Ambient Black Metal

Ambient black metal is black metal in which ambient and dark ambient composition is not decoration but the substance: tremolo-picked guitars are mixed into reverberant haze, synthesiser drones and piano carry long spans of music, and whole tracks may pass with no metal elements at all. *Burzum* set the template in the 1990s, framing "Filosofem" with ambient pieces and recording the fully ambient "Hliðskjálf" in prison. The style's practitioners, among them *Xasthur*, *Velvet Cacoon*, *Nortt*, *Paysage d'Hiver* and *Darkspace*, favour night, winter, space and withdrawal over assault, and build albums as environments rather than collections of songs.