Talk:Unblack metal

Bands with no page

Wikipedia policy is i believe clear on that band with no pages (thus no asserted notability) should not be cited in a list. Hence i'll delete them.Laguna117 01:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Vaakevandring is part of the Christian Metal workgroup and will have a page soon.glocks out 22:44, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

living sacrifice

okay im not sure about the rest of you but from what ive heard these guys are the whitest of the black(just need the lyrics and boom they are black metal) so please comment on this —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cradle thy filth (talk • contribs) 16:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Crimson Thorn

Crimson Thorn are death metal, and are not black metal, nor are they unblack. This should be deleted.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.26.160.10 (talk) 21:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

However: SCREW UNBLACK METAL >:/ Black Metal is a genre born in thoughts of anti-christianity/religion, hatred, suicide etc. Me and hundreds more just can't see the connection between this and to extract Holy stuff into that. Get your own genre!

Sorry man, it's around, deal with it. Some christians like the style of black metal but not the lyrics. You can't just pretend something doesn't exist. Scskowron 02:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I just deleted them. --Inflictor of Grimness (talk) 04:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Immortal Souls

I don't think Immortal Souls should be listed as unblack as they are melodic death metal.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.28.250.37 (talk) 10:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

As I Lay Dying

Would As I Lay Dying fit into this catagory? --Trusader 00:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course not. They are not a black metal band (despite implicit terminology smiliarities as well as musicians' attire (corsepaint etc.), black metal should not be be confused with the goth subculture & music). - Dark Prime

AILD does not wear Corpse Paint. But you're right, they should be listed under metalcore, christian metal, and melodic death metal.glocks out 22:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

AILD is heavily Christian, alike Underoath, and most likely fall under some sort of Metalcore/Melodic Death category. -- 68.5.56.205

Are you fucking kidding me? As I Lay Crying is complete trash and nowhere even CLOSE to black metal. Get off this site. 72.39.159.155 17:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

AILD are definatly not Unblackm i'm listening to the right now and they're Metalcore. Jerry teps 08:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Horde

Some native speaker should correct the description of Horde. The only concert was given in 06, 12 years after the release of «Hellig Usvart». «Horde played only a single show before disbanding, the only actual member was the drummer Jayson Sherlocke, who wore a hood during the show. Despite Horde's quick disappearance,…» is therefor complete nonsense. --62.53.218.216 18:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

For someone who is looking to wikipedia for information about unblack metal, someone is obviously expecting more than they really should be...never have I seen so many labels in a single article. It seems to me someone with something to against the genre has defaced it with these tags. Jlricherson 19:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah that is pretty obvious as you can see from the edit summary of "find about what metal really is" from the IP 196.25.255.214

Origins

The article stated that Horde was the first-known unblck metal band, but Antestor seems to have preceded them as they released their first demo in 1991 (Horde only released their first album in 1994). Thus, I modified the paragraph to take that into consideration. Also changing the origin of the genre from mid-90's USA to early-90's Scandinavia (as to not single out just one country such as Norway). --Voievod 00:11, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiosity

How the hell does this article have even nearly the same length as the black metal article? I mean the bm article is still longer, but still. There is way more info and material out there concerning black metal than unblack. So how the hell is this article even close to the same length as the bm one? It seems ridiculous. Either the bm article needs to expand and more info needs to be added, or there is just way too much info in this article. Blizzard Beast ^$ODIN$ 20:45, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Now I see why it's so long...it's full of name dropping of record companies and bands. Way too much. Blizzard Beast ^$ODIN$ 21:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The "name dropping" itself is not the reason why the article is this long. The unblack metal movement began around the same time as the second wave of black metal started, so it is natural that there is a good amount of history to write about. It would not even be difficult write a more in-depth history, pre-history of Christian thrash bands opposing the Venom and Sodom type attitude, aftermath of what an impact the bands had, or going for a more focused analysis on the lyrics or motives. I find it rather silly that one would get worked up because an encyclopedia article is longer than an other one. You make it sound like that the length of a Wikipedia article is the measure of how significant a subject is in comparison to some other subject. --Azure Shrieker (talk) 17:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid your wrong on a few accounts. First off I'm not "worked up," but I was a little incredulous. Second, the black metal article is actually about 3 times longer, but still. Third, name dropping is the reason the article is so long. This article feels it's neccesary to talk about every single band involved in unblack metal (which is fine), but also attempts to mention every single album in the movement and (this is where I was most incredulous) even seems to mention every single record company used for almost every single one of those albums mentioned. It doesn't really matter anyways, though. Blizzard Beast ^$ODIN$ 20:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Right. Currently this article is in a phase where we're trying to bring in more info. So the structure is now a timeline of what bands released what albums on what labels. Obviously an album release timeline is pretty numbing to read and therefore not a good solution. The next phase would be to organize the info in some way without doing original research. I was thinking that this article could be divided to regional scenes and we could write summaries of who were the leading bands, what they achieved, how were they received and so on. It's pretty challenging to write band articles for some of these groups because not all of them are notable. But I agree that it doesn't make sense to mention every demo band and labels. Say, you left a comment in the controversies section saying that the section should be removed because of POV issues. I think the section itself is necessary but maybe the content needs revising. Maybe the first few lines needs to be toned down a little but I think the quotes of Simon Rosen and Satyr are alright untill we find better arguments. You wouldn't happen to know any noteworthy, third party opinions on the style?--Azure Shrieker (talk) 07:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

