Tear the riff off: ASG, Krisiun, Inquisition
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The secret word of the day - every day - is riffs. I've reviewed some nice batches. The latest record by ASG has the best riffs I've heard this year. Imagine a whole album of "March of the Fire Ants" or "Hollow Severer." The rest of stoner metal might as well give up. Brazilian death metallers Krisiun understand the art of the riff. So do Colombian black metallers Inquisition. Support the arts, folks.
ASG - Right Death BeforeKrisiun - Sentenced MorningInquisition - Nocturnal Gatherings and Wicked Rites
I've also reviewed retro revivalists Bigelf, Pelican-plus Capricorns, drum machine grinders Enemy Soil, NYHC veterans Inhuman, and Bay Area rollers Totimoshi.
Good reads elsewhere: Phil Freeman's feature on Runhild Gammelsaeter, Brandon Stosuy's interview with Hammers of Misfortune, Todd DePalma's interview with Arghoslent, Adrien Begrand's feature on John Darnielle's book about Master of Reality. Some killer quotes in the latter, especially this one:
I think the indie aesthetic is pretty invested in a very old, very tired idea about whether the creator and the audience are in agreement about what makes the music good. The indie audience wants to feel like the people on stage are their people. I think the metal audience is quite different, insofar as it’s composed of people who are less willfully outsiders and more genuinely outside - people who’re so used to being on the outside that they don’t give a shit whether anybody else in the room is feeling what they’re feeling. You see this at metal shows: one or two dudes off to the side air-guitaring wildly right on the edge of the pit, just not giving a shit. I think that level of individuation, of comfort with not fitting in, is something that indie audiences are uncomfortable with...
Is this true? One could arguably switch in "metal" for "indie" here.
Labels: black metal, brazil, clee, colombia, death metal, features, sludge metal, usa, writing
11 Comments:
>One could arguably switch in "metal" for "indie" here.
No, Darnielle's exactly right (and that book is one of my favorite books of the year, and one of my favorite books-about-music, however you define that, ever). Indie kids want to win; they want their insular little scene to be recognized by all for its aesthetic superiority, while still maintaining the qualities that made it marginal to begin with. Metalheads don't give a fuck if you like what they like or not. In fact, there are many who will violently reject newcomers. In Joe Carducci's Rock And The Pop Narcotic, he says something (and I'm paraphrasing very loosely here) about how you can mark the death of a music scene by when too many good-looking girls start showing up. That's sort of the metal attitude in a nutshell - we're bros, we're doing our thing, and you (whoever "you" is) can fuck off.
If metalheads didn't care if others liked what they liked, why would they violently reject newcomers? Wouldn't newcomers be a non-factor? But the pervasive animosity towards hipsters indicate fear of what they'll do to carefully marked boundaries.
See, that's where it gets interesting, to my mind. Most of the animosity toward "hipsters," as far as I can tell, comes from younger metalheads. Given that metal is a male-dominated culture, this means that they're low-status males, still unsure of their position within the pack (here's where the ever-popular-in-metal wolf metaphor comes in). So yeah, younger metalheads are eager to defend their territory. The OGs/veteranos (to switch from wolves to Mexican gangbangers for a second) couldn't give a fuck. They're going about their business, letting the young dumbasses fight their petty battles. That's the position I find myself in: At 36, I don't care about keeping anyone out of my clubhouse, nor do I particularly care to invite anyone in. (How I reconcile this with a career in music journalism is a discussion for another day...)
That's a very good analogy about the wolves. I agree with the point. Being an outsider (well, sometimes), I consider myself neither low-status nor OG, so at this point I also have no boundaries to enforce.
I do, however, disagree with Darnielle's statement about creator/audience aesthetic agreement re: metal. Metal audiences definitely want to feel like the people on stage are their people. I recall when Jack Owen left Cannibal Corpse, the comments that arose calling for a long-haired replacement. For the most part, metal shows aren't confrontational experiences where performers seriously challenge audiences with hostile, foreign aesthetics. They're more the usual "get what you paid to see" deals.
Regarding swapping 'indie' for 'metal', I see it as completely plausible. Insecure people exist in just about every genre of music.
Regarding newcomers, maybe I'm just a different breed of metal fan, but whenever someone shows deeper interest in metal beyond Metallica, I early start sharing my music collection and suggesting albums for them to try out.
And finally, though I distinctly dislike some of hallmarks of indie hipsterism, I generally try to ignore it and move on. Cliques and 'strict' social groups are for high school. Yawn.
pdf, I definitely know more than a few younger metal fans who just want to 'win' as much as indie fans do. Like I said in my previous response, that's called insecurity.
And I won't hide the fact that I'm indignant towards Carducci's statement about girls showing up to shows. >:|
(sorry about the few typos in the previous response)
onerode - my attitude is pretty much congruent to yours. If only I could find more non-metalheads interested in metal!
Carducci's statement reminds me of a quote by Steve Albini:
Q: Chicks listen to good music sometimes, too, you know.
Albini: Not straight ones in my experience, no they don't. You are either a lesbian, a dude, or you don't really like good music. This is a fact proven with science and charts.
New listeners into HM or indie whatever get into a 'subculture' for the same exact reasons. To belong with some and to have a reason to hate the others. It is a useful dualism that constructs a character and also destroys it in equal parts.
Long-time listeners of any musical form will usually find the quintessential quality of that type of music and therefore their distinction between what is true to it and what is not is not one of social ramification but of practical application.
Any listener of music will be excited and happy to find someone else that resonates at the same frequency -- younger listeners with other shallow listeners will congregate, and older listeners with deeper fans of music will discuss the minutae of their favorite music form to no end. Naturally people at opposite ends will distrust each other. Younger fans will ridicule the old farts that still listen to Thin Lizzy and older listeners will be all "fucking hipsters".
It is not a distinction between metal and other types of music. It is a distinction of age and how much one invests into the art they love. It just happens that a lot of this indie music lacks the pull for long-time listeners and the audience is therefore known as 'the kids', complete with transient tastes and fashions. This is why I never trust any HM band that names their audience "the kids". It is the brand in my opinion, of being completely out of touch with the quality of HM to think that "kids" mostly listen to it. I am 25 now and I have never been more of a metalhead than now. I do not belong in any subculture, I self-define what Heavy Metal is and what I am.
Straight tomboy with a soft spot for horrible 80s pop--it seems Albini is right. Doesn't matter, no insult can keep me from feeling absurdly cool when playing 'Separate Ways (World Apart)' whilst walking down the street. No shame!
helm - yeah, there's always a divide between newer entrants and old-schoolers, no matter the setting. Perhaps that's the subject of another post...And, yeah, that's one of my biggest beefs with "indie" - it's a music without much history and yet its listeners think it's the end-all-be-all.
There is at least one kind of music that can legitimately claim "the kids" - hardcore punk. That music resonates with the young in a good way, I think.
onerode - have you seen the video for "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)"??? You just made my day.
Cruising on the same brainwave. I watched that video right after writing my response. Felt soooooooo cooool.
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