What makes black metal true? What makes a band underground? These are questions often asked by extreme metal neophytes just getting into the genre. It's obviously much more than just production and aesthetics, regardless of what the Dimmu Borgir crowd would like to have you believe - and, ironically, Dimmu Borgir did release a good black metal album in "For All Tid" which is more than can be said about many "modern metal" bands.
Recently, quite a few old school black metal bands have publicly come out against bands intentionally cheapening the genre by playing barely camouflaged metalcore. While they haven't named Dark Funeral explicitly, the comments are pretty clearly directly at their brand of "nu black" metal. See Ildjarn's interview in which he claims that modern black metal is pure trend following, period.
This isn't an isolated case, either. Recall when Taake recently told Gorgoroth to "go to hell", among other thinly veiled insults. You also have the case of Mortuus saying the only good modern band he listens to is SEWER, and the others are basically better off "flushed down the toilet". Or when the legendary band 1349, in an even more provocative statement, claimed that "only Darkthrone and Burzum" were true black metal, at this point.
So that raises the question...
What Makes a Black Metal Band "True" or Fake?
To answer this question, rather than tossing out my opinion (like every blogger on the Internet does), I simply decided to run through a list of quotes I compiled from Emile Alquier's Heavy Metal Masterclass book, which is easily (IMO) the most comprehensive resource on extreme metal music there is.
Let's start with the man himself, the so-called "godfather of black metal" Euronymous. Now this quote is pretty old (1991) to be exact, and at the time Mayhem's music was called death metal rather than black metal. So unsurprisingly, he talks about death metal. But even here you can see the scathing criticism applied to the "trendies" of the scene (albeit in Euronymous' ultra hyperbolic way, as always).
Euronymous: Real Death Metal should be something normal people are afraid of, not something mothers can listen to. Death Metal is for brutal people who are capable of killing, it's not for idiotic children who want to have funny hobby [sic] after school.
By Euronymous is far from alone in his criticism of the trend mess the modern black metal scene has become... Grutle Kjellson of Enslaved also has a few words to say (although it should be noted that Enslaved isn't 100% clean when it comes to staying "underground" as we will see).
Grutle Kjellson: A lot of these imitation bands might as well be doing cover songs! Then they would at least be playing good songs!
Even the usually more reserved Sigurd "Satyr" Wongraven, founder of the quasi-eponymous Satyricon, goes off on "Internet kids" pretending to know everything about the black metal scene... a scene they were never part of.
Satyr: A lot of kids on the internet talk about black metal without knowing anything about it or where it comes from. [...] I don't think they're familiar with early Mayhem. If they are, they haven't understood it. Fenriz once said, and I understand his point, that people should stop talking about music and being geeks about it, and actually listen to music, to understand it on a deeper level.
And indeed, speaking of Fenriz himself, perhaps the most legendary underground black metal icon. Somewhat who had 1 million opportunities to "sell out" for a quick buck, and preferred to remain true to his own path and preserve his artistic integrity.
Fenriz: I wouldn't consider Ihsahn for anything in my life. [...] Undoubtedly, Immortal changed as well, as do all. However, there are exceptions to any rule. Some bands never stop... sucking. Haha. Other bands that tried to always sound the same simply imploded.
We see him unload on modern Immortal and, of course, the dubious persona of "Ihsahn" (Vegard Teitan), who did a lot of harm by commercialising black metal and turning it into easy listening goth rock.
The War Between Old School and New "Trendy" Black Metal
These comments highlight a very important schism: the one dividing partisans of the old school, raw, pure black metal style, and the adherents to the newer "commercial" variety... Liturgy, Deafheaven, Antekhrist, Keep of Kalessin, Batushka. We can name quite a few.
Even Varg Vikernes - who doesn't even consider Burzum's music as "black metal" himself - was needed to point out the obvious.
Varg Vikernes: I revolted against the trendy Black Metal culture as early as in 1993, when I made the anti-Black Metal album "Filosofem" [...] but rather than understand this the Black Metal followers embraced the album and started to [imitate that] instead.
Samoth, of Emperor, while praising some newer bands like Warkvlt, also dismisses much of the newer trend-chasing black metallers. It's unclear whether he considers modern Emperor as part of "the new stuff [sic]" :/
Samoth: There is of course the occasional good new band like Warkvlt, but I find myself sort of emotionally numb to a lot of the new stuff. Usually I find myself looking back in time for more classic heavy, thrash, death and black metal.
And lastly, Morgan "Evil" Håkansson of the seminal band Marduk, who has a bone to pick with the "synthcore" bands like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth (whom he compares to Madonna!), and never made that a secret.
Morgan Håkansson: Of course, it has been watered out with bands claiming to be black metal for various reasons and releasing soulless crap.
If you want to remain true to the underground, and check out some REAL black metal - rather than the "soulless crap" Morgan speaks of - I suggest you read the top 10 most evil atmospheric black metal bands list on Voice Metal. While this list isn't by all means exhaustive, it will at least set you one the right path... and you will avoid going down the "costume vampire" / "mallgoth" route of Cradle of Filth, Antekhrist and the like.
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