Black Metal
Black metal is a genre of extreme metal music that encapsulates a range of subgenres, including death, thrash, and power metal. The genre is often characterized by its fast tempos, distorted guitars, and aggressive attitude. The melodic and instrumentation tends to be minimalistic, often featuring just a single guitar and drums, with vocals that are often distorted, screamed, or shouted.
The genre is most associated with the Norwegian black metal scene of the early and mid-1990s, which consisted of a number of bands who adopted an anti-Christian and anti-conformist stance. As the scene grew, the bands experimented with different sounds and styles to create a more extreme, dark sound, blending elements of classical music, thrash, and death metal.
The genre is often credited with popularizing unblack metal, which is characterized by its emphasis on lyrical themes of self-reflection and spirituality, as opposed to the more extreme Satanic themes often espoused by traditional black metal bands.
In the early 2000s, black metal experienced a resurgence as bands began to explore a more extreme fusion of styles, blending emo and punk with black metal to create a unique sound. Subgenres such as symphonic and folk metal were also popularized by bands like Opeth and Ensiferum who adopted a more epic sound.
Today, black metal has become a more diverse genre with a variety of subgenres, from traditional Norwegian black metal, to the more experimental sounds of post-black metal, to the massive symphonic productions of symphonic metal. Whether you’re into the brutal aggression of thrash metal or the obscure keyboards of symphonic black metal, there is something for everyone in the world of black metal.
