Metal Reviews

I yet have to listen to a black metal album as good as Si Monumentum Requires Circumspice.

then why all the praise heaped on DsO, Leviathan, Blut Aus Nord, Mystic Forest and Negura Bunget?

btw, i'm not a big black metal fan, but i have to say that Absu and Tormentor kill me with their awesomeness. Mystic Forest are also cool.

I don't know if I gave somewhat of a wrong impression, but I like almost all of those bands you mentioned, some of whom I like a lot. I can think of some others as well (admittedly, I was trying not to get into a name game)...

Heck, there are probably more bands putting out quality bm now than there were in the early 90's. The difference is that it's not all in one area, one scene, and that there are so ridiculously many knock-offs and mediocre to downright weak bands that dilute the genre now.

So when you say that you totally disagree, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that.

-Tyrion

concerning the progression... i think i have a better analogy:

it's just like this... Black metal is a shovel, everything else is a spade. You can bend the shaft on the shovel backwards and then you have mixture between a shovel and a spade. Bend it too much backwards and you have, well.. a useless shovel. Sharpen and straighten the blade and you no longer have a shovel but a spade. The point is, that if a shovel "evolves" into a spade, it's no longer a shovel. And thus all shovels would look like they never evolves (that much at least), cuz if they did they would no longer be a shovel... see?! .. sure you could attach a spade on the other end of the shovelshaft etc, and that would be fine.. then you would have a shovel/spade - that's hard to handle, though .. but maybe enjoyable to use nonetheless.

and concerning the "the scene is dead since 97" thing.. isn't it important to look at the last 10 years as a whole then, instead of just now? i mean, bands like Nargaroth, Mütiilation and Moonblood has realesed some of their best works after that year, just to mention a few that doesn't really provide any good nowadays, but still contributes to the fact that it wasn't over after 96.

and another thing... there's a whole lot of small bands that makes awsome music nowadays. But because it's not as easy to get a record deal as ppl might think it is they are forced to seek smaller private labels that released albums in small quantities due to limited means in terms of money (or release the music themselves on cd-r where limitation is implicit, nobody wants to burn a 1000 copies on their own computer and cut coverart to fit the cd-cover themselves, heh), apposed to the big labels with lots of money that only signs bands if they can smell money. Of course, if the release is a success they often re-release the album. Unfortunately for them there's a lot of ppl out there who's afraid to buy these albums because they either think it's crap (yeah, alot of it is, but still) or because they are afraid of being called a stupid kvlt idiot. Many of these bands are in fact not trying to be über kvlt, that's just the way it works. But these bands still contributes to keeping the scene allive, just like all the bands do.

Mystic Forest is on my list of exceptions, but they were active in 1997 too. I agree his later compositions are rather different (actually, only Romances), so there lies the exception.

Taake more or less defined its sound in 1997 same goes for Absu. Most USBM is really heavily based on Burzum, Darkthrone and the French and German classics. 1349 Is more norsecore than BM and Xasthur isn't really that original either.

it's not that i disagree, or anything..

but do you think this means the scene is dead? and if so, isn't most music genre dead if we look at them with that logic, including jazz? i know u didn't say so, but still a good question i think

What about Lunar Aurora? I thought you liked them Misha? Do they make the list of exceptions?

Absu is not even pure black metal, it's leans more to back/thrash.

Yeah, most music genres are dead. Melodeath is dead, thrash is dead, post-rock is dead, but jazz is really not dead. The black metal scene being dead doesn't mean there are no fans of black metal in my dictionary, it means it stalled and there is no movement. How can a movement be called a movement without movement? It's a dead scene.

I liked em, I still like that Paysage split a lot, but that doesn't mean it's very original, it has Hvis Lyset Tar Oss written all over it.

I'm pretty new to BM, so ignore most of my ill-informed statements about it. I still enjoy those bands however, and i think a scene is still alive if there is good new music coming out of it.

well... does a movement have to move itself in order to be called a movement? If a movement adapts to its surroundings, isn't the movement really dead then? Isn't a movement supposed to make the surroundings addapt to it? so if a movement attracks ppl it's not dead... good point, right?

in my book a scene is dead when ppl stop listening to it, or the bands no longer play in it. Till then i'd regard it as being alive. That will happen too with black metal someday when sociaty has changed, or maybe not. Ppl will always have emotions only expressed in this genre, and it won't change i think, cuz society keeps getting more and more complex (do i dare use that word?, he he) making bm useful as a ventilation system of some sort

Well, doesn't the word movement imply that it moves? I think our difference is just what we see as a "dead scene". But I also think that if you see a scene is dead when people stop listening to it, then there can't logically be a scene that is dead, so the term is useless anyways.

I think part of the issue here is that we don't all look at "scene" from the same point of view. I view a "scene" or "movement" as being something separate from (but surely related to) the music itself. You can't really have a scene without "good" music, but you can have "good" music without a scene.

Also, Astaroth, I think you could really argue that society is, in many ways, becoming less and less complex. There is a significant desire and effort at work today to homogenize the people of the world, and I think some black metal artists are very conscious of this and express their disdain. ... Furthermore, I think the complexities that are arising are typically not desirable ones.

-Tyrion

nope, a movement moves the surroundings, not itself - weither being political, religious, musical. When you make a movement you move, but that's different meaning of the word.

sure, depends on how you look at it.. if you think 500 ppl are enough to keep a fating genre allive, so be it.. but i don't think so. Disco is dead!!!

yeah, cultural homogenization on a big scale of some sort, right? .. but subcultures will keep existing... nowadays many ppl seek out subcultures, however i wouldn't be suprised if next generation rebelled against this, and then the next generation will rebel against that etc....
well, i'd say i was talking about more like structure within society, and the demands towards each individuel which get bigger and bigger - both education- and socialwise. Get the right job, the right girlfriend, car etc etc and all that bullshit. Especially the job thing will become a problem eventually, cuz we're moving toward a "knowlegde-society" (that's what it's called in danish, dunno the english for that) meaning ppl need to get more and more educated cuz there's no place for ppl with little education, cuz machinery or ppl from other countries can do it for half the salery. Huge pressure, so to speak. Isn't it in japan ppl where commit more suicide than other countries due to the educational pressure?.. can't remember, but i think so.

Yeah, there are subcultures and will continue to be, but it's getting harder and harder too. Just look at what went on in Germany with Taake recently. Better yet, look at all the crap that is going on in Germany, in general. ... I'm not sure future generations will have enough power and large-scale desire to rebel effctively, to be honest. That education is going down the tubes makes this an even bigger concern...



Education is going down the drain. The crap that is being taught now, the stuff that is being revised to fit with current movements and ideals, the silencing of differing points of view, and just the overall growing lack of substance to an education. Society doesn't want thinking individuals, and we worry about some stupid government approved standardized test instead of teaching kids how to learn and think for themselves.

Yeah, sore subject with me, and I don't want to derail this thread by going further into it.

-Tyrion

ah.. i was too late with my editing of my answer... but i know what you mean, but i was just talking about the level of education, and not as much what is going on in primary school. On the paper the school primary goal is in fact to make ppl think for themselves, being creative etc.. that however does seems to contradict the standardized test that doesn't show any social, personal competence etc. I my self am a future teacher in school, and luckely most teachers doesn't really care what the government have to say, ha ha... teachers are complaining alot these days, and my education have been somewhat critical to our education minister... they care more for the each child personal devolepement rather than how much they know about the roalty family or something stupid like that. That said, there may be differences between yours and my country

kinda-sorta off topic, it's what i like the most about Absu, the thrash and excellent riffing. do you know of any more killer bands going that way?