Metal Reviews

http://www.crackdust.com

I dont know anything from black metal, but maby some of you may find it intersting, they have a song for download-

More DM than BM, but the song I downloaded was pretty cool, thanks.

Why do you say more death metal than black metal, what is the main diff?

As rio said, more Death than Black, but pretty cool.

As for explaining the differences, well....they're just two different stlyes. The guitar tends not be as thick or thrashy in 'standard' Black Metal, the style of riffing is different, the vocals tend to be more of a shriek than a growl....

Well, check out the riff that comes in 0:25 seconds into "Deranged Psychopath". That riff, and the vocal style, are really archetypal DM.

It is hard to explain, but Rad does a good job. DM tends to have more rhythmic, chromaticised riffs, whilst BM is generally about tremolo picking that outlines melodic lines.

The vocals in DM tend to be deeper and more "Uuuuurgh", whilst in BM it's a higher pitched shriek, like "Aaaaieeee".

And drums in DM tend to have more of a backbeat, and are mainly a more extreme version of rock drumming with double kick pedals for extra effect. BM is quite different a lot of the time. It's sometimes hard to pick out a regular time feel, as it's more of a continuous blizzard of double kicking.

That's the best description I can think of right now...

Thanx guys, that helps, could you give like very well know, or rather more commercialised examples, i now of dimmu borgir, hypocracy, cradle of filth, morbid angle, deocide?,children of bodom,arch enemy, like these type of bands, what would there classification be like?

Dimmu Borgir - Symphonic Black Metal
Hypocricy - Death Metal, becoming Melodic Death Metal, as far as I am aware
Cradle of Filth - Symphonic Black/Gothic metal
Morbid Angel - Death Metal
Decide - Death Metal
Children of Bodom - Power Metal, but with harsh vocals
Arch Enemy - Melodic Death Metal

Morbid Angel and Deicide are two very, very clear examples of traditional Death Metal.

My cousin is more into this type of music-but i really like Children of Bodom, as you said power metal, with harsh vocals, but they are very good indeed, and if i spell like crap, its because im not english.

ok, but ive also listened to their song, and agree that from the previous exp it more death metal than black metal, its a lot clearer now why that was said.

What other bands do you listen besides the ones you mentioned? Since you like Bodom, there quite a number of bands in their genre that mite excite you.

-Norther
-Wintersun
-Kalmah
-Rad help me out here, will you?

I guess what made you like Bodom is the guitar licks, rite? Try Blind Guardian. I feel sad for BG in a way. They're a big band, of course, but they could have made it bigger if not for the eruption of Death Metal during their time. Everyone just went "Urrrgghhhhh!!!, bluek!!!!" and dumped traditional metal/power metal aside.

EDIT: Available after log on: Deranged Psychopath (rap version and techno version?)

Fuck, I should have known.

Yeah, this band gives a new perspective on "black metal"

...the fact that death and black metal are not mutually exclusive.

Black metal = satanic metal, be it Venom or Sarcofago or Darkthrone.
Thus, satanic death metal = black/death metal.

Hang on. Just because a DM band sings about Satan, it doesn't make them a "/black" band.

Then what makes a "/black" band? Screechy vocals? Tremolo picking? Keyboards?

Deicide and Morbid Angel are both 100% death metal, but that doesn't mean that they don't have major black metal elements.

Evil/suicidal atmosphere make it black metal, brutal/blunt sound makes it death metal. Deicide=Death, Nargaroth=Black, easy as a pie. The largest part of black metal is not even satanic, although a lot flirt with the theming, these are not all bands. Then there is the huge amount of NSBM and depressive stuff, most of it having nothing to do with satanism.

Funeral Mist is very evil, loud and brutal metal, but it doesn't sound very blunt, it's rather sharp, hence black metal, with death metal brutality. That's why it's brutal black metal.

I can't find much suicidal atmosphere in Venom, for example. And if Venom are not black metal, then who are?
How do you define evil atmosphere? I think both Venom and Deathspell Omega have an undeniably evil atmosphere in their music, just in completely different ways.
How do you define bluntness and brutality? Autopsy, Possessed and Suffocation sound nothing alike, but they're all brutal and they're all DM.



A large part of what is labeled BM nowadays has nothing to do with BM. Satanic themes can also be present in the music in other (many times not so obvious) ways than just repeating the word "Satan" in your lyrics ad nauseam. (Dark Funeral, anyone?)



NS and depressive stuff, among other things, can be a part of BM, but BM is first and foremost satanic. A lot of NSBM and suicidal BM bands could more correctly be called just NS metal and suicidal metal or something like that.

Black metal is satanic metal. That's where it all started. Sure, a lot of so-called BM bands have abandoned that and evolved to different things, but many of them don't have anything to do with BM anymore. (not that there's anything wrong with musical evolution, mind you.)

Venom isn't really Black Metal anyway. They invented the term, but they just played sloppy proto-Thrash/extreme NWOBHM.

Certainly there's nothing Black Metal about Morbid Angel. Some of Glenn Benton's vocals have a BM screech about them, but the fact they sing about Satan means nothing. Lyrics do not make a genre.

PAGAN BLACK METAL DOES EXIST!!!!!!!111

If its fast and dm-ish, its satanic black metal, ('occult' bm is pretty much the same thing, different name, cept maybe singing about other nasty stuff than satan)

If its slower, has more emotional riffs, and sings about the sadness of the loss of past glories and forests and shit, its Pagan black metal.



Its impossible to deny that bm is split into bands with two main themes. Then there is weird branches like post-black and space themed-bm (Arcturus, Lunar Aurora, Ved Buens Ende, <code>)


And as Misha pointed out there is also Suicidal/depressive bm. So thats at least 5 different branches of bm.

i don't agree with you at all. Black metal doesn't have to be satanic to be black metal. What makes black metal black metal is the way it sounds and how the lyrics are written, the latter is my opinion at least, f.ex. u won't find the sentences such as " fuck you mom and dad, i'm goth and i'm an adult now!", and if so it would be written in black metal style like " aarghh, cut the bloodline ov a thousands weakling, desendants ov the light much perish in virgin goat blood, we are stronger than thee, and now i'm going to cut myself because i'm a gay goth" etc etc. But it doesn't need to be satanic, of course, black metal with britney spears or goth lyrics are not black metal ... But take a look at Ulver's Nattens Madrigal, do u find any satanic lyrics in that? Burzum didn't have satanic lyrics either. And what about most of the so-called black metal bands that doesn't have any satanism in half their tracks on their album(s)? Does that make their albums half black metal, half extreme naturalistic evil metal?

And what would u call Darkthrone's music, if they only sang about cold mountains and cold evil winternights?

And if black metal is only black metal if the lyrics are about satanism, then death metal is only death metal if it's about death.


and what type ov lyrics would u catagorize as satanism, anyway?




ok.. then Slayer is black/Thrash
and Slipknot is black/nu-metal, cuz they mention satan as well

Yeah, actually when I think of BM lyrics nowadays I think more about nationalist/pagan stuff than Satan, and there's also all the nature/spiritual themes as well. How about Drudkh, Alcest, early Ulver, and of course even Burzum for examples of this type of thing, and there are bands like Mystic Forest which are all about romance and such (if I understand the titles correctly).

Come to think about it, if I look at the BM bands I listen to often then it would seem that Satanism is quite a small part of it.

I certainly don't think of Venom as a BM band in the present day sense at all.

Satan actaully seems to be on the way out. Most Death Metal bands are really more concerned with gore or hatred or occasionally political stuffz.