BLACK METAL

[Andrew McIntosh]

Two albums I've been obsessively listening to lately. Mysticum's "Planet Satan". Great, rather punk-simple sounding riffs and a nice misanthropic streak, as any decent Black Metal band should have (I get a bit put off by the word "Lucifer", though. Personal thing, as Lucifer is the "angel of light", it sounds too positive to me). And I've come to the conclusion that all Black Metal bands should have drum machines instead of real drummers. Drum machines sound better. You can do more with them. You don't have to bother with big, bulky crap on stage. Human drummers suck. What's next is to get synthesisers to sound like distorted guitars then you can ditch the last relics of rock and roll and have Black Metal as the completely non-human noise it was always supposed to be.

And Subklinik's "Musik For Dekomposition". A complete pastiche of Brighter Death Now's earlier stuff and it's brilliant. Relaxing comfort music. Basic Death Industrial. Fucking love it.

[AXNAAR]

I've come to the conclusion that all Black Metal bands should have drum machines instead of real drummers. Drum machines sound better. You can do more with them. You don't have to bother with big, bulky crap on stage. Human drummers suck. What's next is to get synthesisers to sound like distorted guitars then you can ditch the last relics of rock and roll and have Black Metal as the completely non-human noise it was always supposed to be

Controversial opinion! Would have to strongly disagree with you - black metal for my taste should be rough around the edges, not mechanical and in perfect time - save that for dance music. Can you imagine 'Under a Funeral Moon' with drum machine? The drums are one element that makes that album perfect. I find it funny also imagining morbid black metal guy sitting down with his drum machine instruction book and programming his beats.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

I've come to the conclusion that all Black Metal bands should have drum machines instead of real drummers. Drum machines sound better. You can do more with them. You don't have to bother with big, bulky crap on stage. Human drummers suck. What's next is to get synthesisers to sound like distorted guitars then you can ditch the last relics of rock and roll and have Black Metal as the completely non-human noise it was always supposed to be

Controversial opinion! Would have to strongly disagree with you - black metal for my taste should be rough around the edges, not mechanical and in perfect time - save that for dance music. Can you imagine 'Under a Funeral Moon' with drum machine? The drums are one element that makes that album perfect. I find it funny also imagining morbid black metal guy sitting down with his drum machine instruction book and programming his beats.

It all depends on type of black metal. If you listen to something like Mors summa - Europa Europae you will find an album which is certainly not "perfect and in perfect time", and probably no one sat down and programmed too many beats either. And there is in fact entire traditions of drum machine use in black metal (the 90s Greek scene with the PAH-PAH-PAH-PAH-drums of early Rotting Christ, Thou Art Lord etc). One major advantage is of course that you don't have to rehearse in the same way, and also that you get rid of the drummer - usually the worst guy in any given band.

That being said, I generally prefer very organic stuff. To me good black metal is closer to folk music than industrial. I don't really care at all for the "inhuman" element, and these days I generally like the "Ukranian-nazi-in-full-battle-armour" type far more than "bitter scandinavian singing about his broken heart and how he hates everyone" type. But I still think drum machine use can be great (like in Mysticum). The "perfection" is easily offset by awful (=great) sound quality.

[AXNAAR]

I've come to the conclusion that all Black Metal bands should have drum machines instead of real drummers. Drum machines sound better. You can do more with them. You don't have to bother with big, bulky crap on stage. Human drummers suck. What's next is to get synthesisers to sound like distorted guitars then you can ditch the last relics of rock and roll and have Black Metal as the completely non-human noise it was always supposed to be

Controversial opinion! Would have to strongly disagree with you - black metal for my taste should be rough around the edges, not mechanical and in perfect time - save that for dance music. Can you imagine 'Under a Funeral Moon' with drum machine? The drums are one element that makes that album perfect. I find it funny also imagining morbid black metal guy sitting down with his drum machine instruction book and programming his beats.

It all depends on type of black metal. If you listen to something like Mors summa - Europa Europae you will find an album which is certainly not "perfect and in perfect time", and probably no one sat down and programmed too many beats either. And there is in fact entire traditions of drum machine use in black metal (the 90s Greek scene with the PAH-PAH-PAH-PAH-drums of early Rotting Christ, Thou Art Lord etc). One major advantage is of course that you don't have to rehearse in the same way, and also that you get rid of the drummer - usually the worst guy in any given band.

That being said, I generally prefer very organic stuff. To me good black metal is closer to folk music than industrial. I don't really care at all for the "inhuman" element, and these days I generally like the "Ukranian-nazi-in-full-battle-armour" type far more than "bitter scandinavian singing about his broken heart and how he hates everyone" type. But I still think drum machine use can be great (like in Mysticum). The "perfection" is easily offset by awful (=great) sound quality.

