Metal Reviews

I'm with rio. Does early Dimmu not equal Black Metal, COTB? Couldn't you just say that they had gone crap, rather than becoming unBlack?

Hmmmmmm........

I think Darkthrone used ABABCAB on A Blaze in the Northern Sky, or not?

And today Dimmu Borgir is more black metal than Darkthrone, which are more some kind of punk.

And what about Troll? If the last Troll record is BM, then DB are too.

Btw. rock structure... every Metallica song is ababcab. I would call it just "normal" song structure.

Do we really have to go through this again?

Early Dimmy had some black metal leanings, but it was not black metal, strictly speaking. And when I say early, I mean For Al Tid / Stormblast era.

Bal-Sagoth: not
Cradle of Filth: not
Graveworm: not
Morgul: not
Diabolical Maquerade: not

and so on.

(One of) the only band that can be ascribed the black metal label without the use of tremolo picking, dissonant chord arrangments and the rest of the trademarks of the genre is Limbonic Art.
Why? Because they possess the one thing crucial to said genre.
Are you ready, because it's been said only about a gazillion times...

Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere.
I'd of thought this would be very common knowledge by now, but apparently not.

The keys utilized by Limbonic Art create a sound of desolation and melancholy; the keys used by Dimmy just sound downright fruity.
Not to mention the basic heavy metal leftover bar chord riffs, the overpolished production, etc.

As for the "Death to false metal" allusion:
Again, the meaning of the word false is pretty strightforward.
False metal is not metal, it is bands that are not metal that pretend to be metal. Fakes, poseurs and wannabes.

We don't all see things like you. Your vision is based on dichotomy, it's either black or white (so to speak). For many people, including me, it's a shade of greys. I'm sure it hurts inside and makes your evil teddy-bear's heart bleed, but that's the way it is.

Now, I've made the Banshee cry to his momma, and I feel sorry 'bout it.

Hardly, you think much too highly of yourself, Miss Sewer.
Congratulations, you are succeeding in bringing the IQ pool here to new depths one post at a time.
You have nothing to back up your claim, yet you persist in trolling this thread.
Don't you have anything constructive to do with your time?
Pretty sad really.
Anyway, I've said my piece, if you insist on being a jack artist, suit yourself, but count me out.
It's boring and non-productive.

Tags are as much convention as anything. For example, I don't see much death metal in melodeth (except for the vocals) but the label stuck. In this case, Dimmu Borgir is partly labeled melodic/symphonic black metal because they incorporate some of the more common elements of black metal in their music, and partly because no other label fits.

But black metal is not about tremolo picking and dissonant chord. It's about satan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puwllq0fBLs

Venom, Hellhammer, very early Sodom, very early Destruction, early Bathory... that's the essence of black metal.

I like how you ignore part of COTB's post and then pretend he said something he didn't. Way to go.

He meant that black metal needs tremolo picking, dissonant chord to be black metal [when LA is the only band that can be called bm without these things). And I say that bm is not about tremolo picking, dissonant chords and even not about blast beats (but it helps).

There are so many different kinds of bm, but they all have in common the sinister, evil, satanic atmosphere.

For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o1zA1ELxZs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MM-WPtn ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAajs4oMbpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx8FKl4D-Ow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gmoca7tO-A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEM9dd7NvZQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEoLdKwa ... re=related

No, he didn't say or mean that at all.

*facepalm*

I think it is clear that black metal's essence is the second wave of Norway, not a bunch of black/thrash bands from the 80s.

Old Immortal or old Enslaved is just as black metal if not more than most of those bands, and they didn't write about Satan.

There is a reason why it's called the "second" wave. The first had all what you need for real black metal.

For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS8MRQSY-aY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOeEQF3pEyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcpGUajRXfk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtmNOaG1 ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi7bdG8lcb8

Agree to disagree. This debate is going nowhere.

A debate about what is and what isn't Black Metal?

Truly, I am shocked.

Slayer black metal????? Venom? Sodom?

Heh, just like the good old days.

Yeah, haven't you seen those discussions before? It's pretty fun really.

It is all we old-timers ever did. Seriously!

We had a lot of fun

Venom INVENTED the genre Black Metal, and so it's ridiculous to say that they are not, only because future bands from norway changed the old bm style to their "true" way, and Venom not. And Slayer were in 1983 just a better skilled US version of Venom with the same satanic image and content.

Thank you, Zad.
I should have made myself more clear, though.
That statement about one of the few bands that can be ascribed the black metal label without tremolo picking, disssonant chord arrangements and the other usual trademarks of the genre pertains to so-called symphonic black metal.
That is in reference to the guitar work, of course.
If their are no odd minor key chord arrangements and / or high end tremolo picking, there must be something else to create that atmosphere of desolation, darkness, coldness, evil, whatever.
Usually, it's keyboards.
In Dimmy's case the keys just sound fruity and pompous like some prancing homosexual with delusions of grandeur flitting around in puffed up extravagance.

Another example of a band that is black metal, yet doesn't fit into the prescribed ideal is Odium; not much tremolo picking, nor is their much dissonance, but it has that all-important cold and dark atmosphere.
Of course, a dark ambience is the main pre-requisite, though.
Without that, all the tremolo picking in the world won't make it black metal.
If a band is not even "dark", how can they be black?