What is Melodic Black Metal?

[@whatsinameme5258]

Songs used: Sworn to the Dark by Watain. Freezing Moon by Mayhem. Satan's Hunger by Watain. Where Dead Angels Lie by Dissection. In the Eye of Heaven by Thulcandra. Our Time has Come by Decameron. Stellarvore by Watain. As I Ascend by Dark Funeral. Silver Gate by Dark Fortress. Progenies of the Great Apocalypse by Dimmu Borgir. Nymphetamine and Mother of Abominations by Cradle of Filth. Waste of Skin, Deadnight Warrior, and If You Want Peace... Prepare for War by Children of Bodom. A Fine Day to Die by Bathory. In the Depths of My Soul by Dawn. The Spiritlord by Windir. Stupet by Kvist. Of Ash and Torment by Skeletonwitch. Acolytes by Abigail Williams. The Dark (Winter) by Uada. Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith by Inquisition. Existentialism by Lumnos. Desolate Funeral Chant by Inquisition. Devoid of Light by Uada. Absinthe with Faust by Cradle of Filth. Analepsy by Dark Fortress.

[@rachelpogue66]

It all sounds pretty cool, thank you for this video 🤘

[@ArkaeaFCL3]

Currently rewatching all your videos! Loving the content! Keep being metal! 🤘🤘❤

[@evandibiaso854]

Sick video dude keep it up I love your professional take on metal

[@whatsinameme5258]

Thank you!

[@VARVIS_]

Same its so refreshing

[@Kuroo39]

Dissection was my entry point into the metal genre as a whole, nice to finally see you cover my fav subgenre!

[@devendasmusic]

I was always aware of the melodic variant, but never knew It was a whole genre. Cool video, thanks for the tracklist.

[@TheMetalheadaches]

Really good stuff. I wonder where you'd put Emperor in the discussion of meloblack as I've always considered them to be another progenitor of the the genre even tho they were mostly using symphonic elements instead of guitar melody. But the vocal style and vibes have become staples of meloblack now.

[@PainxPiss]

Been waiting on this one King, great work as always. As for what to classify bands such as Uada, I’ve seen the term “Atmospheric Melodic Black Metal” tossed around a bit when trying to describe their sound, but maybe even “ritualistic melodic black” would fit, even though Ritualistic Black is hard to pin down on it’s own.

[@whatsinameme5258]

I like "Ritualistic". "Atmospheric" is a little vague. I've heard a few styles get lablelled Atmospheric Black Metal.

[@Thenewbronzeagecollapse]

Ritualistic Black Metal would fit bands such as Mgla, Sinmara, Thantifaxath, Wormlust and probably Deathspell Omega as well.

[@vecxio8070]

Good video. Personally, I consider bands like Uada, Mgla and Gaerea as plain melodic black metal but with a clearer and more pristine recording, thinking of a more precise label is very tough, I was thinking something like "modern melodic black metal" but that would alienate many purists, perhaps "new wave of melodic black metal" would be nice too.

[@choroloco7031]

I absolutely love this videos, keep doing this videos

[@KevinAl02]

Brilliant! Would love to see a video properly introducing industrial metal and what makes it different from other metal subgenres. 👌🏼 You rock.

[@failuretolaunchdrums]

Gonna comment again because this genre really captured my adolescence and even still to this day takes me home. Epic video.

[@Owlr4ider]

I've never thought of Children of Bodom as a black metal band, of any variety. I've always seen them as a melo-death band with some other influences, but never really part of black metal in any way, shape or form. This view point was pretty interesting and informative.

[@cosimoruggiero4950]

I love your point of view, greetings from italy, keep it up!

[@BrackenwoodVtuber]

Thank you Occulturation, I have now found a new band thanks to your look into Cosmic Black Metal, that Lumnos band is amazing

[@deathbyslanina]

Agree for the most part, an album I always thought to be synonymous with melodic black metal is At the heart of winter by Immortal

[@Beastlango]

I have to disagree on the Viking metal being more real than pirate. At least Alestom uses melodies that pirates would have used with sea shanties so it is a lot more than just a lyrical theme. With Viking however the music doesn’t have any relation to that era at all since they really only had monophonic music back then so if it has any relation it’s purely lyrical. Other than that another great video, keep up the amazing work.

[@999samus7]

wow... this was a rabbit hole I was not expecting

[@RainDelay]

Golden content, my man.

