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dissonant black metal

Dissonant Black Metal

France · 2000s
DarkIntenseEpicSad

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Description

Dissonant black metal is a branch of black metal defined by deliberately atonal, interval‑clashing guitar work (minor seconds, tritones, clustered dyads), a cleaner and more surgical production than the classic second‑wave template, and complex, often through‑composed song forms.

Instead of consonant tremolo motifs, riffs intertwine in contrary motion and chromatic voice‑leading, while drums pivot between high‑velocity blasts and fractured, off‑kilter figures. Vocals are typically rasped or incantatory, and lyrics lean toward metaphysical, theological, or esoteric themes. The overall effect is tense, vertiginous, and cerebral—black metal’s bleak atmosphere reimagined with modernist harmonic language.


Sources: Spotify, Wikipedia, Discogs, RYM, MB, user feedback and other online sources

History

Origins (early–mid 2000s)

A distinct move toward systematic dissonance crystallized in the early 2000s, especially in France. Deathspell Omega’s shift on Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice (2004) from raw orthodoxy to a technical, theologically charged, and harmonically destabilized approach became a touchstone, and the band’s subsequent trilogy (2004–2010) helped codify the style’s sound and aesthetics.

French vanguard and the “orthodox” current

Around the same period, aligned French and francophone circles (and labels such as Norma Evangelium Diaboli) advanced dissonant, ritual‑tinged black metal that emphasized tight composition over chaos. Projects connected to this milieu—often sharing personnel or ideology—pushed cleaner production, layered counterpoint, and philosophical subject matter further into the genre’s core vocabulary. Reviews of contemporaries like Aosoth document this turn toward intricate, dissonant writing within the French scene.

New hubs (2010s)

In the 2010s, scenes outside France adopted and personalized the idiom. Canada’s Thantifaxath exemplified a cold, architectural variant that blended black‑metal ferocity with progressive structure and prismatic, dissonant harmony.

Consolidation and cross‑pollination (2010s–2020s)

As the language spread, it cross‑pollinated with avant‑garde metal, death metal’s own dissonant traditions, and regional black‑metal scenes. Critical discourse around releases by leaders of this approach foregrounded the style’s modernist harmony, conceptual focus, and preference for clarity over grime—traits now widely recognized as hallmarks of dissonant black metal.

How to make a track in this genre

Instrumentation and tuning
•   Two (or more) high‑gain guitars, bass with a clear midrange presence, aggressive but articulate drum kit, harsh vocals. •   Standard tuning works, but consider drop tunings or partial retunings for wider dissonant voicings; keep strings fresh for clarity.
Harmony and riff design
•   Build riffs from unstable intervals: m2, M2, tritone, and chromatic clusters. Favor contrary and oblique motion between guitars rather than parallel fifths. •   Use pitch‑class cells (e.g., {0,1,6}, {0,1,2}) and sequence them through non‑functional voice‑leading instead of tonal cadences. •   Create “vortex” passages: layered tremolo lines moving in different directions to sustain tension.
Rhythm and form
•   Alternate blast beats with asymmetric phrases, metric feints, and sudden halts; insert bars of 5/4, 7/8, or additive meters to prevent predictability. •   Prefer through‑composed or “suite‑like” structures over verse/chorus; recur motifs via variation (inversion, interval expansion) rather than direct repeats.
Production and mix
•   Aim for cleaner, spacious production than raw second‑wave black metal: tight low‑end, defined kick/snare transients, and guitar separation so dissonances read clearly. •   Use controlled ambience (plates/rooms) and wide panning to disentangle layered lines; avoid over‑compression that smears note attacks.
Lyrics and aesthetics
•   Themes often explore metaphysical Satanism, eschatology, or philosophical critique. Write in dense, formal language; ritual or liturgical imagery is common.
Common pitfalls
•   Excess mud in the 150–400 Hz region will blur clusters—carve space for bass and low guitars. •   Overuse of random chromaticism without voice‑leading can sound arbitrary; anchor dissonance with motivic logic.

