Is there or has ther been such thing as technical black metal? Can there be?

[Matt]

Yes? Explain how they are. Please enlighten me.

 

[challenge_everything]

Um.. listen to Ye Entracemperium or Ensorcelled by Khaos, listen to the blastbeats, riffs, vocals, atmosphere and then explain to me how this could possibly be anything other than BM. It's not even fucking debatable.

 

[MasterOLightning]

No, Anthems is debatable. That debate has been had lots of times. IX is not black metal at all. Listen to enough black metal and you can hear that there are really not any substantial similarities between IX E and black metal. I accept Anthems as black metal, but it's very close to not being so.

 

[wagontrain]

Weakling is pretty fucking technical. They were being called progressive black metal before DsO ever was. I don't know that they were the "first" progressive black metal, but to this day I don't think I have heard a BM band that uses more progressive techniques, most notably changing time signatures.

Thorns - Thorns is also a very technical album in my opinion. There is a ton of shit out there now that follows in Thorns footsteps, Abigor for example, but as far as I know they did it first.

 

[MasterOLightning]

Time signatures are really not that important for technicality, as they really are only a challenge for the drummer. It's not terribly difficult for guitar or bass players to play time signatures as long as they have a melody to follow. To play fills in odd times is hard for drummers. In my bands material, we use 7/8 a bit, which is somewhat of a challenge.

I mainly consider song structures for this question and the technicality of the riffs. The new DsO seems bafflingly complex in both these regards.

 

[challenge_everything]

No, Anthems is debatable. That debate has been had lots of times. IX is not black metal at all. Listen to enough black metal and you can hear that there are really not any substantial similarities between IX E and black metal. I accept Anthems as black metal, but it's very close to not being so.

I wasn't talking about IX, I accept that one is debatable. And anyone who doesn't accept Anthems as black metal doesn't understand the genre to begin with. And the comment was that Anthems and IX were not black metal "at all", which is clearly untrue because even IX obviously contains some black metal characteristics.

 

[wagontrain]

Time signatures are really not that important for technicality, as they really are only a challenge for the drummer. It's not terribly difficult for guitar or bass players to play time signatures as long as they have a melody to follow. To play fills in odd times is hard for drummers. In my bands material, we use 7/8 a bit, which is somewhat of a challenge.

I mainly consider song structures for this question and the technicality of the riffs. The new DsO seems bafflingly complex in both these regards.

You are absolutely right in both paragraphs. I brought up time signatures in reference to calling Weakling "progressive black metal", since odd time signatures is generally the main criteria for progressive categorization.

And yeah, DsO is extremely complex, too bad I can't hear it.

 

[Vacant_Planets]

Time signatures are really not that important for technicality, as they really are only a challenge for the drummer. It's not terribly difficult for guitar or bass players to play time signatures as long as they have a melody to follow. To play fills in odd times is hard for drummers. In my bands material, we use 7/8 a bit, which is somewhat of a challenge.

I mainly consider song structures for this question and the technicality of the riffs. The new DsO seems bafflingly complex in both these regards.

Must disagree with this A jump from a solo using 19/16 to a ryjtem of 9/8 or 25/32 could easily trip a guitar player up.
Wasn't Muntant and Lunaris quite techincal? Don't remember for sure.

 

[MasterOLightning]

What bands even play things like that? My point was that guitar players basically don't even have to be aware of what time signatures they play in because they just play the riff to completion, and then repeat, or move on to the next segment. As long as the player knows the individual components of the song, it shouldn't be hard to put them together. Drummers have to be very aware of time signatures because it affects the types of fills/beats you can use. These things tend to be more improvisational than riffs. I can't ever recall playing a song on drums exactly the same way twice, while a guitar or bass player will strive for this.

 

[~Derek~]

Anthems and IX are not black metal at all.

I don't see why people think Anthems isn't black metal, it seems to me it clearly is, so what is it if it's not black metal?

 

[False Dawn]

Drottnar

 

[Matt]

No, Anthems is debatable. That debate has been had lots of times. IX is not black metal at all. Listen to enough black metal and you can hear that there are really not any substantial similarities between IX E and black metal. I accept Anthems as black metal, but it's very close to not being so.

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