. . .
“The solemn stillness of these grand old woods,
Amid whose labyrinthine paths I roam,
Sinks to the very soul, and so reveals
A language which the heart alone can read.
This is the land of shadows! Human life,
Save that within my breast, is here unknown.”
–Joseph Lemuel Chester, “Geenwood Cemetery”
In its oddly ancient way, Brooklyn seems like the perfect place for black metal. Compared to the compact insanity of Manhattan, Brooklyn is a sprawl of metro-industrial life, the iron foothills of the concrete jungle. Many of the nightmares that plagued the genre’s forefathers in late-’80s Norway are abstractly represented here: the blasé state-sponsored Christianity of there and then becomes the cutthroat economic everyday of here and now, and the forgotten pagan traditions of the old Vikings are now the hundreds of splintered ethnic identities that shed their blood and sweat across this borough. And in 2011, the slowly-mutating black metal sound coming out of Brooklyn seemed to come entirely into its own, stretching its sound in a crescendo that could no longer be ignored by the metal and mainstream press alike.
New York has always been a place where brilliant new music, metal or not, often develops in obscurity. But obviously, the overlap of the indie rock/hipster culture with the kvlt contingent has informed metal in Brooklyn. The new breed of young artists filling Williamsburg and Greenpoint are drawn to black metal for many of the same reasons they are attracted to Brooklyn: a mix of ironic derision and genuine reverence for its history. These disparate influences took hold in black metal’s soaring bleakness and added to it healthy doses of post-punk, hardcore, and shoegaze drone. The resulting sound is both emotional and unrelenting, soothing yet cacophonic, sacred and profane. Though it may sound very different from the misanthropic chugs of Hellhammer and Bathory, this new breed continues the tradition of intuitively channeling the deafening scream of one looking into the horror of his or her own soul.
The most recognizable face of Brooklyn black metal is Liturgy, whose Aesthetica was released to both critical acclaim and condemnation. The album itself is a magnesium flare of cocaine-flavored blackened noise, breathing stark yet intelligent new life into the genre with its whirling major chords and chattering drums. The band received untold amounts of mainstream press coverage, including repeated mentions in The New Yorker and placement on New York Magazine’s back-page Approval Matrix (the record is placed all the way at the ‘Brilliant’ edge, hovering just over the line separating ‘Highbrow’ and ‘Lowbrow’). But the album’s crossover ability also made the band a favorite punching bag within the scene—it turns out, the thought process goes, that to get noticed as a black metal musician, you have to act like you’re not a black metal musician. In that way, Aesthetica is a perfect snapshot of the larger perception of the Brooklyn scene: a reinvention of the genre that got a little too brainy for its own good.
But Liturgy’s impact in 2011 can’t simply be judged by Aesthetica. Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, the band’s willowy frontman, became the official poster boy for false metal this year, prompting everything from casual Internet hateration to open letters from other independent metal bands deeming him pretentious and obnoxious. These claims seem to be tied to Hunt-Hendrix’s need to tout the band as “transcendental black metal”. And while his claims do seem self-serving and over-intellectualized (his publishing a tract outlining the transcendental black metal philosophy doesn’t help), Hunt-Hendrix is not the only person to speak out against traditional frost-bitten grimness; no one seemed terribly unnerved when Wolves In The Throne Room’s Aaron Weaver publicly announced his band’s separation from the right-hand-path magic of old-school Norse black metal. By being the right kind of kid—skinny jeans, loose T-shirt, quiet disposition, a seemingly stereotypical “Brooklyn hipster”—Hunt-Hendrix has made himself a polarizing figure in the scene.
After all, mainstream coverage and non-traditional influences do not a hipster make. This year, Brooklyn’s Krallice released Diotima, their third-full length album and the third in a row to receive rave reviews from both the metal press and Ben Ratliff of The New York Times. Like Liturgy, Krallice have been present and thriving in the New York scene for years, and have come fully into form as a staple of the scene in 2011. Sonically, Diotima is a leaden emotional maelstrom, an ever-churning sea of long-form sorrow with an unhinged sense of melody even darker and more foreboding than that of 2009’s Dimensional Bleedthrough. But though they have a similar sound to Liturgy’s —the jangling melodic noise, the bright rattling percussion, the wash-blend of vocals—Krallice remain a revered band in the metal scene, and many see their divergences from black metal traditions as experimenting in darkness rather than conforming to the “Williamsburg sound”.
“I’m not sure there is such a thing as a unifying sound in terms of what’s going on here with black metal,” says Lev Weinstein, Krallice’s drummer. “There’s a great homogeny of bands making music here, but I don’t think there’s a distinct sound. I honestly get kind of frustrated, reading mainstream stuff that doesn’t mention any other black metal bands. Like we jumped out of nowhere, fully-formed. There’s never anything there in terms of the progenitors . . . I just don’t understand, from a musical point of view, how you can ignore that. Like, I love Wolves In The Throne Room, both musically and as people, but I think the long-form atmospheric stuff has been there for a long time. I think there are some very novel things going on here—I like Tombs and Liturgy, but I don’t think those bands sound anything like each other, nor do I think we necessarily sound like either one”.
Weinstein touches on a good point: in the modern metal scene, certain musical attributes—long-form songs, pained emotionality in the guitar parts, a sense of atmospheric nihilism—earns a band the term “blackened”. It has become its own subdivision of metal’s many subdivisions, a term that is only semi-tangible. One such example is Tombs, the third and perhaps most important of the bands producing new extreme music in Brooklyn in 2011. With this year’s Path of Totality, Tombs have fused hardcore, thrash, doom, and goth to create a sweeping collection of paeans to anxiety, despair, and inevitability which is part of almost every metal press outfit’s Top Ten of 2011. And though not traditional black metal, the band is almost always referred to as ‘blackened’—blackened hardcore, blackened doom, blackened whatever. In certain ways, the adjective grasps the similarities between the band and their peers; in others, it’s just a word.
Mike Hill of Tombs goes with “black metal-influenced” in describing his band’s music. To him, much of the music coming out of New York isn’t necessarily black metal because of its variation from the norm. “Krallice is a black metal-influenced metal band, but I’m not sure they’re black metal music,” he says. “That first wave of black metal . . . like, Venom. Venom were kind of a joke. But Bathory and Celtic Frost really were it, with that dark philosophical anti-Christian feeling. And the second wave, all the Norwegian bands, took it from there and made it something. If there’s a band from here who are really doing black metal, it’s Black Anvil. They’re really fast and filthy”. Though a huge fan of the genre, Hill doesn’t consider his band necessarily part of it. The Brooklyn sound is really just a matter of where the good music is. “I just can’t personally identify any sort of music scene that interests me, as far as Manhattan and New York City proper. I don’t listen to hip-hop or party music or indie rock. In general, Brooklyn just has more of an underground style—they sell records, they put on shows”.
