Tuesday 18 November 2008

Black Metal

Lyrical Content - The lyrical content of black metal music is generally misanthropic, aimed towards other religions coming from the point of view from the paganistic roots. The lyrics are sung with high pitched screaming vocals, contrast to the low, guttural vocals of death metal. Personally i prefer the death metal vocal style, however i find the black metal style almost chilling and i can appreciate talent it would take to pull off such a harsh vocal technique.





Significant Artists - Black metal's first influence was from newcastle "extreme metal" band Venom, who went on to influence the german thrash scene with bands such as, Sodom, Kreator and Destruction, also Celtic Frost and Bathory. Tomas Forsberg (Quorthon)

of Bathory was the first to use the high pitched shriek on the vocals, which would later on define the genre. (1)


The "Second Wave" of black metal arose from the Norwegian area with bands such as Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, and Immortal.


Black metal has went on to influence some sub genre's, such as "Melodic black metal" and "Blackened Death Metal". In my opinion the second wave of black metal is more to my taste, as venom in my opinion weren't really black metal, they just influenced it.






Important Albums/Singles -




Venom - Black Metal (1982)


Celtic Frost - Morbid Tales (1984)


Burzum - Burzum (1992)


Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger (1994)


Immortal - Battles In The North (1995)








Some of my favourite black metal tracks -









































Fashion/Image Of Black Metal - Black metal artists would commonly wear dark/black clothing with boots, generally accessorized with spiked belts/wristbands. The most defining fashion with black metal was the corpse paint, this is black and white make-up sometimes with real/fake blood. It is said that this can be related to the "Oskorei" part of old Norse Mythology.





Music and Society At the Time - At the time Scandanavia was a christian area, however norway had its religious roots in paganism. Black metal was a kind of statement of anti-chrisitanity, this lead in some extreme casses to the burning of wooden churches. Other acts of violence that came from the black metal genre were several murders, one of the main murders in my opinion would've been when Varg Vikernes (Count Grishnackh - Burzum) murdered Oystein Aerseth (Euronymous - Mayhem), Oystein was found murdered outside his apartment with 23 cut wounds, 16 to the back, 5 to the neck and 2 to the head. Varg is currently serving his 21 year prison sentence for his crime. Another important death i think would be Jon Nodtveidt's suicide in 2006, he was the lead guitarist and vocalist in swedish black metal band "Dissection", i think this is important as Dissection are one of my favourite black metal bands.
References - I researched my material from
Also from the notes i took in the lecture on Black metal.
Other useful websites would be -

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Alexisonfire

Alexisonfire, (pronounced Alexis-on-fire) is a post hardcore band, formed in Ontario, Canada in 2001. The band members are; George Pettit (lead vocals), Dallas Green (rhythm guitar/vocals), Wade MacNeil (guitar/vocals), Chris Steele (bass guitar)and Jordan Hastings (drums).
They released their first EP in 2002 named "Math Sheet Demos", named accordingly because the CD itself was wrapped in the drummers maths homework. (1) It was at this time that Greg Below and Mitch Joel heard Alexisonfire and coincidently were setting up a record label named "Distort Entertainment" and needed bands.
Below was working with EMI at the same time, so used this to record the band and lend them a co-publishing and distribution deal. (2)
Their first album, self-titled "Alexisonfire", was released on September 9, 2002. The album cover was two catholic school girls in a knife fight, which was inspired by how the band describe their music. The band then toured to support this album crossing canada twice and started into the American and European scenes, playing with bands like, Billy Talent, GWAR, Juliana Theory, Godsmack and Glassjaw.
In 2004, when the band had considerable attention from major record companies, they decided to stay independent as it would give them a better chance of deciding their direction. (3) So they stayed with Distort Entertainment to record their next album "Watch Out!" which was released on June 29 of that year and was instantly successful, it achieved gold certification in Canada, in just twelve weeks.(4)
On August 22, 2006, Alexisonfire released their third album "Crisis", which Allmusic considered their best to date. (5) There was an album release party in which the band played on a boat in London.

Alexisonfire have released a number of singles during their career, this is their first "Pulmonary Archery", which was released in 2002 from their debut album "Alexisonfire.



Their next single was "Counterparts and Number Them" from the same album. 



After "Counterparts" the next single was "Waterwings", this video was based on the 1979 film The Warriors and from the album Alexisonfire.



"Accidents" was the first song and single from Alexisonfire's 2004 album "Watch Out!". This song is one of my favourite by Alexisonfire.



"No Transitory" was the second single from "Watch Out!". This song is noted for being the first of the bands singles to have Dallas Green on lead vocals.



Next was "Hey, It's You're Funeral Mama". The lyrics in this song are based on Go-Karting.



"This Could Be Anywhere In The World" was the first single from Alexisonfire's third album Crisis.


The next single off the album Crisis was "Boiled Frogs".



The bands most recent single is "Rough Hands" released last year.



All Videos Were Obtained Via http://www.youtube.com/

References: