I mentioned Megadeth’s upcoming studio album a while back, and Dystopia is still on track to be released some time in 2016. The buildup continues, as Megadeth just released a music video for “The Threat Is Real”, a single that they admittedly pushed out about a month ago. This track reinforces my hypothesis that the upcoming album will be an “adequate facsimile” of previous Megadeth; it’s certainly appropriate given the band’s legacy, although the band would have to bust their collective asses (and brains) to displace their older works from your mind for more than a few months. The actual visual content of the video could be interesting as well, at least if you’re not put off by the odd style of animation employed.
Black metal emerged as a reaction to the trend of death metal which had already established a musical vocabulary and through that achieved a higher degree of technicality as well as abstraction.
These bands took inspiration from the proto-black Hellhammer, Venom, Bathory and Sodom. The music of these early hybrid bands was quite unlike what became the second wave of black metal or death metal in that its motifs were simple yet concrete; overlaid onto a structure which juxtaposes seemingly unrelated motifs next to one another in an uncomplicated and often superficially nonsensical form. Yet, the result was surprisingly successful as a visceral and chaotic experience of raw, concrete, sensory imagery.
The black metal to follow refined this approach through retaining much of the simplicity and visceral nature of the earlier music while placing the motifs in a more logical format through phrasal composition, in which each riff has a shape created by its phrase and these form a language within each song. This and the trademark atmospheric riffs driven by waves of reverb and tremolo picking – largely invented by the Norwegian bands of note – came to define the public perception of black metal as a genre. Consequently, the Norwegian sound moved away from the rhythmic lineage of rock to music to something closer to the traditional western sensibility: harmony and melody over static, invariant rhythm as famously codified by the experimental gothic sensibilities of Transilvanian Hunger.
Profanatica, from what can be intuited from rare interviews, had strong reactions towards both the Norwegian sound and death metal itself. As such their music took on a different character which has not garnered the band near as much acclaim. The Norwegian sound is, after all, is the standard against which all black metal music is held. Given the fact that all genres are imposed by observation after the fact, it seems that the difference between Profanatica and the Norwegian giants is not one of quality, but of a band not fitting within the aesthetic boundaries of a genre that the audience expects. That and the mad rush for Norwegian black metal pushed Profanatica to the boundaries of the black metal movement where its influence on artists and hardcore fans tells a different story of its importance.
Much like the Norwegians, Profanatica refined the approach of its influences by emphasizing an incoherent structure and seemingly random construction. The motifs themselves are anything but abstract; often sounding vaguely familiar if not recycled both literally and intuitively. The listener will detect a clear sense of familiarity with the image of a particular motif, yet its contextual placement is such that it reveals a new perspective on something familiar. To draw a metaphor, it is as if one obtains a view of the same landscape from the peak of different mountains. This freedom of association allows a particular feeling, idea or image to be used as appropriate, anywhere in a song without sounding out of place. That particular innovation is unique to this band alone.
Structurally, Profanatica develop the proto-black method by emphasizing its motif contrast and non-rational composition. The infamous “Weeping in Heaven” demonstrates this technique through a collection of riff ideas which bears little relationship to one another, nor are treated in such a way that might cause the music to blend seamlessly. The contrast is emphasized which leaves the listener in a position to experience the music on an intuitive level. The result speaks to the body and it speaks towards the id. Logical progression, causality and abstract musical language are rejected abjectly. Profanatica embraces the rhythmic tradition of non-Western forms; using it to give meaning to chaos and incoherence of raw experience. Where one might perceive conceptual weakness and compositional immaturity in the early black metal music, Profanatica matured their approach to the point of strength.
The greatest contrast between the Norwegian sound and their influences lay at the relationship between the subject and the perceiver. The musical component of the proto-black bands described the emotional reactions to a phenomenon portrayed, resulting in the internal discourse one expects when reacting to the representations given to them by their nervous system. The Norwegian sound attempts to paint the external world through its musical discourse. The valuations of the perceiver are never absent quite absent and serve to describe the relationship of the internal world to the external. It asks the question, “where do we fit in the image of the world as presented?”
In a sense it attempts to categorize a dark forest in nonverbal symbols. Profanatica, resting firmly in the proto-black tradition, presents the terror of a solitary human being in a forest without describing the forest itself through its musical symbols. The dialogue then, becomes a matter of internal sensation which is untamed and instinctual. In terms of artistry, that innovation ultimately expanded the initial range of expression without reasoning categorically about it.
