What's on your mind?

[markm]

2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

My folks in central NC got hit pretty hard - no power, wood stove for heat, put a bunch of water aside. I haven't heard back from them this morning but they should be fine even without electricity for a little bit. Up here in MA it was pretty tame, just some snow and rain this morning followed by warm enough temps to wipe out most of the accumulation we had from our snow last week. 

Same down here in Balt/DC region of MD.

[AlSymerz]

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

But of course it's also true that like Deadovic and Kuke there are many other mainstream metal fans who for various reasons dismiss black metal out of hand. They don't like it, are not open to it and don't want anything to do with it. To each his own.

But that's not true, I listened to Venom's Black Metal the other day

TBH while I do love hanging shit on black metal fans it's all done in fun and I wouldn't have a clue what actually makes metal black. But what I do know is that while I don't listen to every video link you post there is more crossover songs between your listening and mine than many others on here.

 

[navybsn]

43 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

 I wouldn't have a clue what actually makes metal black. 

 

Satan. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

[AlSymerz]

I've always known black metal to be unpainted steel. For as long as my old man had a welder and taught me to use it we've bought black metal for jobs that don't require the painted stuff.

[markm]

52 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

But that's not true, I listened to Venom's Black Metal the other day

TBH while I do love hanging shit on black metal fans it's all done in fun and I wouldn't have a clue what actually makes metal black. But what I do know is that while I don't listen to every video link you post there is more crossover songs between your listening and mine than many others on here.

 

If you listened to every song The General posted you wouldn't have any time for the music you actually like

[Dead1]

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I stick to the intense riffy headbangable black metal for the most part. Which is why my list of top bm albums always looks so different than even other black metal lists. There is for sure a shitload of boring and pretentious black metal happening out there. Personally though, I would definitely put Tsjuder into the riffy intense black metal category.

But of course it's also true that like Deadovic and Kuke there are many other mainstream metal fans who for various reasons dismiss black metal out of hand. They don't like it, are not open to it and don't want anything to do with it. To each his own. 

 

Desert Northern Hell

 

Even that song drops the riffy intensity ball for the chorus or whatever it is where they slow down but also remove all guts to it.

 

It's also about the overall vibe, production etc.  BM often sounds thin (despite blast beats) thanks to vocals, guitar tone and production. 

 

By the way on its own Tsjuder are OK as they incorporate thrash, speed and death metal riffs.    But even that album you posted doesn't sound in heavy or pummelling or riffy or often headbanging.  They also seem to include a gutless plod section on each song which kills intensity. 

 

It does sound more overtly evil than other genres.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

I can headbang at different speeds.

[AlSymerz]

20 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I can headbang at different speeds.

Slow and grandpa?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Hanneman, King and Araya

[AlSymerz]

Hmmm, one of them is dead and another recently retyred citing a big reason as the fact he could no longer headbang because of his old man neck injury. I think slow and grandpa was being polite

 

[Dead1]

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I can headbang at different speeds.

 

So can I.  Slow ploddy can be really moshy but it has to sound heavy as fuck.

[zackflag]

Anyone calling black metal thin, toothless or lacking intensity, isn't listening to the right black metal....

I've never heard a single thrash band with this kind of intensity, though I 100% expect Dead to claim otherwise 😉lol.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

11 hours ago, zackflag said:

Anyone calling black metal thin, toothless or lacking intensity, isn't listening to the right black metal...

I've never heard a single thrash band with this kind of intensity, though I 100% expect Dead to claim otherwise 😉lol.

 

Hey the man just doesn't like black metal and he's never said anything different from day one. There's no point in trying to convince him that black metal is heavy and intense if that's not how he perceives it. I tend to go for the particularly caustic, rabid and riffy black metal myself and I generally find it to be more intense than most death metal which is in turn much more intense than thrash, but that's just my opinion.

Convincing Deadly-do-Right that black metal is the highest, most intense form of metal would be like trying to convince me that Pantera was not absolute dog shit. Not gonna happen. And it's not like he's the only one, I've run into lots of people that like multiple other sub-genres of metal but yet completely dismiss black metal as worthless. And that's OK, it's all subjective. What fun would it be if we all liked the exact same shit?

