The most significant change in my music listening in 2012 had nothing to do with labels, festivals, or bands themselves. I had a major shift in my work situation this year. Early on, my workstation was moved from a closed room to an open workspace, which I share with coworkers. Consequently, though I’m allowed—even encouraged—to listen to music while at work, my listening habits needed to change. Blastbeats and vocal fry do not a peaceful workplace make. In what amounts to happy coincidence, metal labels in 2012 accommodated my need as it arose. By now, most if not all of 2012’s best-of lists are public knowledge, and the vast majority of those I’ve seen (Stereogum, Decibel, the Metalsucks staff lists) sport tons of great clean singing releases.
One of my coworkers—an intelligent, older gentleman in partial retirement—sat at the desk next to mine one day in September and asked me “What song is this?”
“It’s called “An Alternative to Freedom””.
“I didn’t know The Doors wrote a song called that.”
“They didn’t.”
. . .
Witchcraft – “An Alternative To Freedom”
. . .
The Doors are not the first band Witchcraft reminds me of (Ghost, on the other hand . . . ), but the fact a stranger can mistake them at a glance for classic rock is telling. The phenomenon isn’t unique to that band either. I’m confident that I could play Witch Mountain for strangers, say in a mall kiosk, and tell them that the music was a long-lost recording of Black Sabbath playing with Nancy Wilson of Heart, and people would believe me.
Spin magazine, of all places, ran an editorial about this trend, but I found their scope a bit restrictive. That article fixates on the talented women fronting these bands, and the supposed occult content of their music—that approach completely ignores Ghost, Witchcraft and its sibling acts, Troubled Horse and Graveyard. Focusing on the sex of these singers also feels vaguely sexist in its own way: relating them by chromosome carries the subtext that they sing remarkably well as women, not as singers in general. Prsnz and Plotkin hold up well not just next to Doro and Turnenin, but to Halford and Dickinson as well.
The most satanic and occult lyrics in this group come from Ghost—whose theatricality renders them unbelievable—and The Devil’s Blood—who are very serious. Those two bands excepted, I’m hesitant to label these groups “witchy” the way Spin did, for fear of a second Witch-house flash-in-the-pan. After all, these groups are reviving the blues scale in heavy music (even though the blues never quite abandoned doom metal, it’s been pretty absent from most ‘extreme’ genres since roughly Kill Em All, with some notable exceptions). And in a blues-related context, satanic imagery is nothing unique; the devil has haunted the blues since Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads.
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Robert Johnson – “Crossroad Blues”
. . .
The metal media’s coverage of this phenomenon hasn’t examined it further. Rather, we’ve got a silly forced genre tag and a backlash against it. As for “vest metal”, the only purpose behind a genre tag is to conveniently describe the music it relates to, and “vest metal” utterly fails in that regard.
Rather, let’s call a spade a spade: heavy metal is hosting a classic rock revival.
. . .
Gypsyhawk cover Johnny Winter while wearing vests
. . .
Classic rock revives itself regularly in different corners of the music industry about once a decade, usually to great fanfare. Ten years ago garage rock cast a large financial shadow: The Hives, The Strokes, and The White Stripes sold large amounts of records and grew into stadium draws. Ten years before that, grunge produced not only multiplatinum records, but some of the most critically acclaimed music there is. The same phenomenon repeating itself in and among metal labels would be the biggest economic shot in the arm the genre’s experienced since nu metal.
If another classic rock revival was inevitable, as I believe it was, the question remains: why in the world of metal music, where the most popular trajectories have been away from the classic rock template?
I can imagine a handful of reasons. Most obviously, the classic rock revival in metal coincides with a wider interest in music from the late ’60s and early ’70s. Contemporary folk groups like Fleet Foxes and Mumford and Sons take their four-part vocal harmonies form The Beatles and The Beach boys almost wholesale, for example. (I suppose that means The Tallest Man on Earth and Wovenhand are wrestling for Bob Dylan’s crown?) the existence of those bands fails to completely explain the phenomenon crossing over to, for example, Relapse records’ roster. Why should Royal Thunder share a home with what was once a prime label for grindcore?
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Ghost – “Secular Haze”
. . .
I think the existence of grindcore and similarly extreme genres primed the engine for classic metal. When the White Stripes were first making waves on MTV, metal at its cutting edge took extreme liberties with the most basic templates of the genre: grind and prog sludge warped acceptable song lengths, progressive bands like Between the Buried and Me spliced in bits of so many other genres that the metallic elements themselves felt incidental, melodic metalcore bands polished popular records to a near-electronica sheen in the studios. And a cursory browsing of this site’s editorial history—or any reputable metal blog’s editorial history—will show that those trends were not always good things for the genre as a whole.
