Unblack Metal Songwriting Advice

You are writing black metal that punches Satanic tropes in the face while bringing hope and truth. You want tremolo riffs that sound like cold wind on a cemetery hill and lyrics that land like a light in the fog. You want the grit of black metal with a message that matters. This guide gives you practical songwriting steps, production tips, vocal hygiene, and stagecraft that work for unblack metal bands who want to sound authentic without sounding like a Sunday school lecture with corpse paint.

This is written for millennial and Gen Z artists who love extreme music and also happen to care about faith. The voice here will be honest, sometimes funny, occasionally outrageous, and always useful. We will explain every term and acronym so no one has to guess what a blast beat does. Expect riffs, scales, tempos, lyric strategies, recording workflows, and promotion tactics with real life examples you can use tomorrow.

What Is Unblack Metal

Unblack metal is black metal that carries explicitly Christian themes or other explicit themes that oppose the traditional anti God and Satanic imagery of classic black metal. Some people call it Christian black metal. The name unblack signals both a stylistic embrace of black metal and a lyrical inversion of its usual worldview. If you took the sound of early Norwegian black metal and replaced the theological despair with gospel hope, you get unblack metal. That means you keep the atmosphere, the aggression, and the raw edges while writing lyrics about redemption, justice, and spiritual warfare from a faith centered perspective.

Real life scenario. Imagine you are playing a tiny basement show. The floor vibrates, the smoke machine is trying to die, and a guy in a leather jacket with a crucifix and a mohawk is headbanging. He shouts a chorus back at you that is about being rescued from the dark. That is unblack metal working.

Core Elements of Black Metal Sound to Keep

• Tremolo picked riffs Tremolo picking means rapidly alternating pick strokes on a repeated note or chord to create a wall of sound and motion. This is the primary guitar texture in black metal.
• Blast beats A blast beat is a fast drum pattern where the snare and bass drum often strike rapidly to create a relentless pulse. We will explain variations and how to use them musically.
• Shriek vocals These are high pitched aggressive vocals that cut through dense guitars. The technique is different from death growls. We will cover techniques to avoid hurting your voice.
• Lofi atmosphere Many classic black metal records use raw production for mood. You can choose raw or polished. Both work depending on your message and budget.
• Cold, bleak keyboards and ambience Pads, choirs, and synths create vast spaces that make the riffs feel monumental.

Decide Your Identity Before You Write

Every good song begins with identity. Ask simple questions. What is your band asking listeners to feel or do. Who are you talking to. Are you narrating a personal testimony, writing a psalm of lament, or crafting a fantasy allegory with spiritual meaning. Your answers shape tempo choices, harmonic language, and lyrical diction.

Real life scenario. Two bands both write about spiritual warfare. One writes a marching anthem for community worship with singable chantable lines. The other writes a bleak diary of suffering with jagged time signatures. Both are unblack metal but they will attract different crowds and listening contexts. Pick one identity per song so your choices do not fight each other.

Song Structures That Work for Unblack Metal

Black metal is flexible. You can have songs that wander like winter fog or songs that pummel like a war march. Here are structures you can steal and adapt.

Classic Epic Structure

• Intro ambience and lead motif
• Main tremolo riff section with vocals
• Bridge with clean guitar or spoken word
• Second riff section with faster tempo or blast beats
• Ambient outro with choir or field recording

Punchy Attack Structure

• Immediate riff and blast beat intro
• Verse chorus verse with repeated motivic riff
• Breakdown or slow doom style bridge
• Final double chorus or extended outro

Through Composed Structure

Use this when you want a cinematic experience. No repeating chorus necessary. Each section introduces a new motif and moves the story forward. This works great for concept songs or narrative lyrics.

Tempo and Groove Choices

Tempo shapes mood. A 180 to 240 BPM blast beat feels ferocious and chaotic. A 90 to 120 BPM march feels heavy and ominous. Choose tempo according to lyric intent. Want to sound desperate and out of breath. Use ultra fast tempos and thin production. Want to sound resolute and crushing. Use a mid tempo with thick guitar tones.

Real life scenario. You write a song about being saved after years of wandering. A mid tempo 110 BPM groove with a stomped snare and layered choirs gives your chorus a victory feel. If you wrote the same chorus at 220 BPM the emotion might read as frantic rather than triumphant.

Scales, Modes, and Riff Writing

Black metal riffs often favor dark sounding scales. Here are practical scale choices and how to use them.

