GoatmasterGeneral

I would tend to agree but again, I didn't make the rules for sub-genres. I didn't coin the terms "first wave black metal" or "nwobhm" or any others. I'm just trying to figure out what all these various terms mean and go with what seems to have already been decided on as the general consensus and put into place by the powers that be. Back in the mid 80's we had thrash metal, heavy metal and glam(poseur) metal. No one really broke it down much more than that. It was enough to say a band like Venom (or any band) was "heavy metal" and that would cover just about all of the possibilities and sub-genres. It wasn't until much later well after the fact that metal historians came along poking their noses in and naming all these things retroactively. No one back in 1983 ever thought one day we'd end up with this elaborate and confusing structuring of a hierarchy containing dozens of metal sub-genres and sub-sub-genres and their various hybrids. It was all new to us then, we were just so happy to have heavy metal bands to bang our boomer heads to.

Opeth didn't (I use past tense because they've since gone off the metal rails) sound like what I think of as progressive death metal. They weren't weird or techy sounding. Progressive melodeath with aternating growls and cleans might be closer to it. They were a lot more melodic than they were actually what I'd call progressive back in their early days. If someone asks me "What does Venom sound like?" then I would just tell them what they sound like. I'd say they're a first wave black metal band born out of the nwobhm scene in the early 80's that sounds like (badly out of tune) punky Satanic speed metal. Don't see what the problem is there. You can of course consider them as part of whichever sub-genre(s) you like. I was just giving my thoughts on the matter because as you know I really enjoy these sub-genre debates. Imo it would simply not be wrong for one to say they are either black metal or nwobhm or punky speed metal or some combination of the three. There are always going to be certain bands like Venom and Celtic Frost that coud go into any one of a number of different sub-genres without being a dead solid perfect fit in any single one of them. In those cases it's natural for there to be some disagreement on how to categorize them. Most bands are a bit easier to define. But it's those bands who ride along the seams where different sub-genres intersect and connect that can often prove to be most interesting. Like black/thrash or black/death or even some bands that have elements of all 3. As far as Iron Maiden being black metal, well shit mate I think I like them twice as much already just from considering the possibity that somebody somewhere might think they're a black metal band even facetiously. I think with genres common sense shoud prevail. One or two songs about Satan (or Vikings or Pirates or banging hot chicks) won't define a band as such because a couple of songs isn't enough to override the main identifying aspects of their sound. But if the majority of a band's material has a common theme that fits in perfecty with an existing genre then some people are gonna want to put them in that box. I don't make the rules my metal brother. You said yourself this evening in a previous post up there somewhere that you know first wave black metal had everything to do with Satanic lyrical themes. So you shouldn't be surprised when people want to put overtly Satanic bands like Venom and Fate in the black metal category. I don't see how one could penalize these bands for not sounding exactly like other bands they directly inspired that didn't even exist yet in the early 80's. I'm betting it was probably some kind of an April Fools joke. They have been known to proclaim silly shit like that before on April Fool's Day.

Schrat - Schattenwahn, Germany 2011 Kaevum - Natur, Norway 2011

He spends his days with cows and goats and fiddling with machinery, and for fun he mixes it up with stubborn boomers like us on the interwebs. What would you expect? NP: Lord Belial - Enter the Moonlight Gate, Sweden 1997

By "modern definition of black metal" you are of course referring to the 2nd wave style pioneered by the Norwegians in the early 90's with the tremolo riffs and all that stuff. But there is still black metal being produced today that shares much more in common with the punky, speed metally 1st wave than it does with those 6 originating bands from the early 90's Norwegian scene. Which all the guys from those bands have said was inspired by the first wave bands that came before them, (Venom, Bathory, CF/Hellhammer, Fate...) they just took it in their own original direction. But it's all black metal even if it doesn't all sound the exact same. There are more than a few musical genres where all the bands don't necessarily have to sound exactly the same. As a purist I have found it quite challenging to accept that there are bands considered by most metalheads these days to be black and death metal that stray pretty far from the original definitions of those terms. We have death metal bands with more prog (and other corrupting influences) than death in their sound as well as black metal bands without a shred of Satan. Even pretty sounding post-black, folk, prog-black and atmo-black bands seem to fall under the black metal umbrella nowadays. Still I would actually say by my way of thinking bands like Venom, Bathory and Fate qualify more as black metal than that kind of stuff ever could, and even more than stuff like Immortal that does have the tremolos just because of the Satan factor. Black metal more than anything else needs to sound evil. So you know my stubborn old ass wants to gatekeep a lot of this shit and say "No god dammit that's not black metal!" But the thing is like it or not commonly accepted genre definitions do change over time. Words have meanings and it's helpful when communicating with each other if we can all agree on the same definitions for given words. So if nearly everyone in the 2023 metal world wants to consider these non-Satanic, nature based and post bands to be black metal, I don't have much choice but to go along with this for the sake of being able to discuss these things with other people and have everyone be able to understand one another. I can exclude these bands in private, inside my own head, and refuse to think of them as "black metal," but I don't listen to any of that pretty posty proggy stuff anyway so what's the difference if other people want to call it black metal? So in conclusion, you can have let's say a "new wave" of British heavy metal without there ever having been a preceding wave, but you can't have a "2nd wave" of black metal without there having been a first wave. So like it or not all those first wave bands are legit black metal. Maybe it would help to think of some of these bands as having dual citizenship. Mercyful Fate can hold two passports and be both black metal and trad heavy metal. Venom can hold 3 passports and be black metal, punky speed metal and nwobhm all at the same time. Being included in one sub-genre doesn't necessarily preclude a band from being included in others as well.