On unblack metal? No. I'm sure it's not too hard to find, though. This article is surprisingly good in a few ways, one of them being that it actually has a lot of references. Feel free to edit in any way you see fit. I will keep watch of the page, but right now I've been working on some articles that are in total disarray and it takes some of my attention. As for the Controversies section, i don't have a problem with it, however I do feel, looking at that entire first paragraph, it seems to be almost total POV and OR (I forgot to put the OR part). But I encourage you to do anything you want/can and, as I said, i will keep watch over the page and may do something at some point, but right now my attention is being required elsewhere on a few articles. Not to mention my life outside of wikipedia. I'm a college student so...it gets tough. I already sacrifice way too much time to wikipedia, heh. Blizzard Beast ^$ODIN$ 21:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Much better. Good job. Kudos. Blizzard Beast ^$ODIN$ 22:25, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Underoath

I don't care if it's the early stuff, stop adding them, damnit. They are not and never have been anything near to black metal (and yes that also means unblack metal smartasses) so stop fuckin' adding them to the list. Blizzard Beast ^$ODIN$ 21:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

u need to just leave. your probably not even christian, your causing problems, and your excessive use of cursing is not apreciated here.

Being a Christian or not doesn't matter as long as he's contributing to the article. However, the cursing is a bit extensive. BreakerLOLZ (talk) 02:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

In light of the recent edits, I think this may need some debate. Does Underoath really need to be mentioned? Did they contribute to the movement? What concerns me is that even mentioning such a band may hurt the already questionable credibility of this article. As Blizzard Beast's comment above implies, mentioning some hardcore band like Underoath may be even disrespectful to the subject and those who have a more traditional, perhaps even narrow understanding of what black metal is supposed to sound like. I realise bands like Sanctifica and Lengsel only released just one legitimate black metal sounding album and then moved on to other styles, but Underoath's metalcore roots with barely debatable black metalish influences pale in comparison, in my personal opinion. Does not compute, so to speak. Next thing you know people start adding any band with supposed black metal influences, like Zao. There are quite a few of those bands out there. Just my two cents.--Azure Shrieker (talk) 16:16, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

The article isn't questionable. The inclusion of Underoath material doesn't harm the status of the article at all. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:24, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

You're probably right. Interestingly, based on the page ratings at the bottom of the article, people actually do seem to find this quite trustworthy, objective, and well-written. Nice.--Azure Shrieker (talk) 22:38, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't sure about adding Underoath at first, because there wasn't much to go by. But the Sputnikmusic ref explained it a little, so it is no longer a random mention. I think that Underoath should be mentioned, as it shows the diversity of Christian bands that were starting to use black metal.--3family6 (talk) 19:27, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Right now I'm listening to their earlier stuff, and black metal is definitely more than just an influence on it.--3family6 (talk) 19:34, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Doesn't seem like a proble then. Thanks for the input guys.--Azure Shrieker (talk) 22:38, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome.--3family6 (talk) 01:48, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Should probably be noted that it was only their first album which even touched on black metal; they then went on to release a pop-punk album, and currently straddle the line between hardcore and metalcore. 143.92.1.33 (talk) 02:52, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Merge?

