Viking Metal - Wikipedia

Vikings

edit Main article: Vikings  A replica longship, Lofotr The Vindfamne, a replica knarrThe longship and knarr enabled Vikings to embark on far-reaching military and trading expeditions.[1]

Viking metal features the Vikings as its subject matter and for evocative imagery. The Vikings were Northern European seafarers and adventurers who, during the Middle Ages, relied on sailing vessels such as longships, knerrir, and karvi to explore, raid, pirate, trade, and settle along the North Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Black Sea, and Caspian coasts and Eastern European river systems.[2] The Viking Age is generally cited as beginning in 793, when a Viking raid struck Lindisfarne, and concluding in 1066, with the death of Harald Hardrada and the Norman conquest of England.[3] During this two-hundred-year period, the Vikings ventured west as far as Ireland and Iceland in the North Atlantic and Greenland and what is now Newfoundland in North America, south as far as the Kingdom of Nekor (Morocco), Italy, Sicily, and Constantinople in the Mediterranean, and southeast as far as what are now Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine in Eastern Europe, Georgia in the Caucasus, and Baghdad in the Middle East.[4]

The Vikings originated from the Nordic countries and the Baltic states, and consisted mostly of Scandinavians, though Finns, Estonians, and Curonians, went on voyages as well.[5] Sámi people also closely interacted with the Scandinavian Norse and engaged in widespread trade expeditions.[6] While otherwise disparate peoples, they shared some commonalities in that they were not considered "civilized" and were not, at first, adherents to Christianity,[7] instead following their indigenous Nordic and Finnic religions.[8] They often adopted Christianity upon settling in an area, intermixing the faith with their own pagan traditions, and by the end of the Viking Age, all Scandinavian kingdoms were Christianized and what remained of Viking cultures was absorbed into Christian Europe.[7]

Nordic folk music

edit Main article: Nordic folk music

Nordic folk music encompasses traditions from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and the dependent countries Åland, Faroe Islands, and Greenland, and nearby regions. Specific instruments vary between countries and regions, but some common instruments include the lur,[9] säckpipa,[9] Hardanger fiddle,[10] keyed fiddle,[11] willow flute,[12] harp,[12] mouth harp,[12] and animal horns.[13] Common genres in Nordic folk include ballads, herding music, and dance music, genres which trace back to the medieval era.[14] Often, Nordic melodies will contain the phrase C2-B-G.[15]

In Swedish folk music, songs are monophonic, unemotional, and solemn in character, though working and festive songs might be more lively and rhythmic.[16] Danish songs melodies tend to lean toward the major.[15] In Icelandic folk music, the rímur, a form of epic poem dating back to the medieval era and Viking Age, is prominent.[17] Faroese music contains dances directly descended from medieval ballad and epic poems, particularly from literature in the Icelandic tradition,[18] and often follows unusual time signatures.[19] Many Norwegian folk ballads follow a four-stanza structure known as stev.[20] Stev alternate a trochaic tetrameter with a trimeter, and lines typically rhyme following an ABCB scheme, though stev are not standardized.[20] Finnish folk music tends to be based on Karelian traditions and the meter and thematic material found in the Kalevala. These themes include magic, mysticism, shamanism, Viking sea voyages, Christian legends, and ballads and dance songs.[21] The older runo song tradition follows meters such as 54, 58, or 24.[21] Under Swedish and German influence, a newer, round-dance tradition based on the runo emerged – the rekilaulu – and these usually follow a 24 or 44 time.[21] Sámi music traditions (music from the Sámi people throughout Fennoscandia) historically were rather insular, exerting little influence on the music of surrounding cultures.[22] Sámi music is known for joiking, improvised singing particular to the performer.[23] These songs are often sung accompanied by a drum.[23]

Black metal

edit Main article: Black metal

 

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that, mostly in Europe, emerged from speed metal and thrash metal in the 1980s. A "first wave" began in the early to mid-1980s, through the work of bands such as Venom, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate, and Bathory.[24] The name black metal is taken from the 1982 album of the same name by Venom,[25] while Bathory's 1984 self-titled release is generally regarded as the first true black metal record.[26] A "second wave" developed in part as a reaction to the burgeoning death metal genre,[27] and in part inspired by the Teutonic thrash metal scene.[28] It was headed by the early Norwegian black metal scene, through artists such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Emperor, Satyricon, Thorns, Ulver, and Gorgoroth.[29] The early Norwegian scene became infamous for murders, assaults, and numerous church arsons committed by members of the scene.[30] Black metal lyrical themes are focused on Satan and Satanism, which many first-wave bands used with a tongue-in-cheek approach, contrary to the more serious beliefs and vehement anti-Christian sentiment of many second-wave bands.[31]

