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Thread: Lords of Chaos - Movie about Norwegian Black Metal scene

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Lords of Chaos - Movie about Norwegian Black Metal scene

    Just read that a movie is premiering at Sundance this month, based on the book Lords of Chaos. The movie has already had a complicated creation, changing directors and stars and such. I'm curious to see it - if anyone finds a real trailer, please post here!

    Apparently there's a new Metallica video that uses footage from the movie, and Metallica doesn't appear in it. Which is stupid because Metallica isn't black metal.

    I started reading Lords of Chaos soon after it was published, but after a few chapters I felt sick from the descriptions of the murder that occurs (forget the details - one black metal idiot killed another). That's never really happened to me before - I guess it was also because of the photos of the crime scene.

    But I still find this scene kind of interesting to hear about, so as I say I'm interested in the movie. I like the IDEA of black metal, and some of the convictions the musicians have about the music and how it should and shouldn't be are interesting to me, and how the scene should and shouldn't be (or should I say "have been?") are interesting.

  2. #2
    The scene is not what it used to be. Nothing in BM is the same after its massive popularisation in 1994.

    You can find some info on the topics you are discussing in one the of PE's very first threads (it had a first -more detailed on the murders- part on the old site).

    http://www.progressiveears.org/forum...read-continued
    Macht das ohr auf!

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by spacefreak View Post
    The scene is not what it used to be. Nothing in BM is the same after its massive popularisation in 1994.
    Yes, this is why I added "or should I say, 'have been?'" I know it's not what it used to be - for one thing, a lot of the bands went melodic!

    But I think it's funny what purists some of the BM musicians and fans were/are. There MUST be blastbeat, there must not be keyboards, etc. It made it so any little attempt at change was looked on as blasphemy. It's as it they were a bunch of old men in corpsepaint! The corpsepaint is another funny thing - they were purists about the music, but also glam like KISS.

    A good documentary that gave an overview of the rise and whatever of the genre would be quite interesting. A lot of irony in there. I can enjoy some of the music, but not the kind that adheres strictly to the purist's formula.

    Thanks for the link, I'll take a look!

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    Member Steve F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    But I think it's funny what purists some of the BM musicians and fans were/are. There MUST be blastbeat, there must not be keyboards, etc. It made it so any little attempt at change was looked on as blasphemy. It's as it they were a bunch of old men in corpsepaint!
    Substitute capes for corpsepaint and mellotrons for blastbeats and you’ll see that it isn’t only Black Metal fans that have all the fun discussions about what is or is not allowed!
    Steve F.

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    please add 'imo' wherever you like, to avoid offending those easily offended.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve F. View Post
    Substitute capes for corpsepaint and mellotrons for blastbeats and you’ll see that it isn’t only Black Metal fans that have all the fun discussions about what is or is not allowed!
    I think we discuss what we do or don't like, but I think we all feel anything is permitted. And yeah, there are the capes and makeup. But mellotron isn't required, though appreciated.

    I take your point anyway!

  6. #6
    Nigel Tufnel (holding new pressing of Smell the Glove):

    There's something about this that is so black...It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black. .

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Yes, this is why I added "or should I say, 'have been?'" I know it's not what it used to be - for one thing, a lot of the bands went melodic!

    But I think it's funny what purists some of the BM musicians and fans were/are. There MUST be blastbeat, there must not be keyboards, etc. It made it so any little attempt at change was looked on as blasphemy.
    For me black metal is a style that features shrieking vocals, low-fi production (the worst sound = the better), grim imagert, black & white cover aesthetics, extremely doomy parts alternated with blastbeats. Keyboards or not is indifferent but no colours, no solos, no melody, no fun is allowed. It was intended to be a misanthropic music and should have remained so or disappear. "Transylvanian Hunger" is the model album of the genre in my opinion.
    Macht das ohr auf!

