black metal is one of those rare genres where the music takes a back seat to their theatrics for some fans Church burnings corpse paint friendly handshakes the genre seems to do anything it can to distract fans from the actual music despite this the musical stylings of first wave black metal have gone on to inspire many individuals who probably have too much free time to develop the genre combine it with the conventions of other sub genres and essentially just minorly alter black metal and slap a new label on it so it can be called groundbreaking by people who look like this much like the eny of metal the topic of black metal sub genres is over bloated needlessly complicated and disgustingly edgy meaning it's only fair we go through each of the sub dras of black metal and try to explain them the best we can not just for the benefit of audience members who may be confused but so black metal purists can have another place to direct their hate comments don't you dare call me a poser in the comment section I despise reading it don't you [ __ ] dare also no I will not cover that specific subg of black metal those who are going to comment asking about it know exactly what sub genre I'm talking about please seek sunlight in order to understand what stems from the original genre of black metal we first need to briefly explore the first and second wave scenes the first wave began in England with the band Venom who would go on to essentially name the genre with their first commercially released album although the album is commonly referred to as speed or thrash metal it laid the groundwork for black metal with its darker anti-christian imagery as well as its focus on terrible production and grow vocals B would push this further by shrieking like a possum that's just been told his nose is runny wiping nose snap driven B would also make the music more lowii which essentially just means make it sound like other bands such as masterful fate and hellhammer would add to this potion that would eventually go on to inspire the second wave of black metal which introduces genre conventions that are more so defined as well as the degeneracy the genre is known for but that's for a different video watch my ignorant guide for that bollocks in the early '90s a bunch of edgy Norwegian kids essentially decided to take the style of metal developed by Venom and B and push it to its limit in order to rebel against their parents i' assume a faster more distorted playing would be adopted by Urus of Mayhem and fenr of dark Throne creating a sound that was as atmospheric as absolutely disgusting I'd say this second wave of black metal essentially defines the genre conventions so let's quickly cover that before we get into its sub genres black metal guitar can essentially be seen as a form of torture extreme amounts of distortion is combined with extremely fast playing and an emphasis on treble producing something that's bound to burst the eard drums of anyone subjected to it to make this even worse they refuse to Pal mute meaning the Distortion of each note Blends into each other some may call this atmospheric whilst others call it unbearable notes wise the guitarists opt for any riff or solo that creates a powerful sense of dread I'd say black metal basist are perhaps the most underused individuals within all of metal for the most part they follow the root notes of the guitarist and get drowned out by some of the most disgusted abhorent Distortion themed noise drumming also follows the same conventions of guitar as fast as humanly possible completely disregarding the health and safety of the person playing the instrument many black metal drummers choose to ignore technique and will occasionally attempt to dearn the instrument this is so they are less inclined to play Fancy fills and solos they essentially just want to recreate how a caveman would play the drums if they were introduced to the instrument For the First Time song structure within black metal is pretty conventional Chorus Verse Chorus type Sho they spend too much time painting their face and sticking spikes of their clothes to focus on that shoe black metal vocals remain one of the defining features of the genre instead of low pitched growls employed within other genres black metal vocalists decided they wanted to develop a way to destroy their vocal cords even more instead opting for a high pitch shriek I would cover lyrics they are pretty much impossible to understand so just look at this image what do you think this person would sing about whatever is in your head currently you are completely correct so these conventions essentially cover what is known as second wave black metal raw black metal and true cult black metal and I guess just black metal so we'll leave them out for the forthcoming list melodic black metal stays true to many of the conventions of original black metal with only only a few attributes contributing to its different sound a genre emerged in the mid90s with dissection and sacramentum changing up the original black metal sound a little bit although melodic black metal keeps many of the conventions such as fast tempos tremolo picking and shrieking it delivers it in a less aggressive and minimalistic way with a heavy focus on atmosphere this is achieved through a clean polished