Indeed, Brooklyn’s metal output is far from just those things grim and necro. Plenty of local talents, from the crushing doomscapes of Hull to the old-school thrashings of Mutant Supremacy, are thriving in the city’s underground. But 2011 undoubtedly marks the year that Brooklyn’s far-out black metal scene went big-time, and there exists both the music and press coverage to show for it. On the one hand, maybe there will be the backlash, a movement to shake off the experimental gloom and noise-rock accessibility of the genre, in return for something uglier, less likely to interest outsiders. Or perhaps the music will keep growing outwards, the light of prominence allowing it to mutate into a stronger, darker sonic beast. Why New York has become its chosen soil is, at the end of the day, a moot point.
Mike Hill puts it simply: “This is a really hard place to live. You’ve got garbage, angry people, rats, and debris everywhere. There are so many people around at all times, but everyone is an island in New York. People who’ve lived here their whole lives, you can see it in them—they look worn down, like the nub of a human being. You need to express that negativity”.
. . .
FURST!
“…cocaine-flavored blackened noise”
I haven’t tasted it personally, but I understand the flavor of cocaine is a bit similar to aspirin.
this kind of writing destroys any further interest in this ass clown’s post, not to mention highlighting trash like Krallic and Liturgy instead of the other great Brooklyn bm acts
Names?
VILLAINS. Mutilation Rites, The Howling Wind. Raspberry Bulbs too I guess?
Though I’m a fan of Krallice as well.
Also, while I kind of agree with Ian and Yawn’s sentiment of “why are we still talking about this, it’s okay we can move on now,” I think it says something that there is already a newer band-from Brooklyn as well-that’s basically a clone of the Krallice/Liturgy style of black metal, called Yellow Eyes.
What it says exactly I’m not sure. That people (and bands, in extension) are unimaginative and only willing to follow in the footsteps of others?
This is a great, insightful, and (mostly) thorough article. Just two points I want to make:
1. I’m wondering what progenitors Weinstein was talking about.
2. I’m sick and tired of music journalists poo-pooing metalheads’ hatred of Liturgy as merely hating it because it’s different and doesn’t follow our rules. That’s only a tiny part of it. There are plenty of us who like Deafheaven but hate Liturgy–like Josh Haun (link) and myself (link). Since the guys in those bands look pretty much the same and they both have a hipster-friendly sound, it’s pretty clear you can’t make such a dismissive assumption.
I was wondering to whom Lev was referring as well.
And it’s true, most of the Liturgy fatigue I’ve experienced stems from people disliking the music. I don’t think anybody cares that HHH has his “philosophy”, if anything it’s that there’s so much better music around this neighborhood that loses coverage because people distracted by all the bells and whistles.
(I still gotta get that Deafheaven record, the clip here piqued my interest.)
I can’t speak for the author’s intent, but I’m not sure anyone would assume that the Liturgy hatred/fatigue stems only from the band being “different and not following our rules.” I think there’s a genuine curiosity on the part of journalists trying to pin down exactly where it does stem from. FMA, you and Josh are hardly representative of the metal community at large or that segment of the community that seems most aggravated by Liturgy. I’ve seen some really bizarre and unsettling invective directed toward the band on different forums (not here, I’m thankful to say).
There are so many examples of bands branching outward from “tr00″ black metal that the focus on this one in particular is vexing, I think. (I say this as someone who has tried to but cannot enjoy Liturgy’s music.) Deafheaven is one (although there’s no shortage of Deafheaven hatred to be found, too). I think Liturgy — totally coincidentally — sits at a unique locus that also acts as a target for this venom. It’s no one thing, but it’s everything: Brooklyn, the manifesto, Thrill Jockey, the singer who looks like an American Apparel model, the explosion of black metal into the “alternative” mainstream in general… Plus the fact that they make music that tries to push the boundaries further than it actually does (in my opinion).
There’s an interesting piece in this month’s Spin Magazine by Chris Weingarten, wherein the author discusses the phenomenon with HHH, Krallice’s Nick McMaster and a few others. McMaster basically says, “We wanted to be a metal band, so we turned down shows with indie acts.” HHH seems to have no such boundaries, and I think some of the hatred stems from that. Not liking his music is not unreasonable; not accepting it as valid is something else altogether.
For me, it’s primarily the gap between what Liturgy claims to be (“transcendent”, the manifesto) and what it is (to my ears, nothing special. Not terrible, not like a Brokencyde take on black metal or anything, just…nothing special). But there are all kinds of bands like that, who are all “blah blargh elite black metal art” and sound like dozens of other bands.
I think what makes Hendrix especially annoying (besides his name, because “Hunter Hunt-Hendrix” is one of the douchiest names ever written) is that he’s positioning his music that way while not paying respect (or even lip service) to the larger musical tradition, and in fact running away from it. It’s worse than musical carpetbagging, because the ultimate effect isn’t just that he’s trying to co-opt something he doesn’t necessarily understand or respect, but that he actually sees himself above it. And that, I think, is pretty offensive in any genre of music.
Cliff, that’s a really astute analysis. I don’t know enough about the man or the band to either second it or challenge it, but based on what little I do know, it sounds kind of accurate to me.
Cliff, you said it better than anyone else. Perfect analysis.
Exactly what “pretentious” means. “Characterized by assumption of dignitiy or importance”, “making claim to distinction or importance, esp undeservedly”.
I agree about everything, including the douchy name (which I hadn’t thought of before).
“they make music that tries to push the boundaries further than it actually does”
Agreed. I’m sure I said something similar about it in some forum, but I can’t seem to find it.
As to the larger point, black metal as a genre is itself in a unique position, being mined by people who can’t really be classified as metalheads and yet retaining a rabid, sometimes xenophobic (after a fashion) fan base. I’m not sure whether Liturgy is special, as far as that goes. They are at a convergence of successfully generated controversy, pretentiousness, being absolutely awful, and fooling many people into thinking they’re great. That’s what irks me about it, anyway. But it’s nowhere nearly as irksome as all the people who like the music and go on to ascribe all hatred of the band to a metal xenophobia.
Aesthethica is the emperor’s new clothes. It’s the abstract art paintings created by children and sold as the work of a genius. It’s a fine barometer to test whether someone can discern the difference between genuine brilliance and pretentious garbage.
Cliff, that was really incisive. I’d like to add a few things from my perspective on Hunter-Hunt-Huntington’s douchebaggery:
1) Not only is he co-opting, but he’s arrogantly claiming to create an ‘American black metal’ in his retarded thesis. I don’t think America needs a black metal ’scene’ or a ‘distinct sound.’ The 2nd wave Norse and Greek scenes were more groups of bands that existed at the same time. The 2nd wave bands were musically somewhat similar, but to me all managed to create or communicate the same feelings. Which leads to…
2) Liturgy and HHH fail to understand what black metal is all about, and why certain things about it can’t be changed. Ever. Liturgy doesn’t feel majestic, cold, grim, full of fury, or anything else that black metal either creates in or communicates to the listener. Fail to create or communicate one of those emotions, and sorry, it’s not black metal. Liturgy is trebly meandering unstructured noise. It’s like Sonic Youth trying to cover Nattens Madrigal. It’s a hipster kid screeching.