 

[navybsn]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

Hey the man just doesn't like black metal and he's never said anything different from day one. There's no point in trying to convince him that black metal is heavy and intense if that's not how he perceives it. I tend to go for the particularly caustic, rabid and riffy black metal myself and I generally find it to be more intense than most death metal which is in turn much more intense than thrash, but that's just my opinion.

Convincing Deadly-do-Right that black metal is the highest, most intense form of metal would be like trying to convince me that Pantera was not absolute dog shit. Not gonna happen. And it's not like he's the only one, I've run into lots of people that like multiple other sub-genres of metal but yet completely dismiss black metal as worthless. And that's OK, it's all subjective. What fun would it be if we all liked the exact same shit?

 

I have to say that until a few years ago, 2015 maybe, I would have agreed with ol' Deadieboy. Most BM just didn't work for me. A few exceptions sure, but I found the vast majority to be shit. After it clicked in my head (or whatever you want to call it), my thoughts on those I had previously called garbage changed significantly. I'm thinking it was Baptism - V that changed my mind, but that seems a little late, so I'm probably wrong. Most of the stuff I now consider black metal that I enjoyed I didn't have classified as BM (Inquisition, Akercocke, Archgoat, Blasphemy....). BM was unlistenable, poorly recorded garage shit made by sad boys locked in their basement during apocalyptically frigid northern European winters. Shit like Gorgoroth - Under the Sign of Hell which has my vote for the worst recorded album in history (and I like Gorgoroth). I remember hearing Under the Sign of the Black Mark the first time and thought "what the fuck is this shit? Is something wrong with this CD?). Most if not all of the BM I liked before my epiphany if you will was fairly well recorded or at least sounded decipherable. These days, recording quality matters but doesn't bother me as much as it used to.

These days, I just like what I like and let people like what they like. If I find a record I think is really cool, I'll share it here or with the boys. If somebody enjoys it, cool, if not, cool. No skin of my weiner.

[AlSymerz]

Music can be intense in all forms, it's not exclusive to metal. Even the level of intensity is not exclusive to metal, but I do understand BM fans trying to cling to it, after all what else does the genre offer?

 

[SurgicalBrute]

I don't know...intense isn't really a word I associate with black metal. Despite completely disagreeing with his conclusion, which I think really just comes down to "I only like stuff with a quick pace", I honestly (hold onto your underwear here) actually agree with what Dead said a bit earlier that black metal is...at least a lot of the 2nd wave Scandinavian stuff is, more often than not, more about atmosphere than riffs, and a lot of it does tend have an, I would say intentionally, thin production. Doesn't mean it can't be riff heavy, but I don't think that's the primary goal of the genre

[zackflag]

I mean yeah..... I thought it was a pretty commonly held belief among black metal fans that black metal is more about atmosphere than riffs. Like, that should just go without saying. And I certainly don't look for intensity or brutality in black metal either. That's what death metal is for.

[SurgicalBrute]

I don't think that's what you were saying Zack, but emphasis on atmosphere over intensity and riffs appears to be at least in part, what Dead is saying he doesn't like about black metal, while Goatfucker 😜 ....err Goatmaster (man, I'm not going to ever get used to that new handle) was saying he likes intense, riff heavy black metal...or at least that's how I read it. I was agreeing with Dead on that particular point, that while there are obvious exceptions, as a whole it's definitely more about atmosphere over riffing

[GoatmasterGeneral]

I look for intensity, aggression and brutality in every kind of music and I always have, which is why I was so frustrated as a youth in the 70's becaue there wasn't much of that stuff to be found in 70's radio rock, not until they invented punk and metal. Now it's true that I did buy records and listen to music as a teen in the mid 70's, but my hands were tied because I had no choice but to to pick from what was commercially available at the time. Which meant I was chronically frustrated that besides maybe Sabbath the rest of those bands just weren't heavy enough for me, enough of the time like I wanted them to be. So I experienced a lot of buyers remorse back then.

But that's me, I'm not entirely sure why I need things to be so heavy and aggressive and intense so much of the time, I guess I'm just fucked up in the head that way. Not that every single thing I listen to has to be the most intense and the most brutal thing possible at all times. I am human, I do have different moods 'n shit, there are times now and then when I can enjoy some mellower stuff that's not brutal or aggressive. But the more aggressive stuff is clearly what I gravitate toward the strongest and feel the most comfortable with. I find the heavier and more intense the music is, it actually has a cathartic, calming effect on me.

