Metal Briefs: National Socialist Black Metal, Part 1

I Wonder Who A.H. Is

I've been wanting to do this for a very long time now. As I've repeatedly said, lyrics don't mean anything to me. I'm a Christian who is an avid consumer of black metal, so that should go without saying. It's not tough to ignore them, when you have to have a lyric sheet to pick out more than five or six words at a time. But I am interested in lyrics from a more academic standpoint, and I appreciate the strong correlations between musical style and lyrical standpoint. I have my theories as to why Christian bands so rarely make good metal.

While many metalheads will draw the line at NSBM, I don't see that line. To me, being against God is worse than being against a particular race. Neither is exactly a good thing, but like I said, it doesn't matter. And if you want to be logically consistent, I hardly think a racist viewpoint is worse than a misogynist viewpoint. So if you're drawing one line but not the other, you're being silly.

Anyway, here is my first exploration of NSBM, in an attempt to see if I can find any kind of connection between ideology and music. These are all courtesy of Cosmic Hearse.

Malveillance: Que La Mort Vous Emporte (2003)
3 out of 5 stars

Que La Mort Vous Emporte is the debut full-length of Quebecois one-man band Malveillance. I quite like two-thirds of this record. Between the writing style and the treble-overdrive guitar tone it sounds like a (comparatively) primitive blend of Nargaroth and The Ash Eaters. Unfortunately, two of the songs here are an abortion with blown-out production, so I can't give it a strong endorsement.

Warclouds: A Disturbing Presence (2011)

...Of Programmed Drumming

Guest review by Metallattorney. He is the law.

South America has some of the best, and most underrated, metal scenes in the world. Some of the black and death metal that has been coming out of that continent proves that there are still some great, original bands out there. It has actually always been that way with the mighty Sarcofago, Sepultura, and Vulcano all rising out of Brazil in the 1980's.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of fairly mundane acts from the continent. Bands that do not really bring anything new to the table, but simply rehash many of the same ideas that other bands have.