What is "blackgaze"

Blackgaze is a rock music style that fuses elements of black metal and shoegazing. The word is a blend of the names of the two genres, described by The Guardian as "the buzz term for a new school of bands taking black metal out of the shadows and melding its blast beats, dungeon wailing and razorwire guitars with the more reflective melodies of post-rock, shoegaze and post-hardcore." According to Exclaim!, blackgaze "marries the harsh, alien instrumentation of black metal with the mellower, dreamy soundscapes of shoegaze. Heavily influenced by atmospheric black metal projects like Ulver and Summoning, the genre was pioneered by French projects such as Alcest and Ameseours as early as 2005, but has recently risen to greater prominence with the success of groups like Deafheaven." The Guardian named Deafheaven "blackgaze's de facto poster boys, the most likely to open up black metal to an even wider audience", and Exclaim! described their 2013 album Sunbather as seminal to the style.