In Satan's Service?

Black Metal distinguishes itself from other extreme forms of metal in quite stunning ways—its dark-as-pitch atmospherics; its blistering beats and high, thin guitar lines, played at a blurred pace; its violent themes and images; its screeched, keening vocals. And then there are the church burnings. And, of course, the murder. But is the perception of Black Metal as violent a fair one? The answer is, unequivocally, sort of and sort of not.

“It can be violent in sound and aesthetic, like all metal,” says Aesop Dekker, drummer for the San Francisco metal band Ludicra. “But are the fans and musicians any more violent than in any other genre? I don’t believe so.”

Though Black Metal’s precedents exist in the catalogues of bands like Venom (which coined the term Black Metal in the name of its 1983 album, pictured above), Hellhamer and Bathory, its image and sound coalesced in the early 1990s in Norway with bands like Immortal, Emperor, Darkthrone and, of course, Mayhem and Burzum. It was from the latter two bands that the Black Metal creation myth arose.

Chris Bruni, from the Canadian label Profound Lore, home to some of the genre's more innovative acts, remembers the mystique that surrounded those early Norwegian bands. “Admittedly it was quite an alluring atmosphere,” he says. “When I first heard [Emperor’s] In The Nightside Eclipse and was conscious of the fact that three fourths of the line up ended up incarcerated, it definitely heightened the feeling when listening to it.”

From 1992 to 1996, 50 churches in Norway were the targets of arson, the perpetrators of which claimed inspiration from members of the Norwegian Black Metal scene. In April 1991, Mayhem lead singer Dead committed suicide, and a bandmate, Euronymous, took photos—one of which ended up on a bootleg album cover. Rumors circulated about a stew with Dead’s brain matter being consumed, and his skull fragments ending up in jewelry. A little more than two years later, Euronymous was stabbed to death by Varg Vikernes, Mayhem's bassist and the sole member of Burzum. Investigating the crime led police to discover the links between Black Metal musicians and the church burnings of years prior, plus another murder committed by Bard Faust of Emperor. It was a lurid story, a tabloid journalist’s dream. And it became a lens through which Black Metal around the world has been perceived.

“Varg Vikernes and all those characters get really romanticized as sort of Viking supermen or as quasi-mystical,” says Aaron Weaver from the Olympia, Washington-based band Wolves in the Throne Room, "I think when it all comes down to it, it’s just some kids who were fucked up on drugs trying to lash out in a really time honored way.”

To what extent, though, was the sudden explosion of violence—which has, fortunately, yet to be repeated—a case of a media-fueled feedback loop? Roger Simpson, professor of journalism ethics at the University of Washington and author of, most recently, Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting about Victims and Trauma, explains, “If the coverage points clearly to what and who is valued and what and who is not, members of those groups, in order to survive, have to respond to their place in that scheme... A subculture could begin to mirror the assumptions presented in the coverage.”

“I think the kind of legitimate thing in Black Metal in Burzum, or Mayhem, or Emperor is this sense of trying to reawaken the feral energy, and not being afraid of it,” says Weaver. “Violence is all around us, but it’s taboo. We’re not used to killing animals to eat, or contend with other people for resources.”

In other words, maybe the Black Metal reputation sticks because we need a proxy for our baser instincts, and who better than a subculture who, as Weaver says, fight against the “trappings of modernity,” and create a form of music that, as Dekker say, “state[s] an unwillingness to participate in the mainstream”?