Thoughts on sincerity in metal

Metal places more emphasis on sincerity - sometimes verging on high-minded seriousness -  than I'm used to the ironic world of indie rock (and writing about same).

You hear this sincerity - a reaching for the grand statement - in the length, ambition and technical precision of metal music. You see this sincerity - a curdled Romanticism - in the over-elaborate band names and record sleeves. You read this sincerity - a naive-in-the-best-sense questioning - in its addressing of political and philosophical themes lyrically.

Metal culture embodies a simultaneous reaching for and rejection of sophistication.

All of this is not to say that metal tropes can't be invoked with irony or knowing by its practitioners: for example Steel Panther [cough], but also in another way thrash bands inheriting punk's half-satirical alienation pose. But the scene does not generate its own sly constant auto-critique in the same way that indie or nostalgia rock does.

The mild hazing which passes for interviews in indie circles promotes a self-defensive and ironic relationship towards music and writing about music. 

If indie tends towards being driven by aesthetics and resisting values, does metal tend towards being driven by values and resisting aesthetics? Is indie essentially post-modern while metal remains rooted in the modern?

To illustrate this line of thought, it's worth comparing and contrasting Metal Hammer or Terroriser with The Stool Pigeon or the NME. In metal magazines the artist remains on their pedestal, is subject to reverence, in a way that only the dead or the legendary are in other scenes. It is taken for granted that the band will have something to say - and one of the problems with the writing is that the interviewer rarely drops out of a hagiographical mode.

Over this week, I'll be continuing my writing about metal by enthusing about a few of my favourite acts as well as looking how they relate to this model of sincerity.

All contributions to this chin-stroking free for all most welcome.

5 Links and a Picture - Sunday 1 July

Fake meat: is science fiction on the verge of becoming fact (Guardian Friday 22)

There is a Birmingham Metal Festival. I am eyeing up Infernalfest (22 September) with cautious interest.

Jonathan Coulton on The Decline of Scarcity (via @onlystephan)

"We should have sent the poets" - as much Rio+20 analysis as I can stand to read out of work, courtesy of The Guardian.

Any And All records - Dada attempt to sign everyone so that there will be no more unsigned artists in the world. We like.

And .... rare sighting of Yorkshire Minisaurus in its natural moorland habitat

Los Vengadores!

When a friend went to Bilbao recently, she came back with a back issue of The Avengers in Spanish. And, what is more, a Stan Lee/Jack Kirby original from 1978 (at least in Spanish form)! Here are my favourite panels.

1. A leopard bouncing off Captain America's shield. Great idea, kinetic execution, love the typography

2.Hank Pym/Giantman is so happy to see Captain America return safely from safari that he gives him the bumps. Hank - this is not doing your modern reputation (post-Ultimates) as an overcompensating jerk any favours, mind you.

3. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have secret identity clothes in the same colours and patterns as their costumes. Genius. Also, and ditto, the Avengers advertise for new recruits in the paper like anyone else.

For some reason (grr Blogger) these next two panels won't upload the right way up, but I loved the surrealism of the hammer-circle in the first and the Kong-isms of the second.

This week's links - deconstructing Limp Bizkit and Download

Stop. Being. Tits - awesome article from @Eve_Barlow about depressing, rather coercive culture of boob-flashing at Download. 

"I’m not going to paint a picture of rapey tragedy - some of the girls were up for it (if you consider Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo up for it) but many looked hesitant, almost reluctant and caved into flasherdom at the very last second."

It's good to know someone else - with a considerably bigger readership than me - is flagging up that while metal may be awesome it maybe needs to resit feminism 101 at some point.

And more Download, with a review by Bryce (AKA @Wreckferretzero) parts one and two. 

"On Kyuss: Song. Silence (to get their breath back & drink water). Song. Silence. Song. etc... He did say thank you just as he left the stage. That was it."

 

And finally Richard Warrell (AKA @TheRamblingElf) deconstructs nu-metal through a highly enjoyable academic analysis of Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit

"Instead of offering a full-fledged alternative culture for audiences to immerse themselves in, Limp Bizkit’s nu-metal sound left its ideological definition open and vague, defining itself only as being in opposition to many mainstream, conformist ideals, but not offering any alternative approach."

Somewhere right now, Fred Durst is stroking his chin in ponder-satisfaction.

Metal listening suggestions for Magpiemoth

I've been handed a lot of suggestions for metal bands to listen to and feed into my exploration of the music. Or in a few cases go back and listen to more closely if I remember them first time around.

