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The artists that speak most to me tend to speak ineffably. They convey feelings without names, gray areas between coarse distinctions like happiness and sadness. One of my favorite such feelings could be called “hollowness,” though that’s not fully descriptive. Dub reggae is hollow, for example, and doesn’t always speak to me. Both sound and harmonic content have to embody this feeling. Successful instances: Prong, Beg to Differ and Prove You Wrong. Metallica, …And Justice for All. Later Coroner. Godflesh, Pure – but not Streetcleaner, which is very “filled in.”
Godflesh as black metal might sound like Brown Jenkins. This Austin-based one-man outfit runs Godflesh’s discordant open strings through creaky production. The cold goosestep rhythms come from Joy Division, though I also hear Killing Joke. I can’t tell the songs apart, but no matter – the sound is so grippingly personal that I’m content to wallow in its frigid dirtbath. The growling is incomprehensible, and the promo came with no lyrics, yet this record chills my marrow. The triumph of sound over language is the apex of metal; however unconventionally, Brown Jenkins has hit it.
Had only read about this project in the past. This is – unfortunately, actually – pretty damn cool, because I absolutely fucking despise the band name “Brown Jenkins”, and honestly don’t think I could bring myself to listen to a black metal band with such a fucking stupid sounding band name.
I know that’s stupid, especially coming from a guy that fucking loves Alien Ant Farm (another band whose name I absolutely abhor), but… it’s just DIFFERENT in this case, because it doesn’t fit. It sounds “ironic” and cheesy, like it’s supposed to be funny, but the music is just… NOT.
I guess it’s a Lovecraft thing, but… still. It annoys the shit outta me. And I really liked his work in Starshine as well. I know I should get over the name thing, I’m just an ass about stuff like that. I don’t know…
Well, as I stated on my own blog on Sunday, I’ve pretty much given up on black metal. The reviewer I assigned this to for Edge kinda dug it, though.
“The triumph of sound over language is the apex of metal;”
I disagree rather strongly, but won’t invite an argument here or now!
Andrew – it took me a while to get past the name, too. But I got past it. The music speaks for itself.
Phil – black metal is overrun with orthodoxy, but then again, so is all music. The trick is to find the 5% that is good. One you “get it,” you will *get it*. Black metal fans are among the most passionate music fans out there.
Helm – I know you’re a lyrics guy, but I’d argue for the primacy of guitars over lyrics. You can have metal without the latter but not the former. Rob Halford is a good example of sound triumphing over language.
It’s interesting that some people have such a problem with the name of the band…it’s not meant to be cheesy, funny, ironic, or anything like that. It’s simply named after a creature from one of Lovecraft’s stories. Perhaps because the name is so familiar to me I don’t really hear it anymore, I just associate it with certain images from the story. I have no interest whatsoever in being an orthodox black metal person and I don’t use any of the archetypes of the genre, I think, other than a little of Burzum’s musical language and the black and white imagery. But that also just comes natural to me…it’s what I feel to be natural, anyway. None of it is contrived, planned, made to manipulate, or anything like that. I write music because I love it and because I want to write something I would want to listen to, other than that I’m just lucky other people want to listen to it too. If it means something to them, that’s great. It would be really, really easy to just write orthodox, by-the-numbers black metal and be in a successful band, that stuff writes itself. It’s much more fun/challenging to create something intensely personal and then also have it framed in a language that still communicates.
I think anyone who has read Dreams in the Witch House late at night will understand this music and how the band name perfectly fits.
To the author of the music (apparently right above here), please continue. You’ve made something really fantastic. The only other group that’s done something like this is Blut aus Nord.
There’s plenty of metal influenced lyrically by Lovecraft, but hardly any that have Lovecraft’s atmosphere. This does!
Thanks man, I appreciate it. It’s always really nice to know there are people out there who can hear what I’m trying to say.
Otherwise music can get really, really frustrating.