black metal

Black metal is the music of Satan. Well, let me backtrack: black metal is an indie offshoot of heavy metal that took the techniques of death metal and added a Dead Can Dance-inspired sense of melody. It sounds like Wagner for metalheads.

Formed of the same core bands that inspired death metal -- Bathory, Hellhammer and Sodom -- and using the technique borrowed from hardcore bands like Discharge, black metal lurked unknown throughout the early nineties until a series of church burnings and excellent music from Norway awakened the world to its presence. Where death metal is nihilistic, black metal is more organic, and more intolerant of those who do not live a quasi-pagan, anti-Christian lifestyle.