3) because HHH doesn’t understand black metal, and perhaps because he knows he’s full of shit, he’s slathering it all in this faux-intellectualism. There are plenty of bands playing black metal and pushing the genre forward without all of this douchey bullshit. Enslaved, DSO, Blut Aus Nord, Oranssi Pazuzu, Wolves in the Throne Room, Blutmond, and Glorior Belli amongst others…shit, Thorns pushed the genre a billion miles further than Liturgy, and they did that, what, over a decade ago?
4) I get the impression that HHH not only doesn’t get black metal, but that he’s weeding out all the uncool stuff so that he can make a ‘black metal’ band that is ’smart’ enough for the cool kids who aren’t metal. Corpse paint? Satan? Blashrykh, Mighty Ravendark? Mist, mountains, and mystery? Fuck it! Throw it all out the window!
And ss Full Metal Attorney says above, the Emperor ain’t got no clothes.
/rant off
Man, this Liturgy issue is sure interesting to follow. I’d never heard of them before just a few weeks ago, and wow. Lynch ‘em, you all.
First and foremost, I’d like to say I’m only about the music. I never go to a band’s website or look up pics of them. I rarely even fiddle with getting the album art correct in iTunes. Music, for me, is about my ears. Not my eyes, heart, sense of fashion, or ideals.
Standing as naked music, Liturgy is nothing special. I don’t ravenously hate it, but it’s not staying on my iPod, either.
There’re a few things I think everyone needs to take a step back from and contemplate:
First, there’s no sanctity in music, and thank God for that. I can’t stand going to last.FM anymore because of the comments. It’s nothing but hair-splitting bickering about genres. “F*CK YOUR MOTHER! THIS IS NOT BLACK METAL. It’s BLACKEND SLUDGE!!!”
This is dumb. I don’t see the need to be so protective of genres, especially to the point that it affects your ears. I’m guilty of it as well. I first heard Ghost expecting it to be some dark, evil boundary-pushing bleakness. The truth is, it’s not metal. It’s like if Styx loved satan a little more. When I adjusted my mindset–instead of thinking it was metal, just went with it as good ol’ rock…well. It’s not as bad as I used to think. This is something akin to drinking water but expecting it to taste like 7up. When you know it’s water, it’s great. When you expect something else—you can’t wrap your mind around how let down you feel. (this is why crystal pepsi failed).
But moreover, genre prejudice would stifle music from growing and expanding. I used to be into Post Rock, and then along came Post Metal, and the hell if there’s nothing out there now that’s NOT Post. Hardly anything is straight forward anymore, every new album by every band has some meandering faux loveliness to it. I say music should just be what it is and we should let things evolve however it does. It makes new things that are actually pretty great after the deformedo teenage gangly growing up years.
Second, hipsters will assimilate and devour everything anyone holds dear and spread their unholy brand of irony on it like a slug seeping pseudo-intellectual slime.
Man, I hate hipsters. I hate them and their philosophies because it’s a celebration of mediocrity. Their music inundates commercials on tv and every time I hear it, I think “THIS IS HOW MUSIC SOUNDS WHEN YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT MAKING IT.”
Hipsterism is the great equalizer. Hipsterism is a fantastic boom to ugly, untalented people everywhere. It’s a system that allows everyone who’s not good at anything to do EVERYTHING and either pretend it’s ironic or somehow intellectually artistic and beyond the zeitgeist’s comprehension.
It lacks any sincerity.
And that, I think, is ultimately the thing everyone hates about Liturgy. It’s so, extremely disingenuous.
In art school there was this kid who was “the artist” of the whole college. All the professors had him shadow in their classes and mentor us younglings. He had his pick of local galleries and strutted like the cock’o the walk.
His art was pointless. It was used pieces of carpet, stapled to a board, with white paint poured over it.
I quietly listened to everyone laud this jerkass, thinking the whole time “he’s…not good at ANYTHING. Even his thoughts and feelings are wrong.”
Finally, a real (known/established) artist came to campus to give a lecture. After the talk, he came to our painting studio to critic everyone’s paintings in progress.
Kevin (our campus hack) was busy painting a single square of carpet white. He’d glob on paint, take a step back to get the whole of it in his field of view, tilt his head contemplatively, approach the carpet and smear more paint in some arbitrarily specific spot.
The real artist came to him, looked at it, and said “well…this is bullshit.” I laughed so hard I had to leave the room. But it’s true. He confronted Kevin and asked the most simple (yet apparently there-before unasked) question: WHY. Why are you doing this? Why carpet, why white?
Kevin fumfered, trying to bullshit his way into a hipster-logic justification, but his voice quivered and the real artist was relentless. “You need to just stop this and figure out something you can make that means something. You’re trying too hard, and this (pointing at the white carpet painting)—THIS is wasting everyone’s time.”
It was so great to see some justice. But I have a point: it’s easy to make people think you’ve got something great going when in fact it’s misunderstood simply because there’s nothing to understand. It’s a cipher that was coded impossibly wrong. It’s not so ingenious we all can’t crack the mystery—it’s just wrong.
This too shall pass. Yes, Liturdgy (see what I did there?) fooled a lot of people into thinking they might be on to something great. Yes, it’s annoying that they get any attention. But they’ll fall off the map soon enough, and the hipsters will move onto the next thing. He’ll trade in his SG for a harmonium to do minimalist Nepalese dub step or whatever the next stupid passing fancy will be.
Take a lot of comfort in the fact that even HHH knows his art cannot stand on the merits of its own inherent value. It requires a manifesto, and tons of ideological stilting, and a stumping on it being so special. It’s propped up on a pedestal he created. “I’m important because I’m SPECIAL, and I’m special because I SAY SO.”
I have a sneaking suspicion he likes black metal ironically anyway, and that this album is a joke. Kind of his way of trying to mingle with the natives while looking extreme to his granny-glasses girlfriend. He’ll go away. This will all go away. Just you wait…
I love these comments.
Holy crap, what would you have done if a real (known/established) artist hadn´t rode up to save the day for ya princess? Would you still have been pondering about how you would go about to tell everyone that you had seen something they had not? Geez louise, give me a goddamn break her will you. Liturgy is a band good for bringing all you faggots to the table. HHH serves as your mirror, job well done for him.
TG-
HHH sure ain’t my mirror. i don’t own nearly enough V-neck t-shirts for that to be true…
De svette testiklene dine avslører deg, v-hals genser eller ei.
you leave my testicals out of this. a troll in Norwegian is a troll nonetheless.
