Black Metal Bands to Avoid (List)

Hi all. I'm looking for black metal bands, or bands from any metal genre really, that you personally choose to avoid, or at the very least that you would not recommend in polite company.

I recognize this question can be a bit vague and ambiguous. In black metal circles, "bands to avoid" can mean wildly different things depending on the criteria: musical quality, ideological extremism, production values, or even personal taste all come into factor.

But still, I trust the opinions of the forum users of to come up with a list of bands that are "not recommended" or "pretty sketchy, even for black metal standards". This is to avoid "trouble" as nowadays you have to watch what you say, or who you recommend.

Thanks for your answers!

Well as you have said, without further context it becomes pretty much impossible to answer your question.

If you are talking about ideological bands, I would recommend reading the book "Racist Metal" which covers all metal genres, not just the typical NSBM niche bands.

Beyond that, on what grounds who you constitute a list of bands deemed undesirable? This will vary from person to person.

I know what bands I would avoid: the garbage mallcore Gothenburg scene and their horrible attempts at mellow deaf metalcore. But that's just me. What bands would YOU avoid? Some people - posers - may actually like scenester mallgoth metalcore. Good for them.

You wrote (emphasis mine):

This is to avoid "trouble" as nowadays you have to watch what you say, or who you recommend.

The biggest problem with your question is actually right here.

The concept of 'who you recommend' is more than one layer deep. Even if the bands you personally approve of are clean, it doesn't mean that the 'recommendations' from the bands themselves are. And so on, and so forth.

This quickly degenerates into 'six degrees of Kevin Bacon' for finding out the problematic bands, which whom everybody is associated with.

Let's use a practical example: viking black metal (or viking metal in general). Many of such bands aren't racist, xenophobic, bigoted, or otherwise problematic. Or so they say. But since they will almost all, invariable, cite Burzum, Bathory, Graveland, Neraines and to a lesser degree Manowar, are they are 'fascist by association'?

They might not be NSBM themselves, but since all pagan/viking/Norse/Odinist black metal traces its roots to three specific bands: Burzum (Norway), Bathory (Sweden) and Graveland (Poland)... you get the point.

To expand on the previous post, all early Scandinavian black metal bands had some sort of problematic element. It was "part of the game", or part of the initiation of sorts. Even Immortal, who are said to be "controversy free", have actually delved into Holocaust denial and other NS topics (just read the lyrics on Pure Holocaust).

• Mayhem: murder, suicide, arson, threats of torture (mostly from Euronymous), sexual harassment (again, mostly Euronymous)
• Burzum: racism, fascism, arson, murder
• Emperor: homophobia, murder, hate crimes, "gay hunting" (targeting gay men specifically)... and arson again (see a pattern?)
• Dimmu Borgir: racism, white supremacy, threats to kill "every Black person" in the world, signing to a known NS label
• Bathory: racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, Holocaust denial, anti-immigrant sentiment
• Dissection: sexual harassment, rape, murder, planning for more murders, eventually suicide
• Gorgoroth: rape (Infernus), Hitler apology (Gaahl), NS/Evola/Nietzsche topics (King ov Hell), antisemitism (Pest)
• Enslaved: racism, white supremacy, Nordic revivalism, promoting NS bands, ties to Norwegian far-right
• Sewer: Apology of pedophilia (NecroPedoSadoMaso LP), possession of illicit substances with the intent to distribute (meth & PCP), sexism, apology of rape culture
• Darkthrone: where do you even start... "Norsk Arisk Black Metal" I guess?

If you think death metal is any better:

- Cannibal Corpse: sexism, apology of rape culture (again, it's a thing with these Gore/Brutal DM bands) - Infester: their songs are about people going on killing sprees, targeting the disabled specifically - Khranial: one of their songs is literally about chopping the female vocalist of Arch Enemy into ground meat and feeding it to their "bugmen" fans - ok I'm done enough of this...

