Pushing Sonic Boundaries and Fighting Bigots
The best music from the week of 10/9, how to identify and avoid bigoted black metal, and a whole lot more
Writing this newsletter, every week presents a new set of challenges. Some weeks nothing clicks. Other weeks it feels like there’s an avalanche of incredible music. Sometime around Monday, I was beginning to grow concerned that there wouldn’t be much to tell you about this week, nothing seemed to gel. As is often the case, the instant that thought entered my mind I was slapped in the face with two albums that may just be two of the best metal records this year.
If this was a children’s story, a fable or something from the Brothers Grimm, the moral might be “never give up, something good is always around the corner.” But this isn’t a children’s story, it’s a newsletter. The real moral of the story is that you don’t have to listen to 30-50 hours of metal a week, because you shouldn’t. That’s something an insane person would do. A sane person would just read this.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Arkheron Thodol - Rituals of the Sovereign Heart
Anyone with a penchant for relentless discovery knows that there’s nothing more exciting when you find a band that basically no one has heard. This past week Arkheron Thodol provided a glimpse of that joy. With only 247 monthly listeners on Spotify at the time of writing, Arkheron Thodol may as well not exist as far as the world is concerned, but Rituals of the Sovereign Heart makes a compelling case for them as the best atmoblack artist this year.
Mostly instrumental, with completely unintelligible lyrics (without a lyrics sheet at least) this is atmoblack in its purest form. It almost completely forgoes the usual shoegaze and indie elements that made the genre so popular back in 2013, trading them for harsher crescendos and more intricate guitar work. The result is magnificent. Instead of a shimmering soup of guitar, the instruments stand out with impressive clarity and technicality. A look at the group’s lineup reveals why. Nestled at the bottom of the Bandcamp page, there sits Mycah Tippit playing a twelve string guitar. Per Wikipedia, a 12 string guitar “produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar.” This grants the music a startling tone that stands out against even the most accomplished black metal acts.
With such an ambitious choice in instrument secured, Arkheron Thodol was free to remove the limiters from the album. Rituals of the Sovereign Heart is not for the weak. This is not the atmoblack that you can sell someone who has never heard metal. It is fast, blistering and completely relentless. But when the crescendos peak on “A Glimpse of Woven Light” before falling away, it’s like Moses glimpsing the back of God. All that you can do is sit there, slack jawed, wishing to live in that moment forever.
If any song were to serve as a good intro for the band, “Archonsbane in Bloom” would be the closest one could get. Calling upon the more folkloric sounds of black metal, Arkheron Thodol weave a soothing atmosphere around sounds that should shatter reality. The center section wields piano like a ray of light, cutting through clouds of black metal with each tap of the keys. It’s the closest Rituals of the Sovereign Heart ever gets to peaceful.
Those looking to dive right into the chaos should head straight for “Animist Elixir.” The guitar work rings out like little else in metal, and the precise touch of the twelve string makes for a memorable tone as the lead six string pierces your eardrums. Following this track with the crushing “Void Secretion” makes for a perfect transition. Numerous key changes keep you on your toes as the song rips the Earth apart beneath your feet. But there’s always a pervasive brightness, a hope, that prevents the record from shifting into the dour.
If you head to Arkheron Thodol’s Bandcamp page, they handily translate their name as “To Liberate the Primordial Song of Joy.” Rituals of the Sovereign Heart captures this perfectly. It is cruel, violent, aggressive and unrelenting. But unlike so many of their contemporaries in the world of black metal, Arkheron Thodol adds joy to the mixture, lifting the potency of every emotion in the process.
Face Ripping Metal From this Week
What this week may have lacked in volume, it more than made up for in quality. This week we have two albums that earned an 8/10 or higher, three if you count the AOTW, and 3 that were on the cusp. As always the albums that received an 8/10 are in bold type, and the albums are not listed in any particular order.
To make this newsletter more welcoming to all who may wish to get into extreme metal, we’re slightly tweaking things. If an album has particularly obscene material, it will be marked with a content warning. There is plenty of metal that pushes boundaries, and plenty of obscene material that is truly excellent, but it’s up to you if you want to hear it, and a warning is only fair.
Repuked - The Dawn of Reintoxication (CW: Extreme Violence, Gore)
This week we’re also unveiling our brand new Spotify playlist, Fresh Kills. The playlist consists of the best tracks each month, and includes tracks from highlighted albums and even some from albums that didn’t quite make the cut. At the beginning of a new month I’ll start to scrub out the tracks from the previous month in the interest of discovery.