• Harmonic minor This scale features a raised seventh degree. It has an exotic tension that works well for melody lines and solos.
• Natural minor Also called Aeolian. This is a basic minor sound that holds a melancholic mood.
• Phrygian Features a flat second. It sounds very Spanish or Middle Eastern and creates a menacing vibe.
• Diminished and diminished arpeggios These create tension and collapse that black metal loves. Use them in transitional riffs.
• Chromatic movement Moving notes in half steps adds creep and inevitability. Use chromatic bass lines under sustained chords for weight.

Riff writing recipe

1. Pick a tonal center. Choose a root note and decide if the riff will imply natural minor, harmonic minor, or Phrygian.
2. Create a short motif of three to five notes. Think of this as your riff seed.
3. Apply tremolo picking to the motif. Vary the rhythm so the motif breathes.
4. Add a second motif that answers the first. Contrast could be stepwise motion against leaps or a rhythmic variation that syncs with the drums.
5. Map the riff across different string sets for tonal variation. Let the same notes in different octaves offer sonic contrast.

Tremolo Picking Technique and Practice

Tremolo picking creates that signature wave. The technique is not magical. It is repetitive practice. Focus on economy of motion and timing. Begin slow. Use a metronome at 70 beats per minute playing eighth notes. Gradually increase speed. Keep the wrist loose. Your forearm should not look like it is trying to escape the room.

Practice routine

1. Warm up for five minutes with chromatic scales and relaxed strokes.
2. Practice the tremolo motif for ten minutes at a slow tempo, focusing on alternate picking accuracy.
3. Use a granulated tempo increase. Add 5 BPM every two minutes until you hit your target tempo.
4. Finish with endurance sets of one minute on one riff. Rest thirty seconds and repeat three times.

Drums and Blast Beats Explained

Blast beat glossary

• Traditional blast The snare plays a tight constant pulse while the bass drum and high hat or ride run matching notes. This makes a machine like assault.
• Bomb blast The bass drum hits are emphasized more than the snare giving a pounding feel.
• Machine gun blast Rapid mixed stroke feel between snare and bass drum to create an overwhelming wall.

Use blast beats as punctuation. If you barrage the entire song with non stop blasts you risk listener fatigue. Build contrast. Use blasts in transitions, climaxes, and short stabs that raise tension. A slow half time section followed by a sudden blast will hit harder than a song that is 100 percent blast all the way through.

Vocal Styles and Health

Typical black metal vocals are high pitched shrieks or low rasps depending on the band. Unblack metal often uses shrieks to preserve the dramatic black metal aesthetic. Here is how to sound like a banshee without shredding your cords.

Basic safe scream method

1. Warm up with gentle humming and lip trills for five minutes.
2. Practice fry scream on low volume using your false vocal folds. This creates distortion without pressing the true vocal folds together with force.
3. Work on placement above the vocal source by imagining sound with the mask of the face rather than the throat. Think nasal resonance not throat rasp.
4. Hydrate constantly. Room humidity matters. Use steam if your environment is dry.
5. Stop if you feel pain. Pain equals damage. Soreness is normal after a session but sharp pain is a warning.

Find a coach if you can afford it. A five session check in will save weeks of bad habits. If you cannot find one, use reputable online lessons that show visuals of breathing and vocal fold placement. Always start quiet and build volume without pushing.

Lyric Strategies for Unblack Metal

Lyrics are where unblack metal proves it is not a gimmick. Effective lyrics balance imagery with theology. You can use biblical language. You can also use modern analogies and personal testimony. The key is to write lines that hit both the head and the gut.

Do not preach like a pamphlet

Write scenes. Show the struggle. Use concrete details. If your song is about being rescued, do not write a sermon. Write a scene of hands in blood cleaned by rain. Let listeners guess some details. This is how art persuades without sounding like a lecture.

Use reversal and subversion

Take classic black metal images and flip them. Instead of frost on the altar write frost on a tombstone that blooms with frostflowers of hope. Use gothic language to describe redemption. This gives your lyrics both authenticity and surprise.

Prosody matters

Prosody means matching natural speech stress to musical accents. If you force a long theological phrase into a tight blast beat the words will sound awkward. Speak your lines out loud at conversation speed and mark stressed syllables. Align those with strong beats in the music. If an important theological word falls on a weak beat change the melody or word order.

Title and Hook Writing

A good unblack metal title is short, evocative, and singable. Think one to four words. The hook can be a melodic chant in the chorus or a repeating tremolo motif that the crowd learns to recognize. Use ring phrases that repeat the title at the start and end of the chorus for memory.

Example hooks

• Title: "Frozen Baptism" Chorus line: "I came out of the cold and the frost became fire."
• Title: "Ashen Crown" Chorus line: "Take my crown of ash and make it living gold."