I guess it depends on your definition of black metal, for me 80's and early 90's style is the only true way. Might be confusing electric drum pads for drum machine on Mors Summa - not too keen on that style of bm anyway. Mysticum could be above average if they didn't have drum machine - I was waiting for the man that programmed them to get bored and add clapping hands or barking dog effect in there - far too close to dance music drums for me. Pushing a little button hundreds of times is a very poor substitute for hitting a full drum kit and playing with a band.

[Yrjö-Koskinen]

I guess it depends on your definition of black metal, for me 80's and early 90's style is the only true way. Might be confusing electric drum pads for drum machine on Mors Summa - not too keen on that style of bm anyway. Mysticum could be above average if they didn't have drum machine - I was waiting for the man that programmed them to get bored and add clapping hands or barking dog effect in there - far too close to dance music drums for me. Pushing a little button hundreds of times is a very poor substitute for hitting a full drum kit and playing with a band.

I have never had more than a passing interest in the 80s stuff. Obviously Venom, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer etc all have a couple of nice songs, but my interest in black metal has nothing to do with them and never had. If I want old rock music I'll go with Maiden or UFO. ;) Even in the mid-90s, when I was so tRuE that I couldn't even listen to stuff like King Diamond without finding it "like extremely gay", I still never had a problem with synthesizers or drum machines. That being said, I think "drum machine black metal" and black metal with live drummers are sort of different animals altogether. I could list a long row of demos that sound great precisely due to the shitty drum machine, where a real drummer would have added nothing and made stuff much blander. Then again, obviously many albums would have been terrible with a drum machine.

The key is that the drum machine shouldn't just be a substitute for the drummer, but a key element of sound in and of itself (on purpose or by mistake). I think Mysticum, with the techno style bass drum on the first track of In The Streams of Inferno, is a case in point. But it's a free hemisphere, and in this particular case I think everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[Zeno Marx]

Obviously Venom, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer etc all have a couple of nice songs

heavy statement

[Peterson]

Obviously Venom, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer etc all have a couple of nice songs

heavy statement

Best quote I've heard all day.

Oi binge-

Condemned '84 "The Boots Go Marching In" - Timeless classic that manages to appeal to the bonehead crowd and "traditional" skins, while still riling up the left-wing sort that are really just punks with shaved heads. Heavy guitar sound with catchy riffs and no filler. How could you dislike this?

Combat '84 "Orders Of The Day" - Compilation with as far as I know, all their recordings up to a point. Again, like the above, heavy yet catchy and melodic. Also another band that seems to stir up controversy with each mention. I'd heard Chris Martin was on the right side of the spectrum, but the guy died in southeast Asia from drug-related health problems. "Interesting" discrepancy there, but they kicked ass nonetheless. I once put on "Rapist" and "Right To Choose" at a punk party and found out that punks can be realllllyyy touchy about song lyrics!

The Last Resort "A Way Of Life: Skinhead Anthems" - Another compilation of all this band's stuff through I think the late '80's. Sloppy, yet charming, with riffs that tend to be perfect every time, and a drumming style not heard enough in Oi; simple old-school punk beats but fucking hard-hitting. Roi's vocals are a bit drunken-sounding at times, but he sounds goddamned furious, and when he doesn't, utterly triumphant. Who wants to start a band with me that sounds like The Last Resort meets Hellhammer??

4-Skins were one of my favorite bands as an underage idiot, but now I'm realizing I only like the recordings with Gary Hodges on vocals - intense and aggressive as a Dr. Marten in your crotch. "Evil" has got to be one of the best Oi/Punk/Hardcore songs ever. The other stuff just sounds really cockney and is the sort of thing that liberal punks might use as an example of why they dislike Oi besides the fact that they're pussies. Oh well, at least some of the tunes have endured.

Iron Cross "Hated And Proud" - What can you say? The USA's foremost Oi band, and one of the first skinhead bands I ever got into. I like the fact that they used a distortion pedal on the guitar, using the melodies of English-style punk/Oi with the nastiness of US hardcore. Good shit if you're like me and want a little sloppiness in your hard music. I'm a big Agnostic Front fan, but they never did a version of "Crucified" that matched up to the original, and "Fight 'Em All" is another one of the top ten best Oi songs around. Apparently they have more recent recordings and still play live, but I'm way out of the loop on that.

Oh, and FUCK Vanity!! Any "Oi" that's praised in Vice magazine...well, let's just say that any skinhead knows better. Sounds like paint-by-numbers old-school punk with one of those retarded powerviolence "caveman" vocalists. "You can fuck right off!" I will, then, and go listen to some better shit with my beer, thanks. This is the kind of shit SHARPS listen to.