[@paultaylor6873]

Glad to see Decameron mentioned, underrated band

[@tolyo96]

The piece which you played for cosmic black metal (Existentialism by Lumnos I believe) sounded like blackgaze or at least what I think blackgaze sounds like

[@whatsinameme5258]

Cosmic Black Metal may or may not be a legit genre. All I know is thst someone made an article of the best bands of that genre. So I will refrain from calling bands like Uada and Inquisition that.

[@lifelearner3067]

Cosmic Black Metal is definitely its own thing. Darkspace and Mare Cognitum are exemplary in the genre. _Solar Paroxysm_ is a masterpiece IMO

[@fruitcups4682]

6:00 what song is that?

[@SHWIZzARDLY]

Devoid of light uada

[@aaaaaaaaaaaaabbbb]

can you make a video on “what is powerviolence?”

[@TheWesternFountain]

My favourite Melodic Black Metal album is Genocide Chapters by Dawn of Ashes. It was my introduction into metal as a shole and I've loved black metal since.

[@akunan4989]

Would you one day would make a separate video for other offshoots of Death Metal and Black Metal? Such as Tech-Death, NSBM and RABM, Blackened Death Metal, and so on?

[@whatsinameme5258]

I'm planning on doing Tech Death within the month! There are a lot of genres, and I don't have unlimited time, but I plan on keeping this series going for a good while.

[@AstronomyDomine]

arghoslent grand belials key category?

[@DarkMetalGortex]

Dissection is the only band that I listen to from this genre. It was the same with Exhumed for goregrind now that I think about it.

[@failuretolaunchdrums]

Great great great great video

[@step.henguzman]

Hey, man! Been subscribed to you for a while now, and I just wanted to say a couple of things. One, I'm glad you upload videos on different metal subgenres. It really helps with broadening my horizons as a metal head, and you've really put me on to some great material. It helps with my songwriting as well, because now I have more influences to pull from. Two, on more of a related topic to Black Metal, there has been a band that dropped 2 albums this decade that have had a genre named for them (I'm sure they're not the first or only one with this genre title) that I haven't seen any other band really named with this subgenre. The band is called END, and their subgenre is called "Blackened Hardcore". The album you should start with is "Splinters from an Ever-Changing Face. Give it a spin, and I'd love to hear what you have to say about it. Cheers! 🤘

[@whatsinameme5258]

Sounds interesting.

[@step.henguzman]

@@whatsinameme5258 I think you would vibe with it. I've listened to pretty extreme and downright scary sounding music before. But on that album, I have yet to hear a vocalist sound as pissed as him.

[@devendasmusic]

Wait this is exactly what I’ve been looking for

[@mmmmm4986]

YES UADA! ❤

[@gavinr4214]

Them and Mgla are the best of modern bm

[@bitffald]

Would do one of these, about blackened thrash ?

[@MandelbrotMetalhead]

Uada is specifically Cascadian Black Metal

[@HonestDepression101]

Was just thinking this. I saw Uada play in Portland and hung out with a few of the band members after the show. They were good guys. Really laid back and easy to talk to. We smoked some dabs and it turns out the bassist is also in the current incarnation of HC punk band Poison Idea and somehow knew my weird roommate from culinary arts school. I have been a fan ever since.

[@Thenewbronzeagecollapse]

I'd add Nadra, Sinmara, Ulfud and Kriegsmaschine as melodic black metal, maybe melodic/progressive black metal, further noticing that many of these bands either come from Iceland or Poland. Also: How about a video on blackcore? Bands like Oathbreaker, Portrayal Of Guilt, the two genre pioneers Suicide Nation and The Year Of Our Lord, Dodecahedron (blackcore and djent), Hexis, Young And In The Way, Predatory Void, Harakiri For The Sky (melodic blackcore and post-hardcore), Karg (melodic blackcore), Martyrdöd, Ancst, Noise Trail Immersion (blackcore and mathcore) and Lifelover's album Dekadens? It's another not-so-well known genre that black metal elitists categorically refuse to acknowledge even though it exists since the late 90's, so much so that people don't even know it's there and lump all these bands into already popular subgenres (such as DSBM, blackened crust, blackgaze, atmospheric black metal and post-black metal), despite having a clearly distinct sound than can be easily recognized (basically black metal, often with a depressive or angsty tone, although not quite enough to qualify as depressive black metal, and breakdowns that most of the time come from metallic hardcore and early metalcore like Ringworm, Earth Crisis and Converge, often times the guitars have the typical "chainsaw" tone that comes from the Boss HM-2 pedal very present in the Stockholm death metal scene, to put it in even simpler terms, imagine Knocked Loose, Frontierer or Architects for the more melodic examples, plus black metal). That would be very interesting, as the one about post-death metal (Ulcerate, Portal, Ulsect, Vertebra Atlantis, Abyssal, Auroch etc).

