yeah agalloch as a whole hardly counts but marrow of the spirit was undoubtedly black metal (and I'm pretty sure their last EP was if I'm not mistaken)

falls of rauros is good? I've seen them mentioned occasionally and I assumed they were another generic hipster weakling clone band. will have to give them a fair chance.

Well personally I don't care about them or most USBM, but I'm just basing it off aesthetic.

viking metal isn't necessarily power metal
amon amarth isn't power metal

I just feel like Folk metal and some viking metal is becoming a bit cheesy.

Amon Amarth is great, and on the folk metal side I always like Arkona, but there are still tons of bands that are eh when it comes to them being actually viking metal in the vein of bathory.

oh yeah i can't find any folk metal that isn't a bit silly or cheesy

Grai is pretty cool.

You know, I'm not that much of a Black metal purist with the exception of USBM because half of it is literal s*** made by the hipster machines (Krallice, Wolves in the Throne Room, Liturgy, etc.), but I really gotta ask this.

Why is Deafheaven's new album so f*** hyped? I remember when The Road to Judah came out and literally no one gave two s*** because it was hipster trash, but oh boy Sunbather comes out and the mainstream music critics come out and say it's beautiful art. Gee, that's cool and all, but it literally does nothing to reinvent what Alcest and Lantlos have already perfected. It's not nearly close to the level of either group. Hell, even Old Silver Key and Drudkh's weak post-black experiments are objectively much more interesting than the stuff in Sunbather. It's literally hipster faux-black metal in the vein of Liturgy, because there's more to Black Metal than tremolo picking for 20 minutes.

And if we were going to consider it avant-garde/progressive black then it's not even close to the quality of SIGH, A Forest of Stars, Arcturus or Ulver. I don't get it's popularity outside of it being trendy and mainstream thanks to Rolling Stone and Pitchfork.

Basically, for a lot of people it seems to boil down to "black metal I can listen to without appearing creepy or nerdy". They don't offend, they never disgust, it's completely safe and unprovoking music in a genre known for its extremities. You have to consider the Pitchfork/Vice/Spin audience cares more about image and looking cultured/eclectic without having to put actual effort into familiarizing themselves with things. It's like all the people who claim to "love" coffee while drinking a Starbucks piss latte filled with so much cream/sugar/milk it barely even counts.

They've got a marketable aesthetic and that's all. The band Envy made the exact same music sans "black metal" tag 10 years ago but nobody hyped them outside post-hardcore circles because they look and behave like a regular old school screamo band. Deafheaven consists of a bunch of clean-cut, well-dressed guys in their early 20s who tweet ironic hip hop references and worship the Smiths. That alone wins them the Tumblr core audience.

Personally, I liked Sunbather. Sure it's a completely average album, but it combines a lot of styles I enjoy and wasn't offensively bad. Been following Deafheaven on and off since Roads to Judah dropped and it's nice to see them get mainstream attention, the members themselves seem like decent hard-working guys.

Well, that makes sense to me. I'm judging it from the inside looking out as someone who starting listening to black metal through an encounter with Impaled Nazarene as a kid, so I don't get the appeal of the watered down elements of it.
Then again I actually hate most shoegaze and post-rock/metal with the exception of Lush and Isis, so Sunbather really does nothing for me.

What bothers me the most is that even though Deafheaven don't market themselves specifically as black metal (more like a weird amalgamation that I don't care for), the fact is that all the people who hyped it up specifically mentioned things that basically come down to "the first good black metal I've ever listened to." It's the complete denial of an entire genre because they listen to it once and deem it unlistenable until something mainstream and relevant to them comes out, and even then it will never change their opinion of black metal.
It will always be "that one black metal album that I can stand" to them.

I'm not gonna lie, this is the album that turned me on to metal.

So it holds a special place in my heart.

I have nothing against that as long as it allows you to find more things you like in the genre as long as you stay open minded.

Off topic anecdote: my first experience with black metal was from a friend of mine in early junior high who'd send me links to bands like Emperor, Xasthur and Satanic Warmaster. I'd basically call him a pleb and go back to claiming bands like Mastodon and Tool were the pinnacle of music. Ironically enough, years later he loves Deafheaven and Alcest while I'm more into Gorguts and Blasphemy. Funny how things work out, huh?

On topic: Yeah, I pretty much agree with what you're saying. Dismissing an entire genre until something trendy and "credible" comes along is nothing new, nor is it exclusive to metal either. It's a miracle how techno and house have survived this long after being bastardized so hard by s*** club scenes populated by kandi kids and dudebros. Not even Berghain is safe anymore.

Also, have you actually read the Pitchfork review for Sunbather? Hilarious.

The funny thing is that the whole "black metal won't be the same now that it's been released" was mentioned when Liturgy released their album in 2011 and it almost universally was considered below average. Pitchforks reviews end up usually being 95% anecdotes and 5% review anyway (the opposite of a review site my brother used to read to me which was 95% describing the music in terms of colors or atoms or air or water and 5% "it sounds like this band"), and I'm not surprised they made those over exaggerated claims.

This is my fav of 2014 so far.

http://usaoutofvietnam.bandcamp.com/

1 month in to 2014, woo!

Here's a list of releases I've been listening to this year, and some quick notes about what I thought of them.

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/KingSwag/2014__listened/

:^)