Hey fellow lemmings, I’ve recently watched some documentries and read some articles that made me more aware of the existence of NSBM. I love metal, both the music and the culture but I don’t want to hear anything related to that specific scene.
I don’t want to dicuss the morality of the subject, I just wish to know how I can easily identify if a band I’m listening to is problematic.
I’m aware of Metallum, but that is not always reliable and easily accessible. I am also not able to detect the themes in the lyrics, tbh most of the time I can barely even understand what the vocalist is saying. Thank you all in advance
One way is search for ‘band name + controversy’ or ‘band name + nazi’ or something similar. It becomes second nature after awhile.
Conversely, seek out non-problematic black metal - antifascist black metal is a thing.
Yeah but that only works for bands that are popular enough that someone wrote an article about.
That sounds more to my taste haha, do you have any recommendations?
Loads :) some of these are not explicitly anti-fascist but they’re non problematic.
- Panopticon
- Wolves In The Throne Room
- Blackbraid
- Dawn Ray’d
- Iskra
- The Infernal Sea
- Azel’s Mountain
- Mizmor
- Gaerea
- Nahasheol
- Auld
There’s also the Anti Fascist Black Metal YouTube channel which showcases antifa black (and other) metal - gets lots of new releases.
Thanks, I’ll make sure to check them out!
This is a pretty decent list, usually my first look.
Kind of biased, but whatever. Seems like the writer basically equates anything not leftist to be essentially nazi.
Not so sure - all they do is list explicitly leftist/anarchist bands and explicitly fash/nazi bands. Everyone in between should be considered safe (or maybe unknown). For example, Behemoth aren’t on either list, nor are Darkthrone or Rotting Christ or a shit load of other bands, therefore they must be OK.
I mean, if you consider having members in the band with such ideologies enough to label it a NSBM band, then sure. I don’t agree with it, but whatever.
Yeah, fair enough, it’s a decent enough starting point though IMO, obviously use your own judgement.
Oh I remember seeing this list a while back, thanks for linking it!
Although I doubt this method will work today but what I used to do was google the band and wait until I found a link discussing the band on Stormfront, an old neo-Nazi forum. It was huge (by extremist standards) in the 2000s but it’s barely active these days.
Nazi metal? Goddammit, well at least I don’t listen to bands on the lists posted here!
Reminds me of the racist country bands I keep accidentally finding. I’ll be jamming out until someone drops some bullshit about being a ‘Rebel’ and I’m out.
Sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it?
Haha I feel you, I appreciate the links people have posted, it definitely helps. I am also very thankful for the reaction that most metalheads have towards these issues. It’s great that we care about the community enough to address it’s troublemakers rather than pretending they don’t exist or it’s not a big deal.
Sadly these groups have been around pretty much since black metal started. I usually just try to look up the bands bio. If they’re on Wikipedia it will usually say something about it. The lists others posted seem pretty helpful too
Thanks, yeah that’s what I’ve been doing so far but I had to look up so many names before I gave up and tried looking for a more convenient way lol
Very glad I don’t see a single band I listen to on that list.
