The Black/Thrash Question

[HamburgerBoy]

Why should black/thrash not be included but all that random riffless/folk riff/punk riff black metal is included? Just seems to me to be very convenient to disqualify all that black/thrash because your point is about how black metal as a whole has shitty riffs.

If you wanted an answer to that question you would have read and responded to this post in an honest manner:

It's not a sub-genre of black metal. It's generally either 1) an ancestor of black metal or, 2) a hybrid of thrash metal and black metal. Deathhammer didn't come up with their riffs by listening primarily to Darkthrone or Burzum, they did so by listening to Destruction and Kreator, and maybe a little bit of incidental/anachronistic Darkthrone rubbed off as well. Is blackgaze a sub-genre of shoegaze? I'd say no, it's a sub-genre of black metal with shoegaze influences. Is funk metal a sub-genre of funk? No, it started largely as heavy and thrash metal bands incorporating funk parts, often as a joke, until they decided to start making entire albums out of it.

 

[CiG]

If it's an ancestor, I see no reason why it doesn't count at least enough to be included in a riff roundup. If it's a hybrid, I still see no reason why it wouldn't be included. I'm less concerned with proving it's a subgenre I guess and more interested in why black/thrash wouldn't be included in a discussion about black metal riffs.

I get that the riffs are thrashy (mostly teutonic) but the rest of the music is black metal and they incorporate the riffs into their overall black metal package, just like black metal bands using any other kind of riff.

People might completely disagree with me and that's fine, if the poll tips against me I'll also concede that black/thrash is rejected by the majority as being black metal, but you do often have absurd opinions about black metal and I'm getting the same feeling from this one. Plenty of black metal bands use non-established-by-2nd wave-bands types of riffs and nobody disqualifies them as hybrids or whatever.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

Why can’t they just be both?

 

[The Ozzman]

Where's the 'Most Ozzman posts are shit' option?

Your ass

 

[The Butt]

*shrug*

 

[Satanstoenail]

It's Brash Metal.

THRACK ATTACK

 

[HamburgerBoy]

If it's an ancestor, I see no reason why it doesn't count at least enough to be included in a riff roundup. If it's a hybrid, I still see no reason why it wouldn't be included. I'm less concerned with proving it's a subgenre I guess and more interested in why black/thrash wouldn't be included in a discussion about black metal riffs.

I get that the riffs are thrashy (mostly teutonic) but the rest of the music is black metal and they incorporate the riffs into their overall black metal package, just like black metal bands using any other kind of riff.

People might completely disagree with me and that's fine, if the poll tips against me I'll also concede that black/thrash is rejected by the majority as being black metal, but you do often have absurd opinions about black metal and I'm getting the same feeling from this one. Plenty of black metal bands use non-established-by-2nd wave-bands types of riffs and nobody disqualifies them as hybrids or whatever.

Because we're discussing two different things. My initial post was of black metal. Proto-black metal is not black metal by definition. The exact line to draw on what is proto and what is nascent is blurry and I'm willing to take a liberal interpretation, but a lot of the bands you're referring to are not descendants of black metal, they're descendants of the predecessors of black metal.

Riffing is the most important part of defining metal, so a band using "mostly Teutonic" riffing is not outweighed by other non-thrash elements (especially when most of them don't even feature a majority of black metal drumming). I gave D666 a pass because they use significant amounts of black metal riffing, they frequently use black metal blasting and 6/4 rhythms, and their songwriting is generally more drawn-out in a black metal fashion. I don't give 1983 Bay Area wannabes a pass just because they have inverted crosses on their black and white album covers.

 

[PrincessHades]

Most stuff labeled black/thrash tends to skirt the line but generally it reminds me of Slayer more than it does Mayhem, so bands like Gehenna I think of as thrash metal bands...

 

[EchoForever]

That said, bands generally considered black/thrash > bands generally considered atmoblack

im sure most people agree riffs > atmosphere

 

[Sophii]

Black/Thrash is just playing Paranoid and Symptom of the Universe by Black Sabbath anyway, just remixed every time.

