An Endless Wave of American Darkness: USBM’s Hidden Underground

Last year I wrote the second piece, in a series now I guess, about the current state of the American black metal underground, as I saw it. The first one had more of a philosophical bent to it, whereas last year’s was entirely focused on the music itself, signifying a bit of a cultural shift where we didn’t need to address every little thing. Over the last year and a half, this has all very obviously changed.

I will be punctuating this with, who I think, are some of the best bands in the American underground currently who I haven’t covered previously, with a bit at the end on previous bands.

Writing about music itself can be a chore. Trying to think of different ways to describe something, tackling subjects we may not be overly interested in, low reward, etc. But now, with the internet at our fingers, we’re encouraged to not only figure out how we feel about a record or band but, more importantly, every potential connection to anything that could even approach being offensive. I don’t mean something overtly obvious, like NSBM, but any tangential connection to what the kids call “fash.” It makes every new band feel like a fucking term paper. Fortunately (for me) I tend to only write about what I like, which I tend to obsess over and read up on anyway, but I’m also not a professional journalist, just an old man with a Substack (wink). But I’ve talked to enough real journalists who will always, off the record of course, tell me what a pain in the ass it is.

Vimur have been around more than a few minutes but my first exposure to them was their performance at this year’s “No Fun Just Suffer” fest in Los Angeles. I tend to not get pulled in initially by live music anymore but Vimur was an exception. Incredibly tight performance with songs I remembered days later. Melodic but with a true sense of the epic while holding strong to the second wave tradition. One of the best discoveries I made in 2025.

Obviously some of you will say “good, this is your responsibility” or that black metal shouldn’t be that way, that black metal has a “nazi problem.” I’m not going to disagree but I will go a bit further and write a sentence that, 20 years ago, I would never have even fucking thought of.

American black metal has a Christian Nationalist problem.

A lot of the people my age tend to start leaning further to the right, with some going beyond a lean into a full on hug and kiss. I always figured that was something that black metal would somehow avoid, especially since the whole fucking genre was founded on anti-Christianity/Satanism. But we’re American so we’re going to fuck things up like the Europeans said we would years ago.

Glorious Descent already has pedigree, with connections to Devil Master and Integrity, and definitely lives up to it. Black metal with a strong spiritual nod to Motörhead and bands involved with Holy Terror, with memorable songwriting and a fucking fantastic production job by Rob Orr, their debut is one of the best new American black metal records of the last five years.

I’ve seen Satanic black metal bands who also believe gays are literal demons. I’ve seen some push conservative values, about morality and the sanctity of life. And, of course, the kind of racism your uncle gets into at Thanksgiving, after a few shots but before he tries to get handsy with your mom. Black metal musicians posting tributes to Charlie Fucking Kirk. This all falls under their rights but hearing a band sing about “the abortion of Christ” or whatever to then go on a rant about how it’s never been “Adam and Steve” just seems like Mad Libs at the back of The Grimoire of Exalted Deeds.

Don’t hear a hell of a lot of these champions of morality when it comes to pedophiles or bands with said human shit in them. They’re far more interested in that hypothetical bathroom scenario. You get the idea.

Sovnya hail from northern New Jersey, a place dense with historical American black metal moments, and perform a stripped down black metal/punk hybrid, with their newer material focusing more on the black metal. Absolutely incredible live, this should be a much bigger band than it is.

“Being conservative is the new counter-culture” comes up a lot, especially with punk, but I’ve seen it used enough with black metal to develop a sour stomach. Black metal is a traditionally anti-Christian genre, from Venom to Darkthrone to Kommodus, and while the genre has gone off into a multitude of other themes, nothing can take that root basis in anti-Christianity away. It’s like asking people to forget when the first Volkswagen was made. The fact we have American black metal that’s now about 1776, patriotism and sure, Martha Washington, I guess is counter to the culture. Doesn’t mean that it’s good or even of any value. Like many of the black metal bands that appear in “safe to listen to lists,” it’s all just a noisy wind that’ll still sometime soon.

But seriously, literal demons? Fuck yourself.

While Icon of Phobos have been around for a bit I feel that they haven’t really gotten their due. One of the best live bands in American black metal, they manage to be morose yet violent, an ecstatic ceremony of melancholy. New music should be appearing soon.

