What do you do if you’re young and live in one of the most stable and affluent societies in the world? What is a Nordic youth to do—just what can he rebel against, and how can he shock?
Well, there’s always Black Metal.
Start with a solid base of Satanism, stir in torture, murder, church burnings, flavour with misogyny, racism, and a dash of national socialism. Gets one’s jaded heart a bit…excited, doesn’t it?
From In The Face of Death, an article written in 2005 by Chris Champion for The Observer:
Two crew members emerge from behind a long red curtain and theatrically hold up the pigs’ heads before impaling them on microphone stands lined up at the front of the stage. As they do so, 1,000 wild-eyed metal fans, fuelled by 96 per cent proof home-made moonshine (the preferred drink of Norwegians up north) and drunk on blood lust, let out a delighted roar. When the curtain rises, the stage looks like a slaughterhouse. Another 16 slack-jawed pigs heads leer out from atop the amps [….]
At the close of the show, Blasphemer puts down his guitar and furiously hurls a pig’s head into the audience […T]he crowd seem[s] calm, satiated. One lucky teenage fan has secured a trophy. Girls surround the tall, handsome youth, cooing at the pig’s head that hangs [at] his side, as he grips it by the ear like a cherished toy animal.
Educate yourself with a Norwegian documentary on one of the country’s ‘biggest cultural exports’. Also, meet Gaahl, the infamous lead vocalist of Norwegian Black Metal band, Gorgoroth, and taste the darkness yourself with Black Metal Radio.