Black Metal vs Death Metal

"I wonder how many people in the USA got into black metal via Phil Anselmo..."

I dunno. I owned a Bathory cassette long before I ever heard of Pantera. Though I am not really the average listener.

I don't think I've heard of anything because of Phil Anselmo, but I'm definitely one of those people who heard about black metal from Aquarius lists.

What if you DO like the rest of BM?

Need to hear more DM before voting.

― You are Rebels! You are all yankees (country matters),

Okay, my current hypothesis is LJ does not like blast beats or aggressive, fast drumming ...which honestly breaks my heart ... kinda doubting he'd like death metal.

i think he has to justify listening to something, i just dont know who he has to justify it to.

If "avant garde black metal" means black metal with more minimal drums, then I'm pretty sure I voted for the wrong thing. I was imagining some theoretical thing that was like Xenakis + shreiking vocals + blastbeats.

> I remember cracking up over the Nachtmystium vocalist solemnly informing me of his intention to invade my land, slaughter my cattle and burn my temples

he was serious?

Well, he hasn't shown up yet. He's probably working his way through "Assassins" listeners in alphabetical order. That's a lot of cattle.

All I've seen mentioned on here for death metal are the really brutal bands, but are we counting the more melodic stuff like In Flames, Soilwork, Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth, Dark Tranquillity, etc. as death metal? Because in that case, death metal by a huge margin for me.

Although weirdly enough, I have trouble getting into Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, and Morbid Angel-type head-clubbing brutality. So that's why I'm torn. Although really, the black metal bands that I love(like Satyricon and Dimmu Borgir) are not exactly the blackest of the black, either.

Sorry I didn't make a girly metal option, jeff.

;)

so, basically, you are just a little girl in a frilly pink dress and pigtails. is that correct?

girly x-post!

but anyway yeah melodic death is still death.

what about deathcore? what is that? (apart from awful awful shite)

Well, I'm such a paragon of masculinity in my everyday life that sometimes it's nice to go home, curl up, and listen to girly death metal.

I think all that stuff counts as death metal - the demise of In Flames from decent melodic death band to just plain crappy band (imo obv) was a big bummer for me but I dig amon amarth & dark tranquillity, shit didn't a.a. play deathfest this year? and deathfest is brootal in the EXTREEMZ

once sent from the golden hall is one of my favorite death metal albums. one of my favorite metal albums, period.

I consider them all death metal, but there are the Defenders of Brutality to say that Arch Enemy are thrash or that Children of Bodom are power metal (?!). I didn't want to get smacked down for not being troo enough.

http://cache.umusic.com/web_assets/merch/week7/gaga/300x250_price.gif

Avant Garde Black Metal (for louis Abbott)

That's really the only metal I listen to. That and BÖC and I'm not sure they count.

death for sonics, black for vibe.

for combination of death sonics and black vibe and absurd genre name--blackened death. new behemoth record slays (and is a billboard charter).

death all the way for me.

i don't honestly know if i could choose between "obscura"/"slaughter of the soul"/"heartwork" and "transylvanian hunger"/"nattens madrigal"/"obscuritatem advoco amplectere me" with gun to head.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I like a lot of bands in variants of both styles, and delete most of what I download in both styles. As least in terms of the subsets of these styles that I like, myself, it's kind of a flow. Early Death Metal was an attempt to push metal's center of gravity back towards aggression, away than theatricality, which seemed like a great idea to me (the theatricality also seemed like a great idea to me; plenty of room in the universe for contradictory styles...). As Death's tropes became codified, aggression gave way to the mannerisms of aggression, or maybe they were mannerisms all along, but they moved from being invented mannerisms to being imitated mannerisms. Anger kind of morphed into thuggishness, which is what happened to punk, too. Black Metal, then, took over as the next reversal, a way out of the constraints and associations built up around Death Metal, back to some nihilistic menace. And by now this, too, has been taken to its self-caricaturing extreme.