The effectiveness of this particular approach may be observed on the medley from the Grand Masters Sessions release. The track consists of portions of the band’s demo material stitched together to form a single track. A listener familiar with Profanatica’s back catalog will no doubt sense the familiarity of the material yet what is most striking is the functionality of the piece as a whole. Despite being composed from entirely different songs, the song involves juxtaposition of each motif and its partial ordering, and as a result manages a level of unity as a stream of consciousness which reveals new perspectives on the material through context.
Profanatitas de Domonatia (2007) distills the familiar Incantation sound made famous on their debut record Onward to Golgotha – which Paul Ledney had a strong hand in developing – by stripping the material down to its most basic instincts. The result is a fierce and destructive force of will whose aim is deconstruction. The follow up Disgusting Blasphemies Against God saw the band barbarizing the famous emotional sensitivity of black metal’s melodic heritage and assembling those remains into hideous totems. The record’s defining characteristic is, after all, something of a crescendo implying the process of construction, perhaps out of the remains of that which its predecessor tore down. The latest record, Thy Kingdom Cum, lays siege to its two previous approaches by simplifying its rhythms to the point of idiocy while contorting its melodic forms to the point of mockery. The defining character of its predominant motifs is laughter which can be gleaned easily in the opening moments of the track “False Doctrina.” The aforementioned qualities are not something which need to be abstracted from the music; they are clear and obvious.
Profanatica’s approach is much like an uncivilized warband conducting raids on the civilized. Such groups are as much a tribal patchwork out of violent young men as they are a patchwork of the spoils of their activities: contradictory compositions of the basic human and technological components of a greater civilization whose assemblage is entirely pragmatic and allows for them to serve functions other than intended, but no less effective than their original purpose. Out of elements bound tenuously is something effective, something purposeful, something deadly. The world this music operates in is one which is defined almost entirely by nature rather than one defined by humans.
Where proto-black metal is defined by its visceral nature and deconstructive character, Profanatica embrace the ignorance in a brash display of unconcern for the perfume-soaked intellectuals which decry those outside their borders. Dwelling within the primitive backwater fringe has its advantages by bearing immunity to the abstract and desperate silliness of the rest of the genre. The similarly-goaled war metal attempts to reach back into black metal’s foundations but does so in a way which reduces the motif as an objectified emotion or image into pure texture reducing its communicative efficacy. The work of Ledney and company retains the concrete sensory experiences which drove metal in each of its original incarnations and were later given musical scrutiny before completely fossilizing, allowing their art to pick the last of the low-hanging fruit of metal as a form while others languish in petty revivalism, soulless displays of technical mastery, or vapid experimentation that desperately seeks revitalization by looking to external music genres; copying but not transforming its clichés.
Tonight, on When SJWs Attack: a small metal distro finds itself in the crosshairs and crossfires of political controversy.
Diabolic Force Distribution is a small, independent mail order wholesale price distributor or “distro,” participating in one of the institutions that forged the underground back when metal CDs were unavailable in all but dedicated specialty stores that often went bankrupt. Some time ago, this distro came under fire from “social justice warriors,” or SJWs, who are people who hang out on social media looking for people who are not politically correct enough. Driven by the thrill of subjugating others with political power and the need for self-importance, SJWs frequently destroy lives with their witch-hunting accusations of racism, sexism and other political constructs.
Upon hearing of this situation, I wrote to Diabolic Force Distribution and got the story in interview form. Read on for the latest outrages of the SJWs — the new censors — as they try to limit what you can hear and buy so they can in turn limit what you think.
How did this all start?
To the best of my knowledge this all began when the singer of Bestial Evil (Shawn Wright) suddenly became aware of a Facebook status I made approximately seven weeks ago from the time of this writing, about how the band should be dismissed by fans of metal, because in my opinion they aren’t any good. Simple as that! We got enough awful crap around here as it is. That being said I never accused them of anything other then being posers, no trigger warning required hahaha. I am not alone in this low opinion of the group either.
Apparently receiving criticism is not one of their strengths however, so they started a smear campaign complete with all the usual name-calling and threats. I want to point out that it was a private post that I made and only my friends could see it… so how exactly it came to the attention of the people in question is unknown to me, probably a screen shot or word of mouth. I don’t care. I wasn’t hiding it from anyone in the first place and I still stand by what I said too. Bad’s bad and good’s good, tough shit. This is Heavy Metal, not a reality TV show where you get a prize at the end from Carson Daly. There is already a band from Italy named Bestial Evil anyhow so that just goes to show you they didn’t even do their homework in the first place.