[@psychosis8429]

Ironically enough, I really absolutely love melodic death metal and melodic metalcore but I never could really get into melodic black metal, but that probably has to do with the fact that I'm not a big black metal fan to begin with. Speaking of genres I wonder if you'll get totalking about power metal, I've recently started getting into it and loving it

[@colecarstarphen8743]

Plz do dsbm next

[@happymonkeyfish]

Hoping for a video on Tech Death one day

[@whatsinameme5258]

You are in luck. Hoping to that within the month!

[@Non-mq7ru]

I think it was clever to use Watain as the archetype of Melodic Black Metal, instead of Dissection. As you said, Dissection takes root in Melodic Death Metal, and it's even more obvious when you listen to The Somberlain. Moreover, after years of listening, I even came to realize that Dissection's music doesn't have anything to do with straight up Melodic Black Metal. Actually, the order of evolution in the band's style was this : old school Death Metal first, then melodic elements through rehearsing with early Melodeath bands, such as At The Gates and Eucharist, and, upon recording The Somberlain, Black Metal influences from Mayhem. Simply listen to the oldest track from The Somberlain in terms of writing (Shadows Over a Lost Kingdom), you'll hear pure old school Death Metal. Then procede chronologically. On the next tracks, the ones written before march 1992 (Frozen, Mistress of the Bleeding Sorrow, In the Cold Winds of Nowhere), you'll hear proto-Melodeath, but still with old school Death Metal riffs and grooves. Then, on the ones that were most probably written between march and june (Heaven's Damnation, The Somberlain, A Land Forlorn), you'll more definitely hear Melodeath, interspersed with distinct Black Metal parts (one in The Somberlain and one in A Land Forlorn) ; but these are the less melodic parts of those songs ! Then, they wrote Black Horizons just before entering the studio, and it's the only one that has a general Black Metal feel, because of the rhythm (slow and continuous blast beat, typical of the genre). They actually turned more toward Black Metal when they wrote Storm of the Light's Bane, since they were playing with bands from the swedish Black Metal scene (Marduk, Dark Funeral, etc.), and that's why this album sounds like "Melodic Blackened Death Metal". However, overall, the best term to describe Dissection is "Blackened Melodeath", because Black Metal came after melodic elements and Death Metal in their development. But people generally listen to Dissection so much with their preconceptions, and so little with their ears, that they think they're listening to Melodic Black Metal. The worst part is that most modern copycats of Dissection often end up sounding more like... Watain. The ending product is literally a Watain album, but with a blue album cover in the style of Necrolord. The reason is that they want to sound like Dissection, but they write their music through the prism of Melodic Black Metal, which is best represented by bands like Watain. It's as if most of them were in unable to distinguish Dissection from Watain, as if they were hearing the same thing while listening to both bands. It also explains why people despised Reinkaos. They thought Dissection were betraying themselves, whereas they were simply coming back to their roots, while assimilating further developments of the Melodeath genre.

[@gavinr4214]

Enslaved could also be added to this list?

[@atvena]

Viking metal and Pagan metal

[@gavinr4214]

Pagan sure but not Viking. Viking is more like powermetal, right? Maybe Nordic metal is a better name. Enslaved - Nordic pagan progressive black metal

[@zebulonrandall802]

What is dsbm

[@jamesrichardson6701]

My old band core of desolation was the best death black combination ever

[@deathgrinder06]

How can you go a whole video about melodic bm without mentioning sacramentum. Check out their album "Far Away from the Sun" its the best of melo-bm. Their next 2 albums are great melodic death metal too

[@erwancrespo7142]

Sepultura morbid visions=First wave of black metal,Schizophrenia, Beneath the Remains and Arise=Thrash/Death metal, Chaos A.D=Experimental Groove/Thrash Metal, Roots=Tribal Metal.

[@erwancrespo7142]

Sepultura is the best metal of all world.