Arrangement Tips to Create Contrast

One of the biggest mistakes is making every section equally dense. Contrast gives meaning to repetition. Tools for contrast include dynamic range, instrumentation changes, tempo shifts, and vocal delivery changes.

• Pull everything back for a clean guitar and whispered line to highlight a lyrical turn.
• Add choir pads and harmonies in the chorus to create a sense of lift.
• Use harmonic shifts to create light and dark moments.
• Introduce a lead melody or solo in the middle to break monotony.

Production Choices: Raw vs Polished

Classic black metal aesthetic often favors rawness. That rawness can communicate urgency and authenticity. But raw does not mean bad. It means intention. Choose raw if you want a claustrophobic punk like device in the music. Choose polished if you want clarity and impact on streaming platforms and live PA systems.

Real life scenario. You record a demo with three microphones and a hungry flea market amp. It sounds raw and fans call it authentic. For the album you choose a cleaner mix with a big drum room sound. The songs reach Spotify playlists and more listeners discover you. Both approaches can be true for the same band depending on the song purpose.

Essential production checklist

• Record guitars with two to three layers of rhythm for width. Pan left and right. Keep one center for low end if needed.
• Keep bass audible. In black metal it is common to let the guitars dominate. Make sure the bass locks with the kick drum so the low end does not collapse on small speakers.
• Use reverb tastefully. Long halls create cathedral feels. Short rooms keep aggression. Automate reverb sends for different sections.
• Use EQ to carve space. Cut muddy frequencies around 250 to 500 Hz on guitars and boost presence around 2 to 5 kHz for clarity.
• Compress drums for punch but avoid squashing the dynamics completely. Let the snare breathe in parts where you want a hit.

Meaning of EQ and DAW and BPM

• EQ stands for equalization. It is the process of adjusting frequency bands to make instruments fit together.
• DAW stands for digital audio workstation. This is the software like Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, or Reaper you use to record and mix.
• BPM stands for beats per minute. It measures tempo. 120 BPM is middle of the road. Black metal tends to be either very fast or mid tempo depending on the style.

Recording Vocals and Guitars: Practical Tips

Guitar tones

• Use a small amount of high end to cut through the mix.
• Consider using two different amp tones for double tracking. Slight differences create stereo interest.
• Try a heavy use of a noise gate in fast tremolo parts to keep clarity.

Vocal recording

• Record multiple takes to pick the best performance. Keep one raw take for emotion and one tighter take for precision.
• Use parallel compression on vocals to get presence without losing dynamics. Parallel compression means mixing a heavily compressed copy with the dry vocal.
• Layer clean spoken lines or chants under shrieks to give texture and intelligibility.

Mixing Tips Specific to Black Metal Aesthetics

Mix for the emotion you want. If you are lean toward an old school vibe reduce stereo width and keep a narrow guitar image. For modern cinematic metal open the stereo field with wide synths, choir layers, and spacious delays.

Common mixing moves

• Sidechain the bass to the kick drum to keep low end from muddying. Sidechain means using the kick to trigger compression on the bass so the kick punches through.
• Use mid side EQ on guitars to clear center frequencies for the vocals.
• Automate drums and guitars so the chorus breathes wider and the verse sits tighter.

Mastering and Loudness

Loudness is a modern trap. Loud mixes can sound great for a minute and then fatigue listeners. Aim for loud but musical. Use true peak limiting and avoid over compressing dynamics. Deliver masters with a LUFS target appropriate for your release platform. LUFS stands for loudness units relative to full scale. Streaming platforms normalize tracks so extreme loudness gains you nothing but clipped transients and earache.

Songwriting Exercises for Unblack Metal

Image First Drill

Pick one striking image like "ash on the church steps." Spend ten minutes writing ten lines that describe actions around that image. Do not explain theology. Let narrative and sensory detail do the work. After the ten lines choose one line to become your chorus seed.

Motif Swap Exercise

Write a tremolo motif in natural minor. Write a second motif using harmonic minor. Swap their positions in the song and listen. Which pairing creates the most emotional lift. Use the one that supports your lyric arc.

Prosody Timing Drill

Speak your chorus at a casual speed while clapping a simple beat. Mark where you naturally pause. Align your melody so the natural pauses happen at musical rests. This will make lines feel authentic rather than forced.

Stagecraft and Live Performance

Black metal stagecraft is often theatrical. You can use corpse paint and theatrical props while still being clear about your message. Think of stagecraft as mood direction. Use lighting, fog, and costume to support the narrative not to distract from the song.