[Andrew McIntosh]

I've come to the conclusion that all Black Metal bands should have drum machines instead of real drummers. Drum machines sound better. You can do more with them. You don't have to bother with big, bulky crap on stage. Human drummers suck. What's next is to get synthesisers to sound like distorted guitars then you can ditch the last relics of rock and roll and have Black Metal as the completely non-human noise it was always supposed to be

Controversial opinion! Would have to strongly disagree with you -

Yea, I know, and that's cool. I wouldn't expect it to happen. I just like obscene extremes. Still, Striborg managed to sound very rough around the edges with a drum machine. Leviathan managed to make it work, too. And I always thought it redundant that Ildjarn bothered to use real drums when the end result was pretty much as mechanical as it could sound.

[Andrew McIntosh]

A  mummified prog rock and goth rock project wrapped in black metal bandages.

Hm, maybe, although you make it sound like Cradle Of Filth there. I can understand that view, I suppose Lurker Of Chalice did take his less traditional BM moments into fullness. But I'd still class Leviathan as Black Metal. He could kick out the jams and fucking blast when he wanted to.

I'd say with Ildjarn's drum sound it's how it's recorded. Through a tin can and string directly into a four track who's heads are never cleaned. That's not a complaint.

[Fluid Fetish]

I guess it depends on your definition of black metal, for me 80's and early 90's style is the only true way. Might be confusing electric drum pads for drum machine on Mors Summa - not too keen on that style of bm anyway. Mysticum could be above average if they didn't have drum machine - I was waiting for the man that programmed them to get bored and add clapping hands or barking dog effect in there - far too close to dance music drums for me. Pushing a little button hundreds of times is a very poor substitute for hitting a full drum kit and playing with a band.

I have never had more than a passing interest in the 80s stuff. Obviously Venom, Celtic Frost, Hellhammer etc all have a couple of nice songs, but my interest in black metal has nothing to do with them and never had. If I want old rock music I'll go with Maiden or UFO. ;) Even in the mid-90s, when I was so tRuE that I couldn't even listen to stuff like King Diamond without finding it "like extremely gay", I still never had a problem with synthesizers or drum machines. That being said, I think "drum machine black metal" and black metal with live drummers are sort of different animals altogether. I could list a long row of demos that sound great precisely due to the shitty drum machine, where a real drummer would have added nothing and made stuff much blander. Then again, obviously many albums would have been terrible with a drum machine.

The key is that the drum machine shouldn't just be a substitute for the drummer, but a key element of sound in and of itself (on purpose or by mistake). I think Mysticum, with the techno style bass drum on the first track of In The Streams of Inferno, is a case in point. But it's a free hemisphere, and in this particular case I think everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Wow, some controversial opinions here indeed haha. Mysticum, the band that literally founded industrial-black metal as a sub-subgenre "could be above average if they didn't have a drum machine".  Definitely have to disagree with this one as part of the charm/importance of these types of bands using a drum machine is to achieve a cold/mechanical/rhythmic sound in my opinion, although I know the techno beat percussion sound is cheesy or shitty sounding to a lot of people out there but I like it. You also have a genius band like Diapsiquir that uses drum machines and real drums, on VIRUS STN especially and sometimes in the same song.

80's black metal has a few good songs? Being too true in the 90's to listen to King Diamond?! Yikes....also:

"I don't really care at all for the "inhuman" element, and these days I generally like the "Ukranian-nazi-in-full-battle-armour" type far more than "bitter scandinavian singing about his broken heart and how he hates everyone" type.

Nothing personal at all, but this has to be one of the most silly and shallow assessments of black metal I've ever heard. Agreed that most black metal is silly but when I read this I actually laughed.

Diapsiquir is my favorite industrial black metal band easily, but Blacklodge, Neo Inferno 262, some Cloak of Altering, Reptile Womb/Below, Diabolicum all play the style very, very well.

Ildjarn also didn't always use real drums, on the Ildjarn/Nidhogg split LP most if not all the songs are definitely a drum machine and it still works perfectly, easily my favorite Ildjarn other then the demos and the first self titled LP.

[Dr Alex]

Open new topic please!!!

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I have edited the messages from playlist topic under this thread.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

What's next is to get synthesisers to sound like distorted guitars then you can ditch the last relics of rock and roll and have Black Metal as the completely non-human noise it was always supposed to be.

Not sure if it's accurate to expect that non-human would mean "machine" or "virtual"?
I'd rather see if relics of rock'n'roll is abandoned, it is rather in favor of bestial or spiritual.

My strong assumption is that there has been very very few who have come to conclusion that elevation of BM happens when approaching virtual and synthetic sound.