Shouldn't this page be heftly cut down and merged with the "christian metal" page? It's just a black varient of it, I really see no reason for it to have it's own page. Prophaniti (talk) 10:56, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not, the Christian metal page already has a problem with its size, and this topic definitely deserves its own article, because the genre grew out of secular black metal, and then just became associated with Christian metal. It is a fusion genre of both styles, and deserves to be covered in its own page. There are a few documentaries made specifically of this subject (such as Light in darkness). See, there is a reason why this article exists, and why there are no articles titled "Christian death metal", Christian thrash metal"... etc.--Azure Shrieker (talk) 11:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Azure Shrieker. If we merge of genre variants together, all the article would be way too big.--Sugarcubez (talk) 04:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Female black/unblack

In the "Regional Scenes" section I noticed: "possibly the only group in the black/unblack metal genre to be all female." While the word "possibly" means there may be others, I think it should be removed. Why? "Astarte is an all-female black metal band from Athens, Greece." There's at least one band that disproves the statement. Perhaps they are the only all female unblack metal band? (I wouldn't know.)

- I was looking back over the article and it would appear as though somebody else already removed the sentence in question from the article.

138.47.125.116 (talk) 17:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)Rob

Yeah, that was me :-) It was unsourced and non-notable, aside from being factually incorrect. Blackmetalbaz (talk) 17:51, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Not notable

I've read through the article and as far as I can see the 'genre' of unblack metal consists of only two even vaguely notable bands, one of which only released one album, which was a parody/joke. Oh yeah, and another notable band who play a completely different style of metal but also happen to be Christian. Why is this article still here? Cdh1984 (talk) 19:12, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

First, the style itself is discussed in reliable sources, which is enough for it to have an article on Wikipedia. Second, there are more than just two notable "un"black metal bands mentioned in this article (remember, notability does not equal popularity or influence in overall scene). Thirdly, Jayson Sherlock has insisted that his Hellig Usvart release was not intended to be a parody. I'm not sure which band you are talking about "another notable band who play a completely different style of metal but also happen to be Christian." Do you mean Extol, which mixed black metal into their sound on early records, or Underoath, who basically crossed hardcore punk with black metal on their first two releases?--¿3family6 _contribs 11:33, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

My issue with the article (and fuck why does this come up so often) is that it's not a genre. It's a notable scene, but nowhere does the article explain how it is musically different from regular black metal; this is because it's the same music, and when you can barely hear the lyrics, this difference is somewhat moot. This article could be fixed by removing the 'genre' infobox, and replacing every sentence referring to CBM as a 'genre' with a sentence referring to CBM as a 'scene'. 143.92.1.33 (talk) 02:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Not sure I appreciate your profanity but your opinion is noted and will like continue to be nothing more than noted as it is sufficiently different from black metal, primarily lyrically and thematically, that it stands as its own genre. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:15, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Band list

Okay, here's the question: Should the band list only include bands specifically cited as "unblack metal" or "Christian black metal," or should Christian bands who are black metal also be included? This is already the case with at least two bands, Holy Blood and Extol. My concern is that the latter option could be construed as original research.--¿3family6 _contribs 15:19, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I would rather “only include bands specifically cited as ‘unblack metal’ or ‘Christian black metal’”. And there are no “Christian bands who are black metal”. --217/83 20:09, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean there are no Christian bands that are black metal? I understand that a lot of people believe that black metal is as much about ideology as it is about a specific musical style, but there are a lot of "Christian" bands that are described as black metal.--¿3family6 _contribs 21:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

What I mean should be obvious. I know there are Christian bands that are described as Black Metal, and I do not “believe that black metal is as much about ideology as it is about a specific musical style”, the latter is actually not even important (as mentioned on other talk pages, bands like Rotting Christ, Archgoat and Mayhem have no common specific musical style, and non-Satanic Norwegian bands didn’t call their music Black Metal, for obvious reasons). --217.83.54.144 (talk) 21:36, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no universal arbiter of "what is black metal". You (and I've come across others, including in sources you have provided) think bands can only be black metal if they're Satanic; many others (including myself) totally disagree with you. To claim that one version of this argument is categorically correct is the most blatant form of POV-pushing. Blackmetalbaz (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I am writing this on a talk page, not into the article, so do you really need to annoy me with that “POV-pushing” bullshit (as a reply to a view according to the historical use of the Black Metal term, see other talk pages) again? --217/83 12:46, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

