Black metal

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emphasis on atmosphere. Artists often appear in corpse paint and adopt pseudonyms.

Quotes about black metal

• [Black metal] sounds like evil, ranting demons laying waste to a snowy Scandinavian forest.
  • Jason Arnopp of Kerrang!, as quoted by Alex Godfrey of the Guardian [1]

• [Black metal] was atmospheric, with a deeper approach than what the death metal scene was doing. You could travel within it.
  • Rune Eriksen of Mayhem [2]

• [Black metal is] a harsh, dark form of heavy metal with a focus on extremity and a satanic bent – although if you asked five fans you’d get seven different answers.
  • Nick Ruskell of Kerrang! [3]