As the old adage goes, the grass is always greener on the other side, and in this case the other side means “before I was born”. Ghost and The Devil’s blood are the backlash from that wave. The music these bands make looks backward with nostalgia at a time when bands had to record every song live in the studio with minimal cuts, and there was no questioning the usefulness of a great singer in a metal band (as opposed to an—arguably—replaceable vocalist). One could call this trend a kind of heavy metal conservatism, in opposition to twenty years of extreme metal’s liberalities. And it may be high time for a little restraint. After hearing, for example, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, I’m not convinced of how much heavier or faster extreme metal could possibly get.
. . .
Troubled Horse – “One Step Closer to My Grave”
. . .
The classic rock revival bands seem to put a greater emphasis on making the individual songs in their releases both distinct and of high quality, as opposed to just pieces of a larger collection. These records also play with a larger emotional palate than a standard death metal record. Doom is the soul music of the metal world, and these artists succeed or fail largely based on how well their songs strike chords with the listener, rather than just having beastly guitar tones or good mosh sections. The critical reaction to this trend in 2012 was positive across the board to varying degrees. Whether that will translate into the kind of blockbuster sales that previous rock revival enjoyed remains to be seen, but there are some indicators in that direction: Baroness loosely fit into this trend, and Yellow and Green had the highest-grossing opening week of any Relapse release, and Ghost signed a supposedly massive recording contract. Personally, I don’t see any of the aforementioned bands recording a Nevermind or White Blood Cells, but if they do, it will only mean more otherwise disinclined people being exposed to heavy metal culture.
It’s not likely that this trend stands any chance of wiping out extreme metal, either. Death, thrash, and black metal have too much cultural currency now to be replaced as the go-to stereotypes of what metal is, but if 2012 is any indication those stereotypes will increasingly share shelf and hard disk space with clean singing artists in 2013 and beyond. And I’ll have no shortage of heavy music that won’t disturb the office.
For what it’s worth, this is my favorite Royal Thunder track:
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Royal Thunder – “Shake And Shift”
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. . .
I for one LOVE the upsurge of classic rock elements in metal, especially when mixed with occult/satanic themes. It really strikes a chord with me personally.
Me too. As much as some death or black metal bands talk about evoking an ancient, grim, and eerie feeling in their music, bands like Ghost and Witch Mountain and The Devil’s Blood, as different as they are, all conjure something plausibly ancient and eerie to me. This is the “devil’s music” I expected as a kid, instead of the Rush and Bon Jovi that I got.
I could tell grandpa ac/dc is death metal and he’d totally buy it. I’ll let you know when i finish my treatise on ac/dc as death metal.
LOL. LOLS.
Six Feet Under covered AC/DC.
It was probably the worst album of 2003 besides Saint Anger. :p
I really like that record.
I wonder if Chris Barnes blasts Graveyard Classics while he drives around in his Porsche.
Ha. I always struggle for a middle ground when playing metal at work because the stuff I listen to isn’t for everybody. I love the proto-metal/classic rock revival we are seeing. Not only is a lot of it good, it gives me some options when at work.
I think spin and pitchforks coverage has sort of cheapened royal thunder in my eyes, which is very unfortunate because I love their newest record.
Agreed… its a very enjoyable album… Speaking of “rock revival” bands… I hear a lot of Blind Melon in Royal Thunder… I think it’s mainly the vocal pitch and intensity… but regardless, rocks hard.
Please take your head out of your ass. SPIN has a long history of covering metal and the underground (seek out Darcy Steinke’s mid-’90s feature on black metal, “Satan’s Cheerleaders”) and I don’t see a huge difference between what Pitchfork and Invisible Oranges is doing, especially since IO spun out of Stylus, a Pitchfork clone.
If a band is worthy of your attention and adulation, why wouldn’t you want them to have increased exposure?
Mr. Schafer mentioned “pieces,” plural, regarding this topic. This just seems to scratch the surface. Is there more on the way?
Here are my two words on this subject: Thin. Lizzy.
Great piece. I have to disagree with one part of your introduction though. I always listen to music at work, and I don’t really give genre or extreme-ness any thought.
That Trouble Horse song reminds me of Truckfighters. I’m gonna pump some Gravity X.
Yesterday’s work playlist was comprised of Blasphemy, Necros Christos, Void Meditation Cult, Beherit, Cianide, Blood, and Anhedonist. My day job doesn’t care what I play in my cubicle.
