It’s easy to look at crazy face paint and shrieking music and take the beigest, most Buzzfeed approach towards exploiting a topic for cheap laughs,** but successful parody has to come from a place of understanding. Granted, most black metal parody is piss poor because it’s made by people who’ve never spent time trying to understand what makes the subculture tick. Something strange happens when an aesthetic movement takes itself extremely seriously: this very stoniness of mien opens its adherents to caricature. *Special shout-out to Feral House for releasing two superlative volumes on the subject, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground and Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult. What strange alchemy transformed the title of Venom’s 1982 record - which includes “Teacher’s Pet,” a song with Miltonian poesy like “Pulled me down towards her mound / teacher tasted sweet / sixty-nine – I don’t mean lines / this was teachers treat” - into one of the most notorious musical movements of the late 20th Century? How did a song with the lyrics “freaking so wild, nobody’s mild” inspire the real-life death dance of Mayhem and the church-burning, criminal excess of Varg Vikernes? Thousands upon thousands of words have been spent tracing this evolution,* but for the purposes of our current discussion, readers will have to be satisfied with a bit of hand waving and assurances that “it’s complicated.” This is particularly fascinating in light of the fact that King Diamond and Venom, certainly no strangers to camp, are cited as key influences on the genre-defining second wave of black metal. Whether it’s the monstrous black masses of Gorgoroth, the frightening majesty of Ash Borer’s soundscapes, or the philosophical Satanism of Deathspell Omega, there’s a prevailing seriousness that underpins this diverse genre.

While much of what’s been dubbed “black metal” since the term was coined is certainly over-the-top, tongues are firmly directed away from cheeks. Black metal isn’t exactly linked to humor in most people’s imaginations.

Black Metal Volume 1 by Rick Spears