Soooo apparently today is known as "Black Saturday". I had no idea, and what better day to celebrate Black Metal?
Immortal - Damned in Black
We'll start our journey here. Immortal's "Damned in Black" released in 2000. I'd consider this to be a great gateway tune to get you into the Black Metal mood. The instrumentation is quite cohesive, and the vocals aren't "over-the-top" per se. Immortal is the band that really made corpse paint a symbol for black metal.
Immortal - Call of the Wintermoon
Our next stop on this Black Saturday trek is going to be Immortal's "Call of the Wintermoon". It's much more of the sound that I would associate with black metal. At times it's almost like the band members are all playing different songs at the same time, and the vocals are much more along the lines of somebody getting burned alive lol.
Released in 1992, this music video could be the very origin of the whole "Black Metal Video Shot in the Woods" cliche.
Burzum - Key to the Gate
We can't celebrate Black Metal without dipping into the absolute batshit insane. The song itself is nothing amazing. The instrumentals are basic, but coherent. The vocals are again much more harsh like in Call of the Wintermoon.
The real crazy, though, comes in the form of the history of the guy himself. Burzum was a one-man-band project (as far as I know) put together buy a guy called Varg Vikerenes. Varg is the man that made burning churches synonymous with black metal.
Varg was also in jail for quite some time because he murdered a fellow black metal artist from the band Mayhem. Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) was at one point a mentor to Varg - taught him what he could, and helped him get a start... only to end up murdered in the end. There's a lot of unknowns about motive. But the fact is either way, Varg killed him.
Long story short, don't be Varg.
Ancient - Lilith's Embrace
Another one of those "Let's shoot a video in the woods" type videos is Lilith's Embrace by Lilith. Not quite as "hard" as some of the other songs listed above, this one is fun because of the video.
I mean, through the whole thing we have what might be the WORST possible camera angle on the singer's face, and a ton of needless facial expressions.
At around 1:05 we've got a guy stumbling on a rocky cliff trying not to fall off the side.
At 2:09 we've got the guitarist missing the neck of his guitar and grabbing air instead.
At 3:31 we've got a clip of a guy (who shows up a few times) who can't seem to figure out if he's a human or a snake.
Yeah, just a ridiculous video overall.
Gorgoroth - Sign of an Open Eye
Let's get a bit more melodic. Here's Gorgoroth's Sign of an Open Eye. This is my kinda Black Metal right here. Very cohesive and sonically interesting. The song is mostly an instrumental with spoken-word lyrics finally coming in about 1/2 way through the song.
Heilung - Norupo
Shifting gears completely, here's Heilung. Technically considered Neo Folk, it could be argued that in spirit they are very close to the metal scene, even if they don't really sound the part. Their music often focuses around Nordic culture, and like a lot of metal bands they're pushing boundaries and re-defining the concept of a genre of music. Honourable mention on this list at the very least.
Naglfar - Cerecloth
A great example of where Black Metal stands today. This song and video pretty much capture the spirit of the genre. Hard and fast with gothic imagery with lyrics focused on ancient war and death. Instrumentally, there's tons of blastbeats from teh drums and lighting fast guitar riffs and arpeggios
That's all (for now)
Thanks for joining me on this brief journey through Black Metal.
Hope you all have the blackest of Black (metal) Saturdays! 🤘