The Founders of Black Metal

Black Metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. Lyrics are commonly shrieked, guitars are often distorted, drums use blast beats, and the song structures themselves are atypical. Black Metal rose out of Thrash Metal in the 80s with bands like Venom, Bathory, and Celtic Frost. The genre name itself comes from a Venom album name. It was bands in the 90s such as Mayhem and Burzum that truly made Black Metal a bona fide subgenre of metal.

Black Metal is often criticized for the anti-Christian lyrics and over all dark attitude of many artists. The Norwegian Black Metal scene is blamed for over 50 arsons of centuries old churches in the early 90s in Norway. Bands themselves were heavily involved and supportive of the burings. Burzum’s album Aske (Norwegian for Ashes) includes a picture of one of the burnt churches as an album cover.

In Until The Light Take Us the reasons behind the church burnings are revealed. The churches were built on pagan lands and burning them was no different than if vikings had burnt them when they were first built.

One of the church burners, Varg Vikernes of Burzum, has also been convicted of the murder of his Mayhem band mate, Euronymous. Vikernes has stated that Aarseth "planned to kill him and that he was striking first in self-defense". When arrested, 150 kg of explosives and 3,000 rounds of ammunition in Vikernes' home. He said he planned to blow up a Blitz house in Oslo because his neo-nazi fascist ideals clashed with their anarchy. On May 24, 2009, Vikernes was released from prison on probation after being denied parole and leaving a low security prison to ride in a Volvo with an "AG3 automatic rifle, a handgun, numerous large knives, a gas mask, camouflage clothing, a laptop, a compass, various maps and a fake passport."

The murdered, Euronymous, was no innocent. When Per Yngve Ohlin (nicknamed Dead), bandmate and vocalist for Mayhem shot himself, Euronymous made neckclaces from bits of his skull. There are also rumours that he made a stew of the dead mans brain and ate it. Euronymous was ecstatic at his bandmates death, informing others by saying "Dead has done something really cool! He killed himself." Bård 'Faust' Eithun has said that he believes Dead's suicide "marked the point at which, under Euronymous's direction, the black metal scene began its obsession with all things satanic and evil." and that Euronymous was actually deeply affected by the death. A photo of the dead body was used as an album cover (Warning: graphic).

Euronymous was the owner of a record shop called Helvete (Norwegian for Hell), where members of the Black Metal scene met in what some would call a cult-like fashion, calling themselves "the Black Circle." The actual existence of the Black Circle is highly disputed. Whether there was or was not a cult out of Helvete, it can not be denied that it's opening and fame led to the spread of the Black Metal style worldwide.