Mutilation Rites rule.
EASILY MY FAVORITE BROOKLYN BM BAND RIGHT NOW.
I find Brooklyn interesting in that it effectively operates on so many different levels: you get the “dirty / hard” life that Mike Hill describes, which seems to stem from trying to live in the city without having much money. And then there’s the “hipster playground” life that so many non-metal indie bands operate within. From my experiences in Williamsburg, that life has more to do with privilege, and indulging in the slummy pleasures of partying on the edge of the wealth divide. I think Liturgy just get lumped in with the way people view Williamsburg, which, as soon as you decide the tunes aren’t exactly awesome, makes them so hate-worthy. Personally, I don’t mind the music that much, but I don’t reach for it either.
Interestingly, being in Los Angeles, which most folks just assume is the cultural asshole of the earth anyway, I’m starting to get a similar Brooklyn vibe from the current gentrification and revamping of downtown LA. For years people talked about Silverlake and Echo Park, but I think the current cultural crossover is happening just abreast of skid row. It’s weird to see it happen, but so far it has meant more venues for metal, so it’s cool with me.
Maybe I need to hit downtown LA more often to notice that, but I’d certainly agree to some extent that Silverlake and Echo Park are LA’s Williamsburg.
Wash, you’re right in that it’s a double-edged sword. There are more venues in WB/Greenpoint/Bushwick now, but it’s also really difficult to keep DIY type places functioning for any length of time. The allure of the place also creates a weird feedback loop of privilege rubbing elbows with romanticized poverty with actual poverty: condos go up next to warehouses and weird shit like that.
As another weird example of how things are here, there are now at least four “metal bars” in the area where just a couple years ago there was only one. Then again, it could be that what was hidden for so long is now acceptable to reveal to the public (you see more people dressed like old-school/traditional metalheads, etc.)
NEXT YEAR I’LL PROBABLY BE WRITING ABOUT CULVER CITY THRASH OR WHATEVER.
I really wish this statement (“to get noticed as a black metal musician, you have to act like you’re not a black metal musician”) was expanded upon in all of the Liturgy critiques I see. To me it’s the most obvious, but rarely noticed critiques of this band.
My biggest issue with the band is how blatantly they market themselves. They positioned the band (and I say they, but really it’s just Hendrix, here, right?) as the “metal band it’s ok to like if you hate metal.” Hendrix is very disingenuous when he talks about the intent of the band, because ultimately it’s to sell records, get people to come to shows and to achieve notoriety. And let’s be frank here: there’s nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is not admitting it.
Someone else said it already, but everything from the manifesto to the label they chose to the bands they play with (they have a small tour with Sleigh Bells coming up, which out of morbid curiosity I would love to see), is really just a very calculated, methodical marketing scheme.
“next year i’ll probably be writing about culver city thrash or whatever,” writes “scab casserole.” Time to critique the journalistic feeding frenzy surrounding this so-called new wave of brooklyn black metal. will the moronic writers of this sorry stuff every get past krallice, liturgy, and tombs? our author quotes Lev Weinstein essentially summing up the problem — that none of this mainstream criticism accounts for the genre progenitors and obvious influences exhibited by all of the newer bands, rendering such journalism incapable of sustaining an analysis of what’s going on. Tellingly, Casserole misses the point entirely, extracting from Weinstein’s useful observation an inane reduction about there being both black metal and “blackened” metal (welcome to 1989). As far as I can tell, this article’s thesis is as follows: New York might not seem like the perfect place for black metal, but, uhh, it kinda is, for kinda obvious reasons, and uhh, even though they’re like, a scene, the bands in the scene like, sound kinda different! The writer correctly identifies the combination of ironic distance and actual reverence that have produced this BM resurgence, but lapses into his own ironic distancing when he starts going on about “things grim and necro.” Even the fucking editor shows up in the comments and starts talking about “tr00″ BM.
You really can’t see what’s wrong with this picture? Tens of articles producing the same thesis, (that there, like, kinda is no thesis) about the same 3 fucking brooklyn black metal bands. the problem isn’t that you’re an outsider, or a “mainstream” journalist. the problem is that you simply haven’t made the effort whatsoever. You talk about “right-hand path magic” and fail to track down a single interesting new brooklyn BM band to write about. Much like HHH’s BM manifesto, this piece of writing positions itself above a genre it simply doesn’t understand, and doesn’t care to understand.
+1 for the above.
Fuck off nowadays ‘black metal’
SPOT ON guys! well written! this is the kind of high level writing I’m glad to see didn’t stop with Cosmo’s departure
Great post. Very analysis.
Mutilation Rites.
Did not even mention Mutilation Rites.
Ahahahahahahahahahaha…
Mutilation Rites!
1)Liturgy doesn’t float my boat. I’ve stated it too much already. This will be the last. Plus the guy was a philosophy major although he didn’t graduate. The drummer is kickass, but he left.
2)Living in Portland, OR, I hear alot of the same shit regarding our scene, the typical blah blah blah plus the annoying slew of New York Times’ “PDX-Brooklyn” connection hyping us as two peas in cultural pod. 3 bands does not a scene make, much less in one shitty and overplayed subgenre of heavy music.
3) As a subplot to Ian’s comment, and to wrap up my own reasons why, I see it as the writer(s) fault(s). The whole of goddam humanity is rife with shitty writers, poor communication skills and unfocused gibberish. Cosmo’s whole purpose to this enterprise was to encourage good writing, and instead its shitty scene reports, “why I like this” articles and lousy interviews. That’s the problem. I don’t give a shit about Brooklyn. I give a shit about metal. After all, it’s not the scene that matters–there’s plenty of good acts in places in between everywhere–I want to read about the tangible things in music that connect us, not what makes up a fucking scene.
@DBSJ – I love your Crystal Pepsi analogy. But at the same time, when you are expecting 7up, and it turns out to be flavorless carbonated water because the soda fountain has run out of syrup, you are equally disgusted initially (because of the surprise at not getting what you expected), but once you know what it is, it’s still terrible-tasting when you take a second sip (despite being prepared and knowing what to expect). That is to say, I might like water and 7up, although I don’t want water if I’m in the mood for 7up; but I don’t like soda water regardless of what I’m in the mood for. Some things are just terrible, no matter what you call it.