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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by spacefreak View Post
    It was intended to be a misanthropic music and should have remained so or disappear.
    Yet I was never really convinced by that as agenda or sound. I would call it successfully nihilist, though - as in "consciously made to not be 'enjoyed' in any manner by any part, including those who execute it". I always likened black metal to another dimension of blackness, namely blackheads of the skin; there's simply nothing interesting or rewarding or (physically/biologically) useful or pretty or even particularly ugly about them, yet that's the very point of them still appearing and enduring. To detest blackheads is as futile and meaningless as to admire them.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by spacefreak View Post
    For me black metal is a style that features shrieking vocals, low-fi production (the worst sound = the better), grim imagert, black & white cover aesthetics, extremely doomy parts alternated with blastbeats. Keyboards or not is indifferent but no colours, no solos, no melody, no fun is allowed. It was intended to be a misanthropic music and should have remained so or disappear. "Transylvanian Hunger" is the model album of the genre in my opinion.
    I appreciate where you are coming from, but I have a tendency to enjoy bands who incorporate some of the black metal aesthetic without retaining the low-fi production or inhibit their creativity by adhering to specific parameters of a 'genre' eg. Enslaved, Wolves In The Throne Room, Blut Aus Nord, etc. I'm not opposed to going back and listening to Darkthrone, Mayhem, or Burzum from time to time though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    To detest blackheads is as futile and meaningless as to admire them.
    That basically sums it up right there.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    Yet I was never really convinced by that as agenda or sound. I would call it successfully nihilist, though - as in "consciously made to not be 'enjoyed' in any manner by any part, including those who execute it".
    I'd have to imagine it's particularly enjoyable live, at least aurally. And if you wore ear plugs you were probably mocked or killed. Did people in the crowd wear corpsepaint? I feel like they might have, which would be silly - only a very few early, die hard Marillion fans wore facepaint. I actually kind of don't mind the whole goth thing, but with corpsepaint added it'd just be a bit too much.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Did people in the crowd wear corpsepaint?
    Oh, certainly not in Bergen (my initial hometown in Norway, where I spent my teens in that donkey Varg's neighbourhood, as previously elaborated here at PE). Corpsepaint with the audience would be perceived as just as "disrespectful" as clapping after a black metal performance, seeing how the whole point of even appearing on stage playing black metal was to defy the notion of "enactment" and rather stress the message of the music as "realtime evil deed". What the audience members would do was to bowe their heads in devout recognition after each song.

    BM was nothing if not completely permeated with obvious paradox. If life was so bad, why cling to it? If the music was so ugly and unlikeable, then why 'dig' it? If evil was the objective, then why no more evil actual deeds? And my personal favourite: if all human trait and virtue was so contemptible - then why that dedication to "honour" and "glory"? Of course, if you confronted them with the shallowness of all these ironies, there'd be a most sensitive limit to their patience. And you were never welcome as an outsider if you'd already marked yourself as someone who disliked the scene not because you didn't "get it" but because you "got it" perfectly and found the entire thing utterly transparent and trivial.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    To detest blackheads is as futile and meaningless as to admire them.
    True.
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  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by 100423 View Post
    I appreciate where you are coming from, but I have a tendency to enjoy bands who incorporate some of the black metal aesthetic without retaining the low-fi production or inhibit their creativity by adhering to specific parameters of a 'genre' eg. Enslaved, Wolves In The Throne Room, Blut Aus Nord, etc. I'm not opposed to going back and listening to Darkthrone, Mayhem, or Burzum from time to time though.
    I perfectly understand what you say, but personally speaking, I can listen with pleasure to very few modern blackened bands f.e. Wolves In The Throne Room, Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Altar of Plagues or Negură Bunget (not so much Enslaved or modern Emperor I confess) but in my head I could never associate their music to the black metal scene of the late 80s as I've witnessed it unfold.
    Macht das ohr auf!

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  14. #14
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    What the audience members would do was to bow their heads in devout recognition after each song.
    Jeez, that's annoying.

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    Traversing The Dream 100423's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by spacefreak View Post
    I perfectly understand what you say, but personally speaking, I can listen with pleasure to very few modern blackened bands f.e. Wolves In The Throne Room, Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Altar of Plagues or Negură Bunget (not so much Enslaved or modern Emperor I confess) but in my head I could never associate their music to the black metal scene of the late 80s as I've witnessed it unfold.
    That's part of the difference too, I imagine. You were there as the scene was unfolding and I was late to the party and started listening well after the original scene was over.