Pushing the Boundaries of Sound with Neurot Recordings
As many of the bands featured this week have proven, metal isn’t just sweeping solos and blast beats. It can be droning, strange and downright experimental. The folks over at Neurot Recordings are hell-bent on proving that metal can push boundaries just as far as any other genre.
Founded by members of Neurosis and Tribes of Neurot, it’s not hard to see why Neurot Recordings has become a cornerstone of experimental metal. Their releases run the gamut from sludge and doom all the way to noise and ambient, but are all connected by a boundless respect for craft and artistry.
Since being founded in 1999, Neurot recordings has delivered some of the most ambitious music of any record label, metal or otherwise. Their star-studded roster includes their own bands Neurosis and Tribes of Neurot, but digging into the rest of their catalog reveals the real gems. Groups like Harvestman, Isis, Kowloon Walled City, Oxbow, YOB, The Body & Full of Hell (collab), and Ufomammut flicker like Christmas lights on their artists page. Each of these bands has been foundational in the realm of experimental metal. Many of them, such as Kowloon Walled City and YOB, push the limits of the style even today.
What sets Neurot apart isn’t their careful curation, it’s their lack of it. Per their about page the label is “committed to releasing other artists who feel the fires of inspiration.” The label’s only requirement is that artists must create “original, emotional and epic” music and sound art. Such an open view of collaboration and idea sharing has resulted in music that will challenge, frustrate and enlighten even the most seasoned of metalheads.
If a new experience in metal is what you’ve been craving, head over to Neurot’s Bandcamp page to get a taste of the most ambitious music on the planet.
Malicious Merchandise
This week’s merchandise highlight comes from stoner-doom standouts Frayle. As noted worshippers of the riff, Frayle calls to mind bits of Earth, Sleep and Sabbath, but even then they stand in a category of their own. Founded by Gwyn Strang and Sean Bilovecky, Frayle excels at mashing together crushing riffs with dreamy vocals. Their own website describes their sound as “ exist(ing) at the intersection of doom and dream pop.” They’ve adapted this unique style into their merchandise through their slogan of “Stoner Witch Doom.” Their guitar pick, bandana, and button and sticker set are all some of the year’s most eye catching metal merch. Though none of these items are particularly unheard of, their use of non-standard occult designs mixed with Black Sabbath’s aesthetic make these all must-buys for any stoner doom fan.
Getting Real - A Brief History of Black Metal and How to ID & Avoid Nazi Metal Bands
In the cold winter months of 1981 a storm was brewing. Fresh off of a three day cycle of relentless recording, Venom was gearing up to release the classic Welcome to Hell, redefining the landscape of metal forever. The release was a resounding success. Its unpolished sound, speed and unrelenting nature became formative influences on extreme metal subgenres like thrash metal and death metal. Upon its eventual release in Norway, the sounds heard on Welcome to Hell had taken on a new name — black metal.
For nearly ten years, the underground genre was able to exist in relative peace. Despite media outlets getting riled up by the genre’s Satanic imagery, groups like Hellhammer, Bathory, and Mercyful Fate enjoyed small but dedicated followings, and mostly kept to themselves.
Cut to the ‘90s. An explosion of interest in black metal has exposed thousands to the extreme subgenre. Groups like Mayhem, Darkthrone, and Burzum are ruling the walkmen of teens and twenty-somethings across Europe. Then it all, just, crumbles.
1991, Mayhem’s lead singer, “Dead,” commits suicide. The surviving members of Mayhem continue to release music, and use the unedited photo of Dead’s body as the album cover of their bootleg live album, Dawn of the Black Hearts. The scene grows more erratic.
1992, numerous Christian churches in Norway are burned down in a string of arson attacks. The churches burned down include Stave Churches, which are considered to be important historical landmarks in Norway. Some of the bands involved, or alleged to be involved in the burnings include Burzum, Mayhem and Emperor.
1993 would prove to be the tipping point. On August 10th, Varg Vikernes (of Burzum) and Euronymous (of Mayhem) got into a violent confrontation. By the end of it, Euronymous lay dead in a pool of blood. The coroner’s report would reveal 23 cut wounds inflicted by Vikernes, 16 of them were on Euronymous’ back.
Alarmed by the remarkable outpouring of death and violence in the scene, the general public denounced the genre as evil, vile and hateful. Vikernes would spend the rest of his life trying to prove these people right, espousing hateful rhetoric on par with Hitler wherever he went.
Today, we still struggle with the issue of Nazism and other hateful beliefs in the extreme metal underground. As recently as this year, bands as popular as Iceage have run into controversy for either being associated with known Neo-Nazi’s or being Neo Nazi’s themselves. To some, it may seem easier to avoid the subgenre altogether, and that’s completely fair. But to those of us who are in the scene, the onus is on us to keep hateful people out of it.
