viking metal

The tradition & historical record

Viking metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by a lyrical and thematic focus on Norse mythology, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age. Viking metal is quite diverse as a musical style, to the point where some consider it more a cross-genre term than a genre, but it originated out of black metal with influences from Nordic folk music. Common traits include a slow-paced and heavy riffing style, anthemic choruses, use of both sung and harsh vocals, a reliance on folk instrumentation, and often the use of keyboards for atmospheric effect. Viking metal emerged from black metal during the late 1980s and early 1990s, sharing with black metal an opposition to Christianity, but rejecting Satanism and occult themes in favor of the Vikings and paganism. It is similar, in lyrics, sound, and thematic imagery, to pagan metal, but pagan metal has a broader mythological focus and uses folk instrumentation more extensively. Most Viking metal bands originate from the Nordic countries, and nearly all bands claim that their members descend, directly or indirectly, from Vikings. ¹

Viking metal features the Vikings as its subject matter and for evocative imagery. The Vikings were Northern European seafarers and adventurers who, during the Middle Ages, relied on sailing vessels such as longships, knerrir, and karvi to explore, raid, pirate, trade, and settle along the North Atlantic, Baltic, Mediterranean, Black Sea, and Caspian coasts and Eastern European river systems. The Viking Age is generally cited as beginning in 793, when a Viking raid struck Lindisfarne, and concluding in 1066, with the death of Harald Hardrada and the Norman conquest of England. During this two-hundred-year period, the Vikings ventured west as far as Ireland and Iceland in the North Atlantic and Greenland and what is now Newfoundland in North America, south as far as the Kingdom of Nekor (Morocco), Italy, Sicily, and Constantinople in the Mediterranean, and southeast as far as what are now Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine in Eastern Europe, Georgia in the Caucasus, and Baghdad in the Middle East. The Vikings originated from the Nordic countries and the Baltic states, and consisted mostly of Scandinavians, though Finns, Estonians, and Curonians, went on voyages as well. Sámi people also closely interacted with the Scandinavian Norse and engaged in widespread trade expeditions. While otherwise disparate peoples, they shared some commonalities in that they were not considered "civilized" and were not, at first, adherents to Christianity, instead following their indigenous Nordic and Finnic religions. They often adopted Christianity upon settling in an area, intermixing the faith with their own pagan traditions, and by the end of the Viking Age, all Scandinavian kingdoms were Christianized and what remained of Viking cultures was absorbed into Christian Europe. ¹

Nordic folk music encompasses traditions from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and the dependent countries Åland, Faroe Islands, and Greenland, and nearby regions. Specific instruments vary between countries and regions, but some common instruments include the lur, säckpipa, Hardanger fiddle, keyed fiddle, willow flute, harp, mouth harp, and animal horns. Common genres in Nordic folk include ballads, herding music, and dance music, genres which trace back to the medieval era. Often, Nordic melodies will contain the phrase C2-B-G. In Swedish folk music, songs are monophonic, unemotional, and solemn in character, though working and festive songs might be more lively and rhythmic. Danish songs melodies tend to lean toward the major. In Icelandic folk music, the rímur, a form of epic poem dating back to the medieval era and Viking Age, is prominent. Faroese music contains dances directly descended from medieval ballad and epic poems, particularly from literature in the Icelandic tradition, and often follows unusual time signatures. Many Norwegian folk ballads follow a four-stanza structure known as stev. Stev alternate a trochaic tetrameter with a trimeter, and lines typically rhyme following an ABCB scheme, though stev are not standardized. Finnish folk music tends to be based on Karelian traditions and the meter and thematic material found in the Kalevala. These themes include magic, mysticism, shamanism, Viking sea voyages, Christian legends, and ballads and dance songs. The older runo song tradition follows meters such as 54, 58, or 24. Under Swedish and German influence, a newer, round-dance tradition based on the runo emerged – the rekilaulu – and these usually follow a 24 or 44 time. ¹

Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that, mostly in Europe, emerged from speed metal and thrash metal in the 1980s. A "first wave" began in the early to mid-1980s, through the work of bands such as Venom, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate, and Bathory. The name black metal is taken from the 1982 album of the same name by Venom, while Bathory's 1984 self-titled release is generally regarded as the first true black metal record. A "second wave" developed in part as a reaction to the burgeoning death metal genre, and in part inspired by the Teutonic thrash metal scene. It was headed by the early Norwegian black metal scene, through artists such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Emperor, Satyricon, Thorns, Ulver, and Gorgoroth. The early Norwegian scene became infamous for murders, assaults, and numerous church arsons committed by members of the scene. Black metal lyrical themes are focused on Satan and Satanism, which many first-wave bands used with a tongue-in-cheek approach, contrary to the more serious beliefs and vehement anti-Christian sentiment of many second-wave bands. Musically, the first wave of bands were just considered to be playing heavier forms of metal – Venom was part of the new wave of British heavy metal, Celtic Frost was variously described as thrash metal or death metal, and Quorthon of Bathory simply labeled his music "heavy metal". It was not until the second wave that black metal was more clearly defined. A key development during that period was a guitar playing style featuring fast, un-muted tremolo picking or "buzz picking", introduced by Euronymous of Mayhem and Snorre Ruch ("Blackthorn") of Thorns. Other common traits for guitar playing include a high-pitched or treble guitar tone and heavy distortion. ¹

The use of Viking themes and imagery in hard rock and heavy metal music predates the advent of Viking metal. For instance, the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" (1970) and "No Quarter" (1973) feature allusions to Viking voyages, violence, and exploration. The music journalist Martin Popoff credits "Immigrant Song" as "the first Viking metal song ever". ¹

Overall, Viking metal is hard to define since, apart from certain elements like anthem-like choruses, it is not based entirely on musical features and overlaps with other metal genres, with origins in black and death metal. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Viking metal”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

viking metal is subgenre of heavy metal, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 8 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²