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    Studmuffin Scott Bails's Avatar
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    Every time I see the thread title - "Lords of Chaos" - I assume it's a new Mike Portnoy project.
    Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally

  17. #17
    Usually any music genre that is based on a very specific "scene" with a certain look and "style", ie one which puts style/look over music substance, is going to be short lived and lose momentum easily. It took only a few years for the initial punk "safety pin" scene to peter out before many of those artists wanted to break free of the 3 chord limitations and move on to 'new wave' (oh, the heresy!). Trying to impose specific artificial limitations on a music scene is a losing proposition. That is why, ironically to some of those punks in the late 70s, progressive rock has stayed relevant for decades even though its not as popular as in the 70s.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by DocProgger View Post
    Trying to impose specific artificial limitations on a music scene is a losing proposition. That is why, ironically to some of those punks in the late 70s, progressive rock has stayed relevant for decades even though its not as popular as in the 70s.
    But the "clichéd" renditions of progressive rock have stayed anything -but- relevant, rather it remains the most ridiculed artifact of 70s popular music. Many of its ideas have endured as external influences on certain waves and trends in contemporary rock development, yes (math-rock, post-rock, noise-rock, flamboyant indie-art-rock, New Weird America, some extreme metal etc.) - but in the overall picture I'm not convinced on how vital its own internal condition has "progressed".
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    but in the overall picture I'm not convinced on how vital its own internal condition has "progressed".
    If you look at bands like late-Anathema, Airbag, Magenta, Mostly Autumn etc. it has rather regressed.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    But the "clichéd" renditions of progressive rock have stayed anything -but- relevant, rather it remains the most ridiculed artifact of 70s popular music. Many of its ideas have endured as external influences on certain waves and trends in contemporary rock development, yes (math-rock, post-rock, noise-rock, flamboyant indie-art-rock, New Weird America, some extreme metal etc.) - but in the overall picture I'm not convinced on how vital its own internal condition has "progressed".

    But you used the key word--"cliched". In other words, aspects of progressive rock that people who don't like/understand progressive rock hate and exaggerate as being pervasive and defining.

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    Pendulumswingingdoomsday Rune Blackwings's Avatar
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    After what I heard about the movie, I have no intention of watching it. My understanding is that it focuses on the issue between Varg and Euronymous and the whole concept sounds more romanticized as a western gunfighter movie. The time for any serious interest in this is past, in my opinion. Whatever has been said is said by anyone involved and everybody is now middle aged with this a distant memory. I don't see the point in stirring it back up. Whoever is making this movie fucked around with it too long.

    By the way, Burzum was on Liquid Metal and I tried to listen to it because I am told that this utter pile of shrieking goat shit is some kind of genius, but I had to turn it off as it gave me a ferocious migraine.
    "Alienated-so alien I go!"

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    Pendulumswingingdoomsday Rune Blackwings's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 100423 View Post
    I appreciate where you are coming from, but I have a tendency to enjoy bands who incorporate some of the black metal aesthetic without retaining the low-fi production or inhibit their creativity by adhering to specific parameters of a 'genre' eg. Enslaved, Wolves In The Throne Room, Blut Aus Nord, etc. I'm not opposed to going back and listening to Darkthrone, Mayhem, or Burzum from time to time though.



    That basically sums it up right there.
    In my opinion, Mayhem became serious once Blasphemer was handed the reins. Before that, they were a satanic freak show. Blasphemer was the main songwriter for 13 years and in that time made them a serious band.
    "Alienated-so alien I go!"

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Bails View Post
    Every time I see the thread title - "Lords of Chaos" - I assume it's a new Mike Portnoy project.
    I figured it was either:

    A) another cable TV show glorifying motorcycle riding thugs with 5th grade reading comprehension

    B) the latest subscription cable TV renaissance fair themed dorkfest

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