So while it's true that most black metal I sample doesn't make the cut, usually because it's not harsh or riffy enough, (to be fair most of the death metal I check out doesn't cut it either) fortunately I do find that there is more than enough riffy, harsh, agressive bm being put out there these days in the current metalverse climate to keep me quite busy. Sure, it's true that in general black metal can often be more about atmosphere over riffs than death metal will be, but this is certainly not always the case, and if you look I assure you that you can find whichever flavor you prefer. There are also many bands that blur the lines between black and death and incorporate elements of both which pleases me to no end. And even though I have softened up my stance on atmo-black these last few years and I've been giving it more of a chance, I'm still basically only interested in the most aggressive 5% extreme end of the atmo-black spectrum and overall stuff with the atmo tag ends up being a very small percentage of the black metal I buy anyway. 

I would also say that while death metal can obviously be quite 'heavy' a lot of it is in no way intense imho and it can all become a homogenized blur at times and the blast beats and gutteral growls can become almost mundane after awhile to the point where it can easily lul me to sleep. That's why I'm really only looking for the caveman death metal and the evil gnarly filth because I find that stuff to be intense enough for me, (regardless of tempo) while most of that rapid fire mile-a-minute dm by the numbers stuff while it might be aggressive, I really don't find much of it all that interesting or intense. To say that all death metal is equally powerful and intense is simply not true imo.

But when you get right down to it I really can't see how anyone can make many valid generalizations about all black metal or all death metal anyway. Because they've both gotten so large now with thousands of records coming out each year in each of these sub-genres, that it really makes attempting to make blanket statements about all black or all death metal virtually impossible, because there is so much variation in sound from band to band. One general statement I feel I can make though is that black metal seems more intereesting, at least to me, because there is much more variation in sound from band to band. Not sure why everyone gets so fixated on 2nd wave Nordic bm, that is a large percentage of the total bm pie, but there is more than just that to be found out there if you're looking for it. Death metal on the other hand seems to have maybe a half a dozen different main templates these days with almost every band seeming to conform to one or another of them, making the sub-genre feel much more restrictive at least to me.

There is progressive death metal I suppose and tech death with a lot of bands I've never even heard because we all know I can't do progressive or tech. So it's possible there could be a bit more variation happening over in that sector, but I wouldn't know because I'm only focused on the filthy caveman stuff. And that's because basically all the prog or tech death I've ever heard is not nearly aggressive or brutal enough for me. Seems to me they're much too quick to sacrifice the aggression and brutality to be 'interesting' or 'different' or 'experimental' and that's a trade-off I'm not willing to make.

At the end of the day though different people are gonna hear what they hear, and think what they think, metalheads never agree on anything and that's fine because none of that affects me or what I'm listening to or the enjoyment I derive from it. You do you, and I'll do me.

 

And Surge buddy, feel free to call me Whitenoise or WN I think by now they've mostly figured out that means me.

[Thatguy]

19 hours ago, zackflag said:

Anyone calling black metal thin, toothless or lacking intensity, isn't listening to the right black metal....

I've never heard a single thrash band with this kind of intensity, though I 100% expect Dead to claim otherwise 😉lol.

Long winded debate - a fun read as is usual when we go round this dead cat - but just listen to this and that should win the argument. Thanks Zack.

 

5 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Music can be intense in all forms, it's not exclusive to metal. Even the level of intensity is not exclusive to metal, but I do understand BM fans trying to cling to it, after all what else does the genre offer?

 

I thought it was my role to be the dick here.😄But seriously, KK you were correct right up until you were mean to BM.

[AlSymerz]

I was just teasing BM, I wasn't trying to be mean.

I didn't mean to offend poor BM, I still want to be friends!

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Better stop and pick up some flowers and perfume, maybe a little something sweet to nibble on, see if you can make it up to her. I'm sure she'll take you back if you play your cards right.

 

[AlSymerz]

I hope she plays a card game I'm good at!

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Think she plays Spades.

[AlSymerz]

At least its not Gin, I could never get into that.