Metal Reviews

"Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

Is there any NSBM that you listen to? Why (not)?

(if not, please answer that with more detail than NAZIS HURRR)

My answer: Yes, because there's something uniquely spine-chilling about the genuinely nutty ones, combined with good music, and because my non-agreeance with an artist's political views does not mean that I'll refuse to experience their art.

Yes, I do listen to NSBM. Overtime it has suffered the same fate as black metal as whole in that you get an arseload of bands who couldn't write a song to save their life, but the cornerstone bands and founders of the genre are certainly well worth my time. There are a lot of "symphonic folky black metal" bands out there but I find those under the NSBM banner tend to do it best. Some claim that there is no NSBM, that it is a bit like Viking metal in that a genre should not be exclussively defined by subject matter, but I do think that many bands under the NSBM banner tend to have a sound rather unique from the rest of the black metal genre, with a few exceptions of course. As for ideology, it does not bother me in the least.

Yeah. Agreed with all this. Had some Nokturnal M. on the other day, reminded me how deranged the singer's screeches were. Spine-chilling stuff.



But not this.

My guess is probably that you don't want to turn this into a debate on politics in music, but the way I see it is there is ultimately not much to be offended by. I tend to view the vast majority, if not all, of ideologies to be inherently flawed and based on dated or outright false information for the purpose of a "unifying" factor, and for the appearance of consistency and absolutism. If this bothered me then a hell of a lot more in the world would too. In a world of little boys trying to play politics yet who can't be arsed to get their minds out of an ideological box...why be bothered?

You're right up to a point; I do think that the Jewicides are doing it as much for shock value as anything, but there are enough crazy people in the world that some of them might mean it. It's certainly a flashpoint, and I really don't want someone to come along and accuse someone of being racist because they like Skrewdriver's music or whatever.

Yes, but you already knew that. I've always been able to separate the musician(s) from the music, and BM has the added bonus of mostly inaudible lyrics. Ignorance is bliss I suppose. The guys are scumbags, and I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire, but its hard to ignore an awesome album like Lunar Poetry.

Its a bit like the multitude of metal bands who rail against Christianity every chance they get. I'm a Christian, and if I actually bothered to read some of these bands' lyrics, I'm sure I wouldn't care for what I saw. Needless to say, I don't, so once again ignorance is bliss.

No, because I have yet to find a decent black metal band with NS lyrics.

You never check out the lyrics?

Actually something perhaps somewhat interesting to discuss, though I'm not sure if you were thinking the same thing when you wrote this post. How many of the major NSBM bands out there actually write straight up "preachy" NS lyrics? Ever since going NS Nokturnal Mortum, f.ex., have only occasionally made reference to NS ideology specifically. It tends to be a lot more focused on slavic heathenism, culture and so on. Same goes for Temnozor among others. So it made me think to ask whether you were making reference to the fact that a lot of NSBM bands don't write specifically NS lyrics, or whether you're actually saying you hate all lyrics written by bands dubbed NSBM which may or may not actually be NS in nature.

I like a few, but don't care either way about the lyrics. Nationalist pride isn't a bad thing in and of itself, as opposed to hatred for the jooz. And there is a big difference, obviously.
But the NSBM is glutted with shit bands, so sorting them out is quite the daunting task.

No, I just meant to say that I have yet to run into a NSBM band that I like musically; I rarely listen to black metal for its message. All NSBM bands I have heard are exceptionally boring and uninspired to listen to.

With certain bands, I'd rather not. I don't see what's so weird about that.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of Nokturnal Mortem. I also own some Absurd, Graveland of course, the American Pantheon, Helkult, and a lot more random cassette tapes I acquired from this guy in an NS band who was selling of his stuff off via ebay. Some of the better bands are very good at creating an epic atmosphere with lots of folk infused. the rest are just drunk skinheads playing poorly in a garage. I have no love for the latter. The message doesn't bother me a great deal, this is BM after all, it's supposed to be hateful. As long as the music's good I can usually look past it. But then again, I don't have to agree with a person's ideology to listen to their music. I suspect there's a great deal of musicians out there I disagree with ideologically.

That's exactly how I feel. Well said.

If I listened to metal for the lyrics, I would not be a metal fan.


edit: I guess I should say, if I focused on the lyrics.

haha, yeah, irregardless of genre, there are some real lulu's out there.

I admire both Seinfeld and Metalness's way of looking past the lyrics but me personally I can't stomach most black metal because of the ideology and NSBM to me is a lot worse.

Yes I do agree with Metalness that mostly music is about atmosphere but it's knowing that what they sing that bothers me and I can't get past that barrier.

So I expect the elitists to probably jump down my throat for my point of view.

Indeed

I don't think any of the bands I listen to are NS. Drudkh and Nocturnal Mortum is about it and I've only listened to them each probably once or so.