When I saw Mysticum live, I couldn't really watch entire set. It was fine, and they did take the performance to logical extreme. Stage stripped from ALL gear. Guitars went straight to mixer. No rock'n'roll amplifiers on stage. Just cold thin effect pedal sound in line. No drum sets (obviously). Just guys standing on empty stage with non-stop bombardment of excessive strobo lights.

I've never been fan of industrial music on the side of matrix outfits and techno lightshows. I've always hoped that one day, there will be black metal & industrial fusion, what doesn't sound like dark funeral meets Ministry, but Darkthrone meets Ramleh. For example, think of Con-Dom's JESUS PENIS with transilvanian hunger type drumming?
Till now, most attemps to fusion BM & noise takes the easiest and shallowest elements of both. Instruments from BM, but no riffs, structures or atmosphere. Sound quality and distortion from noise, but no innovation or interesting solutions.

[Andrew McIntosh]

What's next is to get synthesisers to sound like distorted guitars then you can ditch the last relics of rock and roll and have Black Metal as the completely non-human noise it was always supposed to be.

Not sure if it's accurate to expect that non-human would mean "machine" or "virtual"?
I'd rather see if relics of rock'n'roll is abandoned, it is rather in favor of bestial or spiritual.

Non-human - something that gives the impression that it doesn't come from us (humans) for us (same).

The problem being that we only have human perception. We're trapped in it. So I like an aesthetic that at least pretends, gives some impression of something that isn't normal humanity. Anything we do will be human, that's the curse we bare.

The bestial or spiritual, fine, but "spiritual" to me is definitely a human construct. By people, for people. That stated, I'm all for a spiritualism that regards us as incidental. That's why I dig the whole "anti cosmic" concept, even though it's a bit too tainted with religion. See also Eugene Thacker's concepts of "cosmic pessimism" and "world-without-us".

Bestial? Bit too close to home. We're animals. We've got instincts like all the other stupid creatures. Give a wolf enough intelligence and it'll start shaving and playing the stock market. Animals aren't that important unless you're eating them.

My strong assumption is that there has been very very few who have come to conclusion that elevation of BM happens when approaching virtual and synthetic sound.

Very likely. I'm not interested in the "elevation of BM", I just like what I like. I don't expect anyone to want what I want. For the most part I'm into the usual Black Metal stuff, of it's own it's great. I just like the possibilities of pushing it, perhaps not up, but sideways into a different direction.

I'll probably never see Mysticum live, all I've got to go on is the recordings. Fine by me. I've been wondering about the possibility of bands just plugging their gear straight into the pa. You'd need a fuck-off pa for that, and a good amount of time at the soundcheck to get the sound right. I applaud their guts at getting rid of gear, but a live situation is different. Still, I think a drum machine could be a good replacement for a real drum kit.

The whole "industrial metal" thing really has trapped a lot of possibility of doing more with a drum machine in metal. Too much predictability within that catagory. Which is fine for the fans, but from my perspective, not much.

Does Blut Aus Nord play live? Anyone ever see them? Are they any good?

[AXNAAR]

Just listened to as much as I could take of the new Master's Hammer album - this to me is the problem with taking a side-step from something that is already done well and does not need improving on - the album is a disaster to me but all of the elements are there that should make this a good one, great vocalist, good interesting riffs - just ruined by the wrong kind of experimentation. There is nothing wrong with the old style of MH so why make a useless dance music inspired Black Metal album? It does nothing to improve the genre, just get's people asking "why??" a shame that a legendary band like this would make such a mistake - they should take lessons from Mortuary Drape who remain vital album after album.

I've never been fan of industrial music on the side of matrix outfits and techno lightshows. I've always hoped that one day, there will be black metal & industrial fusion, what doesn't sound like dark funeral meets Ministry, but Darkthrone meets Ramleh. For example, think of Con-Dom's JESUS PENIS with transilvanian hunger type drumming?
Till now, most attemps to fusion BM & noise takes the easiest and shallowest elements of both. Instruments from BM, but no riffs, structures or atmosphere. Sound quality and distortion from noise, but no innovation or interesting solutions.

It's a tricky one - Matrix looking industrial is certainly not the right path and anything that sounds like dance music cannot be taken seriously as True Blackened Art. Mikko, your vision is so strong of this Darkthrone/Ramleh blend that you may have to be the man to do it - I would definitely be interested in hearing it.

My own activities blending BM with noise have involved primitive noise and primitive Ildjarn style black metal. Minimal composition, basic Oi! riffs, simple thud for drums. No pioneering or advancement for the genre, the opposite infact, a regression back to a level of base filth - but could it ever actually be considered Black Metal with so much outside influence? Simply saying Legion Blotan or Filth&Violence seem as fitting a tag for the material as anything else.

I don't really get this theory of dehumanizing as being at the essence of Black Metal - surely nature/death/human instinct/strength of spirit and will are at the heart of Black Metal?