Top albums

Paracletus
Paracletus
Deathspell Omega
Fas – Ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum
Fas – Ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum
Deathspell Omega
Veritas Diaboli manet in aeternum
Veritas Diaboli manet in aeternum
Deathspell Omega / S.V.E.S.T.
De praestigiis angelorum
De praestigiis angelorum
VI
Mirror in Darkness
Mirror in Darkness
Serpent Column

Best playlists

Dissonant Black Metal
Dissonant Black Metal
Melodigging
Dissonant Black Metal Mix
Dissonant Black Metal Mix
Spotify

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Related labels

Avantgarde Music
Avantgarde Music
Naturmacht Productions
Naturmacht Productions
Total Dissonance Worship
Total Dissonance Worship
Transcending Obscurity Records
Transcending Obscurity Records
Norma Evangelium Diaboli
Norma Evangelium Diaboli

Upcoming concerts

in this genre
Influenced by
Dissonant Death Metal
Dissonant death metal is a branch of death metal that foregrounds atonality, angular riffing, and tense, unstable harmonies. Instead of traditional power‑chord grooves or neoclassical lead work, it relies on clusters, tritones, seconds, and chromatic voice‑leading to create a nauseating, labyrinthine atmosphere. Rhythmically, the style favors jagged phrasing, polymeters, and sudden tempo shifts, while vocals remain predominantly deep growls that enhance the sense of dread. Production often balances clarity and claustrophobia: drums are articulate yet cavernous, and guitars are dense but deliberately abrasive. The aesthetic draws from modern classical dissonance as much as from early 1990s death metal, channeling existential unease and surreal or cosmic horror rather than gore alone.
Black Metal
Black metal is a form of extreme metal defined by fast tempos, tremolo‑picked guitar lines, blast‑beat drumming, shrieked or rasped vocals, and a deliberately raw, icy production aesthetic. Harmonically, it favors minor and modal collections (especially Aeolian and Phrygian), open-string drones, parallel fifths and fourths, tritones, and sparse or suspended chord voicings over blues-derived harmony. Arrangements often employ layered guitars, long-form song structures, and enveloping reverb to create a bleak, otherworldly atmosphere. The genre’s visual and thematic language is equally distinctive: corpse paint, monochrome artwork, and lyrics exploring anti-dogma, nature, pagan myth, cosmic nihilism, and misanthropy. While some scenes have been associated with controversy and extremism, the musical identity centers on sound, atmosphere, and aesthetics rather than any single ideology.
Avant-Garde Metal
Avant-garde metal is a branch of metal that embraces experimentation as a core principle. It extends the genre’s sonic vocabulary through unusual song forms, dissonant harmony, non-standard instrumentation, and an eagerness to fuse styles that traditionally sit outside heavy music. Where conventional metal often relies on riff-driven structures, avant-garde metal frequently employs through-composed forms, asymmetrical rhythms, and abrupt dynamic shifts. Its palette can include strings, woodwinds, brass, electronics, prepared instruments, and extended vocal techniques alongside distorted guitars and aggressive drums. Lyrically and conceptually, the style leans toward the surreal, the philosophical, and the theatrical. The result is a deliberately challenging, exploratory music that values atmosphere, texture, and surprise as much as impact and heaviness.
Death Metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal defined by heavily distorted, low‑tuned guitars, rapid and complex riffing, blast beat drumming, and harsh guttural vocals. Its harmonic language favors chromaticism, dissonance, and tremolo-picked lines that create an ominous, abrasive atmosphere. Lyrically, death metal often explores dark or transgressive themes—mortality, mythology, anti-religion, psychological horror, and the macabre—sometimes with philosophical or social commentary. Production ranges from raw and cavernous to hyper-precise and technical, reflecting the genre’s many regional scenes and substyles. From the mid‑1980s Florida scene (Tampa) and parallel developments in the US, UK, and Sweden, death metal evolved into numerous branches including brutal death metal, technical death metal, melodic death metal, and death‑doom, each emphasizing different aspects of speed, complexity, melody, or heaviness.
Avant-Garde Black Metal