Also… your Kevin apparently turned out to be a pretentious shit. But in an alternate reality, he might have had a brilliant answer for why he did what he did- a long, moving, personal explanation for exactly what it meant to him. If that were the case, would you look at the ‘art’ any differently? Or at the ‘artist’? To me personally, if it’s ugly or stupid or I don’t like it, it usually wouldn’t make a difference to know it meant something or that there was a reason behind it. I might gain more respect for the artist- I hate what you do, but keep doing it if that’s what you like, and good luck to you. I was recently having a conversation similar to this, and I wish I had your story because it would have been way easier to explain. I caught Polkadot Cadaver live, and afterwards I could have said… Mr Bungle paint carpet squares white, which seems totally random and awful TO ME, although I’m sure they have their own artistic reasons for doing so. Some people might honestly appreciate the white squares, but most people see them and think there is a hidden meaning and they will look stupid if they don’t see it, so they pretend to appreciate it. These people, if they are artists themselves, don’t have whatever drove the original creator, they just see the aesthetics of the finished product and decide to paint cork tiles white, or paint carpet squares brown- because it would be cool too, right? That’s Polkadot Cadaver.
i prefaced what i said with the bit about music being for just the ears because i think things needs to stand on the merits of what they are, given whatever parameters govern said medium.
if i have to read a manifesto to understand why your music is ok to listen to, something’s seriously off. if i do a painting that you need to read an artist’s statement to appreciate, maybe i’m not fulfilling my visual requirements.
it just smacks of “lemme ’splain why this really doesn’t suck as much as you think it sucks.”
i think there’s a miscalculation in the human condition that causes us to believe a seemingly earnest effort in any artistic medium that we fail to understand must have some level of integrity. not just integrity, but high-mindedness. “wow this seems complicated. i don’t get it. it must be over my head.”
so someone paints carpet white, then mocks up an intellectual sounding (but still utter bullshit) rationale behind it.
i think a lot of the humans would be fooled into thinking “wow, there’s so much more to this. this white carpet is COMPLEX.”
the thing is, there’s two ways to look at it:
1. there IS a massively genius idea behind what is ultimately a poorly executed visual experience. conceptually valid, but still an artistic failure, nonetheless.
2. there is no good reason for what you do, so OF COURSE it’s a poorly executed visual experience. this is an artistic failure, wholly.
either way, does anyone in their right mind want to go out, go to a gallery, to a show, to look at white painted carpet on a wall?
no. no one on the planet does, not for the simple visual experience.
but when people think maybe there’s something well-thought-out behind it, and they “don’t get it,” they’ll want to–so they’ll get on board. “dude! white carpet! GENIUS!”
bringing that back to the music, like i said–if H-to-the-third-power has to prop up his mediocre music with a tyrannothesaurus rex’s worth of pseudo intellectual nonsense, clearly something’s not right. “you guys, just listen–i know it SOUNDS like it sucks, but read this verbose minutia that explains how it really doesn’t suck. THEN listen to it. you’ll see. SERIOUSLY LOOK AT THE WORDS I USED. you’ll need a dictionary. WHAT I’M DOING IS MEANINGFUUUUUUUUL.”
i think a lot of people who are pro-Liturgy are more afraid of missing something genius than actually really diggin’ the tunes.
but to answer your question, if something doesnt work as a stand-alone product, that’s kind of that. who cares what crutches you fluff it up with. Yoko can put an apple on a table in a gallery and pretend it “means something.”
it’s a fucking apple. on a table.
i’ve made the analogy before regarding Dark Castle.
if something pretty much sucks to listen to, does it deserve higher regard when you find out it was written by a guy who played the instruments with only his teeth? maybe it’s the best album ever performed by only teeth. but who cares if, in the end, you don’t want to listen to it?
Liturgy isn’t bringing anything with standalone merits. they have a few “yeah, alright, this” moments. but then you get whole songs of wanking off on a keyboard, or the idiotic vocal intro on the first track, or the final track that makes me want to go shove a child down by their face. GOD AWFUL. so many portions of this album are straight unlistenable. their best song is the instrumental track that is basically the same riff repeated ad nausum.
so they end up on some Urban Outfitter Comps, get on the radar of totally non-metal mainstream press/media, and all the real metal critics become terrified they might not recognize this next big thing. i think most of these people are just staring at white painted carpet, hoping that “it’s great but maybe i just don’t get it”…convincing themselves it must be good, because it insists so hard of itself.
@DBSJ: I take it you’re not a fan of Kasimir Malevich, then?
haha. mostly, no. at least not the suprematism stuff.
full disclosure: i’m a freelance commercial artist for a living. and i hate nearly all of modern art with a few exceptions of things i can’t get enough of (klimt, ruscha, etc). warhol, pollack, many others–kinda feel like we’re all the butt of their jokes.
suprematism: when something REQUIRES a manifesto, it’s just conceptual masturbation. if you find a Malevich black or white square in a thrift store, no one without an academic understanding of what it was would give a shit. because it’s simply not much to look at. “but wait–lemme explain why it actually doesn’t suck…”
i’m all about conceptual experimentation, but i don’t believe artforms should have to so vehimently insist on themselves.
again, bringing it back to the music: i think without all the rhetoric around them, Liturgy would flounder in obscurity based on nothing but their music.i sorta feel we’re the butt of THEIR joke, and i’m 100% certain we won’t be talking about them in a year.
it’s funny that you’d like warhol, then. he was totally conceptual and we’re definitely the butt of his joke. also his art is awful and bequeathed us lady gaga.
but for completely different reasons I agree that the band under scrutiny does flounder on its own. they’re completely serious about what they do, though, so we don’t have to worry about being the butt of their joke.
oh no no. i never liked warhol. never liked pollack. never liked much about modern art. i can get behind some of Ruscha’s work and Klimt, maybe a few others. most else, no way. you’re right about warhol–he enabled the whole “for the sake of itself” nonsense that ultimately is a cultural curse.
ah, sorry, I misread. I’m a fan of modern art up through suprematism, but not much after that (other than maybe in individual cases).
Couldn’t agree more. There is a reason the allegory was written about the emperor’s clothes; the whole thing speaks about human nature on every level.
Perhaps risking beatinng a dead horse with the whole “if it sucks, it sucks, regardless of intent” thing, but it also brings to mind the idea of someone parodying something incredibly awful or annoying. I get that you are trying to create humor by poking fun at something because it is so bad.. but by imitating it, so essentially what you are creating is also horridly bad. That doesn’t make it funny, just equally bad.
all the “anti-hipster” bs going on here is laughable. it reeks of anti-urbanism, anti-intellectualism and sheer jealousy towards an indefinable set of people who are likely having more fun than the whiner(s). the “hipster” is always the “other” who belongs to a set that is disliked, but there is no coherent, stable delineation of what this group was, is or could be. personally, I’m far more wary of those who call out “hipsterism” than I am of those who are so labelled. make what you like, listen to what you like and don’t worry about who else likes it or dislikes it. “it’s all art, this is a good and a bad song.”
in some ways, i agree. but let me make this counter-point:
http://assets.flavorwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/hipster.jpg
that picture is fucking hilarious. I would love to see that guy at a show rocking the fuck out, maybe with his balls dangling from those shorts, too. make the scene a little more fabulous!
