The government of Norway has begun offering training for foreign diplomats in black metal, following a reported rise in global interest in the genre.

[partner id="wireduk"]Black metal, or "TNBM – True Norwegian Black Metal," as the country calls it, developed as a genre in its own right in the early 1990s with bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal and Emperor. Its hallmarks include shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars, blast-beat drumming and very fast tempos.

It attracted a great deal of controversy thanks to a strong anti-Christian standpoint of its adherents, as well as a number of cases of murder and arson involving churches between 1992 and 1995. However, since then the genre has slowly turned rather more respectable, and one of its more recent bands, Dimmu Borgir, recently performed at the 10,000-capacity Oslo Spektrum with a choir and orchestra to wide media attention.

Kjersti Sommerset, the head of Norway's foreign ministry's centre of excellence, told Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv: "We now have 106 foreign service missions and they get many enquiries from people who want information about Norwegian black metal as a phenomenon. In the training program, we have a large cultural program in order to give the trainees a good understanding of Norwegian culture and the cultural industry. Black metal is clearly a part of this 'global awakening.'"

Photo: Black Metal Destroyer 01 by Robert Bejil Photography/Flickr

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