Every Black Metal Subgenre Explained

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Okay, so I'm going to do my best to explain every major subg genre of black metal in this video. And the first one is ambient black metal, which is a sub genre of black metal combining ambient music with black metal. It features ethereal soundsscapes, very minimalistic and repetitive song structures and incorporates a fair amount of synth passages. It has a heavy emphasis on distorted drones, whispered vocals, classic essential album example, Philosphom, which is one of the first examples of this and it's pretty much the blueprint for ambient black metal.

[00:00:44]Then we have atmospheric black metal, which has a lot of overlap with ambient black metal. Pretty much is the same thing. There's only a few minor differences. The main one being that atmospheric black metal is more metal focused than ambient. I guess the best way to describe the difference would be atmospheric is 70% black metal, 30% ambient where ambient is 30% black metal, 70% ambient, but they are extremely similar and they like I said they often just get lumped into the same sub genre. Typically combines other subg genre of black metal with atmospheric elements, melancholic, drawn out soundsscapes. The song length is often a lot longer for atmospheric black metal songs. This is not always the case, but if you do see a song that's over 10 minutes in length, there's a good chance it's probably an atmospheric black metal song. Now, the previous album I displayed from Bersum is also considered atmospheric black metal, but for this sub genre in particular, I'm going to use the album The Mantle by the band's Agalok as a good example.

[00:01:51]haunting despair into the world.

[00:01:59]>> All right. Now, we have Viking black metal. And a very common misconception is that Viking metal is stuff like a monomarf and tier. And these are melodic death metal and power metal bands respectively. They're not Viking metal.

[00:02:14]They are Viking themed metal. So, there's the difference. But here's where it gets even more confusing. Viking black metal is oftentimes also Viking themed, but why this is an actual subg genre is because Viking black metal does have a very distinctive sound compared to a lot of other black metal bands.

[00:02:32]There's a heavy emphasis on the use of European folk as this is a mostly European centric um subgenre of black metal encompasses bands like the thing, falcon, baie, vinter sorg, enslaved and managarm. There is often a lyrical focus on Norse mythology, Vikings, you know, heathenism, but simply having a Viking theme does not make you a Viking black metal band. It's it's kind of confusing.

[00:02:59]You just have to listen to it to really understand. Now, the album Hammerheart by Baie is basically it's where the term came from. Album that I want to use as a demonstration would be the album Tils by Venttororg.

[00:03:15]Get it all.

[00:03:22]>> All right, next we have folk and pagan black metal. Where it gets even more confusing is that this is another folk and black metal hybrid subg genre. And there's also a Russian pagan metal scene. Bands like Arona and Rouan. Now, the sub genre of folk black metal often incorporates a lot of traditional instrument use such as flutes, violins, all the nine yards. You know, it's folk metal, but black metal really. And again, this is a mostly eurosentric subgenre. A lot of pagan and folk black metal bands kind of have an overlap with Viking metal. Now, there's also atmospheric black folk metal, which is a subgre, a famous subgenre. And I'm just going to give a good example for folk black metal would be the band Moon Sorrow. And this album, which I can't pronounce because it's in Finnish.

[00:04:23]By the way, if you're wondering why I'm recording in my closet, I am absolutely sick and tired of recording with my shitty Yeti Nano microphone. Just just some advice, do not ever buy a Yeti Nano microphone. It is actually statistically one of the worst microphones on the market. Here's Avantgard Black Metal.

[00:04:42]This is highly diverse black metal with a heavy emphasis on unconventional song structure and experimentation. often incorporates elements of other different music genres like jazz, folk music, and classical music. This is where the weird sounding metal bands typically get thrown into, but most of them sound very unique. So, it's hard to define the subg genre, but if something just doesn't fit into these other subg genres, and it sounds [ __ ] weird. Sounds like music made by aliens sometimes, it's probably an avantgard black metal band. A good example of this would be the album release of Gold Star by the band's Imperial Triumphant.

[00:05:28][music] >> Then we have Black and Roll, which is a hybrid sub genre combining raw vocals and the grim atmosphere of black metal with 70s and 80s hard rock and traditional heavy metal and sometimes has a little bit of a punk rock influence as well. And the vocals are usually just standard black metal vocals and it has four four rock beats and a lot of groovy melodies. The sound is less abrasive than that of regular black metal as well. The album Volcano by the band Satiron is a good example of this subgenre.

[00:06:09]>> DSBM depressive suicidal black metal.

[00:06:12]often just shorted to depressive black metal. This is a sub genre of black metal featuring shrieking vocals, slower tempos, and very lowfi production. This is one of the most budget friendly black metal subg genres to get into.

[00:06:27]Obviously, themes of loneliness and despair, hence the term depressive, suicidal. This accompanies bands like psychonaut, Thor, lifelas.