Live tips

• Plan a sonic map for each song. Know where the dynamics drop and where the blast hits. Practice transitions so the band does not lose tempo on stage.
• Communicate to the audience between songs honestly. No need to preach. A quick line like "This next one is about a second chance" gives context and opens hearts more than a lecture.
• Merch ties. Use art that matches the music. A crisp logo and limited edition patches perform better than cheap stickers.

Promotion, Community, and Integrity

Find your fans. Black metal communities are tight. Show up. Play local shows. Share rehearsal clips that show the craft not just the pose. Integrity builds loyalty. If your lyrics come from honest experience fans will feel that and stay.

Distribution and playlists

• Get your music on streaming platforms. Use aggregators like DistroKid or CD Baby. They deliver music to Spotify Apple Music and others. Explain to fans where to support you directly through Bandcamp which pays artists more per sale.
• Pitch to indie metal playlists and zines. Send a concise press mail that includes one short biography, high quality audio, and links to your socials. Keep it professional but not robotic.
• Use video content. A two minute studio clip of a tremolo riff or a short lyric video helps listeners latch on. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels can expose your music to fans who do not live in metal forums.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Overwriting lyrics Fix by focusing on one image per verse. Fewer vivid images beat many vague statements.
• Too much blast Fix by adding a slow section that gives the listener an emotional landing.
• Thin low end Fix by tightening the bass guitar and ensuring the kick drum and bass lock with proper EQ and sidechain if needed.
• Vocal damage Fix by learning safe techniques and scheduling rest days. Replace a high velocity practice day with technique or songwriting days.
• Production that kills emotion Fix by automating dynamics and leaving space for critical moments. Silence can be louder than distortion.

Action Plan You Can Use Today

1. Write one sentence that states the emotional promise of your song. Make it simple and visceral. Example "I was rescued from the cold." Keep it as your anchor.
2. Pick a tempo that matches that promise. Fast for desperation. Mid for triumph. Slow for sorrow.
3. Write a three to five note tremolo motif in the scale that fits your mood. Practice it until it feels like it belongs to you.
4. Draft a verse with concrete imagery. Use the image first drill for ten minutes and pick the best line for the chorus seed.
5. Record a raw demo in your DAW. Two rhythm guitar layers, basic drums, and one vocal take. Share it with two trusted people for feedback on what line stuck with them.
6. Fix one element only. Either tighten the riff, clarify a lyric, or change the tempo slightly. Ship the demo for live testing.

Unblack Metal FAQ

What is the difference between unblack metal and Christian black metal

They are mostly the same thing. Unblack metal is a term many artists use to emphasize the inversion of traditional black metal themes. Christian black metal is a label that makes theological content explicit. Use the label that fits your community. Both share musical DNA with classic black metal but have faith oriented lyrics.

Can unblack metal sound authentic

Yes. Authenticity comes from craft and honesty. If you write compelling riffs, invest in atmosphere and tell true stories, listeners will connect. Avoid copying tropes for the sake of shock. The most convincing bands are the ones who live what they write.

How do I keep my vocals safe while screaming

Warm up. Learn fry technique. Stop if you feel sharp pain. Hydrate. Get coaching if possible. Rest your voice one day after heavy sessions. Vocal health is a long term investment in your career.

Do I need a big studio to make unblack metal

No. Many great records were made in bedrooms and basements. Know the tools. Choose a production style that fits your budget. A clear arrangement and strong performance matter more than a million dollar studio if your songs are compelling.

What scales should I use for darker riffs

Harmonic minor, Phrygian, natural minor and diminished motifs are classic choices. Chromatic lines add menace. Experiment and pick what supports the emotional core of your song.

How loud should my mix be for streaming

Aim for a LUFS target appropriate for your platform. For most streaming services a LUFS integrated target around minus eight to minus ten will be loud enough without killing dynamics. Research platform normalization rules and do not chase loudness to the point of distortion.

How do I write unblack metal lyrics that do not preach

Write scenes and concrete images. Use personal testimony and metaphor. Let theological claims emerge from the story rather than being stated as a sermon. Art invites reflection more than lectures do.

Should I use corpse paint and stage theatrics

Use props and paint if they help the story. Avoid gimmicks that obscure your message. If corpse paint makes you feel powerful and aligns with your image go for it. If it feels like a costume you wear for likes rethink it.

How can I find fans for unblack metal

Play with complementary bands. Share honest behind the scenes content. Pitch to niche playlists and zines. Engage with metal communities online while also showing up physically at shows. Word of mouth remains powerful in metal scenes.

What is a good songwriting routine for black metal

Short focused sessions. Warm up your hands and voice. Spend thirty minutes on riff creation and another thirty on lyrics. Track ideas immediately in your phone for later. Revisit a draft after one week with fresh ears.