Musically, the first wave of bands were just considered to be playing heavier forms of metal – Venom was part of the new wave of British heavy metal, Celtic Frost was variously described as thrash metal or death metal, and Quorthon of Bathory simply labeled his music "heavy metal".[32] It was not until the second wave that black metal was more clearly defined. A key development during that period was a guitar playing style featuring fast, un-muted tremolo picking or "buzz picking",[33] introduced by Euronymous of Mayhem and Snorre Ruch ("Blackthorn") of Thorns.[34] Other common traits for guitar playing include a high-pitched or treble guitar tone and heavy distortion.[35] Solos and dropped tunings are rare.[32] Overall, the guitar sound tends to be "thin and brittle" compared to other heavy metal genres, with the idea of "heaviness" conveyed through harshness and timbral density rather than low frequency.[36] The bass guitar tends to be buried under the guitar tones, even non-existent.[37] Drums and even vocals are likewise often mixed low,[36] with these production techniques resulting in a blurred "wash" of sound.[36] Vocals are usually high-pitched and raspy shrieks, screams, and snarls,[38] and rarely gutturals and death growls are also employed.[39] The use of keyboards is also frequent.[40]

The influence of Scandinavian folk music within Norwegian black metal is apparent in the use by some guitarists belonging to that scene of drones and modal melodies reminiscent of the folk tradition.[41] Terje Bakken of Windir explained that ancient Nordic folk is easily integrated into metal idiom due to the "sad atmosphere" the two genres have in common.[41] Production values within black metal are often raw and lo-fidelity. Originally, this was merely because many early second-wave bands lacked the resources to record properly,[35] but the practice was continued by successful bands in order to identify with their genre's underground origins.[42] Though featuring these common traits, black metal spawned diverse musical approaches and subgenres, with some bands taking more experimental and avant-garde directions.[43] Other bands, such as Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir, embraced a more commercial sound and production aesthetic instead.[43]

Precursors

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The use of Viking themes and imagery in hard rock and heavy metal music predates the advent of Viking metal. For instance, the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" (1970) and "No Quarter" (1973) feature allusions to Viking voyages, violence, and exploration,[44] the former being inspired by the band's visit to Iceland while on tour. The Swedish band Heavy Load often wrote Viking-themed songs, such as the 1978 song "Son of the Northern Light" and the 1983 songs "Singing Swords" and "Stronger than Evil" from their album Stronger Than Evil (which features an imagined Norse warrior on the cover art), the latter song which music journalist Eduardo Rivadavia claims establishes a case for Heavy Load as the first Viking metal group.[45] Silver Mountain, another Swedish group, according to Rivadavia possessed better "Viking metal credentials" than any other predecessors to the genre; they released the song "Vikings" in 1983 on their album Shakin' Brains.[46]

Many other bands in the early and mid-1980s featured Viking-themed music. Two British groups released Viking-themed songs: Iron Maiden released "Invaders", a song about Norse marauders from their album The Number of the Beast, and A II Z released "Valhalla Force" on their extended play No Fun After Midnight.[46] In 1985, the American group Pantera released the song "Valhalla" on their album I Am the Night, and the American band Crimson Glory released a song of the same name a year later on their self-titled debut.[46] Swedish neoclassical metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen sometimes featured themes of hyper-masculinity, heroic warriors, and Vikings; for example, on his 1985 album Marching Out.[47] The British band Blitzkrieg's 1985 album A Time of Changes frequently references Viking themes with songs such as "Ragnorak" and "Vikings".[46] Elixir, also from Britain, titled their 1986 debut The Son of Odin, an album which includes a song of the same name that urges listeners to put their faith in Odin.[46]

The German band Grave Digger and American band Manowar, both of which formed in 1980, drew upon Norse myth as envisioned in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.[48] Faithful Breath – which wore fur and horned helmet costumes – and TNT also experimented with Viking themes.[49] Manowar adopted Viking imagery much more heavily than other bands, turning out copious amounts of songs devoted to Viking lore, and became known as the "champions of the furry loincloth"; they met with ridicule even within the metal community but attracted a cult following.[50] Unlike the later Viking metal bands, Manowar did not bother with the historicity of popular Viking image, and did not in any way identify with the Vikings, religiously or racially.[51] Trafford and Pluskowski explain that "the Manowar version of the Vikings owes as much to Conan the Barbarian as it does to history, saga, or Edda: What matters to Manowar is untamed masculinity, and the Vikings are for them merely the archetypal barbarian males."[51] Similarly, Vlad Nichols of Ultimate Guitar states that on Heavy Load's Stronger Than Evil, which might be the earliest contribution to the idea of Viking metal, most of the songs have as much to do with historical Vikings as the 1958 The Vikings film; that is, the portrayal of Norsemen is of warmongering invaders at best, and more so uses the Vikings as a means to sing about macho, loin-cloth wearing barbarians.[52]