Report: Black Metal Rises From The Shadows

February 12, 2007

Bob Gendron of the Chicago Tribune reports:

"Black metal is not about life," says Wrest, the San Francisco-based musician behind the bands LEVIATHAN and LURKER OF CHALICE. "It is horrible, ugly and negative music. It reflects the negativity of the surrounding world and the disgust from within."

True, but black metal is also blowing up. Within the past year, the genre has gone from underground oddity to pop-culture phenomenon, with an exponential rise comparable to that of early punk. Bands such as DIMMU BORGIR and CRADLE OF FILTH have sold hundreds of thousands of records and seen their merchandise hawked in malls. Media outlets such as indie music tastemaker Pitchfork have boosted coverage. You can get a black-metal fix at Best Buy and Virgin, and artists have even been nominated for Plug Awards, the indie community's answer to the Grammy.

Black metal is the sound of darkness, with extreme songs that are not for the faint-hearted. Snarling guitars and rapid-fire drums combine with guttural vocals that are growled, howled and shrieked. Narratives set to sinister music delve into apocalyptic scenarios, occult practices and misanthropic tortures.

Having come into existence in the 1980s, black metal established its identity in Scandinavia, where it exploded in the early '90s after a series of notorious events -- arsons, suicides, alleged cannibalism and elitism — threatened to permanently brand the music as farce.

Read the entire article at the Chicago Tribune.

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