But of the last 10 new Death or Black metal bands I've discovered I like, I'm not sure any of them are clearly Death and not Black. And Funeral Mist will be on my top 10 for this year, at least. So Black, on current strength, given that I have to pick one...

black metaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal
black metaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal

didn't a.a. play deathfest this year?

yep

ended up voting str8 black-metal, maybe somewhat disingenuously given the options, but not given the poll title

not that i won't be sticking gorguts on again real soon and letting my jaw drop

It doesnt really matter LJ, as far as I'm concerned, I would just be adding any votes for Avant Garde BM to BM's votes anyway. It was only an option for hipsters who were too scared to vote BM anyway!
*not that I'm calling you a hipster (how could an Oceansize fan be hip?)

they're Manchester's answer to Animal Collective

Ha, I wonder if Abbott and I will be the only ones who vote for avant-garde black metal. I do actually think it's some of the most interesting and enjoyable rock music of the past 5 years or so, although my knowledge of it is probably shallow (and mostly ILM-derived). Still, <3 Caina/Alcest/Nachtmystium/Deathspell Omega/Blut Aus Nord/Spektr.

Enjoyed the Necrodemon clip.

I do actually think it's some of the most interesting and enjoyable rock music of the past 5 years or so

It is. :D

Earlier, as I said on a different thread, I heard Moonsorrow's 'Chapter V' by accident and it was revelatory, a quite gorgeous experience. Not exactly straight BM, but a great example of an original take on the genre, done superbly well. How those songs sustained my interest like that is testament to the thought put into their crafting.

I stuck to B/D out of respect for the intent of the poll. But Blut Aus Nord and Deathspell Omega, yah. I don't know that I can really tell the difference between "avant-garde black metal" and "non-avant-garde black metal", other than assuming that "boring" = "non-avant-garde", in which case "avant-garde black metal" just means "whatever I find interesting". Which seems like a cop-out...

man I listened to so much fuckin metal today

right now it's all about finland for me

is it okay to burn a church in front of a baby?

teach... your children hell...

i desperately wish to hear a serious BM/Delta Blues synthesis. yes i does.

deth

"I wonder if Abbott and I will be the only ones who vote for avant-garde black metal."

I voted straight Black Metal. A lot of what I like could be wedged into some sort of avant-garde BM category, but I just don't think it's meaningful at all. As far as I can see, BM has always included loads of "avant-garde" experimentation, it's not something that started at some arbitrary point five years ago or whatever. It's right there at the centre of the genre, and always has been.

I get a lot less out of what I hear from sworn exponents of Death Metal, but there's no question that the same arguments against a separate avant-garde category would apply.

Still, AFAICT there is a difference between Spektr and, I dunno, Emperor or something. I just meant that I don't know the genre as a whole really well but do enjoy and listen to what gets classified as 'avant-garde'. Like, I enjoy Mort more than I enjoy the more traditional BAN tracks that I've heard. I wonder if some of the bands I mentioned might possibly be better classified as "post-rock BM" or "psych/prog BM".

"there is a difference between Spektr and, I dunno, Emperor or something" - Yes, but probably no more more than the difference between Emperor and Mayhem, and a certainly a lot less than between Emperor and Abruptum - and I'm not slagging off Emperor BTW. There is truly wild stuff to be found from all eras of BM, trust me.

I'm still not clear on what's being classified as avant-garde.

Stuff hipsters like.

What about stuff weird avant-garde people like?

That's death metal.

Take a handful of bad acid, stick an Abruptum CD on repeat, and call me from jail.

So if I like Deathspell Omega, Absu, and Lair of the Minotaur, am I a weird avant-garde person, a hipster or what? You're kinda giving me an identity crisis here, Alex.

(If we have hipsters in Windsor, I'm pretty sure I'm not one of them.)
xpost

I mean, your points are well-take though, Soukesian. I'll listen to Abruptum.

xxpost it depends on which one you like the most obviously.