It's been swept under the rug, but Surf music was the black metal of its day: a subversive off-shoot of another genre, marked by extreme guitar playing, played by church-burning cardigan-wearing misfits with Satanic- [Alright, that's enough – Ed].
Ok, it wasn't. The two genres couldn't really be further apart. Or so it seemed. YouTuber Kevin Balke has discovered that the two styles have more in common that you might think.
His video "Black Metal Without Distortion Is Just Surf Rock" says it all, as he plays tracks by some of the genre's biggest, darkest, maddest stars – Emperor, Burzum Mayhem, Darkthrone, Satyricon and more – in a clean and far more wholesome style.
It turns out that the surf metal connection is something other people have drawn over the years, including the brilliantly-named Glitter Dick, whose surf cover of Slayer's Seasons In The Abyss is also worth checking out:
"It's so easy to get dynamic when you have a soft touch.” Rebecca Mardal is quietly making a whole lot of noise with her minimalist guitar improvisations
“We would play to five people; they’d ignore us and we'd pack up and go home.” Watch Ian Anderson and guitarist Mick Abrahams regroup the original Jethro Tull for a return to their blues roots
