National Socialist black metal

National Socialist black metal, also known as NSBM, Aryan black metal, and Neo-Nazi black metal, is a political movement and subgenre within the black metal music scene that promotes neo-Nazism, neo-fascism, and white supremacist ideologies. NSBM artists typically combine neo-Nazi imagery and ideology with ethnic European paganism, Satanism, or Nazi occultism, or a combination thereof, and vehemently oppose Christianity, Islam and Judaism from a racialist viewpoint. NSBM is not seen as a distinct genre, but as a völkisch movement within black metal. According to Mattias Gardell, NSBM musicians see this ideology as "a logical extension of the political and spiritual dissidence inherent in black metal". NSBM artists are not always explicit with their political beliefs in the music, instead expressing their beliefs offstage. Artists who hold far-right or white nationalist beliefs but do not express these in their music are not often deemed NSBM by the greater black metal scene, but may be labelled as such by outside analysts. Some black metal bands have also made references to Nazi Germany purely for shock value, much like some punk rock and heavy metal bands. While some black-metallers boycott NSBM artists, many are indifferent or claim to appreciate the music without supporting the musicians. The emergence of NSBM coincided with the rise of the early Norwegian black metal scene in the early 1990s, particularly through the band Burzum, whose sole member, Varg Vikernes, developed his anti-Christian beliefs into an increasingly white nationalist and neo-Nazi form of Heathenry. The German band Absurd further developed the burgeoning scene with explicitly neo-Nazi lyrics and artistic themes. The United States bands Judas Iscariot and Grand Belial's Key also became involved in the by-now international NSBM movement (the former has since distanced themselves from the movement). As the movement grew internationally, it started to overlap with existing white power musical forms such as Rock Against Communism, hatecore, and the far-right faction of Oi!.