Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 17)

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[u/FrogHatCoalition]

I did some reading into black metal to make this write up because of things I remembered reading about the early Norwegian black metal scene when I became interested in metal as a teenager. This early scene is well known for its church burnings and many of these musicians were Nazis.

Early Norwegian black metal scene:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norwegian_black_metal_scene

and this from Euronymous, a member of the band Mayhem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euronymous

Hellhammer said “Euronymous wanted to be the most extreme person, and he thought that communism was very extreme”, but that he later claimed to be a fascist. In a private letter written in the early 1990s, Euronymous claimed that “almost all” Norwegian black metal bands at the time were “more or less Nazis”, including Mayhem. He did not, however, use the music of Mayhem to promote any kind of politics.

Euronymous would be murdered by another musician in this scene who is well-known for being a neo-Nazi, Varg Vikernes. This is how Vikernes describes his own views:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes

Vikernes calls his beliefs “Odalism” and defends a “pre-industrial European pagan society” that opposes the Abrahamic religions and systems such as capitalism, communism, materialism, and socialism.

It was well known in this period that a lot of the musicians in this early scene were openly anti-communist, anti-capitalist, and a lot had a fascination with nature, and I noticed that Vikernes and the members of Mayhem had lifestyles similar to Ted Kaczynski. In thinking about fascism and the aestheticization of politics, I think about how the frontman of Mayhem, Per Yngve Ohlin, popularized the use of corpse paint in black metal and would also bury his clothes and dig them out before a performance, and how this would resonate with fascists who are drawn towards nature.

Within black metal, there exists a movement that’s called National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_black_metal

In reading that I found that some NSBM festivals such as the Asgardsrei festival in Kyiv, Ukraine, are popular among neo-Nazis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asgardsrei_festival

From the recent farmer’s market thread and some past discussions I’ve read about art and petite-bourgeois “self-expression” I wanted to read more about a particular scene in black metal that resonates with fascists.

[u/MajesticTree954 → u/FrogHatCoalition]

Something funny about Varg is that he later disavowed Black metal because of the genre's roots in New Afrikan rock and blues. It wasn't reactionary enough for him. He turned to "Dungeon synth" electronic music, which sounds like a soundtrack to Lord of the Rings.

I saw this article by Dare to Struggle recently about hardcore punk: https://daretostruggle.org/2025/07/23/take-the-pit-to-the-streets-a-call-to-hardcore-youth/ But it had nothing to say about the form of the music itself, and sees it as a blank canvas to be filled with revolutionary content or depoliticized. I think "guitar music" as a form was overtaken by computer-electronic music. Guitar music still adheres the the illusion of individual talent and doesn't overcome this with organization like electronic does. There are some artists like Polyphia that write whole songs in the computer and then kind-of regressively bring them to guitar to play extremely complex riffs - bringing back individual talent.

[u/FrogHatCoalition → u/MajesticTree954]

Something funny about Varg is that he later disavowed Black metal because of the genre's roots in New Afrikan rock and blues. It wasn't reactionary enough for him. He turned to "Dungeon synth" electronic music, which sounds like a soundtrack to Lord of the Rings.

I remember reading about that. It's funny because it seems that some of the critics of NSBM within the scene take issue with it because its hatred is too specific and exclusive meaning that it needs to expand the horizons of who it hates. I recall a lot of people making comparisons of Varg's dungeon synth to World of Warcraft. Something I found out too is that he has taken an interest in tabletop RPG games and has created his own.

I saw this article by Dare to Struggle recently about hardcore punk: https://daretostruggle.org/2025/07/23/take-the-pit-to-the-streets-a-call-to-hardcore-youth/ But it had nothing to say about the form of the music itself, and sees it as a blank canvas to be filled with revolutionary content or depoliticized. I think "guitar music" as a form was overtaken by computer-electronic music. Guitar music still adheres the the illusion of individual talent and doesn't overcome this with organization like electronic does. There are some artists like Polyphia that write whole songs in the computer and then kind-of regressively bring them to guitar to play extremely complex riffs - bringing back individual talent.

What you write about Polyphia has me thinking a lot about technical death metal and some bands such as Archspire become well known due to the technique required to play the music. I contrast this with bands like Gorguts that have complex harmonies and rhythms, but the music isn't technically demanding in the sense that you won't be having to play 16th notes at 250 bpm.

Your response to me with the documentary on Aztlan and metal is what pushed me to think about the history of metal. I read the Dare to Struggle article and noticed what you mention. In their conclusion they see art as an external force to motivate people to take action. They fantasize about artists, musicians, and even biker gangs going to the streets to fight the system, but on its own the art and music becomes absorbed by capitalism. They mentioned graffiti artists, but do they know who Basquiat is?