Pretty much the only decent comment so far.
Agreed. Never understood why these sorts of articles on this site provoked the most responses, which are mostly negative. I would wager most of the readers of this site like these bands. I mean, IO did name Wolves in the Throne Room as its hands-down winning record of the year.
Nah, that’s too reductive. I’m as urban and intellectual as all get-out and the term “hipster” pretty well catalogues a specific set of attributes, including but not limited to: Abandonment of sincere engagement in favor of ironic detachment, ahistorical approaches to art and culture (or historical for the sake of ironic detachment), a focus on the obscure and/or exotic as a mark of status (“you wouldn’t know who they are, they’re pretty underground”), and a lifestyle reliant on slumming or cultural tourism, with the safety of race and/or class privilege.
Yeah, it’s pejorative, but it’s also diagnostic – I don’t dislike hipster culture for the same reasons I dislike fratboy culture or trustafarian culture or guido culture, each has its own features I find unpleasant, and it’s easier in conversation to use a term like “hipster” or “fratboy” or “trustafarian” than it is to articulate all of those features individually. It’s not a catch-all term, it’s a way of saying “I don’t like this, and here’s why.” It doesn’t mean I sit up at night, gritting my teeth and raising my fists to the grim, eerie, freezing moon in sheer hatred for Liturgy, it just means “I don’t like them for these reasons.”
And so no, I don’t listen to them, but I think it’s still pretty interesting to talk about why they have the effect they do on metal culture as an opportunity to think about the way metal culture is constructed and what provokes different responses and why.
And for the record, I really like Tombs, Deafheaven, and Krallice.
Well, apparently that’s a currently accepted definition of what a “hipster” is. Unfortunately it still doesn’t mean much of anything (it’s not “diagnostic”, it’s ad-hoc, it can make no substantive predictive claims about anything) and requires knowledge of intent, so, honestly, how can anyone give a shit? I also wouldn’t ascribe said attributes to Liturgy, I’d just say they make crappy records and leave it at that.
Also, I must say I’ve never encountered said people at shows and I live in Brooklyn. Plenty of people dress and act “oddly” (like that hilarious photo above), but I’d say any aversion to that can mostly be chalked up to heteronormative ideas about how genders must act and dress.
So I gotta ask, where are all these “hipsters” that have invaded metal and are ruining it for everyone? It’s a total strawman.
Alex, you’re too hung up on science. We can identify facts in other ways, instinctive and intuitive. They may not have the same level of reliability, or the same predictive value. But we have evolved to be able to detect, for instance, insincerity (and with good reason). And we have also evolved a psychological ability and drive to categorize fact patterns so that we can learn to deal with similar phenomena in the same way each time. That allows you to avoid danger as well as to classify people as belonging to a group.
I don’t know why you haven’t seen hipsters at shows. I don’t go to shows (partly because there aren’t any worthwhile ones in Lincoln, Nebraska, but partly because I prefer recorded music). I don’t think hipsters are invading metal to a threatening degree, but they are out there. And Liturgy is definitely among them.
I’m not hung up on anything here (though no, we can’t intuit hard “facts”, those are called “feelings” or “sensations”). I live in the fucking borough. I can take exactly what you just laid out (observing patterns and making predictions based on the evidence in those patterns) and say that from what I’ve observed, I don’t see quote-unquote hipsters at metal shows. Do we need these “inauthentic” people to wear their yellow stars so we can identify them? it’s asinine, it’s a non-issue. as I’ve already stated, the hipster term is always applied as a pejorative to some feared other/outsider. but when you actually look at the situation there isn’t any real problem.
as far as Liturgy goes, I know who HHH is (not friends with him personally, but we have mutual friends/acquaintances), he lives near me and I see him at the local cafe occasionally. I knew his previous band, Birthday Boyz. He’s just a dude that makes music. I don’t care for the music (or his half-baked philosophy), but I’m not gonna denigrate him as a person or anyone else.
whatever, people are so scared of irony or inauthenticity like it’s fucking ebola. does it affect your relationship with art? if so, that’s your problem to sort out. if it doesn’t, then I don’t see why all the bellyaching is necessary.
Anything further into the issue of “facts” would probably be mere semantics, but I think you’re underestimating the value of non-scientific knowledge.
As I’ve said or at least implied, I can’t express any particularly well-formed opinion as to the degree of metal’s hipster infiltration. But from the knowledge I do have of HHH, I think I have an understanding of some aspects of his personality, and based on that, I can conclude that he falls into just about any definition of “hipster” that’s out there. Is he a threat to real metal? No. Does it affect how outsiders see metal? Yes. And that does bother me, somewhat, but I don’t lose sleep over it.
Does it affect my enjoyment of music if I don’t believe it’s made with authenticity? I wouldn’t say that. I had very little prior knowledge about Liturgy before hearing the album. I heard it in the music first, and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. Then I looked into the band itself. I put two and two together easily enough, and concluded that the reason the music wasn’t good was because it lacked both authenticity and artistic merit, both features that also fall under the umbrella of pretension. (I.e., he/they have pretensions to being black metal musicians of a new, higher/transcendental breed, but lack the basis for staking such a claim.)
a/c:
i admire the spirit of your debate, and in some ways i really do agree. but in even greater ways, you’re just obfuscating a totally real thing.
hipsters *are* a totally real thing, and one of the single defining values of the group is “fetishizing the authentic.”
it’s kind of the BIGGEST part of what the whole subculture is all about.
hipster is not a pejorative term. hipsters are self aware, and they typically enjoy the stereotypical pigeonhole they fit in and embrace it.
they totally know they like their ugly cat sweaters in an ironic way. that’s not US putting the terminology on THEM. it’s just how they actually are.
google photos of Hipsters, or go to “look at this fucking hipster.com” (latfh.com) and just quietly observe this subculture.
they WANT to look weird and ugly. the pick outfits that are amalgamations of all things reprehensible for the sake of being purposely off-putting. “i’ll wear high-waisted tights with a jean skirt and a fanny pack AND suspenders AND a cropped belly shirt that says Virginia is for lovers’ and granny glasses and a side-pony tale with colorful child’s barrettes and leg warmers and ballet flats.”
i meet girls and i can’t date them because the current trend amongst young urbane people is to wear wholly unflattering clothing. it’s the biggest turn off ever.
i don’t care what you wear, but when you TRY THIS HARD TO BE PURPOSELY UNPLEASANT, YOU CAN’T HELP BUT SUCCEED.
that’s not my fault.
it’s the whole point of the counter-culture: to apply as much energy to looking like something you’re not. it’s going native. they shop at thrift stores, buying used kitsch and resell it downtown at premium prices.
all so middle class kids (and that’s another major element of hipsterism: upper-middle class people pretending to slum it) can look like they can’t afford decent outfits. because it’s funny to them.
i follow a lot of fashion and culture blogs, and all the new ‘hipster’ shoes are designed by people who have to just hate shoes.
it’s been said to death, i know.
i’m kicking the deadest horse ever.
hipsters are widely despised, and the reason can’t be obfuscated by some scientific debate about the unknowable intent or spirit of the culture. they’ve made the spirt of their endeavor extremely well defined: ‘we are privileged and idealistic, and have the means to try extremely too hard to pretend we’re not.’
dude, the hipster beer of choice is Pabst. it was the most ironic beer they could come up with. the cheapest. not the best tasting, not the one they would choose in a blind taste test. but the funniest. think about that…
so they built a system where they can fit into everything by just devaluing whatever the thing is. “yeah man i’m totally a musician. i play the uke but i’m like…totally reinventing it by playing only one string and tuning to low A.”
