Haha, noob.
Seriously though, I'll tell you if you haven't gotten the gist from
Panzer already.
BLACK METAL:
First of all, instrumentation.
Black Metal typically has vocals and guitars as the forefront. The guitars sound wiry and high-toned, are usually tremolo picked, and are adjusted to be heavily
Distorted and cold. Riffs tend to have a sort of airiness to them that sends a good atmosphere. Guitar solos aren't very common, mainly because a lot of black metallers think it breaks atmosphere, so no shredding or showing off in black metal. Vocals are usually high-pitched shrieks, screams, and wails. Growls are present in early
Dimmu Borgir and Dodheimsgard but there isn't much growling otherwise. Drums are usually done with a lot of machine-gunning and high-tempos. Bass... well, bass is usually close to inaudible. So, generally
Black Metal sounds higher pitched than
Death Metal, if that makes sense. Additionally
Black Metal uses a much wider range of instruments--acoustic guitars, keyboards, harps, violins, flutes...I've also heard bagpipes before.
Generally
Black Metal is atmosphere-oriented. It's meant to give you the sense of being in huge forests, large castles, medieval times, etc. Some of the atmospheres are really gritty and nihilistic (
Beherit,
Bathory, early
Mayhem), while others are melancholy and somewhat depressive (
Striborg,
Sterbend,
Nortt).
Lyrically, songs are based on Satanism, nature, folk legends, religions, the occult, old times,
Winter, and spirits.
Also in
Black Metal, song lengths range a LOT. Bands like 88,
Beherit and
Bathory write songs from 2-4 minutes long (similar to
Death Metal) while other bands like
Wolves In The Throne Room and
Weakling can write songs exceeding 15 minutes. Usually though
Black Metal artists write songs from 5-9 minutes.
Song structure varies a lot too. Most
Black Metal bands will have very involved
Structures with plenty of tempo/rythm changes all over the place, with interludes and whatnot. Plenty of stuff will be going on, usually bringing the song to a heavy climax or driving the song in a specific direction--taking the listener to another place. Some
Black Metal (DSBM--which stands for depressive suicidal
Black Metal, or
Drone Black Metal, won't drive anywhere and will concentrate on creating a
Bleak atmosphere with very little progression.
With all of these variables
Black Metal is a sub genre with a lot more range and depth. Listening to a black folk album will be VERY different as opposed to listening to, say, black drone.
Black Metal can be very agressive and
Abrasive but it can be calming and relaxing as well.
A few good
Black Metal songs to give you an idea what
Black Metal is:
Under Korpens Vinger
Jesu Dod
Det Som Engang
VAR Dark Medieval Times
Over Mit Lig
Mourning
Palace De
Mysteriis DOM Sathanas Natassja in Eternal
Sleep DEATH METAL.
Instrumentation--unlike
Black Metal,
Death Metal concentrates on sounding sludgy and deep. The bass is very high in the mix, the guitars are dropped to B or C, and solos are much more present in death metal. They're typically sporradic and really fast, just like everything else. The drums pound on the bass
Kick a lot. Also, the singer goes for deep notes, usually growling or yelling. It sounds--well, gross. Crushing. Face melting.
Death Metal is meant to be pounding and sound really destructive.
Usually,
Death Metal doesn't go outside the regular line up--that is, guitars, bass, drums vocalist. I have yet to hear a harp in the middle of a
Cannibal Corpse song.
Death metal also doesn't usually have songs much longer than 5 minutes. The norm song time for a
Death Metal band would be 2-4 minutes. It's supposed to be short, simple, sweet, but heavy. The shorter songs
Means that
Death Metal has a much more simplified structure, usually having an ABABCB pattern, or something like that. It isn't as involved structurally, but of course, the songs are typically shorter anyway, so no big deal. Also, there probably won't be any interludes or breakdowns, unless you're listening to deathcore, but I'm not getting into that shit. Death metal is usually relentless--very few instrumentals or breaks in an album. Oh, and albums are usually around just a half hour, give or take 10 minutes.
The lyrics of death metal are--naturally, death. More specifically, gross-out or gory death. Here's a few song titles for you:
Genital Grinder
Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency
Severed Survival
Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt
Leprosy
In the Grip of Winter
Nor the Silent Whispers
you know, the kinda titles that put a smile on your face. The idea is to gross out the listener, or be as 'brootal' as possible. Stuff like technical death is a bit different though, dealing with how society is evil and capitalism sucks and religion is disgusting--sorta like political commentary. Technical death has a lot of other exceptions to the death metal structure too--like longer songs, better structures, more range on the vocals, etc. But ignore technical death and the other sub-genres until you've heard all the main death metal stuff.
If you want good death metal songs to listen to, look at the list I gave above.
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