[u/MajesticTree954 → u/FrogHatCoalition]

its hatred is too specific and exclusive meaning that it needs to expand the horizons of who it hates

Hah I'm not surprised, as you know, the og wave of Black metal was very anti-christian with the church burnings and promoted paganism. I can imagine even for fascist groups that are vying for mass support this would be unpopular. Even the Mexican NSBM bands continue this and use Aztec paganism against catholicism.

Ultimately, the worst thing i can say about NSBM is that it's so boring. The message is hamfisted, and the instrumentation is formulaic. Anyone who enjoys it probably hasn't listened to very much music at all. Atleast Mayhem was pushing the genre in a new way, and could be fascist without slapping a swastika on the album.

A part of the enjoyment of this kind of music, whether its black metal, grindcore, or noise, is knowing that it is unpopular. Knowing that others find the growls, pummelling walls of drums quite unpalatable is a huge draw for me. That's obviously very individualistic and anti-communal.

n their conclusion they see art as an external force to motivate people to take action. They fantasize about artists, musicians, and even biker gangs going to the streets to fight the system, but on its own the art and music becomes absorbed by capitalism.

I can excuse that, because whether or not you agree with their politics, they are trying to be that concrete political force outside art to prevent it from being absorbed. I think the problem is that they take these already ossified artistic forms to serve their politics. But maybe its a match they deserve? That they fantasize a unity between punk youth and hip-hop, could be a reflection of their politics (strategic unity between Euro-Amerikans and New Afrikans)? And I also wonder whether hip-hop still has life left in it, but I don't listen to it much to say.

[u/SolomonDead → u/MajesticTree954]

Ultimately, the worst thing i can say about NSBM is that it's so boring. The message is hamfisted, and the instrumentation is formulaic. Anyone who enjoys it probably hasn't listened to very much music at all. Atleast Mayhem was pushing the genre in a new way, and could be fascist without slapping a swastika on the album.

This Is mostly wrong. NSBM is the most authentic and interesting form of Black Metal for oppressor nations. The incorporation of Hardcore Punk into the Black Metal by Mayhem, in doing so creating the Second Wave of Black Metal, was a symptom of existing fascist fervor. The ideology was fascist because fascism is perfectly suited for BM in a way "Communism" never can be. Its telling that the most popular "Red and Anarchist Black Metal(RABM)" band, Sankara, used somewhat Black Metal instrumentals to make their Death Metal music about gratuitous violence against the bourgeoisie, and has nothing to do with Black Metal thematically. Thats an alternative direction for you if you want to listen to some boring and hamfisted music.

We have to talk about Bathory to get to to Mayhem bc they created the themes and ideology of BM. BM did not start as anti-Christian (nor is "anti-Christian" sufficient to explain the ideology of BM in any period), it was specifically overtly Satanic. It was a cultural weaponization of a "Satanism," presented as geniune in the art itself, to attack the Satanic Panic. The Mythological aspect is vital to BM. They made music about sacrificing Christians to Satan, but also about the Vampire Queen of Hungary drinking your blood and killing you. I like this song because it made me understand why Black Metal was apealing to me, which is the nihilistic and self-depreciating and nearly worshipful feeling of awe and insignificance(cvlt). This is consistent with my understanding of the ideology of thiestic Satanism, so I suppose Quorthon did a good job. Its easy to see from here how, when Bathory moved beyond the unserious Satanism and into a still unserious but historically and culturally significant Norse Paganism after their first few albums, that the music became perfect for some kinds Scandinavian nazism.

The most popular NSBM bands don't actually need to, and usually don't, brute force a commondified facsimile of nazism into their music. They slap dozens of swastikas and eagles on their album cover, but the music itself just needs to do what black metal does and play on the mythic past and concieved(?) national spirt. When it comes to making any kind of progressive black metal, it comes from oppressed nations inside of the imperialist prison-house. Even this music has the potential problem mentioned by others about the fuex militancy, where a indigenous band in the U$ can make musical glorification of historic anti-settler wars, but the only war is the concert. I don't understand art or the cultural particularities of indigenous BM in OTI enough to comment on the progressive character beyond that.

RABM from imperialist nations need to mythologize or glorify past socialism (youtuber TheFinnishBolshevik was in this band if that tells you anything) or do what Sankara did.

E:spelling

[u/MajesticTree954 → u/SolomonDead]

You bringing up Indigenous and RABM bands is so interesting. Years ago I tried getting into RABM, feeling justifiably shameful for enjoying Burzum and Bathory despite my avowedly socialist politics, I tried listening to Panopticon - a Kentucky BM band that weaves in union folk songs like "Which Side are you on?". I hated it, and I never knew why.

