I've known Elliott for a number of years now and all of them, virtually. Hell of a good guy and perhaps next time I'm in LA we could shake hands. Anyway, besides being a good egg, dude has far surpassed me in being dedicated at educating himself on this marvelous thing we call music. Was feeling a little black metal and sent him the email below. His response was fucking bitchen and sent me on a journey of several hours of enlightenment. Many thanx E!
Heya Elliott, hope this note finds you well
Looking to get more familiar with the many sub-genres of the sub-genre of Black Metal
Can you help me get a start on that?
What are some of your favorite songs by your favorite bands (no nazis please)?
Of course! If you have any specific questions about black metal, feel
free to ask!! I'm not too into what they call suicidal black metal,
and most atmospheric black metal puts me to sleep (which may be the
point?) but I can ask my Discord friends for suggestions if you want.
Of course you're familiar with 80s black metal (Venom, Merciful Fate,
Celtic Frost/Hellhammer, Bathory, even early Slayer and Sodom) but
here are a few older bands you maybe haven't heard. If you have,
they're worth hearing again!!
This is Tormentor from Hungary. Early influence on the 90s black
metal, and the singer would join Mayhem a few years later. Dissection
(one of my favorite melodic black metal bands) covered this song!
Samael from Switzerland, another early black metal band.
Master's Hammer from the Czech Republic. The singer is a famous
typographer.
Von from Hawaii, later moved to San Francisco. They tried playing with
the thrash bands of the late 80s. They were just ahead of their time.
They loved Septic Death as much as I do. Huge influence on black metal
to come, many bands have covered Von or named themselves after Von
songs.
I don't know how much you know about the Norwegian bands from the 90s,
but here are a few of my favorites. Also some Swedish ones!
Mayhem, with Dead on vocals!
Darkthrone is one of my fave bands, and Fenriz is one of my favorite
people. His radio shows are a must listen!
Marduk, this is extreme. Morgan's a nice guy though, I've talked to
him. This is kind of a microgenre sometimes called Norsecore. Known
for clean production and blastbeats. The biggest bands of this sound
are Marduk...
War metal might be my favorite. Raw and nasty.
I just got this cd in the mail, actually.
Archgoat from Finland, friendly dudes making evil metal.
Blackthrash is another favorite. Aura Noir from Norway.
Witchaven from where I used to live, first black/thrash band I got
into!
Greek black metal is a bit different. Here's one of my favorite bands
in all of metal, both personally and musically!
Dissection played more melodic black metal, here's one of my favorite
songs.
Lastly, here's something I really like, celtic/folk black metal.
There's more, a lot more. But this email is really long already. Feel
free to ask if you want any more or on specific genres. And there are
no nazis in this list. Some extreme people, but no nazis. Lastly,
there's a book that really helped me understand black metal's
subsubsubgenres. The author is a really cool dude who's even been on
my show and put up with my crappy microphone at the time. It's just
been rereleased.
This was really cool to read, I'm glad you enjoyed the links. I shared the hell out of this post and the blog on whatever social media I have. Keep up the great work!! PS I'm hoping that new version of that book comes out in an e-version, I probably annoyed the author by mentioning that a few thousand times!
ReplyDeleteDude that was really cool of you to write and as I said kept me from whatever it is I do in my head for several hours. Keep annoying the dude it would take nothing for them to digitize it and make it available to even more people. Thanx as always E!
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