My favourite Black Metal band is Underlord!

Christopher_Dragon wrote:

full point wrote:I agree with Instant Zen.

When the production gets too hi-fi it loses cred.

So you're telling me that if one of these bands made a record with the "hi-fi"ness of say Liar by the Jesus Lizard, then they would loss cred?
Simply for being able to hear bass and have the levels on the instruments be of equal volume?
Apparently this genre of music is beyond stupid.

when i first started listening to black metal, i did it purely for the humor factor. i think a lot of people in the metal community are rather pretentious and hilarious, and so i listen to a lot of it for a good laugh. what i was trying to communicate there was that because the Emperor record was so lo-fi, it forced me to listen to it several times so i could understand what the hell was going on in the first place. oddly enough, once i understood what was going on musically, i actually kinda started to dig it.

i also very much dig the Jesus Lizard. i also very much dig a lot of other bands who were very well-recorded. you can't take a single dimension of a band/genre/whatever and say "if you like it this way, you can't like it that way."

that would be like saying i can't like Shellac because i think Rush sucks ass.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:

aaron wrote:if you think metal is all beer-drinking idiocy and style over substance, listen to the first voivod record and tell me those riffs weren't written by folks more clever than yourself.

clever enough for Pajo to wear a Voivod shirt when Slint played the Metro a few weeks back!

That nearly brings tears to my eyes.

they definitely did some brilliant shit in the 80's. and yet they still looked like this...

Honestly, metal or not, we all looked like that in the '80's.

i don't think i would ever characterize them as "black metal" though. more tech-metal. and the phrase "sci-fi" is often dropped in describing them.

I prefer "Die Kreuzen worship" metal myself.

I was really into Voivod in the '80's. I meet these guys in 1990 when they toured with Soundgarden. Soundgarden sucked that night (that was when Jason Everman was briefly in the band), and Cornell was a supreme ass. But the Voivod guys were very cool and did a great show, despite that 3/4 of the audience bailed when they came on stage after Soundgarden.

(To Soundgarden's credit, I did also meet Matt Cameron that night, and despite his bandmate's behavior, he himself was very gracious.)

Having lived in Norway and being into Venom in my metal years I have investigated the genre. I find Darkthrone, Hellhammer and Mayhem the best of the bunch. Look up "Blck-Metal Dialogues" for something hilarious.

I'd start with:

Burzum - Hvys Lyste Tar Oss (sp?)

Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger

Immortal - Pure Holocaust

What I like about black metal is very evident in those, in that order. A bit like a metal version of Neu!.

I don't care, and I guess most people here won't care either, for the slicker, more produced stuff. What is usually referred to as "avantgarde black metal" I usually find very cheesy as well.

Dudes, again: "Blood Fire Death."

Bathory are the greatest black metal band of all time.

Immortal- Sons of Northern Darkness

I heard a record by Xasthur (sic) recently that was awesome. who the hell are they?

Burzum and Dark Throne are great.

Don't take Venom too seriously, they didn't. The place to start would be the Hellhammer EP from 1984.