[@aaaaaaaaaaaaabbbb]

sick

[@74katong]

thank you for your videos, i find very funny how you show megadave and cosmic metal where its just megadeth and the other is lemmys hawkwind, nothing new to the table really

[@dragonsin2107]

Maybe call Uada transcendant melodic black metal or smth

[@C4nis-Lupis]

It’s just melodeath but different vocal technique it shouldn’t really get a separate genre should just be like blackened melo death Edit: I just googled it and blackened melo death is somehow a separate genre

[@whatsinameme5258]

The Dissection type perhaps, but bands like Watain are very different from Melodeath.

[@lebarak69]

Like cosmonauts vs astronauts, lets call it astro black metal😂

[@HonestDepression101]

I have a problem with the people who are always "i dont understand why people come up with all these extra catagories for bands, its all black metal to me". They really grinds the sh+t out of my gears. If you think that Cradle of Filth is just the best and your trying to find more stuff that sounds that bad but your friends keep suggesting instead that you check out G.C.G.C. Genocidal Coomer Goat Commando(i kinda hope thats a real band! I would not be surprised in the least if it was.) Then being able to differentiate different sub genres comes in handy. Best part is its STILL ALL BLACK METAL.

[@HonestDepression101]

That being said I think that Melodic BM is slightly to all encompassing of a genre tag, I am a fan of quite a bit of "melodic BM" but I feel its more of an attribute then a reliable genre tag. Since inside of melodic bm your going to have bands that are seemingly completely unrelated. Solid video though, im digging this channel so far.

[@alexrosenberg5959]

Good vid but how is cradle of filth metalcore?

[@atvena]

Yeah it's industrial if anything

[@HonestDepression101]

Cosmic Black Metal is another great tag but unreliable as a Full sub genre. I dont think there is anyone out there who would hear Beherits drawing down the moon and go "ahhh yes cosmic BM, similar to Darkspace and Mare Cognitum."

[@ElectricGraveyard]

Sick video! Check out our new band, Electric Graveyard! We're a Sludge/Doom/Stoner metal group based out of Oklahoma. Currently working on our new EP for the debut tour. Help to show support by subscribing and spreading the good word of our graveyard's uprising!

[@Stevomadjia]

Hell no! Viking metal ain't real genre. Like u have Bathory as u mentioned with black metal but then u got Amon Amarth who are melo death. Both of those bands just sing about vikings and all that but the music behind it is not specific enough. Moreover instrumentals of these bands already have a home in melo death or black metal (or any other mix of subgenres). And i agree that pirate doesn't exist too, but u r making logical fallacy if u exclude pirate metal but dont exclude viking metal.

[@whatsinameme5258]

I thought the exact same thing, until I realized that Amon Amarth mix Viking Metal with Melodic Death Metal.

[@Stevomadjia]

@@whatsinameme5258 but that's my point. Viking metal is just a lyrical topic and aesthetic for the band, it is not a distinct sound. Also I like ur style of videos keep it up.

[@whatsinameme5258]

I mean it combines that Black/Folk Metal sound with Melodeath. Can def hear Black Metal influence in a song like Deceiver of the Gods.

[@lucasato]

ow yea i autisticaly wan chose this kinda o...idk...shit style of song...to...yeaaa im seeing this...idk...whatever...

[@gavinr4214]

Cradle of Filth went woke with their latest album. Theres a climate change song kek

[@whatsinameme5258]

Which song is that?

[@gavinr4214]

@@whatsinameme5258 Suffer our dominion. Funny enough him turning woke means he's more of a real Satanist than all of the edgy boys in black.

[@gavinr4214]

@@whatsinameme5258 YT censored my response for some reason... Probably the d word it's the 11th track on existence is futile album begins with suffer.

[@whatsinameme5258]

Yeah that is pretty cringe. Jarring with the aesthetic that they have going for them. You are supposed to think of vampires and castles when you listen to Cradle of Filth not enviromental policy.

[@gavinr4214]

@@whatsinameme5258 Dark lord Decimus - Satan! Dani Filth - wef population control! Who knew corny Dani was the real deal evil satanist all along.

[@atvena]

Pagan metal

[@johnhelms8226]

Melodic black metal is crap.

[@sepptimber9126]

Melodic Black is not a genre, is just a tag.

[@franklinantoniosanchezzuni8253]

Children of bodom???? Omfg... What a lack of knowledge about what truly is meloblack 🙄