How did these guys try to rally an internet army?
Again, social media was involved, like always. Facebook to be specific. A concerned friend showed me a post made on Shawn Wright’s Facebook page inciting a “boot party” if anyone ever saw me out somewhere and proclaiming that I was to be “banned” from the city of Baltimore, that he was gonna come to my house, etc. This was based on accusations brought on by Shawn himself that I am a homophobic/neo-nazi or some other completely unfounded nonsense like that. One person even commented that I “infiltrate shows” to sell white power music, which is an outright lie.
People ask me to vend at shows very often, I never have to sneak in, let alone with the intent to slip some poor unsuspecting SJW a skinhead album or whatever. The whole thing is totally absurd. Anyhow, not long after this stuff was brought to my attention I started to receive threatening calls and texts to my phone from Shawn himself. None of which I ever replied to. The voicemails have been recorded and saved though, as well as any other evidence of threats against my home or person. So if anyone does do something stupid I have evidence of a conspiracy I guess. They have done some tidying up on the band page it seems, I think their attempt to raise an army has faltered for now.
Is there truth to their accusations that you run a white power friendly distro?
Absolutely not. While I personally do not believe in censorship of any kind, especially with regards to music and art… there’s just nothing in there that qualifies. The merchandise and albums that I sell span across multiple genres of extreme music, everything from black and death metal to harsh noise and grind, but there’s no “white power” bands… The thing they have accused me of is totally baseless and merely an attempt to incite a witch hunt against me to fulfill a personal vendetta and stir up trouble.
People of this SJW/hipster type of mindset seem to always invoke these things to try rally an angry mob as a means to carry out intimidation tactics or make it seem like they’re in the right because they got a couple hundred views on their webpage. You see it more and more as of late.
What have they threatened you with? Do you think they can accomplish it?
I was told multiple times that I would be visited at home, that they would kick down my door and “destroy my life,” and then there was the foolish claim that I was going to be sued for “defamation of character and distributing hate material.” Loads of ignorant threats and boasts were made. I welcome any legal action from them, as I am sure the courts would like to hear the voicemails that Shawn left on my phone, threatening me with home invasion. And as for the defamation of character thing, I am pretty sure they just did that to me so good luck getting that charge to stick. Personally, I do not think they can actually accomplish these things, especially the part about being sued, but I am not taking it for granted either. That’s not the sort of thing you joke about. I am prepared for all eventual outcomes of this retarded comedy.
First phone call
Second phone call
What are your distros/bands/projects that people can support?
For over ten years now I have been proactive with music in the Baltimore Maryland area in some way or another, although I do not reside in or claim the city. I was in a weird band a long time ago but I don’t play anymore, there’s too many bands and not enough fans anyhow, I would rather be a fan. I printed shirts for local bands and old school heavyweights like Blood Storm, Nunslaughter and Gravewurm for many many years… and I used to book concerts in Baltimore sometimes but I have taken a hiatus from organizing live events.
My label/distro is called Diabolic Force Distribution, the purpose of which has been and always will be to support underground bands and zines get out there to the maniacs that need it. Heavy Metal isn’t about fashion or climbing the social ladder, it’s a way of life. It’s outsider art and it’s meant to be challenging and dangerous. Diabolic Force likes to do things the old-fashioned way because I believe in the life force of the music itself and the people in the trenches fighting to keep it real. Diabolic Force will always offer support to those individuals and bands who hate posers and love Satan. Our motto is “Support the underground, bury yourself.”
How many people listen to Hellhammer’s Death Fiend? What about Sodom’s 1982 Witching Metal? How popular are Death’s earliest demos? When it comes to early proto-underground bands, these earliest demos probably don’t get the listening attention they used to in the deep past, even from people who would rush to their defense on the internet. Part of this could be that they’re still harder to obtain, which theoretically makes this repressing of Sarcofago’s demos quite helpful. This joint effort between Cogumelo and Grayhaze Records claims to go beyond making the band’s early demos officially available by also doing the typical “release more rarities” trick, notably including demos from the Rotting EP and The Laws of Scourge. It probably won’t replace INRI or Sarcofago’s other studio albums in your rotation, but it’s another way to give Wagner Lamounier money in case you’re worried he isn’t making enough teaching economics.