Avant-garde black metal is a boundary‑pushing strain of black metal that embraces experimental composition, unorthodox timbres, and genre hybridity. It retains core black‑metal signifiers—tremolo‑picked guitars, blast beats, and harsh vocals—while folding in dissonant harmonies, unusual time signatures, electronics, chamber instrumentation, and studio-as-instrument production. The result ranges from claustrophobic, abstract sound‑design to cinematic, spectral atmospheres, often prioritizing concept, mood, and texture over conventional riff‑verse‑chorus writing. Lyrically and thematically, it favors philosophical, surreal, or esoteric subjects, expanding beyond genre tropes into modernist poetry, absurdism, and metaphysical inquiry.
Serialism
Serialism is a compositional method in which musical parameters are organized into ordered series that govern a work’s structure. Most famously, twelve‑tone serialism uses an ordered row of the 12 pitch classes, deploying transformations such as prime, inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion to avoid traditional tonal hierarchy. While Schoenberg’s twelve‑tone technique focuses on pitch, post‑war composers expanded the idea to "total" or "integral" serialism, applying series to rhythm, dynamics, articulation, timbre, and register. The results often emphasize clarity of event over tonal center, pointillistic textures, and rigorous formal control. Aesthetic outcomes range from Berg’s expressive lyricism to Webern’s ultra‑condensed, crystalline writing, and later to the highly systematized post‑war European avant‑garde. Serialism remains a cornerstone of 20th‑century modernist practice, whether embraced, extended, or reacted against by subsequent movements.
Has influenced
Blackened Death Metal
Blackened death metal fuses the ferocity, low‑tuned heft, and technical riffing of death metal with the icy tremolo lines, blast‑driven urgency, and occult atmosphere of black metal. The result is a dense, aggressive sound marked by relentless speed, layered guitars, and a stark, often ritualistic mood. Vocals typically alternate between cavernous death growls and rasping black‑metal shrieks. Drums emphasize blast beats, double‑kick barrages, and sudden tempo pivots, while guitars move between chromatic death‑metal riffing and long, minor‑key tremolo phrases. Lyrical themes commonly draw on Satanism, occultism, anti‑cosmic or apocalyptic narratives, and blasphemous or esoteric imagery. Production ranges from raw and abrasive to highly polished and symphonic, depending on the artistic intent.
Avant-Garde Metal
Avant-garde metal is a branch of metal that embraces experimentation as a core principle. It extends the genre’s sonic vocabulary through unusual song forms, dissonant harmony, non-standard instrumentation, and an eagerness to fuse styles that traditionally sit outside heavy music. Where conventional metal often relies on riff-driven structures, avant-garde metal frequently employs through-composed forms, asymmetrical rhythms, and abrupt dynamic shifts. Its palette can include strings, woodwinds, brass, electronics, prepared instruments, and extended vocal techniques alongside distorted guitars and aggressive drums. Lyrically and conceptually, the style leans toward the surreal, the philosophical, and the theatrical. The result is a deliberately challenging, exploratory music that values atmosphere, texture, and surprise as much as impact and heaviness.
Technical Death Metal
Technical death metal (often shortened to tech-death) is a virtuosic, hyper-detailed branch of death metal characterized by complex song structures, rapid-fire tempo changes, and high-performance musicianship. It fuses the extremity and heaviness of death metal with the rhythmic sophistication of progressive metal and the harmonic vocabulary of jazz fusion. Signature elements include odd and shifting time signatures, polyrhythms, dissonant and chromatic harmony, through-composed or non-repeating structures, and intricate contrapuntal interplay between guitars and bass (often fretless). Drumming emphasizes precision blast beats, rapid double-kick patterns, metric modulation, and constant subdivision changes. Vocals are primarily deep growls or harsh screams, while lyrics frequently explore science, philosophy, metaphysics, and cosmology alongside the genre’s traditional dark themes. Production tends to favor clarity and separation to make dense arrangements intelligible, with tight, gated guitars, articulate bass presence, and drum sounds that capture transient detail. The result is aggressive, cerebral, and often breathtakingly technical music that rewards close listening.

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