But that wraps us back to the biggest question. How? It’s a question that’s more than fair. If a band as well known as Iceage can keep it hidden for this long, a band with less than 500 monthly listeners on Spotify will have that much easier of a time keeping their hate a secret. Thankfully, most of these bands are too egocentric and vile to even try to keep it a secret.
The easiest way to find out if a band might traffic in Nazi ideology is to check out their album art and their song titles. Most of them will include hate symbols, either outright or referentially. Some of the more popular symbols include the obvious Swastika, the number 88 and runes. While some of these hate symbols are obvious, and can have no other meaning outside of spreading racism, hate and violence, some symbols, particularly Nordic Runes, are used innocently. Some good examples of innocent Nordic Runes include this week’s AOTW, Arkheron Thodol, and last week’s label highlight, Bindrune Recordings. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has assembled a near-comprehensive list of known hate symbols that you can use to identify these bands.
Of course, not every band tries to hide their Nazism behind coded symbols. Many bands that are part of the NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) movement simply shout it out in their lyrics and song titles. If a song title sets off an alarm, or a lyric sounds “off” it’s worth searching the band’s name to see if anyone else has outed the group as a Nazi group. Most of the phrases to look out for can be found within the aforementioned ADL page. Most bands that have been outed as being part of the NSBM scene can be found on this wiki page, which lists known NSBM groups.
While there are no perfect methods, these are all good ways to keep yourself from accidentally supporting bands that spread hate, weaken the scene and, more importantly, hurt people. There’s no such thing as “scene police” so it’s the job of the scene to police its own community. It’s my job, it’s your job, it’s the job of the person on-stage and the person running into you in the mosh pit. To pull from a public safety message, “If you see something, say something.” Every Nazi kicked out of the scene means that one more person feels comfortable joining, one more person feels comfortable making music. The less hate there is in extreme metal, the better off we all are, because that means we get more music that we’ve never heard, and that new people get to find enjoyment in metal. There’s no drawback to kicking these people out of the scene, only benefits.
If you’re interested in a more detailed history of NSBM and how it came to be, this article by Adam Schragin in Tablet Magazine is an excellent resource, and was used to write this section of the newsletter.
Non metal AOTW
Future Islands - As Long As You Are
Sometimes an album just leaps out of your headphones and swallows you whole. This rare feeling is special enough when it happens once, but Future Islands latest record, As Long As You Are, does it time and time again. The way that Samuel T. Herring’s gorgeous, unorthodox and soulful vocals merge with the thrumming synth is like being wrapped up in a warm blanket. And it pulls off this snuggly sensation without being dull or predictable. Future Islands have assembled one of the best “anytime” albums. Give it a listen and watch as it slowly infects your rotation.
Non-metal merch
Amnesia Scanner isn’t a fan of boundaries in any sense. Their glitchy, garbled music often resembles a panic attack more than the intellectual IDM of Aphex Twin or Autechre. The best description of their music to date remains the passing comment made by a friend who said that it “sounds like robots getting tortured.” Amnesia Scanner carries this madness into their aesthetic too. Much of their merch features crudely drawn human figures in what could generously be described as “inappropriate positions.” While this piece of merch is one of their more appropriate pieces, it’s still a bit of a weird one. The use of reflective material on the logo clashes violently with the orange. It’s like a high beam that you put on, and it couldn’t be more characteristic of the group.
Squinting at Tomorrow’s Sun
This past Friday saw some of the most exciting releases in music this year. Not only are there a bunch of great metal and metal adjacent bands like HEALTH and Spirit Adrift releasing long awaited projects, but there were a ton of exciting non-metal releases as well.
Metal
HEALTH
Spirit Adrift
Molassess
Wayfarer
Non Metal
Open Mike Eagle
Autechre
Dorian Electra
Woodkid
Sturgill Simpson
If there were any releases outside of those that caught your eye, drop a comment so that we can all check them out!
Shrinekeeping
Thanks to a reader suggestion you now have access to a playlist containing the best music of each month. The playlist, Fresh Kills, will be refreshed every month once so there’s a time limit on the list itself. Click on the button below to start listening to the playlist on Spotify.
It should go without saying but the music, song titles and album covers may all contain NSFW elements. So if you’re going to listen to music at work (and you’re not working from home) make sure to bring a pair of headphones.
That’s all for this week. If you liked the newsletter, consider sharing it with a friend by clicking the share button below.
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Until next weekend, sate your bloodlust with the Apotheosis Fresh Kills playlist. Gotta keep those teeth sharp if you wanna make it out of the Devil Pit unharmed.