If you made more of a distinction between your personal opinion and more verifiable points, it might result in less confusion. When you made the original statement "there are no 'Christian bands who are black metal,'" I did not realize you were making a personal opinion statement.--¿3family6 _contribs 16:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

No, I still think my initial comment was pretty obvious. If you edit an article like this, you should know enough to understand a statement like “there are no ‘Christian bands who are black metal’”, especially since this article features a controversy section citing the association with Satanism (the original definition, which is marginalised today), musicians agreeing with me, some that disagree and so on. And my reply to Baz is a reaction to how they discuss with me, denying the term's historical background and calling it “utterly absurd” (see Mayhem talk page), reducing my edits to “POV-pushing” (and if my point was to just force my point of view onto post-1994 Mayhem articles etc., all of them would read something like “all of this was crap”), and then fucking telling me about civility (I don’t consider reducing my edits to “POV-pushing” to be civil at all); or falsifying (or at least not properly reading) my statements and edits like on the Grand Declaration of War talk page (and maybe you remember the Viking Metal talk page). So maybe you can understand my reaction. --217/83 19:47, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Black metal is a genre. Christianity is not a genre. That's pretty obvious too. Not everyone who plays music in a specific genre has to hold to all of the beliefs that are common in the genre. That goes for Christian music and for black metal. So if you have a different POV, you're free to offer it. If you want to push it, don't. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Not again. Listen to Mercyful Fate, Archgoat and Rotting Christ, they don’t form a genre. --217/83 20:31, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Why? So we can form more WP:OR? I can always point out exceptions to every rule. I can list several illusionists who are vehement atheists, and anti-Christian. Does that mean they all are? If I listed only those, would that make the entire profession subject to their opinions? I'm sure I can do the same with many other fields, genres and professions. None of which support the point I would make. That's why we have WP:RS. Find some to support your statements and you won't have a problem. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I am tired of all of you coming up with that same bullshit again and again (hence “[n]ot again” and so on). And I do have references for my statements, which I use when editing articles. So just stop it. --217/83 21:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

And if you actually believe my examples to be exceptions, this is another proof of ignorance. Most bands back then had their specific style, but, as Alan “A.A. Nemtheanga” Averill states, “you had the Greek sound and the Finnish sound and the Norwegian sound and there was German bands and Swiss bands and that kind of thing” (from Black Metal: A Documentary). I just chose one example for each of these. And if I am such a “POV-pushing” “genre warrior” “form[ing]more OR” (as stated above, this is a talk page, and my contributions to articles are based on references), explain this edit to me. And my contributions to the Black Metal article (and some others) were appreciated by other users; quote from here: “I appreciate how you've synthesised your sources, especially primary ones such as interviews which undermine misconceptions about pagan and individualist consensuses given the influence of these players like Euronymous in the Norwegian scene.” This is not meant in the sense of the synth guideline, so don’t think of coming up with bullshit like that. --217/83 09:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, time out. Obviously the whole "black metal = Satanism/anti-Christianity" issue is vigorously debated. I am not familiar with the discussions that User:H.217.83 is talking about, and personally, I don't really care. This discussion has gone way off of what the original question was. Whether it is agreed that Christian bands should be called black metal or not is not what I originally asked about, and I think the article pretty much explains this issue anyway. There are bands that are sourced as both Christian and black metal, whether we like it or not. Question is, should these bands be listed on this article or not?--¿3family6 _contribs 21:36, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

You may not be familiar with all the discussions I was referring to, but you were involved here; one of my edits referred to older conflicts with Baz, and you replied to other ones. So this is not the first time you see me in a conflict with Baz. --217/83 09:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The one you linked to here wasn't really at all that bad, in that there wasn't any name calling, accusations of OR, and constant links to policy guidelines. I've had plenty of run ins with Baz myself (and I find that it actually helps me as an editor). He mostly deals with people making unsourced claims, genre warriors, and the like, so I'm not surprised that he can be a little touchy.--¿3family6 _contribs 12:45, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