“i’m an artist. i paint carpet white.”
or…etsy.
just…my God. ALL of etsy.
and so on.
that’s not even the most off-putting factor, tho. google their pics. look how many are wearing glasses. how many NEED glasses? hardly any. they are nearly unanimously non-Rx glasses. all so they can look a certain way.
all i can say is when someone is putting this much effort to be phony on purpose, i’m absolutely entitled to hate them into the stone age.
and i’m not assuming intent. i’m just listening to what they themselves have to say.
now apply all of what i just said to the music they make. how on earth else am i going to feel about it…?
hahaha, ok ok, fair enough, I know people like that exist and all. but what I want to know is how this has anything to do with metal and your enjoyment of it and your involvement in its creation.
but I’m a guy with a beard and I confess I own an MC Hammer t-shirt. fuck it, whatever this whole thing is silly. I’m gonna smoke weed now. sue me.
I agree with that the Red Scare level of “hipster this and hipster that” adds little to the discussion of the relative merits of Liturgy’s art. On the other hand, I also agree with those who point out how pretentious and empty their music seems. The problem, I think, is that the whole Liturgy thing seems based on artifice instead of any real passion. What really bothers me, though, is the fact that Krallice, a band who is making passionate, interesting music gets lumped in with Liturgy due to proximity.
And the dichotomy couldn’t be more clear. Krallice is experimenting and making vital music, while Liturgy is making boring music, slapping a half-baked thesis on it, and fooling people into thinking they are making vital art.
I think alot of what makes Liturgy so irritating for people is that it feels as though Hunter Hunt Hendrix is trying to forcibly legitimize his intellectual take on the genre (presumably because it runs counter to tradition) rather than letting it legitimize itself. It feels tedious, awkward and annoying. Deafheaven, on the other hand, who look equally as ‘hipsterish’ are not doing anything like this, atleast not to my awares. They’re just doing what it is that they do, they’re just making music and performing it and people like it or they don’t. There’s not really anyting for people to frown upon. I think they’re okay, anyway, they’re not bad – I didn’t enjoy Roads to Judah as much as some people did, for me it’s just ‘alright’. They’re pretty average. I feel the same way about Liturgy musically. They don’t do much for me but I’m not offended by them in the slightest bit.
This is an interesting article anyway.
Alex c, a failure to follow your advice is exactly what defines a hipster. All the other common or stereotypical attributes may or may not exist, hence the loosely defined group, but that single element is what unifies them. Enjoyment of things for the sake of enjoying them is fine. Feigning enjoyment of things one feels one should enjoy, or for the sake of how one will appear if one enjoys those things – this is hipsterism. Nothing more (necessarily) need go along with it.
That is the best, most concise definition I’ve ever seen. My best one was that “hipsters engage in pretentious, inauthentic usurpation of non-mainstream subcultures, robbing the subculture of its identity and the power of its symbols for the mere purpose of appearing to be ironically cool.” Thank you for simplifying.
yeah, but who’s to judge whether someone “authentically” enjoys something? we’d need one of those chastity brigades that orthodox religious people love so much.
it’s really not worth getting panties in a bunch over. there are annoying fucking people everywhere, we shouldn’t take ourselves so seriously (especially if you’re into power metal, haha!).
I have not read Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s manifesto but I am curious. I think it has been said before, but I feel that there are other bands that fit the description of “transcendental black metal” better than these guys.
I read somewhere that HHH takes a lot of influence from Glenn Branca, who I really like. Liturgy’s music is ok, but I feel that Glenn Branca influenced black metal could be done better or differently. Does anybody know if there are any bands like this out there?
Shitty, attention grabbing, empty piece. Again. If you look at any metal forum where black metal is a regular topic of discussion you don’t find people obsessing about Liturgy or any of these type of bands. It’s old news. They don;t play shows with other metal bands, they don’t court any kind of metal audience, they really don’t matter much to anyone outside of bloggers. People laughed and sneered six months ago or whenever the scion video + manifesto came out but no one – except for outsiders (pitchfork), the wikipedia experts in the these comments threads and self-important music journalists – gives a shit anymore. That IS something you DO sometimes see people ranting about. The people who continue to manufacturing this controversy by tweeting, writing and obsessing over it constantly. Because without inventing this black metal bogeyman to battle against, there would be nothing AT ALL worth mentioning about them. Everyone else is like, “band sucks, next.”
Think about that the next you start tossing out these weak, tired memes like “tr00,” and “kvlt” that have already been mocked to death from people who don’t read about what is black metal in SPIN magazine.
Interesting article and more interesting comments/feedback … as someone who went to High School in Brooklyn in the 80’s I can never associate Black Metal with Brooklyn … period. Sure, there is some good metal coming out of BK these days and some good venues/showcases but there is no Black Metal … if anything the only true Black Metal out of North America in my opinion was/is Blasphemy – and they are from Canada!
I enjoy both Liturgy and deafheaven…in the general metal landscape there are thousands of bands that are FAR worse than both. WITTR also killed this year…no matter the farm politics.
The HHH debate made me seek out and listen to Liturgy…it seems the worst people can do on the case of ‘hating’ a band is just ignoring them. Why go on and on about disliking a band…ignore and move on.
As has been mentioned a couple times, the lack of Mutilation Rites in this article is very disappointing. Black Anvil should have gotten more of a mention. Honestly, I was very disappointed in this article. I clicked this thinking I’d find out about something new, and instead got a load of horseshit that wouldn’t have been relevant 6 months ago.
More american black metal bands need to pick up on whats going on down in Louisiana with Barghest anyway.
Du er ikke på langt nær så flink som du tror du er.
I’m not sure what you mean by substantive predictive claims. Maybe “diagnostic” wasn’t a good word choice – it’s categorical.
That said, I mostly agree with you. I mean, I think people resembling this definition of “hipster” exist, and people like this existed long before the term “hipster” got attached to them, but I think the degree to which they’re invading/encroaching/co-opting metal culture is strongly exaggerated. I mean, I think there’s some of that going on to the extent that metal gets covered in media outlets followed by hipsters, but it’s not like every metal show is overrun by American Apparel models and dudes with complicated facial hair and child-molester glasses because PItchfork said a lot of words about Nachtmystium or something.
