[Applejinx]

Indeed. Also, there's an interesting side-issue in that the 'corpse sound' of Black Metal was a conscious rebellion against overproduced death metal, but the same choices from a rock band would read as RAW, not 'bad'. There are parallels with AC/DC, who continually struggled against the record industry's desire to slicken and produce them.

I like the heck out of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (you'd never think it to look at me) and have listened to it on a really high-end professional mix system with very good DACs and amplification, and far from being 'corpse, bad' sound, they actually managed a big, live sound that delivers the impact of a black metal band quite well. Just because it's not 'slick' doesn't mean it's low fidelity. For instance, Jethro Tull's 'Aqualung' is a very similar 'raw' sound but strikingly high fidelity on the right equipment.

I strongly recommend the documentary, "Until The Light Takes Us" if you're interested in black metal. Varg "Count Grishnach" Vikernes in particular, interviewed in prison, has a lucid and striking account of the motivations of the early Black Metalists.

[careersuicide]

On that note: I consider "Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult" by Dayal Patterson a must read for any fan of black metal. Patterson went straight to the sources as much as possible and managed to paint a complete and (perhaps more importantly) non-sensationalist picture of the genre from just before it became a discrete thing up to the around the time the book was published in 2014.