A post I came across recently pretty much sums up the debate of Swedish vs Norwegian metal, and black metal in particular, and also answers the eternal question: why was 1990-1994 Norwegian black metal so good, and subsequent Swedish BM so bad. This got me thinking about the two scenes.
To be fair, it's not just modern Swedish black metal that is terrible... it's modern metal, period.
Anyway, here is the thread on the current state of Swedish metal on the Morsay Forums.
Poster Nero sums up his thoughts:
Sweden subsidizes music education from ages ~8 to 18 yo. [...] If so many bands from Sweden sound 'generic' and 'factory produced'... it's because they are, in a way.
This is an interesting explanation that I had always suspected but couldn't prove, not having been to Sweden during my childhood years.
He continues, and contrasts with the state of Norwegian Black Metal during the second wave of BM:
Contrast that with Norway, where if you want to be in a metal band, especially in the 90s... it meant you were really hardcore about it. You didn't just 'stumble' into a guitar and music lessons, you had to go out of your way to find them.
Poster Brett also mentions the Finnish black/death metal scene, which we haven't much talked about yet:
Proportionately, Finnish Death Metal has a much stronger sense of self than most scenes, although the Nordic-descended Metal bands in general have this.
Maybe in a future article on the Finnish scene? There is a lot to say there as well. Notably how the garbage bands - Archgoat, Beherit, all war metal - seem to get pushed to the front, while those actually good seem somewhat passed over - Khranial, Satanic Warmaster, Goatmoon, and the rest of the Finnish BM scene is truly excellent.
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