According to Mattias Gardell, NSBM musicians see this ideology as "a logical extension of the political and spiritual dissidence inherent in black metal".
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!.
Common traits of Norwegian black metal include a fast tempo,[12] blast beats and double-bass drumming,[9][13] a thin, shrieking vocal style[7][9][12][13][14] heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking and power chords,[7][9][12][13] either lo-fi or well-produced recordings,[6][7][9] an emphasis on atmosphere,[9][12] and an "unholy" aesthetic.
Many black metal artists prefer to be underground, inaccessible to the mainstream, and even intentionally push away audiences and demonstrate anti-social behavior.
[6] The scene members were fiercely anti-Christian — most generally presented themselves as misanthropic devil-worshipers who wanted to spread hatred, sorrow and evil, though some wrote about pre-Christian Scandinavia and its mythology.
The loft where the interview was conducted was filled with Satanist and Nazi paraphernalia, along with weapons, and Vikernes declared he was at war with Christianity, had already burned eight churches, and would continue his terrorism.
[23] Euronymous was interested in communism,[30] even professing to be a Stalinist in 1992,[31] and in the 1980s had participated in the Marxist–Leninist youth group Rød Ungdom, which he later disavowed,[32] but there is no evidence that he was a gay man.
According to her, the Black Circle melded Nazi occultism, anti-Semitism and the conspiracy theory of a Jewish plot for world domination, homophobia, and xenophobia with Nietzschean philosophy, Satanism, and Scandinavian neopaganism, which then contributed to the violence perpetrated by some of the musicians.
[25][37] In 1994, Hellhammer, the drummer for the Norwegian band Mayhem, said of the genre's links with racism: "I'll put it this way, we don't like black people here.
[43][42] In a 2007 documentary, bandmember Fenriz claimed he was once arrested while participating in an anti-apartheid demonstration and later had a "phase of being really angry with ... other races" before he became "totally unengaged in [political] shit".
"[22] After his release from prison, Faust stated regarding the arson and murder he committed that "I was never a Satanist or fascist in any way, but I put behind me the hatred and negativity.
[51] Nefandus were later "considered to be Nazi sympathizers", though Belfagor explained: "This could not be further from the truth, but I guess this has to do with some of the controversial comments I made in various magazines in my youth, when I still aspired to play in the most hated band in the world.
[16][53] According to an interview in Blood & Honour magazine, Vikernes contacted neo-Nazi organization Zorn 88 in 1992[54] and joined White Aryan Resistance before he killed Euronymous.
[60] He claims the industry made it into another tool with which to destroy Europe, by promoting bands who embraced "everything sick and anti-European on this planet, from porn and promiscuity to drugs and homosexuality".
[61] Bandmember Hendrik Möbus stated that NSBM was the "logical conclusion" of the Norwegian black metal movement and interpreted the church burnings as a "cultural atavism".
[63] The burgeoning black metal scene in Poland was far more pronouncedly racist, and The Temple of Fullmoon, of which several Polish bands were members, turned into a far-right organization.
[64] Similar to what happened in Norway, the scene became increasingly violent, and three of the four members of the NSBM band Thunderbolt were imprisoned for arson and murder.
[75] Typically NSBM musicians regard Christianity as a product of an alleged Jewish conspiracy to undermine the Aryan race by eliminating their Artglauben and their "original" culture.
Benjamin Hedge Olson argues that NSBM is "indelibly linked with Asá Trŭ and opposed to Satanism, which gives it a 'blood and soil' attraction to many young Neo-Nazis looking for identity in their distant, ancestral past.
"[5] Hendrik Möbus interpreted the church burnings in Norway as: [A] cultural atavism, a sudden and inexplicable plunge back into pre-Christian, medieval conditions in all but outward reality.
Like the Swiss psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung, would have said: Ancient archetypes resurfaced from our collective unconscious and repossessed receptive minds – which were, as a rule, still developing and thus especially impressible.
[62] He argues that later on they would have realized the meaning of these emotions, begun to identify with paganism and taken "an active interest in Nationalist politics designed to preserve and to cultivate this very heritage".
Chraesvelgoron of The True Frost sees Nazism as the political appearance of Satanism and the collective deification of man as a social animal, as godliness instead of humaneness.
[88] However, Lords of Chaos notes that alcohol and illegal drugs never played a big part in the Norwegian black metal scene.
Dayal Patterson writes that "NSBM has become a movement in its own right," one which has reached Western Europe and the Americas and overlapped with fans of more traditional far-right music genres such as Oi!
Although Pierce appreciated the ideological mindset of NSBM and Resistance Records, as well as the financial gains, the music did not personally appeal to him, and he attacked the "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" and what he called "negroid" influences.
[2] They have also been rejected or strongly criticized by many prominent black metal musicians – including Jon Nödtveidt,[96] Tormentor,[97] King ov Hell,[98] Infernus,[99] Lord Ahriman,[44] Emperor Magus Caligula,[44][100] Protector,[101] Erik Danielsson of Watain,[102][103][104] and the members of Arkhon Infaustus.
[76] Christian Dornbusch and Hans-Peter Killguss's 2005 book Unheilige Allianzen caused a short debate, leading Legacy magazine to stop printing ads for NSBM labels.
[108] Stewart Voegtlin likewise wrote for Stylus in 2006 that "with a 'nationalistic' wave of violence and hatred spreading from Scandinavia and infiltrating France and Germany, the unfortunate exploits of a few will likely continue to supersede the music itself.
[110] Ukrainian band Nokturnal Mortum has made efforts to distance themselves from the movement, but still continue to occasionally partake in some NSBM practices such as playing at festivals held for the genre.