Black Metal

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal, which emerged in the mid-eighties. It is characterized by its letters with satanic overtones. It was born as a musical expression of the anti-Christian movements that proliferate around the European continent, whose greatest impulse was through the burning of numerous Christian churches.

Traditional Black Metal has well-defined musical characteristics: the voice is raspy and high-pitched, known as shriek (“screech”, in English), the guitars are fast and the riffs are repetitive, the usual technique is tremolo picking and blasting. beats are the most used resource in the drums, and the bass for its part, is an instrument that goes into the background and is practically inaudible. In this genre, the creation of atmospheres in compositions is prioritized over their technical complexity. For this reason, the low quality of production and post-production is an important element that the first bands used and is still in force, because, according to Varg Vikernes: ” A production that is too clean would not be able to convey the feeling of essential coldness or desolation in Black Metal ”

Satanism, whether symbolic or as a true dogma of faith, is conceptually used by Black Metal bands as a banner of protest and nonconformity against Christianity, which has oppressed the pagan and polytheistic roots of Scandinavia. Being a dark subgenre, the feelings that this explores range from hatred, pessimism, melancholy and misanthropy mainly. Likewise, Black Metal has the particularity of being the side of Metal that more easily combines and adapts external styles without losing its distinctive sound; incorporating flutes, saxophones, harps, violins, keyboards, even ethnic / folk instruments, and also electronic instruments, which causes these combinations and evolutions to give rise to different sub-genres of it.