
Night’s Nirvana: On Norwegian Black Metal - tintinnabula
https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/nights-nirvana/
======
AndrewKemendo
I've been a Black Metal fan since first hearing Bathory in the early 90s [1]
and have met maybe one other black metal fan ever in person outside of a show.

Two major stories that I have about Black Metal scene that might be
illuminating.

I had heard through the grapevine that there was an obscure black metal
festival deep in the woods somewhere. After digging around I found the
Shadowoods metal festival [2] which turned out to be an invite only
philosophically anarchist inspired one night show, now a two day festival of
the most obscure "kvlt" black metal bands around. I never got the chance to go
but from what I understand the best of the genre comes out to play and members
of the top black metal bands in the world come to attend.

The other story is about people's reaction to black metal. I typically wear a
metal shirt around, even as an undershirt and whenever someone sees one they
often inquire about it. I'm even wearing my favorite Bathory shirt prominently
on TechCrunch [3]! Anyway someone came up and asked me about Bathory and I
enthusiastically went into the whole tale about countess Bathory bathing in
blood [4] and why it inspired the band. At the end of the story the person
looked totally horrified and basically turned and walked away. Typically
happens when describing any black metal band.

[1]
[https://youtu.be/OJeLYvc7sXk?t=8m46s](https://youtu.be/OJeLYvc7sXk?t=8m46s)

[2]
[https://shadowwoodsmetalfest.com/about/](https://shadowwoodsmetalfest.com/about/)

[3]
[https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/batch17...](https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/batch17.jpg?w=1290)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory)

~~~
berntb
I have a bit of a trauma, regarding this whole niche thing.

10-15 years ago, I used to tell people about Meshuggah -- something like "My
favorite of all time. It is the greatest thing since sliced <Cough>. Think of
it as like modern jazz, but played a bit faster and heavier. I'm not that
musical, I have to listen to a song dozens and dozens of times to get half of
the stuff happening (I think, I probably get less). It is just efficient, you
listen one minute and you get at least two or three minutes of other music."

They looked at me as if I was an idiot or was trolling them. (Both true,
arguably. :-) )

Today, half of the university kids around where I am now seems to know more
about Meshuggah than me. Literally. For an old favorite band.

Sigh, it is hard being a hipster when your stuff gets mainstream.

:-)

------
3131s
Norwegian black metal gets all the attention because of the church burnings,
suicides, and murders, but musically there were much better scenes, IMO. The
two that I like are Greek and Czech black metal, each of which had their own
distinct sound.

You could not pay me to listen to Burzum. Mayhem hit on some nice atmospheres
early on, as did Darkthrone though I prefer their first album (which was death
metal), but other more popular bands from Norway like Enslaved, Satyricon,
Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth, etc. never did anything for me. A few of the
more experimental bands from Norway like Ulver and Arcturus are worth checking
out, but all in all black metal is not my cup of tea :)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
> You could not pay me to listen to Burzum

There's no room for Nazis in metal.

~~~
kbart
_" There's no room for Nazis in metal."_

What does ones political political alignment has to do with music?

~~~
chriswoodford
There's something to be said for the question of if one can separate the art
from the artist. There's a lot of debate about it in the realm of culture
theory.

That said, I've been on stage in Germany when Neo-Nazis tried to enter the
venue to attend the show. The looks of legitimate distress on the attendees
faces are something I won't forget. Personally, I find it really hard to
separate art from artist and artist from political alignment.

------
smcl
This is a really good subject - there's an interesting documentary about it
called Until The Light Takes Us, which I highly recommend:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_Light_Takes_Us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Until_the_Light_Takes_Us)

~~~
chriswoodford
I found that Until the Light Takes Us was a bit skewed in their take on the
scene. I feel like the creators had a clear thesis and highlighted only the
information that backed their particular POV.

I would recommend Lords of Chaos first, as a primer:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Chaos_(book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Chaos_\(book\))

Before digging into Until the Light Takes Us.

~~~
berntb
How do you guys see the interviews with Fenriz? I think most of them are on
Youtube now.

He have a special place in my personal music history. I started to listen to a
bit extreme metal in the 90s and was a bit shocked by my own taste. From the
early Metallica to death metal, it got steadily more extreme.

The limit was Darkthrone -- I got an album and (at least at the time) I felt
physically sick if I used headphones! Years later, I saw that series of
youtube interviews with Fenriz, discussing the music. He was so knowledgeable
and, more or less, dismissed most genres I love in metal (Meshuggah, Nile,
etc) as not really that interesting. :-)

These days, I can enjoy the early Darkthrone stuff, but it was a funny reality
check to realize early that I'm not really that metal, I just like the music.
:-)

~~~
chriswoodford
I've always thought Fenriz comes across just like any elitist music nerd. He
seems to have an interesting sense of humour, which I find kind of endearing.

The first album, for me, that gave me that physically sick feeling like you
describe was Portal's Vexovoid record. We can debate whether or not Portal
fits into the general category of Black Metal, but damn that album is just
frightening.

~~~
kup0
There is something perplexing about Portal in that way that only a few other
bands (Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord) have been able to match IMO. I don't
know that I've reached the "physically sick" state but I do find myself
transported into something akin to a Lovecraftian world and sense of darkness.
Some records, while enjoyable, can be physically exhausting for sure.

Something about Portal reaches deep. It's odd because I'm not necessarily a
huge fan of their music in terms of just listening to it as music, but I like
how there's something exhaustively serene (in a twisted way) about the
atmosphere, like a dark meditation/trance almost.

~~~
chriswoodford
Very well put!

Portal's whole aesthetic plus the music really creates this inexplicable
atmosphere, what I picture as if I had been tapped into the degrading mental
state of Jack Torrance.

Deathspell Omega is a band that I can't get enough of. I remember listening to
Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice during an overnight drive from Halifax, NS
to Sydney, NS and just experiencing moments of fear or sheer terror. Something
that I can't say that any other album has done for me.

The new Deathspell Omega record is brilliant. IMHO they are at the forefront
of current Black Metal.

------
fermigier
The word "satanic" or "satanism" appears 10 times in the article, several
times in the context of black metal acts. From what I had gathered from
watching the couple of documentaries and books mentioned in the comments, the
Norwegian black metal acts that made headlines for their criminal acts were
not "satanists" as they rejected christianity altogether.