And yeah, I think it’s irksome when people appropriate classic metal out of irony (fuck you, I actually LIKE Iron Maiden) or when somebody says “yeah, I’m totally into metal – I really like Early Man and Red Fang” because that’s like saying “yeah, I’m totally into the blues – John Mayer, Jack Johnson, stuff like that.” But the so-called “hipster invasion” is, I think, more a product of metal fandom orthodoxy. You can just as easily substitute the definition for “hipster” I cobbled together with “anybody who likes Isis” for people who complain about hipsters ruining metal. It’s a lot of hysteria over nothing, and one thing metal culture has in common with hipster culture is being very protective of authenticity and prizing the obscure and exotic. As soon as non-metal guy likes your metal band, the scene is RUINED. It’s also great fodder for bands who like to prattle on about “keeping the spirit of TRUE (insert subgenre here) metal alive.” It’s just pro wrestling heat for a nonexistent conflict.
I’m listening to “Roads To Judah” as a I write this. It’s good, but in true hipster/metal fan fashion, I think the demo was better.
Good point about the term “hipster” being over-used. I recently realized I was myself guilty of conflating hipsters as we’ve defined them with any indie rock type.
“I think the demo was better.”
That made me laugh.
yes, that was good. I think I’m also at a point in my life where I find categorizing large, amorphous groups of people to be a terrible, misguided waste of my energy. a lot of times people that we write off turn out to just be insecure. I wasn’t always into metal, but some good people schooled me over the years and I’d rather return the favor to someone else who’s interested than be all overprotective of some harbor that should be welcoming to other weirdos (which is a major reason I like this site, I get schooled constantly).
I finally was able to listen to Road to Judah today, in fact. got vibes of GY!BE, late Neil Perry and lots of pg99. now I’m gonna have to hear that demo!
playing devil’s advocate here, can i ask a simple question (that i hope doesn’t get me internet murdered)–
all of this talk about the genuine intent behind music, how liturdgy (again, funny) is circumventing the black metal mythos and how wrong that is, etc and so on.
my question is: isn’t a lot of corpse painted black metal kind of tongue-in-cheek to start with? i can’t look at Immortal or even Inquisition without kind of feeling that part of the presentation is a big of a put-on. i mean, it’s a TOTAL put-on.
“Let’s go stand in the woods and look regal. we’ll put it on the album jacket…”
not to mention that about 99% of all metal wants to look evil/occult/kvlt/anti-religious all while being total nonsense. outside of Burzum (we can agree that dude’s actually evil, no?) and a few other bands (1349 seems a bit…serious), most metal is just a whole big put-on. like KISS but more satanic.
how is any of that any different than the next guy (who may or may not be a hipster, who may or may not be doing this in irony)?
that’s probably the best point to be made. metal’s history is overflowing with camp. now I’m thinking of that recent post here about Halford and his leathermen, how metal basically co-opted (a very specific) gay subculture in its aesthetic. awesome.
*bit, not big.
Tongue-in-cheek is different from ironic. The tongue-in-cheek traditionally associated with metal is borne out of “I’m not serious about this, but wouldn’t it be awesome if I was?” In contrast, the ironic says “Look at how stupid and lame I’m being, and because I try so hard to NOT be cool, that makes me cool.”
The audition for IO editor is closed. Stop using the comment box as a mirror for you to make serious, non tongue-in-cheek, lame and stupid faces in. KMFFMA.
Negative Plane are originally from Florida but they’re now based in Brooklyn, right?
Article needs more Ruin Lust and Negative Plane.
Late to the argument, but, in regards to Liturgy, Anthony Fantano’s critique, especially of the drums, seems very apt:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on1vkPNRFwg
I also feel that Liturgy scratches my math/noise rock itch more than my black metal itch
dontbesojumpy
Posted December 29, 2011 at 4:00 PM
…
my question is: isn’t a lot of corpse painted black metal kind of tongue-in-cheek to start with? i can’t look at Immortal or even Inquisition without kind of feeling that part of the presentation is a big of a put-on. i mean, it’s a TOTAL put-on …. outside of Burzum (we can agree that dude’s actually evil, no?) and a few other bands (1349 seems a bit…serious), most metal is just a whole big put-on. like KISS but more satanic.
—-
Do you think Dissection were being ironic ? Do you think the members of Ofermod are being ironic ? Do you think the blazebirth Hall bands were in it just for the lulz ? What about DSO or someone like Miko Aaspa ? I’m not saying that extreme metal people are always coherent in their outlook, but a whole lots of us are somewhat serious. Some of us are unsophisticated so we don’t necessarily notice when a costume or some corpse paint just looks ridiculous. Immortal might be tongue-in-cheek right now, but were they 15 or 20 yers ago ? I’m not sure.
I’ve never liked Kiss.
I’m not devoid of humour at all. It’s just that I (usually) don’t care about humour and irony in music. I prefer the earnest stuff, even if eveil, hateful or disturbed.
C’mon, I know I was just criticizing Liturgy for being all about artifice, but there is tons of black metal that is, on some level, pretty hilarious. Maybe Immortal aren’t trying to be tongue in cheek, but if they are earnest, that just makes it more funny.
That isn’t to say Immortal aren’t awesome. Immortal are awesome because they can be ridiculous without it diminishing the power of their music.
Seriously, I love metal, but there are way too many people on the scene who are entirely humorless about it.
A bunch of guys (Immortal) get together as teens or younger and start playing out their imagination in the woods (like kids will do). They take an interest in Heavy Metal music and then decide it would be great to combine the worlds of their imagination with their music. Which can be said for all sorts of bands (isn’t Voivod all based on Away’s scifi stories and drawings?). I don’t think that’s the same thing as the guy painting a piece of carpet white and putting it on a wall (Liturgy and Krallice and who knows what else). WORLDS of fucking difference if you ask me. The difference between what was Norwegian Black Metal and what now is Liturgy (and whatever else like it) is the difference between Caspar David Friedrich/Frankenstein (Romanticism) & Andy Warhol/Seinfeld (Nihilistic Postmodenism).
I knew nothing of Liturgy’s back story, manifestos, etc and had the displeasure of seeing them last night. Approaching it with an open mind and only experiencing them in a live setting left me with the opinion that they are unimaginative pretentious drivel esp when placed on a bill between very capable bands like Trans Am and Wooden Shjips. I can’t remember the last time I felt like I was being played for a sucker as an audience member….boring songs, boring washed out riffs, shitty screamy vocals and a FUCKING METRONOME/CLICK TRACK that was audible between every song. Metal politics aside, they are just a very shitty band. Apparently the crowd agreed as half the venue emptied out during their set.