Sabbath = trve-ist.

I think Black/Thrash is such a weird grey area because it could even apply with the earliest death metal bands even (you can't tell me Possessed's Seven Churches is straight fucking black and evil.)

Bands like Sarcofago, Mayhem, Sepultura (at the time), were so varied that it would have been hard to actually pinpoint it as black metal - at the time.

Is it Black Metal? I think so, it just cross pollinates the artillery like approach of thrash and the fuzzier evil sound of the coming of era black metal after it .

 

[The Butt]

Black metal is one of the few genres of metal, if not the only one, that's defined just as much by production and ideology, if not more, than actual composition and structure... so yeah, I don't find it a stretch at all that black/thrash bands, bands that compositionally have more in common with thrash than black, be called black metal.

People who say it can't be, to me, are just autist fagbagels who lack the mental capacity to analyze metal on a scale of anything more than a shallow, vapid, one-dimensional concept of being an engine for riffs.

im sure most people agree riffs > atmosphere

I wouldn't.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Provide an objective basis for defining only black metal along ideological grounds.

 

[The Butt]

Speaking purely from second wave and on, since I don't think anyone is really debating first wave is black metal so its a total non-factor here; it was a genre that was built upon listener-unfriendliness, and importance on production (going lo-fi, muddy, or sharp as an artistic choice, rather than doing so out of necessity), even by metal standards.

How about you provide something substantial since you're the one that claims its not black metal. Something less flimsy than "but the RIFFS BRO" since 1) yes we know that thrash riffs are thrash riffs, thanks tips, and 2), that really is the most shallow and meatheaded way to analyze metal.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Death and thrash metal were built upon listener-unfriendliness and the importance of production.

You appear to be conflating quality (1a : peculiar and essential character) with quality (2a : degree of excellence). The two are unrelated. I'd argue that holding only black metal to a standard that no other metal sub-genre is held to is arbitrary and shows a personal bias.

 

[The Butt]

This isn't about quality, don't fucking strawman me you intellectually dishonest troglodyte. How about you post something substantiative rather than spouting a logical fallacy (and yes I know, ad hominem but I can own up to that shit).

Also I'm pretty sure none of the other metal genres put an importance on intentional production choices (other than maybe Sunlight swedeath, but thats not an entire genre) so nice try, cunt.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

That's not a strawman. Define "shallow and meatheaded" as you previously used it, then.

Thrash metal bands consciously moved away from the slicker production values of glam metal. Early death metal bands were all about rawness. Everyone knows this.

 

[EchoForever]

I wouldn't.

so you prefer metal that is more atmosphere focused instead of riff driven?
why is that

 

[The Butt]

That's not a strawman. Define "shallow and meatheaded" as you previously used it, then.

Thrash metal bands consciously moved away from the slicker production values of glam metal. Early death metal bands were all about rawness. Everyone knows this.

There wasn't a unified, cohesive, conscious effort like there was in black metal. Black metal was self-aware of its emphasis on the importance of production. Black metal made a conscious effort to be lo-fi and stripped-down, and made it a major artistic factor in the sound. With thrash and death, it just kind of happened.

so you prefer metal that is more atmosphere focused instead of riff driven?
why is that

I find riff-driven metal to be mostly very meat-and-potatoes. Don't get me wrong, I adore all kinds of metal, but I enjoy the immersiveness of atmospheric metal, and I find you can do more with it than metal that literally just serves as a riff engine. Ive never found much riff-driven music to be "otherworldly", as much as I hate to use the word.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

That effort didn't exist in black metal in general, only among a group of a dozen or so edgy Norwegian kids. All first-wave bands gradually improved their production values with time, and many (like Sodom) were openly ashamed of their poor recording quality.

 

[CiG]

Darkthrone is probably the best example of the poor production aesthetic because they literally went backwards from what they achieved with Soulside Journey. Before that I can't think of a single example where poor production was intentional rather than just a product of mere circumstance.