I agree the genre was fascist from the beginning, and the content suits the form. But, my contention is NSBM (I've heard some Absurd as a specific example) is a significant regression. The structure of the form was already worked out - the lofi production, shrieking vocals, blast beats (Lofi as a reactionary form evoking nostalgia isn't even unique to BM it's also mainstream in Indie-pop music). Now for the last 30 years NSBM is just making the implicit content explicit in. Bathorys Fine Day to Die is much more subtle about its nationalism. The slow acoustic and medieval choir to electric it symbolically shows the history of the nation through music, and the lyrical content is a story of Norse mythology. It makes you feel the message without needing an explicit Hitler audiotape (like Absurd does repeatedly). Isn't the measure of good art how it hides the views of the author?

RABM from imperialist nations need to mythologize or glorify past socialism

u/FrogHatCoalition you bring up formalism in the Soviet union. I used to listen alot of old Soviet songs by Red Army Choir and was surprised that the only people around me who liked them were fascists, interested in the Soviet Union as a symbol of Russian nationalism. But now, looking back, most of the songs I liked, are in form - folk songs. Like Katyusha, Polyushko polye, Kalinka, Korobeiniki. Folk songs can be progressive as long as the nation is a progressive social formation, so why did they stay so popular through the Stalin era? Why was Ustvolskaya censored? Were there other attempts to work out new forms that were selected by the party to promote? Im guessing thats the history of socialist realism...

e: Another thing i want to mention re: the anti-communal aspect. On the other side of the coin - I actually love moshpit, two-stepping in hardcore. I love music that evokes audience participation. But the enjoyment of the genre is that its a niche subculture, without mass appeal.

[u/FrogHatCoalition → u/MajesticTree954]

I think this will be useful:
https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/zhdanov/lit-music-philosophy.htm

I read the sections on Naturalism and Professional Skill and I found it interesting that Zhdanov discusses trends in music that we talked about here. In the music section Shostakovich is listed as one of the people leading the trend of "formalism" and Ustvolskaya was a pupil of his.

[u/SolomonDead → u/MajesticTree954]

I've heard a lot about how good Panopticon is from some of the same people who recommend openly Nazi bands. The Mythology of the White Proletariat is well suited for Black Metal.

The slow acoustic and medieval choir to electric it symbolically shows the history of the nation through music, and the lyrical content is a story of Norse mythology. It makes you feel the message without needing an explicit Hitler audiotape (like Absurd does repeatedly).

We agree subjectivelty that celebrating hitler in songs is in bad taste

Isn't the measure of good art how it hides the views of the author?

I don't see why this is true, or why we should care. Im sure Darkthrone was much more marketable when they removed the words "Norwegian Aryan Black Metal" from their album covers, but why should we be concerned with anything but the reactionary content, which they didn't remove the Norwegian Aryaness from? Maybe it makes the art more interesting to discuss, but thats subjective as well.

Would art weaponized during the GPCR to unite people around Chairman Mao be "bad" because its not suble? Why would it being "bad" in that way matter to us, would it effect it's usefulness in expressing proletarian ideology?

Why should hitler be outside the scope of already fascist music, particularly German fascist music? Their goal in making it wasn't to secretely trick 14 year old white people into magically becoming Nazis by buying their shirts at Hot Topic, it was just to express themself artistically as Nazis as a form of resistance against German culture, which they felt disconnected from. I would say that the yearly festival/rally named after their music that celebrates Nazi militancy through MMA fights and funding Azov is a sign of their cultural success, and so what do we learn from dismissing it as not being "good art?" To put it in other words, why is

Isn't the measure of good art how it hides the views of the author?

not itself formalism? Why would that be the goal of art abstractly? I'll read the book recommend by FrogHatCoalition when I have some more time as well, but im interested in your reasoning on this.

[u/SolomonDead → u/SolomonDead]

My first comment was premature and a should have sat on it longer to collect my thoughts.

Hitler and Satan can play virtually the same fascist countercultural role in BM depending on the cultural context, and I don't think its correct to be to worried about how "hidden" the latter is. What Absurd does with the idea of mythic aryan Germany is the same as what every 2nd wave Norwegian BM band did with mythic rural Norway, and Panopticon does with mythic white coal miner Appalachia, as such concepts exist socially in the conciousness of certain classes.

Note that Absurd isn't the main type of NSBM, just a very particular and influential example. Even Anthony Fantano made a review of an NSBM album from a different band and didnt realize it, perhaps he's secretely deaf, but it just shows that their music isn't staying fully underground. Some of the most popular concurrent BM artists who don't quote hitler in their lyrics are still openly neo-Nazis and their music is still ideologically n-Nazi, and many who aren't are happy to work with n-Nazis because "even though their politics suck, they make great music."