Turkish record label Merdumgiriz — people who might actually face law enforcement consequences for their anti-Islamic expressions — found itself in the center of yet another controversy as band Azerine withdrew from the label after pressure by modern metal blog CvltNation.
Although only the least savvy of metal fans would go to some place named “Cult Nation” for their news, the blog has made a name for itself by covering war metal alongside the usual wash of hipster black metal and tryhard imitators. Merdumgiriz, on the other hand, is a small label which spends its time dodging Turkish religious authorities and authoritarian Western SJWs alike.
Merdumgiriz issued the following statement:
Yesterday I released the album of a so-called “extreme” metal band. I worked so hard on the released that I forgone one of my PornHub premium shemale sessions. Not to mention the money and hard work spent making merchandise. They are a band that uses Lovercraftian lyrics (the trigger on their brains must be malfunctioning for using that “racist” writer) and much “occult” symbolism. Today they wanted me to remove their entire name and work from my label like my label had Ebola saying “Pull all support for my band from any Merdumgiriz websites immediately. Members were not fully aware of the political associations with your label, we wish in no way to have any political or religious anti religious associations.”
Mind you, they share the stage and a member with Anti-Cosmic Satanist bands and frequently use upside down pentacles.
I have heard from good sources that the website CVLT NATION have told them not to work with my label. I apparently support National Socialist bands (which band is this?) anyway, this “Nazi” was kind enough to disregard the legally binding record contract those grown up men have signed with him and let them go. Not to protect their fragile feelings or PC image, but because I do not want to insult the name of “extreme art” with supporting pussies like this.
It is no secret that Viranesir uses racist and sexist terminology to open discussion and mock taboo subject matter. I think using overly offensive language will pull the strength out of taboo subjects and render them unusable for those in power.
Here are some lyrics for the VIRANESIR song HITLER RAPE:
I have lost all my sensitivity toward the taboo subjects in my life through art and I think it can be the same for everybody else. Of course, this will be a nightmare for those in power because they won’t be able to use those taboo subjects as a means of control anymore, hence they will do all within their power to not let words like “nigger, hitler, rape” lose their power. All you have to do is use them without fear. All you ever have to do is commit the greatest sin of freedom.
I am as shit as everybody else, but I seem to be the only one knowing, not fighting, even celebrating and all the while changing it…
You make fools out of yourselves doing extreme art and being pussies. You aren’t extreme, and you are not fooling anybody with screaming and playing loud. I am the real Satanist; I am LUCIFER the bringer of true black light. I change the false meaning of things into harsh truths and fight a lonely fight to break the tyranny of cosmic order, unlike pseudo-prophets singing safe songs about mythical phenomenon. Makes me vomit.
Emir Togrul
9.12.2015
While many of us are not fond of hearing some of the words in those lyrics, we realize that defending speech means defending unpopular speech, even Christian speech. And while this blog has no anti-Christian, anti-Islamic or anti-Semitic agenda, nor a racialist one, we understand that throughout human history demonized ideas have become the basis of the next era of society, and so we encourage open discussion of all topics. Viranesir, Merdumgiriz and Blighted take it further with pure provocation for the sake of pointing out how censored our society is, and for that reason as well we refuse to censor them.
Others feel differently. They have an agenda, but will not state what it is, preferring to work behind the scenes to sabotage the ability of others to express their point of view.
By threatening to “blacklist” metal bands for not conforming to its agenda, CvltNation creates the exact opposite of a safe space: a paranoid community where people fear accidentally saying or thinking the wrong thing as their careers will then be destroyed. This is the same method of control used in totalitarian systems like Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
A second band, Chronovorus, withdrew in fear of the blacklist as well. The fear spreads, and in the name… what? Fear of ideas? How metal is that?
Rotting Christ’s 12th studio is in the works. Entitled Rituals, it will come out on Feburary 12th, 2016; a single has already been officially released to the internet for streaming. Given the timing, I’m not under the impression that Rotting Christ’s latest upcoming album was directly inspired by Varathron’s most recent efforts, but that’s something to ask the band’s personnel, if at all. Interestingly, the album is currently available for preorder from Season of Mist‘s online store. While I am not familiar with Rotting Christ’s later discography, I haven’t heard much complimentary about it from the DMU types. If they’re to be believed, it doesn’t really measure up to the band’s strong formative work, perhaps even coming off as a pale and overly streamlined imitation of such. Might be better for you to stick to modern Varathron if that’s the case.
