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As a matter of fact that riff has been dropped effortlessly into this song by Gamma Gay pardon Gamma Ray (minute 2.20):

Apparently Gamma Ray cleared Youtube of unofficial copyright violating videos, so I had to rely on this sped-up remix... Never mind, the riff is there.

 

I'm not sure how or why Gamma Ray would factor into a discussion of death metal origins...

 

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Eheh see? Black Sabbath links everything! And it's all contiguous. 

There are no separation degrees. It's all linked somehow! Gamma Ray? Shared the same label as Celtic Frost (NOISE)...

...and most of all Helloween appeared on the "DEATH METAL" Noise Compilation alongside HELLHAMMER and Running Wild. 

So.......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Metal_(split_album)

 

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Eheh see? Black Sabbath links everything! And it's all contiguous. 

There are no separation degrees. It's all linked somehow! Gamma Ray? Shared the same label as Celtic Frost (NOISE)...

...and most of all Helloween appeared on the "DEATH METAL" Noise Compilation alongside HELLHAMMER and Running Wild. 

So.......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Metal_(split_album)

 

 

I'm well aware of the split, which had no death metal bands on it, lol. Kind of like Earache's "grindcore" DVD that mostly featured death metal bands.

 

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  • 1 year later...
On 19.3.2017 at 9:00 AM, Skull_Kollektor said:

 it can't be denied that in those days the "black metal" label was applied to Mercyful Fate too

It can. I was there. Nobody talked about "black metal" (and I was reading NME, Melody Maker and whatnot with a fucking magnifying glass at the time). It was just an album title from the previous year ... and it was most certainly nobody who compared Venom to Mercyful Fate. Two vastly different bands. There's also the fact that Kim left MF to form his own band because he felt like going more "metal" whereas the rest of MF wanted to go more "rock'n'roll". To be honest, it's a complete mystery to me why anyone would lump Mercyful Fate in with Bathory, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. No, I'm not buying any musical theory based rationalization made 20+ years after the fact. 

That being said, I'm a sucker for a band called Exciter (who's later been labelled "speed metal" but that ain't right either) who released the seminal album Heavy Metal Maniac in 1983. Then there was "the Belgian Motorhead", a band called Killer, that made some waves with their "Ready For Hell" album in 1980. I'd also recommend checking out Raven ...  their 1983 album All For One is pretty good "trad metal". As for the black stuff, there's been some debate whether the US gig Blessed Death belong in this genre, or rather their album Kill Or Be Killed from 1985. I don't think so myself ... but opinions are divided.

 

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It can. I was there. Nobody talked about "black metal" (and I was reading NME, Melody Maker and whatnot with a fucking magnifying glass at the time). It was just an album title from the previous year ... and it was most certainly nobody who compared Venom to Mercyful Fate. Two vastly different bands. There's also the fact that Kim left MF to form his own band because he felt like going more "metal" whereas the rest of MF wanted to go more "rock'n'roll". To be honest, it's a complete mystery to me why anyone would lump Mercyful Fate in with Bathory, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. No, I'm not buying any musical theory based rationalization made 20+ years after the fact. 
That being said, I'm a sucker for a band called Exciter (who's later been labelled "speed metal" but that ain't right either) who released the seminal album Heavy Metal Maniac in 1983. Then there was "the Belgian Motorhead", a band called Killer, that made some waves with their "Ready For Hell" album in 1980. I'd also recommend checking out Raven ...  their 1983 album All For One is pretty good "trad metal". As for the black stuff, there's been some debate whether the US gig Blessed Death belong in this genre, or rather their album Kill Or Be Killed from 1985. I don't think so myself ... but opinions are divided.
 
The label may not have been applied to them specifically at the time, but they still fit the sound. The largest disconnect for people seems to be that there isn't much in the way of a direct lineage to show how big of an influence Mercyful Fate was to other black metal bands (like there is with Venom leading to Bathory, Bulldozer, Sodom, etc...), but that's simply because nobody could keep up with Mercyful Fate in terms of musicality at the time. It wasn't until the end of the first wave and the start of the second wave when all but the most basic of their techniques would surface in black metal again, seen with the likes of Tormentor, Mortuary Drape, Masters Hammer, Grand Belial's Key, Emperor, Root, etc...

They may have approached the sound in a vastly different way from Venom, but that doesn't exclude them from the black metal sound that they helped to create.