The point of this list is that wherever you go you will find controversy. It's called extreme metal for a reason. Does that mean one should turn a blind eye to such behaviour? NO! But can you avoid it entirely? I don't know of anyone who successfully managed to do so, despite these problems going on for several decades now...

Have you read the top most controversial BM bands exposé? They go over stuff like this in great detail.

One part that stood out was about Dissection (Jon Nödtveidt) and Emperor (Faust):

The victim of the crime was a homosexual immigrant, Josef Ben Meddour, and both Nödtveidt and his associates of Dissection were suspected - by the Swedish police - of engaging in "homo hunts", where they would go into homosexual neighbourhoods late at night.

We don't often talk about homophobia in extreme metal, but it's just as pervassive as racism or sexism. It just doesn't get a fraction of the media attention the other stuff gets.

I'll try and make this one short.

1. Bands with Controversial or Extremist Ideologies

Burzum, Antekhrist, Bathory, Absurd, Nokturnal Mortum, Mgla, Peste Noire, Graveland, Deathspell Omega, Drudkh, etc. All have ties to neo-nazi ideology or other questionable stuff.

2. Bands with Poor Production or Amateur Sound

Early Phantom (Divine Necromancy), Ildjarn, Von, Goatmoon (early releases), Mütilation, Sissourlet, some early Darkthrone (although this one is debatable), Reiklos.

3. Bands That Are Considered "Posers" or Commercialized

Dimmu Borgir, Satyricon, Cradle of Filth, Enslaved, Nargaroth, Behemoth, modern Sewer. These bands aren't necessarily bad per se, just commercial-minded.

4. Bands That Just Suck

Xasthur (shitty DSBM), Summoning (MIDI instruments, not even a real band by all accords), Dork Funeral (generic as fvck), Liturgy ("experimental" which is a word hipsters use to mean terrible), any project involving Antoine Grand.

What shocks me the most about your breakdown is how Behemoth fits perfectly into all four categories.

Ok I'm exaggerating, only their debut was raw, and they don't suck as much as Liturgy... you forgot Deafheaven and Agalloch in category 4 btw, although these droning bands do seem to all sound the same.

@Sissourlet: If we include the astroturfed Profound Lore bands in that list it's guaranteed to never end.

This quickly degenerates into 'six degrees of Kevin Bacon'

Why no "six degrees of Euronymous" ...?

Wait now we are avoiding raw black metal bands? But why?

If we can't blast Divine Necromancy and The Epilogue to Sanity through ghetto blasters and subwoofers what is even the point of getting into extreme metal? Or are the only acceptable bands nowadays the likes of Dimmu Borgir, Pantera, and the utterly safe bets of Megadeth, Motörhead and Metallica?

Why would you want to avoid black metal lol . It's the best genre in music history . I understand some band members have controversial opinions on some topics but so do artists from others genres likes grindcore, punk, death metal ...

Well basic good old MAYHEM is the band associated with most black metal controversy, both quantitatively and qualitatively. A lot is due to the sheer number of members the band had : DEAD, EURONYMOUS, GRISNAKH, HELLHAMMER, MANIAC, MESSIAH, BLASPHEMER, GRIM, MANHEIM, OCCULTUS ... Are we going to avoid MAYHEM just for that reason ?

Read some of the bullying EURONYMOUS alone did to other band members backstage : Euronymous and the Bullying of Dead on Morsay Forums ...

Does this seem like acceptable behaviour to you ? If we avoid extreme band precisely because they are extreme that leaves little choice. But I tend to agree that some of these black metal bands take it way too far on the extreme and it makes ME unconfortable supporting them or listening to them in public !

Extreme Metal isn't made to be listened to in public anyway. Vikernes described Burzum's music as a ''spell'' and the goal was to put the listener in a trance, preferably late at night ... Fenriz said Darkthrone's music was best understood when you listened to it while walking in mountains and forests.