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Heavy Metal Thunder Depressive Suicidal BM (DSBM)

Genres Heavy Metal Black Metal (First Wave) Second Wave (Norwegian) Depressive Suicidal BM (DSBM)

Depressive Suicidal BM (DSBM)

Black metal turned entirely inward — minimal, repetitive and unguardedly bleak. The subject matter is exactly what the name says.

Active years
1994 – present
Origin
Norway / Sweden
Family
Black Metal
Bands here
13

Before you press play

Explicit content

This genre treats depression, self-harm and suicide as its subject matter rather than its background, and some of it was made by people who meant it. It is worth knowing that before you spend an evening inside it. The music is real and so is the reason it is hard to listen to.

Start here

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

  1. V: Halmstad Shining, 2007 The landmark

    The most accomplished record the genre has and the least raw — piano, clean guitar, real dynamics. Niklas Kvarforth is a difficult figure and the music is better than his reputation for provocation suggests.

    Listen to V: Halmstad

  2. Pulver Lifelover, 2006

    Swedish, and the odd one out: indie-rock guitars and drum-machine pop structures under the misery, which makes it far more listenable than anything else here. Their guitarist died in 2011 and the band stopped.

    Listen to Pulver

  3. Subliminal Genocide Xasthur, 2006

    One man, an eight-track and no interest in being heard clearly. The tape hiss and buried vocals are the instrument. Genuinely hard going, and the point at which most people decide whether this genre is for them.

    Listen to Subliminal Genocide

What it sounds like

Minimal, repetitive and unguarded. A single figure repeated for minutes at a time, thin production, drums often programmed or barely present, and a vocal that sounds less like a performance than a recording of someone in distress. Tempos are slow. There is almost no variation within a song, deliberately — the repetition is the emotional mechanism. Clean guitar and piano appear frequently. The subject matter is exactly what the name says, and the genre makes no attempt at distance from it, which is the source of both its power and the reasonable arguments against it. Compared with atmospheric black metal it is smaller, closer and much harder to sit through, because it is aimed inward rather than at a landscape.

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

Where the name came from

The full form 'Depressive Suicidal Black Metal' was codified by online metal communities in the late 1990s and early 2000s — largely on forums and the Metal Archives database — to categorise the bleak, introspective Norwegian-Swedish subgenre pioneered by Shining and Lifelover.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Shining Sweden
  • Lifelover Sweden
  • Xasthur USA
  • Forgotten Tomb Italy
  • Hypothermia Sweden

And 8 more

  • Leviathan USA
  • Abyssic Hate Australia
  • Make a Change Kill Yourself Denmark
  • Trist Russia
  • Nocturnal Depression France
  • Happy Days USA
  • Silencer Sweden
  • Woods of Desolation Australia

If you liked this

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