guitar tone with more diverse Rifts and solos guitarists will occasionally employ acoustic guitars and very occasionally and I mean very occasionally the singers will actually sing like sing normally whilst melodic black metal takes its foot off the gas a little bit ritualistic black metal does the complete opposite the concept and purpose of ritualistic black metal is to transport The Listener to a world of horror and Decay which sounds like an extremely pleasant experience many musicians within the scene are heavily interested in the occult and apparently their way of spreading it is by pushing each of black Metal's conventions to its limit meaning less and less people are willing to listen to their music atmospheric black metal is another subj that alters some of the key conven itions to emphasize on certain aspects of the original genre and this time it's the sub genre expands upon the slow evolving riffs and repetitive Melodies they also slow that sheet down combining the typical drum guitar and bass with synthesized ambient textures the typical atmospheric black metal experience is much like freezing to death slow cold and extremely painful although you do get a small bit of euphoria as soon as it's all finished the genre would essentially be birthed due to the snowy landscape of Norway during the second wave of the genre bands wanted to focus more on cold ambient soundscapes that reminded them of home let's swiftly move on to the least atmospheric thing possible beastial black metal this genre focuses on outright aggression and Sonic brutality essentially throwing away any aspects of musical talent and replacing it with noise of course based on this explanation you probably already guessed the genre incorporates elements of grind core and Gore grind this is perhaps the most headache inducing of the bunch instead of freezing to death it's like being repeatedly stabbed in the head with an icicle symphonic black metal finally introduces some more complex instrumentation this one is incredibly confusing to me not just because of this extremely cursed and confusing concert footage but it always raises the question how did these mother convince these mother to play a concert with them like literally an entire Orchestra okay so if you haven't guessed by my schizophrenic ramblings symphonic combines black metal with classical music which is often presented through an entire symphonic orchestra being drowned out by an edgel with corpse paint and an electric guitar let's move on to another sub druma that can be entirely explained and understood by just reading its name folk black metal essentially black metal artists becoming a little bit too obsessed with their ancestry and completely tearing it apart by combining their traditional music with black metal this subj kind of sounds like a disease or the term for something you really don't want in your dishwasher blackened crust it is basically as stinky and vile as it sounds as it combines the two stinkiest fan bases black metal and crust Punk although to be fair these two fan bases on the complete opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to weight this genre would actually rear its head before the second wave with crust bands being inspired by first wave bands although it would truly come to fruition when crust punk bands realized they were being out degenerated by black metal and decided to combine before we go into the final and most surprisingly controversial sub genre let's cover one of the most popular sub genres depressive suicidal black metal this sub genre is often played by one-man bands cuz they're too depressed to form a band I'd assume the music incorporates argic atmospheres repetitive song structures and a slow tempo combining all of that with the tones and vocal stars of black metal with lyrics being exactly what you'd expect and exactly what YouTube do not want to hear if they still want to give me ads whilst swiftly avoiding all the sub dras that are entirely explained by the name because I know you're just going to leave them in the comments black and roll yeah it's obvious just just figure it out let's move on to the most surprisingly controversial sub genre you may be thinking this one must be horrendous it must introduce some truly depraved and extremely heavy elements nope it literally just combines black metal with shoe gaze so why is it so controversial the black metal fan base is amongst the worst when it comes to elitism they absolutely hate it when people try and stay away from the original formula and the sub genre that has gained the most hate from this fact is black gaze mainly due to its toned down sound focus on experimentation and Boundary pushing as well as its mainstream success black gaze combines the fast and harsh rels of black metal and melds it with the dreamier soundscapes of shoe gaze creating something that's not only refreshing but extremely appealing in my eyes it's able to take a genre that is incredibly harsh and inaccessible by Design and flip that on its head creating music that can be perceived as beautiful by people who have actually left their house in the last seven days and remember remember poser poser in the actually no poser in the comments sorry no poser in the comments don't do [Applause] [Music] [Applause] it yeah