“Classic rock revives itself regularly in different corners of the music industry about once a decade, usually to great fanfare. Ten years ago garage rock cast a large financial shadow: The Hives, The Strokes, and The White Stripes sold large amounts of records and grew into stadium draws. Ten years before that, grunge produced not only multiplatinum records, but some of the most critically acclaimed music there is.”
Poorly defined argument. Grunge = classic rock? Popularity = classic rock? You think the Hives and The Strokes sound more like classic rock than the radio rock they were “alternative” to at the time?
Just asking. I’m often left shaking my head when you guys try to talk about non-metal music (and have the time when you are, honestly.)
Happy 2013!
I see it with the White Stripes and their ilk, but I was wondering what grunge had to do with classic rock.
It depends on the band, but a lot of the bigger-name grunge bands were pretty transparently influenced by 70s-era hard rock and early heavy metal. There’s no Soundgarden without Led Zeppelin.
Doug summed my feelings up pretty well. Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, all these bands are big 70’s hard rock bands with self-depreciating lyrics, to me.
Kurt Cobain himself said that he saw Nirvana as a 50-50 mix of Black Sabbath and The Beatles.
“Kurt Cobain himself said that he saw Nirvana as a 50-50 mix of Black Sabbath and The Beatles.”
Because when I think ‘classic rock,’ I think Sabbath and the Beatles. :O)
I’ll admit that there is no 90’s rock sound without what happened in the 70’s, but calling grunge an extension of classic rock is inaccurate.
In my opinion, the glam “hard rock” hair bands and over the top theatrics popular in the late 80’s were both the deranged direct evolution of classic rock AND exactly what we were trying to get away from with grunge.
Were soundgarden and Pearl Jam inarguably influenced by Led Zep and NY/Crazy Horse? Yes. Did they historically or sonically represent some 90’s resurrection of classic rock ideals? Not really.
(PS If you are trying to make the case that any particular recent musical clique might have had a ‘classic rock’ revival, I’d look up some 1999-09 “indie” bands. Comets On Fire, later Pavement/ Jicks, Dirty Projectors, Yo La Tengo, Black Mountain, Ariel Pink, Built to Spill, Wilderness, Constantines, early Fiery Furnaces, later M83, Spoon, My Morning Jacket, Olivia Tremor Control, The Flaming Lips, Elf Power, Cat Power, Les Savy Fav… many, many others. If you are looking for the roots of your current classic rock trend these bands have ALOT more in common aurally with classic rock than grunge or the major media ‘the’ bands of c 2001.)
Obviously this is a matter of taste. Thanks for the discourse!
I completely get where you’re coming from. I have a February, 1990 issue of Musician magazine that has the best Soundgarden articel I ever read in my life. The article goes into much detail about how Soundgarden were basically a punk band that didn’t follow punk rules because Seattle was so out of the loop. They didn’t know you weren’t supposed to crank KISS and Devo with equal joyful results.
In that article, the band mention Bauhaus, Killing Joke and Wire as influences. Kim mentioned “154″ by name and that’s what got me looking for the third Wire record.
I wrote a blog piece that touched on that.
http://thewasheduphipster.blogspot.com/2012/11/brave-new-world.html
It used to piss me off when, by 1995, all my Weezer/Pavement-loving friends wrote of Soundgarden as “stupid, fratboy, classic rock.”
Any way…
Chris Dalton: thanks! I love finding unexpected great bands from the tastes of bands I already like, haha.
All rock should be cranked with maximum volume and equal joy
(Checkin out yer link now..)
cheers, guys.
And in a similar vein, underneath all the production The Hives sound like little more than The Kinks mixed with T-Rex and some disco beats.
There would be no Nirvana if the Melvins didn’t exist.
I’d say the Hives sound like a lot LESS than those ingredients
(It happened again when JET came along. ACDC + STOOGES + NIRVANA = TOTAL GARBAGE SOMEHOW.)
Anyhow, The Kinks are a british invasion band (though this group seems to want to lump all that in with classic rock somehow), and TREX was throwback rock and roll at the time mixed with trendy 70’s glam, classic rock yes indeed but also it’s own ‘retro revival’ sound contemporary of its time.
I think it’s important to remember that “Classic rock” is an invention of “Music Executives” to sell dinosaur rock to yuppies in the 80’s. (In other words, ‘Grunge’ was branded “Alternative” by the same corporate paradigm, thus the inventors themselves place Nirvana and Soundgarden in the opposite camp from “Classic Rock.”)
