NSBM: An Introduction

NSBM, National Socialist Black Metal, continues to be the most innovative form of Rock music. Early bands such as Burzum took the melodic qualities of bands such as Kraftwerk and infused them a Wagnerian sense of urgency. An excellent sense of this is the early Burzum track, "My Journey to the Stars".



Later works, such as Hate Forest's Battlefields album reduced the importance of urgency, the crescendo, in favor of a repetitious element. This highlighted diversity of NSBMs intellectual heritage; it broadened the well-worn Kraftwork and Tangerine Dream influence of Burzum-era bands to include the work of early Industrial bands such as Throbbing Gristle. The Hate Forest song "Our Fading Horizons" is highly repetitive, but this repetition serves to drive home the idea of the song.



However, Throbbing Gristle were Liberals for whom totalitarian means was the end point. This new era of bands use totalitarianism as a means to an end; gone was Throbbing Gristle's kitschy quality. After decades of liberals toying with Fascist delivery and getting praised for it, Art Critics were faced with bands who were both genuinely Fascist and talented. The result has been a sort of cognitive dissonance; Liberals making use of Fascist techniques are edgy and hep, Fascists making use of Fascist techniques to spread a Fascist message were dismissed out of hand.



This out of hand dismissal has resulted in something unique for a sub-genre; there has been a remarkable lack of me-too copycats. After all, what better way for a genre to prevent being overrun by attention whores than having a genre openly promote an ideology found repellant by the masses and their media?



Now, we have a genre that is defying all sorts of stereotypes. It's influenced by Boyd Rice's spoken word. It's influenced by Oi! It's influenced by krautrock, EBM, and Industral. It's become a genuinelly modern form of modern folk music.