That is the only one I know you should be familiar with, and I consider the term “nonsense” inappropriate especially since I had already explained to Baz why it is not (scholar document, and you obviously thought the same when you came up with the same thesis). My experience is that Baz constantly links and refers to guidelines already mentioned several times, insults me as “POV-pushing” (like here, although I only used the talk page and didn’t edit the article itself; I actually consider the controversy section to be acceptable), denies Black Metal’s historical background (see Talk:Mayhem (band)), doesn't even really read what I wrote (see Talk:Grand Declaration of War) etc. I know you don’t really care for the conflict, but this may explain my reactions. I try to avoid that the historical and ideological background is forgotten or ignored, and this results in comments like “POV-pushing”, “genre warrior” etc. which are in no way civil (like Baz claims, see Mayhem talk page and my user talk page). --217/83 13:25, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I sympathize with you, I've also had unpleasant dealings with Baz. But I think this discussion has run its course. Let's move on to other things. If you really have problem with Baz, take it up with Baz or an administrator.--¿3family6 _contribs 14:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, let's move on. I just wanted to clarify things I was referring to. --217/83 15:16, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Only if a RS identifies them as unblack metal or if they self-identify with it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:00, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

That's what I was assuming. I'll wait for some others to way in here before I take Extol and Holy Blood off of the list.--¿3family6 _contribs 01:54, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

"Way in" should be changed to "weigh in." I wasn't paying attention!--¿3family6 _contribs 02:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Not meaning offend you, but you could have simply corrected your former edit instead of writing a new one for the correction. --217/83 09:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but this way people can laugh at it.--¿3family6 _contribs 12:31, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay. --217/83 12:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

In short, the relationship between Black Metal and anti-Christianity (and consequently Satanism) is the same as that Hardcore punk bands had with Nazism during the late 70's, purely aesthetic. Several bands of the first generation of Black metal did not have the intention of attacking the figure of Christ or Christianity itself, but used satanic figures in order to attack a very broad puritanist mass at the time, being a continuation of the Shock Rock scene of the 1960s. With the only difference that satanic images were now incorporated for the same purpose, since a mere inverted cross brought much more hysteria to a mass of closed minds that simply gore, like W.A.S.P. did.

In an interview with Venom, Conrad Lant said that the band did adopt blatantly satanic imagery in their performances, but members outside of band work didn't spend their free time around pentagrams, candles or inverted crosses, he compared that if the interviewer is interview the Dracula actor outside of his acting zone he won't be wearing fangs as he performed in the film.

The influence that Satanism and Thelema had on the early Black Metal scene was in the same vein as previous genres such as Shock Rock and Occult Rock had, inspired by novels and short stories dealing with the Occult like those by D. Y. Wheatley or H. P. Lovecraft , as similar as Black Sabbath did, considered one of the main precursors of Black Metal. In an interview with Geezer Butler about the reason for the blatant use of satanic imagery in his lyrics and performances he said that it was all aesthetics to scare and that in fact, all of its members were professedly and practically Christians, moreover, not all Black metal bands used satanic imagery, like Celtic Frost, who used dark fantasy instead, and it's unanimous that Celtic Frost is one of the top BM bands of the first generation, so it's not mandatory to use satanic imagery for a band be considered Black metal. And it continued like this until the beginning of Black Metal, with bands like Venom, Celtic frost (and Hellhammer), Bulldozer, Possessed, Slayer, among others, many of these bands having at least one Christian member or ex-member. Who came to exceed themselves was Bathory and Sarcófago, whose members were not only against Christianity but also had a deep aversion to Christian teachings and to Christ himself, this quid pro quo was what originated the Black Metal bands known for the practice of Satanism, in the second generation. However, initially, Black Metal was not against Christianity, but puritanism, which does not differentiate them from Shock Rock and Glam Rock (Metal) bands, only by the melody, which came to innovate through the tremolo picket, extreme distortions, blast beat, among other characteristics of Hardcore punk, which already dealt with similar themes. The Young Prussian (talk) 14:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

For the record, all bands in the list that are not described specifically as "unblack metal" or "Christian black metal" were removed.--¿3family6 _contribs 12:46, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Question(s)

Is a table really necessary? After a brief glance at the article, I can't see that a band's home country or year of formation really makes a difference in this genre. Also, why not include Christian bands that are called black metal? I realize it's more of a scene than a genre, but as long as they're properly notated (with a parenthetical or subsection or something like that), I don't see why Extol or Selfmindead or even early Underoath shouldn't be listed?--Invisiboy42293 (talk) 18:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Because your references are poor and it may not meet the standards of this article. Other than that, it's not a problem to have the table. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:36, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Huh? What references are you referring to? Or did you mean my style of sourcing in general?--Invisiboy42293 (talk) 18:52, 24 September 2012 (UTC)