Many black metal performers tend to adopt pseudonyms and dress in a kind of Kiss-inspired corpse paint. Karl Spracklin defines black metal as “a form of extreme metal typified by evil sounds and elitist ideologies,” with a number of bands drawing on “nationalist and fascist images and themes.” Its sound is generally characterized by shrieking and growling vocals, disjointed guitar riffs, a frenetic pace and an emphasis on atmosphere, often deliberately created through the implementation of a raw, lo-fi quality of the recording. So influential has this genre now become that one commentator said that “black metal has arguably become Norway’s greatest cultural export.” This Norwegian second wave helped to popularize the genre even further and led to the creation of other black metal bands across Europe and the globe. It emerged primarily in Norway in the 1990s and is exemplified by such bands as Burzum.
A second wave of the movement, which was more ideological in orientation and often emphasized Satanism or paganism, became infamous for promoting a series of church burnings. It was intended as a rejection of the commercialization of heavy metal as well as a critique of modern secular society. The subgenre took its name from the title of Venom’s second album, “Black Metal,” released in 1982. Plato may have been correct when he warned “about the interconnectivity of politics and music.”īlack metal is an extreme genre of heavy metal that first emerged in the UK with the band Venom. Some of black metal’s aesthetics even appear to have influenced the violent imaginary of the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division. More recently, it was reported that Holden Matthew, the 21-year-old charged with burning down three black churches in Louisiana, was also influenced by black metal and held racist heathen beliefs. Indeed, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, in “Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity,” states that black metal and its “fascination with the occult, evil, Nazism and Hitler” were a possible motivation behind the 1999 massacre, on Hitler’s birthday, of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado.īlack metal is also associated with a series of church burnings across Norway in the 1990s by Varg Vikernes, a racist heathen and black metal musician. One of these potential memes is black metal music and its offshoot, national socialist black metal (NSBM). Thus, some academics, such as Steven Woodbridge, have cautioned of the need to watch the uses of “historical themes, imagery and language” that are used in these forums to promote their particular brand of violent political discourse. The internet, the dark web, online gaming forums and encrypted messaging services are frequently accused of helping to spread this gospel of hate. The manifesto ended with the clarion call: “see you in Valhalla.” In the UK, Thomas Mair, who murdered West Yorkshire MP Jo Cox, was reported as being influenced by racist Ariosophic literature too. This same black sun emblem appeared on the front and last pages of the manifesto of the Christchurch mass murderer in March 2019. James Alex Field, arrested for the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, marched alongside a flag depicting the black sun, a Nazi symbol drawing directly on Germanic heathen Ariosophic imagery, which in turn had inspired the formation of the Thule Society. Anders Breivik, responsible for bombings and the shooting of 77 people in Norway in 2011, identifies as an Odinist.
What is particularly disturbing is the recognition that many recent violent crimes perpetrated by the extreme right seem to be connected or influenced by such worldviews. The majority of mainstream liberal heathen groups are similarly concerned about the manner in which their contemporary religion is being appropriated by the extreme right and are organizing to resist.
In the last few years, however, commentators are noting the return to prominence of racist occultism and heathenry among the far right and have called for some of these groupuscles, such as the Order of Nine Angles, to be banned. There has been an association between the occult, paganism and the extreme right ever since the evolution of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party from the Thule Society.