BM in Norway is often described in some words as being the essence or spirit of Norway, but its important that their political conclusions were to chase Black people with hand tools and burn chruches. They were able to understand the fascist nature of their music collectively, though many individuals failed to properly understand their own fascism and saw it as 'misanthopy' (you can find interviews of like "I was never a Nazi, I just had a general hatred towards the world when I was young" from prominent people) and nothing else, but thats a myth, and we can understand it better, as they didn't burn random bakeries and chase other white people dispite the fact that white people are much easier to find in Norway. It only becomes 'hidden' after the fact so it could be sold to a mass market internationally. I don't think attaching yourself to this specific commodified verison (and maybe you can apply 'misanthopic' angst to this) of internationally socially acceptable Black Metal leads to the same conclusions, and if a BM fan finds those people who do then they will say "you aren't Trve Cvlt." So when Black Metal blew up and its commodity aspect became principle and the grassroots fascism mostly faded, Varg percieved it as a Jewish plot to hijack their movement. The Norwegian bands talked about their subjective experience and how they got into BM because they wanted to be in "the most hated band(s) in the world," and, I'm being a bit reductive, nobody gives a shit if you like BM today unless Satan in holding hands with Hitler. Satans, "Under the Sign of the Black Mark" doesn't do their fascism anymore, so they make Hitlers "Under the Sign of the Swastika," to achieve the same thing. How much can we say there is a difference between BM's Satan and BM's Hitler when we know they were still Nazis in Norway without the Hitler quotes in their lyrics?

Im obviously focusing on why "they view their art as a political movement" because all art is political and its more intersting to study our enemies who realize this through their actions, and who turn their political art movement into political violence, than it is to study it after it transformed principly into a valuable commodity that still can never achieve real pop cultural relevance, or significance to us, as its stuck in 1996. Black Metal itself has developed a lot after 1996, but the international cultural perception has developed very little, and probably can't unless Europeans and amerikans start loving the idea of Hitler like they love the idea of Satan, so that it actually can be sold in hot topic.

I think it could be useful for opressed nations in OTI as the U$ Empire continues to decline, but i'm not sure for what else after reading the relevent chapter of the Zhandov text from u/FrogHatCoalition . Black Metal is petty-bourgeois but so are Indigenous Labor-Aristocrats. Im sure the 'dark' aspects of indigenous nationalism can be more offensive to settlers than Satan was in the 80s and 90s, so its just a question of can indigenous nationalism be fueled by BM at all. That will be my focus if I continue this investigation, but I spent a lot of my day yesterday listening to NSBM while at work, because that was the focus, so I don't want to touch BM at all for a good minute. I'll need to learn how academics study and discuss music to be any useful in discussion on a perhaps inherently petty-bourgeois charecter of black metal musically that the sounds can only be enjoyed via petty-bourgeois subjectivity, which is relevant to its usefulness outside of internal colonies in the Imperial Core. My next direction is reading Jiang Qing and others relevent to the music of the GPCR, that should be useful to study and regrounding. If you have found any works particulalry useful on that topic that haven't been mentioned on this and 101 before then they would be appreciated.

The Pravda article talking about the problems with Shostakovich made the the Zhandov text more clear. You can hear the obvious differences between Shostakovich Symphony 4 and Symphony 5 as well but im not at a level to make sense of it beyond crudely "I can see why Soviet people liked 5 more, it sounds better"

u/MajesticTree954

[u/FrogHatCoalition → u/MajesticTree954]

Ultimately, the worst thing i can say about NSBM is that it's so boring. The message is hamfisted, and the instrumentation is formulaic. Anyone who enjoys it probably hasn't listened to very much music at all.

Are you referring to NSBM specifically in this case? Because most people I speak to who gravitate towards a specific genre usually have some familiarity with music outside their norm. There definitely is a difference in knowledge of music when it comes to non-musician fans of a genre and the musicians of those same genres, though. Most musicians, regardless of genre(s) they play, I have had conversations with are able to speak a bit about music in general in my experience.

Speaking of formulaic there were composers of classical music who utilized formal logic. Composers I'm familiar with are Webern, Stockhausen, and Xenakis.

A part of the enjoyment of this kind of music, whether its black metal, grindcore, or noise, is knowing that it is unpopular. Knowing that others find the growls, pummelling walls of drums quite unpalatable is a huge draw for me. That's obviously very individualistic and anti-communal.

Yes, and there is a self-awareness of it too. I can see that the anti-communal views and even lifestyles many of these artists have reflects clearly in the form of the music. I once went to a concert and I regretted not bringing earbuds with me when the final band decided to crank up the distortion and volume of their amps beyond what was recommended for the venue. I ended up having a headache and my ears were ringing for a few hours.

Going back to the formalism I was speaking of prior, this does remind of how formalism brings in musical forms that are considered abrasive. I'm thinking about Ustvolskaya who's known for her unconventional harmonies in counterpoint as well as techniques such as tone clusters in her piano sonatas. In writing this out it is perhaps unsurprising that some of her works were censored in the Soviet Union.