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11 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:

how big of an influence Mercyful Fate was to other black metal bands

We could probably dance back and forth with the arguments here ... like how big of an influence MF were to everybody ... not just BM bands exclusively ... which would lead us, well, nowhere really. However, being "right" means nothing to me. At the end of the day, what remains is the fact that they came out of left field and impressed the shit out of all metal lovers. They still do.

So let's get back to the point at hand, which is "trad metal" and worthy bands in this genre.

The big names need no particular promotion, as they are easy enough to find (and be told about) but there are some little ones that are (or can be) delightful to come across ... and one of my eternal favourites in this respect is Dirty Tricks from 1975:

 

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We could probably dance back and forth with the arguments here ... like how big of an influence MF were to everybody ... not just BM bands exclusively ... which would lead us, well, nowhere really. However, being "right" means nothing to me. At the end of the day, what remains is the fact that they came out of left field and impressed the shit out of all metal lovers. They still do.
So let's get back to the point at hand, which is "trad metal" and worthy bands in this genre.
The big names need no particular promotion, as they are easy enough to find (and be told about) but there are some little ones that are (or can be) delightful to come across ... and one of my eternal favourites in this respect is Dirty Tricks from 1975:
 


I'm not arguing influence, rather where their sound itself falls within the spectrum. You can hear Mercyful Fate's influence echoing through all kinds of artists throughout several genres, power metal, heavy metal, progressive metal, gothic metal, and (of course) black metal, but it's not as though they were all of those things themselves. Celtic Frost might be the best example of this, since there isn't a metal genre (at least on the more extreme side of things) that wasn't somehow touched by their sound. To use a more recognizable example, few would dispute the massive influence that Slayer had upon death metal, but few would also say that they were within that field themselves.

I know that this isn't your perspective, but a reductionist view of metal has spread like cancer through internet keyboard warriors for the last several years, which tends to distort perceptions about what the sound is all about and makes it so new fans kind of miss the point. These same people seem to think that since Mercyful Fate's albums involve actual compositional and instrumental skill to perform with a unique singer, and their songs don't sound like they were recorded in a tin can, they're somehow written out of the history of a genre they helped create.

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11 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:

distort perceptions about what the sound is all about

 

Fenriz once mused a little on the standards and requirements of BM, according to him ... simplicity, low production values, organic sound, DIY attitudes at every level, etc. ... and I was reminded of the Dogma 95 movement that Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier started, having rather rigorous (and outspoken anti-Hollywood) requirements to what sort of cinema they were envisioning. They wanted to strip the medium of film down to its bare essentials, focusing on the storytelling above all else. 

One of the "dogmas" was that of appropriating and putting to use anything that would serve to enhance the creative process. For a while, there were certain artists who would call black metal a "native Norwegian art form" ... which is a little strong, in my opinion, but I can certainly see the point they were trying to make. Insofar there is a metal band from Norway, it's supposedly a 75% chance that it's a black metal act, by direct form or by association to the "dogmas" that were laid down during the 90s. 

The creative ethics of the black metal movement reflects those of the punk rock movement that preceded it by a decade and some. This, in my opinion, is indisputable. The international cassette-exchange network was a typical "punk" thing (and in many ways a precursor to the internet based musical dissipation thing which is going on right now). I have no knowledge about to what extent this was happening in the earlier "proto-metal" era ... but I know for a fact that during my high school years, if one person had an LP with, say, Kiss or Budgie or Deep Purple, this meant that everybody had it, by way of making cassette copies. (Which of course did little for record sales, in the bigger picture, but it helped immensely in terms of "spreading the word".) 

Speaking of "memes" has become quite common these days ... but originally, a meme was defined as the lowest amount of information needed to transport an idea. (Defined by Richard Dawkins in 1974, I think it was.) The carrier medium for a meme can be just about anything ... but in terms of music -- unless you're good at reading notes -- there obviously need to be some kind of recording in the picture. The question is what level of "quality" you need. Or, indeed, how you define "quality" to begin with. Interesting sounds may be geek stuff for music nerds, like myself, but there is another school of thought that seems to be after "sound quality" along a completely different axis of parameters. (Typically the kind of people who are into gold speaker cables and stereo equipment that costs more than an average family car.) Funny thing is how in the 80s those people were into "digital mastering" whereas 30 years after, they are impressed by analog recordings. (Accept has a song on their latest album called Analog Man which touches upon this in a funny way.) But high-end equipment doesn't do shit for artistic quality, which was the point of both Fenriz's musings and the Dogma 95 boys. If anything, it distorts and obscures the actual artistry.