From Greece. Very fucking good. 🤘 Arkhon Infaustus - Passing the Nekromanteion, France 2017

Vorgfang - Viser Fra Ildens Enger... Norway Goliard – Iconoclastic Hymns, Colombia 2017 Molde - Shroud of the Necromancer, Ireland 2022, a December '22 release otherwise it'd be one of the best of this year.

Wyrms - Aashanstys, 2010 France Kirkebrann/Visegard - Kirkegard, Split

This is true. I gave up trying to get into FD years ago except Evoken I still dig. It's just too damn slow for me. It's infuriating. Like when you're speaking with someone who talks really slow and you get that feeling like you just want to reach in and pull the words out of their mouth. I have ADHD I don't have the patience required to appreciate FD. Or slow talkers. But the doom metal that I do like, I really like a lot.

Irkallian Oracle - Apollyon, 2016 Diabolical Messiah - Satanic Alpha-Omega, Chile, holy shit new DM, I can't believe it.

Stomach Earth - Stomach Earth, Salem Mass 2013 Irkallian Oracle - Grave Ekstasis, Sweden 2013

I've got a friend in real life who has always really loved Ahab. I don't get it. Puts me right to sleep. Haven't listened to any of their stuff in well over a decade. There was a lot I liked (and a good bit I didn't like) about Messa's Belfry. But not the next two. I'll have to check out the Aussies.

C'mon Doc, out of everyone here I'd expect a fellow dry humoured old bastard who enjoys pushing buttons and being a dick sometimes like you should know better than anyone not to take me so literally. (you saw I even threw the extra u in humored for you as a show of respect?) I know you weren't accusing me. But I am narrow minded and you know it. Yes of course you were right!! There were no riffs!! And whataya mean he got me? Obviously there were guitars, they just weren't using them to play actual riffs, they were just making weird & cool noises with them. Which I reckon was probably a lot more fun for them doing it than it was for me listening to it. I know some people really do dig that kind of thing. And you know I'm not one of them. But honestly, I'm not here to shit on the new guy's label venture, I sincerely wish him luck with that. I'm pretty sure Doc is gonna part with the $11 (or whatever it comes to down under) and spring for the whole label discography.

It is classic metal. But it was also pretty fucking extreme for 1984. I remember the first time I got it home and put it on the turntable and the dude was screaming "I deny Jesus Chriiiiiist" in that high pitched voice of his of course we're all familiar with now 40 years later, but it seemed pretty extreme and a little dangerous to me at the time. Nice list.

Of course not. Because I, GG, don't like anything. Somehow I manage to find 300 albums to buy every year across several different sub-genres but yet I hate everything. "Writhing sounds burrow through the infinite necropolis, charnel stars flicker their pale tentacles in these nameless spaces; vexatious spirals of monstrous cradles seep into the numerous graves, and there, beyond time, where the inconceivable oscillate... is the the place where... there is light without light" Ok that's cool man, but where's the riffs? How can you have "metal" without riffs? I see he wants $2.79 US for this which is more than reasonable. But if I were to pay an extra charge could I maybe get riffs with mine? The Vertebrae Fetish Totem one "Cult" with the golden skulls art is kind of interesting though. That one has guitars and drums and riffs and vocals and everything.

Welcome. It's so refreshing to see an actual metalhead join up to our little forum. We get so many younger folks that sign up but then it turns out they listen to nu-metal and mallcore and metalcore and some of these new hybrid Zoomer bands I don't even know what the fuck they're supposed to be, so then I have nothing to talk with them about. On the other hand, apparently you're into the more avant-garde and experimental (weird) end of the extreme metal spectrum, so I might not have much to converse with you about either. But at least I can respect you. Good luck with the label launch.

