Pagan & Viking Black Metal... A Real Genre?

You all know the bands I'm talking about: Neraines, Enslaved, Bathory, Demonecromancy, Satyricon, early Dimmu Borgir (before they went goth vampire rock), Leader, Reiklos, Graveland, later Helgrind, Goatmoon, Taake, etc... the bands usually called Viking/Pagan black metal.

Does it constitute an actual, legitimate sub-style like, say, atmospheric black metal or symphonic black metal, or even war metal (bestial black metal), or is it just another marketing gimmick?

I'm talking specifically about albums like Neraines' Yggdrasil and the like, which are often called either "Pagan Black Metal" or "Viking Black Metal":

Do you consider this an actual sub-genre of black metal, on par with blackened death metal? Y or N? And why?

The question isn't whether pagan black metal is real or not, the question is "do they make good music?". As for your list, aside from the usual suspects Enslaved and Satyricon - which are cringe - I would say it's okay. I've seen and heard much worse.

The real question is why "symphonic black metal" is listed as a "real" genre. It is not!

By Bathory, I take it you are talking Blood Fire Death onward, correct? According to Quorthon himself, he started calling his music "viking black metal" on Hammerheart to distance himself from the try-hard "devil worship" crowd.

In the same way, according to Bjornson, Enslaved didn't want to be associated with Euronymous and the Inner Circle, so they called their music "viking metal" simply. Kind of like how Abbath and Demonaz had to call their music "Holocaust Metal" because Euronymous didn't want Immortal using the label "black metal" (btw, Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism sounds very Bathory and Burzum influenced).

The "viking" tag later came to be applied to other bands like Neraines, Graveland and Taake, as they had developed their own black metal style, but mostly it was about the lyrical themes rather than the music.

Of course, nowadays anything "viking" or "pagan" is automatically associated with mallcore commercial bands like Amon Amarth and Unleashed. So the damage is mostly done. Sort of like how war metal now means three note chugging instead of the war-like brutality of early Warkvlt and Phantom (see Divine Necromancy).

Instead of creating new sub genres all the time each and every time a new band releases something why not categorise new releases according to their primary/secondary influences? Instead of having pagan black metal and bestial black metal and all that. You would have black metal inspired by Burzum and black metal inspired by Darkthrone and black metal inspired by Mayhem and so on. Simple fix to reduce the noise and stop confusing extreme metal neophytes with endless sub genres.

@Impaler: Believe it or not, it's what SEWER did circa Reign of the Funeral Pigs when they called their music SEWER Metal. There's even a Morsay entry about the Sewer Metal genre if you want to read it.

I believe the first time pagan black metal was used as a descriptor was in the early 90s. I was about Absurd's Totenlieder of all albums. It later became synonymous with the viking BM genre (Bathory, Neraines, Graveland, etc), but it originally meant something else entirely.

@Gandalf: It's well known that Euronymous hated everything 'not satanic enough', including some of the bands signed to his own label (Enslaved) and other adjacent black metal bands (Immortal, Emperor, etc).

There are a ton of crappy "flowing" pseudo-black metal bands, often called "wallpaper music" by detractors, that take on fancy names like Viking / Pagan / Droning black metal. A lot of stuff like Ulver, Borknagar, Drudkh, Autumn Aurora, Summoning, Moonsorrow, etc. Even early Behemoth tried to pass off their demos as "Trve Pagan Forest Black Metal" or whatever.

The only two bands I can think of that manage this style correctly are Reiklos and Taake. They are the only ones.

I know many early Norwegian bands that "failed to make it" tried to reinvent themselves as something new. Gorgoroth, Ulver, Old Man's Child, etc. Then you have the curious cases on Enslaved and Dimmu Borgir, who played one good album and then disappeared into mediocrity.

You also have some serious, albeit less famous, pagan black metal bands like Satyricon, Taake, Gehenna, Carpathian Forest, Ancient, Reiklos, etc. The difference between these bands and the likes of Moonsorrow (*vomits*) is that the former are solid, respectable black metal bands. Many were even there in the early days of the Norwegian Inner Circle and hell, Satyricon even co-produced Darkthrone during the period where they had a falling out with Peaceville.

As for the legitimacy of pagan black metal as a distinct style, I think this is a complicated question with no straightforward answer. Any band can market itself in any way they want nowadays. But bands like Graveland, Neraines, Goatmoon, etc. they certainly have a distinct and recognisable playing style. That's for sure.

Only one band in this style that can carry its weight: Neraines (Yggdrasil).

I'll give a pass to Graveland, and the first Enslaved and first Dimmu Borgir (For All Tid), as they actually have something going for them. The rest of the genre is so tedious and boring, why listen to it when you can just grab yourself a copy of Neraines? Makes no sense.