Does "Blackgaze" Really Belong in The North

OK, I know this will probably get me lambasted by all and sundry, but listening to this month's North playlist I was struck by just how out-of-place the Sadness track felt. Are we entirely sure that The North is the place for such as this? In the same way that atmospheric sludge metal was/is getting eased out of the Fallen and into The Infinite, I think the same could be said for Blackgaze (although maybe The Gateway is more rightly the place for it than the Infinite, due to the shoegaze influence). To utilise an argument that has been proffered in other cases, would Sadness be enjoyed more by fans of Marduk, Mayhem, DsO, Blasphemy, Immortal etc or by fans of more, for want of a better word, gentile genres. To me blackgaze sticks out like a sore thumb in The North and is the classic case of a square peg in a round hole.

Any comments?

OK, I know this will probably get me lambasted by all and sundry, but listening to this month's North playlist I was struck by just how out-of-place the Sadness track felt. Are we entirely sure that The North is the place for such as this? In the same way that atmospheric sludge metal was/is getting eased out of the Fallen and into The Infinite, I think the same could be said for Blackgaze (although maybe The Gateway is more rightly the place for it than the Infinite, due to the shoegaze influence). To utilise an argument that has been proffered in other cases, would Sadness be enjoyed more by fans of Marduk, Mayhem, DsO, Blasphemy, Immortal etc or by fans of more, for want of a better word, gentile genres. To me blackgaze sticks out like a sore thumb in The North and is the classic case of a square peg in a round hole.

Any comments?

It depends on how diverse each band is going to be.  Example: Alcest likes to dive into real shoegaze alongside their metal songs, but Sunbather usually are more straightforward as a metal band.  Now Sadness have done plain shoegaze before.  Which song was it?

It was the title track from "I Want To Be There" which is a fairly uplifting & shoegaze-heavy take on blackgaze. By it's very definition blackgaze is a combination of black metal & shoegaze & examples that fit that criteria are generally best suited to The North in my opinion. But it's the fact that a lot of blackgaze artists also dilute their sound with strong post-rock & screamo influences that sees the waters being muddied a bit & often resulting in a dual clan arrangement (with The Infinite in particular). I'm comfortable with that personally. I've indulged in most of the primary shoegaze releases over the last year or so at some point & I feel that The North is still the most appropriate location for the undiluted blackgaze sound. Some folk metal releases seem much more out of place in The North in my opinion but we're obviously open to everyone's thoughts on this.

I don't really know enough blackgaze albums to generalise I suppose, as it's a genre I have little interest in, but the Sadness track just felt so jarringly out of place in The North playlist that I felt I needed to ask the question. The blackgaze I have heard strikes me as using the black metal toolbox to produce music that is so far away from black metal's roots as to be an almost unrelated style of music. As for folk metal not sitting in The North, what would be the alternative home for it, because I can't really see it elsewhere?

I think I am probably just feeling a bit disillusioned with black metal and the direction it is taking. I understand the desire to evolve a musical style, but a lot of modern black metal acts seem to be moving so far away from the artistic core and aesthetic that it is losing it's appeal for me personally. I'm not trying to set myself up as some "guardian of trve kult black metal" or anything like that, as I think some of the more modern stuff is great, but some of it is a step too far for me and I will have to leave it to you young 'uns!!

I guess to give a real world example, my coworker is a serial genre-hopper and listens to anything and everything. He wasn't that much into Metal, but when we started talking more at work, sharing music, and posting my album listen on one of my desk walls, he started delving deeper. He's a massive shoegaze/noise rock/post punk fan, and the subgenre that has clicked for him the most has undoubtedly been Black Metal. He still likes a ton of other Metal stuff but always seems to hold Black Metal in high regards coming from the background that he did, so I would say that The North aligns the best. 

I was skeptical at first but after listening to more of his stuff I can see some decent similarities between the vocals, the production, and the overall feel of everything. He even had Ultha, Asunojokei, Bríi, and White Ward as part of his Top 50 of 2022 list, so even though it's an extremely small sample size of one singular person, I can personally see the connection here.

I have to admit that I don't really know what Shoegaze is, which makes it difficult for me to understand why an album is or isn't considered to be Blackgaze.

Is anyone here experienced enough with Shoegaze to provide a few examples of tracks that have a sound that's recognisable when listening to Blackgaze? To be clear, I could easily go to RYM and look up Shoegaze albums, but I'm hoping to hear something representative of what resulted in Blackgaze, if that makes sense.

It's about the wall of heavily-effected & continuously strummed open-string guitars with whispy vocals layered over the top to create a dreamy atmosphere.

I have to admit that I don't really know what Shoegaze is, which makes it difficult for me to understand why an album is or isn't considered to be Blackgaze.

Is anyone here experienced enough with Shoegaze to provide a few examples of tracks that have a sound that's recognisable when listening to Blackgaze? To be clear, I could easily go to RYM and look up Shoegaze albums, but I'm hoping to hear something representative of what resulted in Blackgaze, if that makes sense.

Basically combine alt-rock with noise rock and dream pop.  Here's a base chart for you to find key differences:

Shoegaze: Loveless by MBV

Both: Souvenirs by Alcest

Blackgaze: Sunbather by Deafheaven