Thanks to Gio, Mark, Rach and Tom for the following

[Deep breath]

Adrenalin Mob 

Carcass

Cavalera Conspiracy

Dream Theater

Faith No More

Gwar

Linkin Park

Machine Head

Megadeth (the old stuff) 

Nightwish

Obituary - Cause of Death

Pantera

Prong - Beg To Differ/Cleansing

Sepultura 

Slipknot

Slayer - Reign in Blood

Suicidal Tendencies

Tool - all the albums (though I guess Lateralus is the big one?)

Trivium - Ascendancy

Within Temptation

I was also lobbied to include hardcore - but it feels culturally and ideologically if not necessarily musically quite a different space from metal so I'm going to park it for now.

No Metallica, curiously.

Metal week: Father's Day hard rock intermission

In honour of Father's Day, I'm going to pick five of (what I hope are) my Dad's favourite hard rock numbers from the 60's and 70's. 

In a tragic loss both to my Dad and his children's musical education, his entire record collection got stolen in Manchester some time in the early 1970's. To be fair, he had left it in his car. With the only copy of his PhD thesis, prior to its submission.

The family joke is that the thesis was found in a skip, with corrections. The records never turned up, and I'm not sure he's ever gotten quite over the trauma.

Be that as it may, with a combination of Record Collection Mark 2 and passing on memories of gigs and Record Collection Mark 1, he did successfully instill in me, my brother and my sister a not very latent interest in 60's and 70's hard and blues rock.

In a way, the fact I'm sitting here listening to Opeth right now can be traced back to my Dad playing me some of the classics below as an impressionable youth. 

1. Led Zeppelin - Heartbreaker

As a child I got very excited when the riff suddenly pivots mid-way through the song.

2. Fleetwood Mac - Oh Well

Could have gone with The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown) but will satisfy myself with noting that this is a very metal song title.

3. Thin Lizzy - That Woman's Gonna Break Your Heart

Lyrical misunderstanding: I used to think that said woman was going to wreck Phil Lynott's hair rather than just mess with this head.

4.  Free - All Right Now

Let's move before they raise the parking rate? Yeah, 'cause that's what The Man does.

5.Nazareth - Razzamanazz

One of Dad's epic losses from Record Collection Mark 1, forever spoken of in reverent tones.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Metal week: On volume

Amplification and volume create altered states - are psychedelic. Therefore metal is also psychedelic; a music which grips you by lizard brain, by gut and sinew, rather than 'merely' by heart and head.

There's a reason why I wear earplugs to most gigs these days, and it's name is Earth.

I'm at the back of the concert room in The Hare & Hounds, so far away from the stage I'm practically in the doorway, half-reeling, half-dancing. On stage, Dylan Carlson and his band Earth play their metallic instrumental blues very slowly, very loudly. They use their amplifier stacks as a fifth player, as each note from the guitar triggers another reverbration which breaks over and through the audience.

I've had to back away from the stage to a place where I can bear the impact but I'm still overwhelmed by the volume and the music to the point where choice has been taken from me and it's all I can feel.

And this was the comparatively mellow modern incarnation of Earth. Compare and contrast:

1. Earth: Omens and Portents II: Carrion Crow - latter day Earth, wierdly polite and Dad-friendly for home listening, like David Pajo-era Tortoise rocking out (!) even if you can still feel the reverb beneath. 

2. Earth: Tibetan Quaaludes - during the 'inventing drone metal' years.

I haven't yet experienced overlords of volume worship Sunn O))) yet - live and to be honest I'd be a little scared of them in an enclosed space. And that's because they sound like this on record.

3. Sunn O))): Caveman Orthodox
Told you. 

Even on my battered old stereo, with one speaker weaving in and out, this growling treacle-drone of a riff - never mind a song - takes over the fricking room as I type. 

One of the things I want to touch on in another post is how the lines between metal and ritual music have become increasingly blurred for me. Part of that is lyrical, part aesthetic, but some of it is also volume and repetition. Sunn O))) make spiritual music, whether they would describe it as such.

The loudest band I've ever heard were Monarch, at Supersonic 2011. I remember nothing coherent about them save a) they played at a rate that made Sunn O))) sound like speed metal b) they had a female vocalist c) they were so loud they blotted out all rational thought. 

I overuse and misappropriate the word 'awesome', but Monarch were awesome in the no- questions-asked, staggering, definitive sense.