Have you ever heard of Black Metal? Well.. I guess some of you may be familiar with this kind of music but some of you may not. This kind of music is my favorite kind of music which brings lots of emotional feelings through me.
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It often uses fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, and unconventional song structure.
Black metal has been met with great hostility from mainstream culture, mainly due to the misanthropic and anti-Christian standpoint of many artists. Moreover, a handful of musicians have been linked with church burnings, murder or National Socialism. For these reasons and others, black metal is often seen as an underground form of music.
For Instrumentation, Black metal guitarists usually favour high-pitched guitar tones and a great deal of distortion.Typically, the guitar is played with much use of fast tremolo picking. When writing music, guitarists often use scales, intervals and chord progressions that yield the most dissonant, fearful and ominous sounds. Guitar solos and low guitar tunings are rare in black metal.
The bass guitar is rarely used to perform stand-alone melodies. It is not uncommon for the bass guitar to be inaudible or to homophonically follow the bass lines of the electric guitar. Typically, drumming is fast-paced and uses double-bass and/or blast beat techniques; although basic drumming is not uncommon.
Black metal songs often stray from conventional song structure and often lack clear verse-chorus sections. Instead, many black metal songs contain lengthy and repetitive instrumental sections.
For vocal and lyrics, traditional black metal vocals take the form of high-pitched shrieks, screams and snarls. This is in stark contrast to the low-pitched growls of death metal. Most black metal singers are male, although there are a few notable exceptions.
The most common and founding lyrical theme is opposition to Christianity and other organized religions (called "Right-Hand Path" religions by some). As part of this, many artists write lyrics that could be seen to promote atheism, antitheism, paganism and Satanism. Other oft-explored themes are depression, nihilism, misanthropy and death. However, many modern black metal lyrics have begun to focus more on the seasons (particularly winter), nature, mythology, folklore, philosophy and fantasy.
Unlike artists of other genres, many black metal artists do not perform concerts. Bands that choose to perform concerts often make use of stage props and theatrics. Mayhem and Gorgoroth among other bands are noted for their controversial shows; which have featured impaled animal heads, mock crucifixions, medieval weaponry, and band members doused in animal blood.
Black metal artists often appear dressed in black with combat boots, bullet belts, spiked wristbands, and inverted crosses/inverted pentagrams to reinforce their anti-Christian or anti-religious stance. However, the most stand-out trait is their use of corpse paint – black and white makeup (sometimes mixed with real or fake blood), which is used to create a corpse-like appearance.
These are my favorite black metal bands.. enjoy!!
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I seldom have a chance to listen to this kind of music but I know many people who like it. I also used to talk with both my friends and my family about Black metal before, and I see that there are both positive and negative points of view about this music.
ReplyDeleteWell, I heard many people argue about the effects of this music. Some say the very dark and aggressive music that comes with violent themes such as killing, nihilism and death may twist people’s mind while some other say it won’t. In my point of view, what happen with people’s mind is not really directly comes from the music. What is shown in the music comes from feelings and imaginations of people. It is just an art of a reflection.
Kanittha 520132038
I’m a person who likes music, too because I love dancing. My favorite kind of music is pop. I never listen to black metal music. I think that it's not for general people. Everything is too hard ; lysics, beat, and melody. I didn’t know Noi-Na (the writer) before until we took the same MA program. When I first met her, I thought that she must be a tom boy because she talked about music all the time and her assignment was all about (black metal) music. Moreover, she always dresses in black dress. In my opinion, music can show our personality. Sometimes, we dress like our favorite singers because they are the idol. We can’t deny that singers or artist have direct influences for our life.
ReplyDeleteWowww!! Black metal...
ReplyDeleteThe sound of this kind of music looks so strong,I am surely that I would have a chane somewhen to spend time to pay more attention with this interesting music(but not now the time of romantic month)
The way to go out with this music should be only by the CD.(for me)- not the concert I don't like the animal head or even weapon and lucky that the artists do not prefer to perform concerts, but I know that the musics are the personal story,we have our right to listen.
I thought that if we feel so lonely this kind of music could help us a lot to release the feeling of loneliness,because of the tone of high guitar and fast drum techniques.
However, Black metal is still black;the symbol of dark, mystery, scary or deadful+ metal;symbol of heavy and strong, it could lead the listener who understand in its right way to be a strong one and never be discouraged by the problems.
Since I have involved with many people who like this kinds of music, I am also interested with the black metal music. I think through the black metal music, it is one of the ways to voice some minority groups’ (who anti Christianity or non-Christianity) self-definition and self-identity. Moreover, I think through this music, black or death metal music is used to as the representative for dead people to voice and express their suffering of being killed. I think, it is one of the ways to criticize about violence and things that caused by social problems or even reflect how human hurt and destroy each other. The inhumanity is also one of the themes reflected from the black metal music.
ReplyDeleteAfter I had finished watching three clips, I felt like a drunker. I like third clip the most because its sound and music are the softest and has beautiful graphic. I like to listen a rock and sometimes heavy rock. I think these kinds of music because it can hit my feeling.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I can listen a black metal not more than 3 songs because I am going to throw up. Their high and fast tempos make my heart beat increasing.
I noticed that song content is against Christianity. This point sparks my feeling very much. At the first time, I wondered why singers hate religious because I think that, now it has no big conflict between people and Christianity.
However, after watching all clips, I understand their points. Sometimes, man of God is too cruel and unreasonable. I like the way which Black metal singers reflect Christian belief which some parts are problematic and skeptic. As we know, Religious is untouchable and respectful. But who set up it? And is it real? Sometime, we have a question which is unsolvable.