Kronet til Konge shows what happens when a genre overshoots its inertia. Everything labeled “Norwegian black metal” with “that sound” was selling like hotcakes, which is a rare position for metal to find itself in. The fans, labels and magazines howled for more, which is always a sign that the quantity-over-quality groupthink has arrived. This band pasted together a bunch of riffs and called it an album.
The result shows us how important metal songwriting is: it’s not just about the riffs. Good metal comes from arranging riffs so they talk to each other to create “heavy” moments which feel like realizations (or provoke them). Normal rock is designed to distract you or get you lost in a sea of bittersweet conflicting emotions. Metal builds up illusions and tears them down, then inverts the whole structure to show you a hidden truth. This is the mythological nature of metal.
Dodheimsgard are talented musicians. They have about one good riff idea per song, and are musically adept enough to cook up the other riffs and bits necessary to tie it together into a song, but these are addressing the riff itself and not some underlying topic or feeling for the song. As a result, these songs feel random and convey nothing, although it’s hard to come to this conclusion when caught in a quality riff. But the sum has to be more than the total of its parts and that leap to greatness is not made here.
I had high hopes for The Accuser… of a sort. I was expecting an ungainly, melodramatic symphonic black metal ala Dimmu Borgir. Unfortunately, Dimmu Borgir hasn’t released an album for Abigail Williams to ape in over five years! Cue the necessary stylistic shift, and the dashing of my admittedly dubious hopes, founded on information about this band that was similarly out of date. The Accuser is one of those indie-darling post-black metal albums, and while it’s usually not as blatant about its weepy, depressive influences as Deafheaven or Myrkur (whom I always seem to mention in pairs), it’s still a pretty flat and bland experience.
Abigail Williams’ latest actually pulls on a fairly wide mixture of post-black approaches, although they are generally united by a consistent production. The production team decided to portray this band as just fuzzy and indistinct enough to possibly pass as ‘true’ for a moment, but not enough that the intended audience would complain about a garbled aesthetic. There’s also the occasional awkward high pitched scream strewn in the mix, but it’s an otherwise standard sound. Within this, Abigail Williams explores such things as jangling consonant guitar leads, lengthy drone sections, start-stop riffing, and so forth. Now, there is nothing innately anything about musical techniques, and this is especially the case on this album, where the songwriting is haphazard at best. The difficulty that you often run into with this sort of musical language is that it’s difficult to build off these ideas in any way, whether it be the standard theme and development shtick we advocate around here, a more ambient approach, or much of anything, really. In general, Abigail Williams has a serious problem gluing things together and seemingly tries to hide it with minor stylistic shifts within and between tracks; regardless of their intent they don’t manage to pull off such subterfuge.
For whatever small reasons, I don’t find this album quite as annoying as many of its genre contemporaries. It still is, however, a boring listen that does little of interest with the hand of tricks it’s taken.
The guy who went to Black Flames of Blasphemy VI seems to have liked them – Destroyer 666 is returning with a new studio album after 7 years of inactivity on that front. They’ll presumably continue to be a partial throwback to ’80s first-wave black metal on Wildfire, which is currently set for release on February 26th. The band’s frontman, K.K Warslut commented on the artwork his band has procured for this album, saying that he “…was after something very simple and very metal, being sick to death as I am with pseudo-occultniks dressing everything up in the garb of mysticism.” It’s probably not just him, although the local occultists here at DMU might take issue with that. After this album’s release, the band has a few tour dates lined up in Europe for 2016.
By the mid-1990s, it was clear that death metal and black metal were winding down if not over as far as their creative impetus was concerned. The great sell-out albums were yet to come, and bands explored the time-honored method of being “new” by mixing in established genres and calling the hybrid a new path. Where hybridization works, it brings something different to a genre and makes it work within the style of that genre; when it fails, it reverts to an ancestor.
Cultus Sanguine jumped in through a mixture of doom metal, suicidal black metal and shoegaze with influences from bands like Joy Division who worked through atmosphere. This early form of post-metal emphasized theatrical vocals and melodic simple guitar lines that emphasized a trudging rhythm, making it a lot like the post-metal explosion to come but with a more forceful approach.
Unlike many of the more recent bands, Cultus Sanguine attempted a narrative approach. This became absorbed within the need of vocals and atmosphere to predominate, creating a sense of interrupted mood with heavy emphasis on its return, but ultimately the simpler, rock-style riffs and their underlying progressions did not give the band enough to work with. Now a historical curiosity, this album was lauded for its “creativity” at the time and then rapidly faded into obscurity.
