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Heavy Metal Thunder Blackgaze

Genres Heavy Metal Black Metal (First Wave) Second Wave (Norwegian) Atmospheric Black Metal Blackgaze

Blackgaze

The fury of black metal played through shoegaze’s haze. Beautiful and harrowing at once, and often the first extreme metal anyone actually loves.

Active years
2007 – present
Origin
France / USA
Family
Black Metal
Bands here
13

Start here

Three records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Souvenirs d’un autre monde Alcest, 2007 The landmark

    The record that invented the style, and it is barely heavy at all — Neige wrote it about visions he had as a child and it sounds like it. Shoegaze with black metal's sense of scale.

    Listen to Souvenirs d’un autre monde

  2. Sunbather Deafheaven, 2013

    The one that reached people who do not like metal, and annoyed a great many who do. A pink album sleeve, tremolo picking used for euphoria rather than menace, and a genuine emotional register.

    Listen to Sunbather

  3. Melting Sun Lantlôs, 2014

    The screams are gone entirely and the heaviness stays. Where blackgaze stops being black metal with nice bits and becomes something on its own terms.

    Listen to Melting Sun

What it sounds like

Distortion used as a wash rather than an attack. Take shoegaze's wall of reverb-soaked guitar, layer black metal's tremolo picking and blast beats underneath, and the two turn out to be the same technique at different volumes. The shriek is buried in the mix as another texture instead of sitting on top. Songs build and release like post-rock. It is melodic, major-key as often as minor, and frequently beautiful — much closer to indie rock in feel than to anything in the second wave, which is exactly why purists dislike it and why it converts more newcomers than any other extreme metal.

  • Heaviness 2 out of 5
  • Speed 3 out of 5
  • Aggression 3 out of 5
  • Technicality 3 out of 5
  • Darkness 3 out of 5
  • Melody 4 out of 5

Where the name came from

A portmanteau of 'black metal' and 'shoegaze' — 'shoegaze' itself named for that genre's guitarists staring at their effects pedals while performing. Coined by music critics in the late 2000s to describe Alcest and peers who fused black metal's tremolo-picked ferocity with shoegaze's lush, reverb-drenched atmosphere.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Alcest France
  • Deafheaven USA
  • Lantlôs France
  • Harakiri for the Sky Austria
  • Oathbreaker Belgium

And 8 more

  • Bosse-de-Nage USA
  • Amesoeurs France
  • Heretoir Germany
  • Les Discrets France
  • Neige et Noirceur France
  • White Ward Ukraine
  • An Autumn for Crippled Children Netherlands
  • Ghost Bath USA

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

  • France French Extreme & Atmospheric Metal 5 bands

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.