Oh well. This is WAY outside of the original focus of this thread ... but it'd be interesting to hear what you make of the Blessed Death song a little further up (in relation to BM) ... and also the Dirty Tricks song (last one as an example of trad metal). 

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Fenriz once mused a little on the standards and requirements of BM, according to him ... simplicity, low production values, organic sound, DIY attitudes at every level, etc. ... and I was reminded of the Dogma 95 movement that Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier started, having rather rigorous (and outspoken anti-Hollywood) requirements to what sort of cinema they were envisioning. They wanted to strip the medium of film down to its bare essentials, focusing on the storytelling above all else. 
One of the "dogmas" was that of appropriating and putting to use anything that would serve to enhance the creative process. For a while, there were certain artists who would call black metal a "native Norwegian art form" ... which is a little strong, in my opinion, but I can certainly see the point they were trying to make. Insofar there is a metal band from Norway, it's supposedly a 75% chance that it's a black metal act, by direct form or by association to the "dogmas" that were laid down during the 90s. 
The creative ethics of the black metal movement reflects those of the punk rock movement that preceded it by a decade and some. This, in my opinion, is indisputable. The international cassette-exchange network was a typical "punk" thing (and in many ways a precursor to the internet based musical dissipation thing which is going on right now). I have no knowledge about to what extent this was happening in the earlier "proto-metal" era ... but I know for a fact that during my high school years, if one person had an LP with, say, Kiss or Budgie or Deep Purple, this meant that everybody had it, by way of making cassette copies. (Which of course did little for record sales, in the bigger picture, but it helped immensely in terms of "spreading the word".) 
Speaking of "memes" has become quite common these days ... but originally, a meme was defined as the lowest amount of information needed to transport an idea. (Defined by Richard Dawkins in 1974, I think it was.) The carrier medium for a meme can be just about anything ... but in terms of music -- unless you're good at reading notes -- there obviously need to be some kind of recording in the picture. The question is what level of "quality" you need. Or, indeed, how you define "quality" to begin with. Interesting sounds may be geek stuff for music nerds, like myself, but there is another school of thought that seems to be after "sound quality" along a completely different axis of parameters. (Typically the kind of people who are into gold speaker cables and stereo equipment that costs more than an average family car.) Funny thing is how in the 80s those people were into "digital mastering" whereas 30 years after, they are impressed by analog recordings. (Accept has a song on their latest album called Analog Man which touches upon this in a funny way.) But high-end equipment doesn't do shit for artistic quality, which was the point of both Fenriz's musings and the Dogma 95 boys. If anything, it distorts and obscures the actual artistry.
Oh well. This is WAY outside of the original focus of this thread ... but it'd be interesting to hear what you make of the Blessed Death song a little further up (in relation to BM) ... and also the Dirty Tricks song (last one as an example of trad metal). 
Fenriz also included Mercyful Fate on his Best of Old-School Black Metal compilation, so perhaps their production standards weren't outside the norm in his eyes. I personally don't see why black metal and a clean, clear production job can't coincide, it's not as though hearing all of the details cheapens the experience. Some bands benefit from a less clear aesthetic, but plenty (Merrimack, Lunar Aurora, Averse Sefira, etc...) can make that full sound work to their advantage.

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  • 1 month later...

We got a little stuck in the Mercyful Fate thing.

Be that as it may, say any motherfucker whatever they like, MF is "traditional metal" in the best possible way. I'm saying this in an age where even Iced Earth is considered traditional metal ... and fully remembering what a kick it was to discover Melissa for the first time, in 1983. (It might have been 1984 though, when I first heard it. It gets fuzzy trying to remember all the shit from that long ago. Nor does it much matter anymore.) Perhaps the "message" gets confused with the "music" ... because Melissa was radical in its blatant "satanic" style for its time ... even though that path had been explored quite a lot before, only not as musically satisfying. A band like Witchfynde comes to mind ... although most will probably say they were NWOBHM.  

Here's something I think is "classic" in the traditional metal sense:

 

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