothing but a circle jerk of BLACK METAL ROX since it reopened, with nothing but blatant hostility and condescension towards anyone that deigned to bring in a differing opinion. Not exactly discussion material. (and don't worry, it's not ONLY you at fault)