Mother North: Metal Music and Scandinavian Identity in the 21st Century

Over the last few decades heavy metal music has become a significant part of cultural identities in Scandinavia. This talk will discuss the ways in which even extreme and underground heavy metal styles have become integrated into tourism and cultural branding, particularly in Norway with the black metal subgenre. To a certain extent it would seem that this trend is just following the bands’ leads, as many of them have self-consciously integrated local languages and dialects, pagan mythologies, a