The other side of this can be just as guilty. The left tends to really put political image over everything else, planning their own parades on a road paved with people they used to build their own brand. Calling out other bands for any affiliation to anything unsavory has become a promotional strategy for many out there. Be known as a “good” person, that will supersede any quality issues your own work may have. This goes hand in hand with bands who operate in the same sonic theatre of black metal but really are just playing sped up covers of the Orchid records.This all comes with a calculated anti-aesthetic, thrift store chic I guess, if that thrift store only sold donated rags from porn theaters. If Dead blew his head off because he saw a pair of Obituary sweatshorts I can only imagine he’d try to do a cover version of 9/11 except I don’t know if Norway has buildings that tall. How’s the music, you ask? Weakling and Deafheaven are owed a lot of royalties. And say what you want about Deafheaven, at least their look has always been tasteful.

I’m not saying that black metal needs spikes and corpsepaint, we could go on for a few hundred words about why most bands shouldn’t be allowed near a Spirit of Halloween if this wasn’t already longwinded. Bands like Ludicra managed to push the genre’s boundaries and not have the traditional aesthetic. Same with Krallice. I’ll even go back to Deafheaven. But this whole slovenly look mixed with aurally soft music and a “I don’t care about how I look or black metal, this is vegan antifacist-core” who then proceed to play black metal in everything but philosophy? ZZZZZZ…

The curation of it reeks of carefully crafted bullshit.

Veterans of the New England scene for quite some time with different bands, the gentlemen of Ancient Torment live up to their name. This is second wave traditional black metal, no unnecessary horseshit-just cold and violent underground metal.

The internet is the easy strawman here, that this whole “easy access to everything, ever” has allowed everyone into the pool thing has diluted then polluted black metal but I think that’s less true than living in a time period where everyone believes their opinion is not only valid but important, even greater than proven truths. That’s gotten us into a whole bunch of different messes the last few years, especially once these opinions separated into their own home teams. Circling back to pointing the finger at the internet, it’s obviously not a blameless concept, especially with the rise of influencer culture, something even black metal isn’t immune to. Just open up Youtube and look for black metal “documentaries” and you’ll be greeted by a morass of assholes with a camera prattling on essays (like this one!) loaded with content that will shock people into watch (Absurd, Burzum, Nachtmystium) but then rehash other people’s work either by quoting them or just lifting their stories altogether. These videos have tens of fucking thousands of views, loaded with misinformation, and are mostly American. Another way we’ve gotten our dirty dicks into something and left stains. With few exceptions this is all superficial bullshit but again, we’re Americans, we love superficial bullshit.

Ever busy, Mark McCoy has another new black metal project, and as the first part of this sentence should have told you, it’s fucking excellent. Magisterium is violent, as all Youth Attack releases are, but this time McCoy channels Profanatica and also makes me think of Kommodus. A fucking excellent 7-inch, I hope the project continues.

So, this all sounds like we, as a country and a black metal scene, are just caricatures of many varieties, none flattering. And if you kept up on the whole Metal Threat saga, we kind of are. I can speak at length about the old days and what it was like, as I’m sure anyone my age can, but was it truly better? Who knows. It also doesn’t mean that right now is entirely worthless, either. Take the bands I’ve listed in this piece so far, for example. There’s still variation and an adventurous spirit of rebellion in some parts of the USBM conglomerate, there’s still bands doing something special regardless of “innovation” and what not. The great bulk of bands I wrote about the first two times are still active in some form or another. Take Gates of Dawn, whose “III” is one of the best records of the year. Or Calvary, whose “White Ruins” realizes the promise of black metal’s affair with post punk. Or Prayer Position, who are poised to take their violent and noisy black punk to Europe. Demoncy and Profanatica, two of the originators, are still touring and releasing records. Or that new Yellow Eyes? Fuck. It’s still a great moment for American black metal, regardless of the Youtube videos or that fucking Noisy article or any of the other media circus bullshit we’ve had wipe it’s ass across our desk. Is it a good time for America? That’s an easy no and I have no (legal) ideas for that. But I will end with this: there are great bands and labels still in this country, you just need to take the time and dig.