Heavy metal umlaut

A heavy metal umlaut is an umlaut over a letter in the name of a heavy metal band. The use of umlauts and other diacritics with a blackletter style typeface is a form of foreign branding intended to give a band's logo a Germanic or Nordic quality. It is a form of marketing that invokes stereotypes of boldness and strength commonly attributed to peoples such as the Vikings. The heavy metal umlaut is never referred to by the term diaeresis in this usage, nor is it itended to affect the pronunciation of the band's name.
Heavy metal umlauts have been parodied in film and fiction. In the film This Is Spın̈al Tap (which is spelled with an umlaut over the 'n' and a dotless i), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) opined, "It's like a pair of eyes. You're looking at the umlaut, and it's looking at you." In 2002, Spin magazine referred to the heavy metal umlaut as "the diacritical mark of the beast".

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