No, there don't seem to be too many Spanish words with a double-N but there are a bunch: innovación - innovation innato - innate innocuo - innocuous perenne - perennial innavegable - that cannot be navigated innecesaria - unnecessary innegable - undeniable innoble - ignoble innominado - nameless sinnúmero - innumerable pinnípedo - pinniped circunnavegar - circumnavigate connatural - similar in nature connivencia - connivance connotación - connotation connubial - pertaining to marriage ennegrecer - to blacken your death metal But yeah I see that Inanna isn't a Spanish word, but I figured since they're Chilean they'd pronounce the name of their band as if it were. As opposed to an Anglicized pronunciation we might use if we named our band Inanna, likely as you suggested "In - Anna" or something like that. Sorta like the way my wife could never pronounce Chipotle (Chee-POTE-lay) she Anglicized it into "Chi-pottle." Concilivm - A Monument in Darkness, Chilean goat metal 2022 Eternal Majesty - From War to Darkness, France 2003

Spanish is easy because unlike English the pronunciation of the individual letters and vowels never changes from word to word. Inanna would be pronounced phonetically: "e- NAH-na" The country Chile is pronounced "CHEE-lay" Inanna - Void of Unending Depths, Chile 2022. After all the void talk this turned out to be pretty good Chilelan death metal. The good doctor could have just said it was Chilean death metal and I would have known to just go listen. Might not be quite evil or filthy enough to go in my purchase pile, I'll have to give that some thought yet, but it's undeniably a very good album. Invocation - Attunement to Death, 2020, guess I'll keep the Chilean death theme rolling along this morning.

You're a stubborn bastard Doc Holiday. I think that could be why I like you so much. I can't argue with knowing that blades exist can sometimes be enough. I don't need to wait until my shoes are filling up with blood. Also can you believe this was as recently as 1981? Is that FFK&T record (1987) one of the ones you've kept from your previous life back before you converted to metallicism? You forgot to add your trademark "you won't like it." Actually I shouldn't say that, after a rocky start with the goofy songs at the beginning of this record, I'm kind of enjoying track 6 Drowned Dog Black Night. Shit I'm halfway to the end of this thing already, I might even make it all the way! The Surfin' USA cover is fucking hilarious! I know I'll never hear this again though. Drowned Dog Black Night Surfin' USA

Agreed on those two death metal albums, particularly DSR, but man that Yacøpsæ album is some primo powerviolence. Sounds a bit like a lot of the punky black metal and blackened crust I listen to as well during some of the slower parts (or slighty less fast parts maybe I should say) so that makes it doubly appealing. I want this but it seems all Bandcamp has for sale are 3 vinyl versions, no digital not even cd. Inane trivia: Yacøpsæ was founded in 1990 in the cultural environment of the local Hamburg Germany punk and squatting scene. The band name refers to the family name ("Jakobs") of the former singer of local band The DDL's. Yacøpsæ live at Saint Vitus Bar Brooklyn NY, May 26, 2016

Coraxul - Vihavirsiä Aamunkoin, Finland 2021 Nocturnal Sorcery - The Holy Law in Total Ruin, Finland 2022

positive

Well then it seems those kooky Americans must have corrupted the word void, because that's how it's used over here. A void can be any empty space, like if you have a tooth pulled this leaves a void where it used to be. A void with very specific dimensions. When someone close to you dies it leaves a void in your life. That kind of void would be a bit harder to measure, but I don't think it would be infinite. Void can also be used to mean the nothingness of space, but some scientists believe that our ever expanding universe actually has an outer edge where it ends. So technically even that void could theoretically have dimensions, even if we have no way to measure them at present. For me the problem with the universe being finite is how would one distinguish the void of outer space within our universe from the void beyond the boundaries of the known universe? But in conclusion I would suggest that the one lone attribute a void could possess would be dimension. Your blade response has flown right over me head. I have read it over several time but still have no idea what that's supposed to mean. I'm hung up on the part where you said "the very 'bladeness' is such that." But then I'm not a university graduate, there are clearly many things I don't understand, not just dissonance, atonality and odd time signatures. I would only point out that when we talk about the different types of blades, some cutting and some not (shoulder blades?) the black metal blade is one that's meant to cut. In fact it could be argued that as with most blades, its primary function is to cut. NP: Knife - The Eye of Infernal Wisdom, Finland 2021 Black Knife - Murder Season, Kentucky 2021

I've seen so many thousands of album covers it'd be impossible to pick one single favorite. But here are a few that I like a lot.