Metal Reviews

Well now I have taken several steps deeper into the world of Black metal and am beginning to understand and enjoy it a lot more. But now I find that I am finding more new questions than answers within this art form.

So, can someone in the know tell me about region specific "sounds" within the BM scene? Do they exist? I read a lot of reviews which say things like "This band have a very typical USBM sound" or "this band were a big influence on the Swedish BM sound", for example.

So are there any regions that have a very specific BM sound? I have now listened to BM bands from a wide range of places, but I have not detected any kind of styllistic divisions along geographical lines. Am I missing something? What do you guys think?

I'll try to keep it short cuz I know there's the Bm guys who can answer this better than me. Here I go:

French : Slow and repetative, dark and melancholic stuff
Finnish: These guys own, you can find anything here, atmosphere being the main thing
USBM: Mostly very raw and brutal shit, nihilistic stuff
Ukraine & Poland: NSBM is the thing here, epic and great music if you can ignore the message
Germany : Anything goes here
Swedish: All I've heard was norsecore with a few exceptions


This is my knowledge of the world bm and frankly I'm still learning about it. I'd like to hear what my fellow kvltsters have to say.

That's mostly right, actually. French is rather destructive as of late, what with Antaeus and like bands. USBM is also usually depressive as fuck, influenced in equal amounts by Burzum and raw early Mayhem with weird usage of synth to create a sad atmosphere. Mutiilation is also an influence.

UK: Mostly industrialized black metal with ultra-raw production and apocalyptic messages. Strange experimentalization in some that extends to clean vocals and folk instruments and weird, weird shit (Meads of Asphodel).

Russian: Mostly Darkthrone-clones, one or two that rise above the crop (Revenge is good), but not much to stand out.

EDIT - Whoops on the Craft thing.

South America : Mostly old-school thrashy black metal. Sarcofago and Sepultura's first album are good examples of the Brazilian BM sound.

Australia : Very aggro, grindy stuff. Deströyer 666, Bestial Warlust, etc.

I'll add Vulcano and their first album Bloody Vengeance, since they are the ones that started it all for Brazil

USBM to me just refers to BM made in America, underground classics like VON, Havohej are USBM but they dont fall into the 'suicidal' stereotype

I have to say, Sweden has Bathory, and Quorthon slays all :twisted:

Craft is from Sweden. Apart from that everything mentioned so far is correct. I'll add that French BM is kind of "romantic", that Finnish BM seems to be the most traditional nowadays, and that modern Norwegian bands sucks nowadays.

Also, the old-school Greek BM has a very characteristic sound, hard to define, but great nevertheless.

Yep, lots of traditional heavy metal influences. Melodic but evil.

Thanks for the info, guys!

I agree with almost everything that has been said above, but I'll add a few things too:

Baltic States: Mostly Pagan/Folk BM in it's best which is often confused with NSBM.

Russian: Doesn't have any boundaries, mainly because every town/province plays in it's own stile: Murmansk - icy BM with harsh production; Ekaterinburg - the bands here are not numerous and heterogeneous; Novomoskovsk - at first (1994-1996) BM with Darkthrone being the only influence then NSBM in the vein of early Graveland and Fullmoon which still contains cold Darkthronish atmosphere; Stavropol - raw, harsh and brutal BM (sometimes even Grind/BM) with themes about Nuclear Holocaust, etc.; St. Petersburg - the only band worth mentnioning is Draugwath/Blackdeath; Moscow - in Moscow there isn't any BM as in USSR there wasn't any sex (again with the exception of Volkoten)

Belarussian: Pagan, Sturm, Karachun, Kruk, Smierceslau - if you listen to all this badns you will see that despite the fact they are a bit in different in terms of style and energy, you can find that their manner of play, sound and atmosphere have a lot of things in common.

as said the german bm landscape contains a lot of different styles uhm some real good bands which are not very known outside the country are
Horn
Atras Cineris
Brocken Moon
Mondwolf
Gebrechlichkeit
Experiment Stille

I dont know if they all have a webside but if someone is interessted he should just google it up.

add mystifier from south america.

do they have a more "fun" approach to the whole thing down in south america, or is it just me??

and in Australia there seems to be a tendency for the mix of death, thrash and black all in one.

In a way, yes. More metal than black, if you catch my drift.

I really don't agree with Germany and France:

1. France: Melancholic and raw with usually a desperate touch to it. There is often a lot of pride in the bands' music.
2. Germany: Stronger focus on atmosphere, but same melancholy. Natural elements are often found here, it's usually less restricted to the classical songstructures.

Welcome to the forum man!! Damnit, it looks like I'm falling behind on BM, I only know Brocken Moon out of that list... quite good!
Try www.aichmophoba.de

And primitive.