[00:06:36]It's also one of the more popular subg genres of black metal as of late. A good album example, Death Pierce Me by the band Silencer. [screaming] [music] [screaming] Then we have industrial black metal. And this is a the more cold and mechanical sounding black metal. It utilizes a lot more electronic elements often themed around futuristic apocalyptic, you know, robots and [ __ ] The best example of this would be Thorn's self-titled release from 2001.

[00:07:24]And then we have post black metal, which is a more modern sub genre of black metal. This has been popularized in the early and mid 2010s by bands like Alcast. It's basically designed to push the boundaries of traditional black metal, often with very long songs focusing on atmosphere and unconventional influences like shoe gaze, post rock, and progressive rock.

[00:07:50]It's also often called black gaze. And this album here from Allest is one of the best examples of post black metal.

[00:08:07]Then we have psychedelic black metal, which I'm going to mention also has a little bit of overlap with avantgard black metal because it's also a very highly experimental black metal sub genre. The soundwise, it's got a more detached and trippy sort of feeling. It feels like you had a bad trip on LSD listening to it. incorporates a lot of progressive song structure and weird dissonance and sound effects. It's basically if 60s and 70s psychedelic rock went black metal. Best example is this album by the band's Aranzi Pizuzu.

[00:08:46]Then we have symphonic black metal. This is black metal incorporating the use of symphony and orchestral elements. often draws a lot of inspiration from classical music and features a lot of gothic imagery. This includes bands like Cradle of Filth, Emperor, and Demuborg gear. It's one of the more popular and well-known subg genres of black metal, and it's typically a lot higher budget and more well produced than other black metal subg genres. The best example of this for album would be Demo Wars release of Puritanical Euphoric Misinentropia.

[00:09:23]>> [music] >> starting slowing down. [music] >> War metal is a sub genre of black metal that has a more death metal influence as well as noise core and grind core. It's also called beastial black metal. War metal has nothing to do with war. So bands like 1914 and canon fiber are not war metal. It's got very guttural vocals, a lot of distortion, extremely chaotic and raw production value. This is what I like to call caveman black metal. Uh, two of the more popular bands would be Archgoat and Beeret. This album, Drawing Down the Moon from Beeret, is one of the classic and best examples of war metal.

[00:10:14]>> Lastly, we have raw black metal, which is basically the closest to black metal in its standard form. It's been around as long as black metal's been around.

[00:10:22]Aims to have low production value, be simplistic. The signature sound of raw black metal bands are tremolo picking and a buzzing guitar. And it's also very closely affiliated with dungeon synth, as is ambient black metal and sometimes atmospheric black metal. And this can have an overlap with any of the other subg genres of black metal. And it's typically just a term tossed onto the other subg genres. So you could have like raw atmospheric black metal. I know this is this like taxonomy kind of. It's it gets a little confusing with the species of metal subg genres. One of the more modern examples of raw black metal would be the album release versus an oath by the band Holder from 2024.

[00:11:13]All right. My dumb ass forgot melodic black metal. I didn't record that in the initial recording. So, I'm recording it now. Melodic black metal is one of the more cleaner written subg genres of black metal. More focused on melodies, clean tremolo picking, and it typically has a lot more traditional metal song structures than the rest of the black metal subg genres. Melodic black metal also has a lot of crossover with melodic death metal. And sometimes bands that are melodic black metal also may be considered melodic death metal. One of the essential albums, pretty much the standard for melodic black metal is the album Storm of the Lights Bane by Dection. And this band pretty much just set the blueprints for making melodic black metal.

[00:12:02]>> There's also progressive black metal, which somehow I forgot to include in the original script. This is a very wide subg genre. Um, it just takes elements of progressive music and combines it with black metal. Talking bands that I've mentioned for other subg genres that would be included in here. If I could name a few, Arcturus, Borcenegger, Dicatapolk, Enslaved, and a lot of these bands kind of fall into other subg genres of black metal and metal in general. Really, you can be progressive metal anything. Like it's hard to define this one, but I guess the best example of a progressive metal album probably anything by Borneger.

[00:12:43][music] [music] Lastly, I want to mention that there are a ton of thematic black metal subg genres like Celtic metal, NSBM. Um, there's even [ __ ] Mesopotamian black metal, but there's at least like 40 of these thematic subg genres. I don't want to include them in a video cuz I'll be here for damn near an hour and a half.

[00:13:06]Most of these subg genres pretty much just sound like any of the other subg genres I give in here. And there's also a lot of crossover subg genres between black metal and other subg genres of metal. you get like black and thrash metal, black and death metal. Black metal can be applied to pretty much anything. And I don't want to include every single one of those in this video, but if you think I got anything wrong, would like to hear it in the comments.

[00:13:29]If you just think I'm stupid, um, let me know that, too. But yeah, that was just kind of a more clear and concise explanation all of the essential black metal sub genres and the differences between