It’s use in contemporary music journalism such as this and in this particular way is dubious at best. This article seems to present CR as “any old rock after 1965 but before 1980,” but in truth British and American 60’s pop bands that were insanely popular in their own time like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Kinks have little to do with the “classic rock” format, at least as I’ve come to understand it.
Thanks again!
If you can’t see the connection between classic rock and every angle presented from the paragraph you conveniently cherry-pick from a write-up that makes it’s point very clearly throughout, how do you get through a day? The purpose of language is to communicate and this does that.
“Just asking”. No. You’re “just” being a dick.
Eh, I was just starting convo and adding some friendly dissent to the milieu. You are doing neither and calling me a dick.
Whatever. Enjoy your articles, don’t read the comments if you don’t want other people’s opinions. Obviously. Try to have a nice day.
For what it’s worth, in Some Hawks, Some Hounds Jack Endino equated grunge and stoner music with classic rock, saying they were basically extensions of what was started in the 70’s. (I’m paraphrasing ofcourse, but that’s the gist of what he’s saying).
If you haven’t watched Some Hawks, Some Hounds, check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-njKCr6ieKE
I remember working in the mall record store (Camelot Music) right before Christmas of 1991. We were super-stocking and our District Manager was actually in the store, giving it the once over. We were playing Pearl Jam’s – “Ten” on the stereo.
I just remember Kurt (DM) stopped in his tracks and in his bitter, nasal, snarl quipped, “What the fuck IS this? Bad Company?”
Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Bad Company.
This was the same DM who brought me a promo of the first White Zombie record on Geffen and got furious when I actually “liked” it rather than making fun of and subsequently smashing it.
The first Bad Company album is one of the most solid 40 minute chunks of music I’ve ever heard!
Uhh… Joseph Schafer I do realize it kinda looks like I’m picking on you.
2 things: I’m really into talking about music and I love to get deep and declarative about things. Judging from your article, you do too. Awesome
I also really like when a writer posts a blog entry, and then gives a fuck what people have to say, so this has been great. Sorry if I came over a bit critical, thanks for starting this conversation and having the balls to talk about your work and opinions without getting upset.
As far as the new metal and hard rock bands that are detailed here and the perspectives on those, I have no qualms. I know about many of these bands, but you’ve given me some new ones to check out, too! Thanks!
-William Curtis
dude, my email is
joseph.schafer88@gmail.com
I’d love to continue this conversation in private? (or public!) Trust me, I can take a good ribbing. Look back at some of my post histories for proof of this.
By the way, when you mentioned those other early-00’s ‘classic rock revival’ bands, you listed probably a good quarter of my ipod. Did you hear that new Cat Power? Very different, but very slick, kind of like if Natalie Imbruglia did a good album…
drop me a line!
Awesome! I can’t wait to hear the new Cat Power, she was pretty amazing live, though I saw her right when The Greatest came out and it kind of stunted my growth with her, if that makes ANY sense at all. Basically, The Greatest = Cat Power to me. Will remedy!
I think there is a great conversation to be had on IO if we keep up articles like this and talk enough to drown out the haters. Anybody who can’t “get” My Morning Jacket because it’s “too indie” must not really like Rock and Roll, must be listening for other reasons than to feel good and have a good time.
I’ll drop you a line once I get that new CP! Cheers!
-wc
I appreaciate the disdain for the “vest metal” tag. Utterly innapropiate when describing such disparate bands as the ones listed above
I’m going to start a new genre: Pants-Rock. Spin off: No Pants-Rock.
No Offense to you or your co worker but witchcraft sounds nothing like the doors….. Especially the vocals….(Not the biggest fan of “legend” dig the older stuff though.)
The Flying Eyes However….
Its like the long lost tapes or something…
their first album sounds like Jim Morrison, like no other…baritone and tenor!
Open workspaces. Fuck that
“Doom is the soul music of the metal world”
I love that. I think it also leads to a couple of interesting thoughts. First, are there fertile crossbreeds to be derived from doom’s collision with other deeply soulful genres? I’m thinking in particular of certain subgenres of blues (slow acoustic blues, some of the droney Delta and hill country stuff) and roots reggae (and definitely dub!). Haven’t Pallbearer been covering Billie Holiday live?
Second, is there a parallel here with the popular reception of jazz in the early-mid 20th century? Does the rise of extreme metal flavors as the standard bearers of the genre mirror the emergence of bebop as the “norm” of jazz in the postwar period, particularly in terms of the swing in popular opinion away from metal after the commercial successes of thrash and nu-metal in the 90s?