Norwegian Black Metal’s Dubious Rise

What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘black metal music’? There’s a pretty good chance the visuals probably coming to mind include men in black-and-white ‘corpse paint’ makeup doing blasting music, with shouted lyrics focusing on the occult and anti-Christian themes.

Edgy? Sure, but rock music has always been about youth rebellion and pushing the envelope with lyrics and that frightened the generation’s elders. Pop music is filled with instances where people claimed everyone from Elvis Presley to Alice Cooper were luring children into unspeakable acts of debauchery.

What sets black metal, particularly as it was crafted in Norway, apart is its performers’ willingness to put some of the more extreme ideological beliefs into practice.

In the 1990s, Christian churches in Norway were targets of over 50 arsons. Many churches burned to the ground. Investigators discovered a black metal music underground that was intimately involved in the crimes. At least four black metal artists were sent to jail for the church burnings. In addition, Varg Vikernes, a proponent of fascist-inspired black metal, was convicted of murdering a fellow performer. Another artist, Per Ohlin, killed himself and had a photo of his suicide (a picture that later ended up as the cover of a recording) taken by a friend, who later told people he’d taken fragments of the dead man’s skull and made them into necklaces for others. A music scene most may have generally thought of as harmless youth rebellion had mushroomed into something far more sinister.

Documentary filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell traveled to Norway to interview, live among and document the lives of Norwegian black metal musicians. What they found was a collective of artists who were so focused on not being a part of the commercial music industry, that they became the antithesis of what they’d intended.

Their film, Until the Light Takes Us, examines the birth and explosive arc of Norwegian black metal, from the perspective of the young men who wanted to change the world using music and symbolic acts of violence. I recently interviewed Aites and Ewell and wanted to offer the packaged version for your listening.

Interview on Norwegian Black Metal with Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell

The filmmakers offered a fascinating look at a musical subculture that demands understanding. By and large, I thought our discussion was good. We did not get much into core black metal beliefs, which can tend toward everything from paganism to Satanism to nihilism, and there are many complexities there. We also skirted past the potential threat of neo-Nazi national socialist black metal, although I tried to bring us back to addressing it. Aites and Ewell mention Vikernes is the only person in the film advocating that take on the music, but they omit his influence on black metal.

Nevertheless, the subject was engrossing. Thanks to Aites and Ewell for giving a look into a Norwegian scene that was parts ideological (anti-commercial, anti-establishment, et al.) and artistic as it represented a case of a movement that spun out of control.

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