Ambassador, with this black metal you are really spoiling us

SMALL PRINT:WHEN YOU think of Norway you think fjords, Ibsen . . . and that's about it. But the enterprising country has just discovered a new tourist magnet, and it couldn't be further removed from geographical beauty and literature.

TNBM, or True Norwegian Black Metal, is a local musical delicacy that comes complete with ultra-fast heavy-metal guitar playing, banshee-style vocal stylings and blast-beat drumming.

Norway is the world’s leader in black metal, and its foreign ministry has begun training diplomats in the ins and outs of the heavy-metal subgenre. This is, they say, in response to the questions they get at their foreign embassies about the death-metal scene in Norway, but more likely it’s just a tourist marketing drive: “Come to Norway – the home of death metal!”

Kjersti Sommerset, head of the Norwegian foreign ministry’s centre of excellence, says: “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 programme, we give the trainees a good understanding of Norwegian culture and the cultural industry. Black metal is clearly a part of this.”

The ministry is taking all of this very seriously, and it brought in the leading black-metal author, Havard Rem, to lecture diplomats about the history and cultural significance of death metal. The genre has always been controversial as it has an avowedly anti-Christian stance, and there were incidents in the 1990s of members of black-metal bands being charged with burning down churches.

Norwegian diplomats seem to be relishing the chance to highlight something contemporary about their country instead of banging on about fjords all the time. Silje Bryne, who works for the Norwegian mission in Paris, says: “I see the value in not just talking about Ibsen and fjords when one talks about Norway, but also about the export product that is black metal. Having such a strong brand means that we stand out among the Nordic countries and this is worth its weight in gold. It’s black gold.”