That extreme metal has had a conflictual experience with religion is nothing new. However, extreme metal’s engagement with ‘God’ is much more complicated than mere mockery, disdain or satire. This article will explore, through a close analysis of Celtic Frost’s Monotheist, and Antediluvian’s Cervix of Hawaah and λόγος, the often sincere and thoughtful, yet critical, engagement with God and religion through a very particular voice that I see within the extreme metal ethos. This voice takes the form of deconstructing Christian mythology through the paradoxical aspects of the religious – where the aetiological aspects of a myth are undermined not by reasoned analysis but through the inverted repetition of biblical stories and mythology.
极端金属与宗教之间的冲突并不是什么新鲜事。然而,极端金属与“上帝”的关系远比单纯的嘲弄、蔑视或讽刺要复杂得多。本文将通过对凯尔特·弗罗斯特的《一神论者》和安迪鲁维安的《Hawaah和λ ο ος的颈子》的仔细分析,探索通过我在极端金属思潮中看到的一种非常特殊的声音,与上帝和宗教进行真诚、深思熟虑但又批判性的接触。这种声音的形式是通过宗教的矛盾方面来解构基督教神话,其中神话的原因方面不是被理性的分析所破坏,而是被圣经故事和神话的颠倒重复所破坏。
{"title":"Ode to a dying God: Debasement of Christian symbols in extreme metal","authors":"Matthew P. Unger","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.2.243_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.2.243_1","url":null,"abstract":"That extreme metal has had a conflictual experience with religion is nothing new. However, extreme metal’s engagement with ‘God’ is much more complicated than mere mockery, disdain or satire. This article will explore, through a close analysis of Celtic Frost’s Monotheist, and Antediluvian’s Cervix of Hawaah and λόγος, the often sincere and thoughtful, yet critical, engagement with God and religion through a very particular voice that I see within the extreme metal ethos. This voice takes the form of deconstructing Christian mythology through the paradoxical aspects of the religious – where the aetiological aspects of a myth are undermined not by reasoned analysis but through the inverted repetition of biblical stories and mythology.","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66738017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heavy Metal Youth Identities: Researching the Musical Empowerment of Youth Transitions and Psychosocial Wellbeing, Paula Rowe (2018)","authors":"Edward Banchs","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.2.285_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.2.285_5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45654509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Weird Fiction is often understood as an unclassifiable fusion of horror, science fiction (SF) and fantasy, and therefore a kind of generically hybridized writing. Here I discuss various parallels between Weird Fiction and music marketed and recognized as ‘extreme metal’, an umbrella term for bands playing in the core styles of black, death and doom metal, and their various offshoots like grindcore and sludge. Analysis of all Weird Metal is beyond the scope of this article, so I focus on artists who achieve Weirdness through the presence and interrelationship of hybridity, numinosity (an overwhelming feeling of majesty) and alterity (radical difference), especially: Wolves in the Throne Room, Howls of Ebb, Portal, A Forest of Stars, Voices and (The Unsearchable Riches of) Void. I also consider how metal relates to the ‘New Weird’, radical developments in traditions of the form, concluding with thoughts on the wider theorization of The Weird.
{"title":"‘[…] tentacular invisible mother divine!’: (The) Weird (in) Metal as convergence of sonic extremities and literary margins","authors":"Joseph Norman","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.2.225_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.2.225_1","url":null,"abstract":"Weird Fiction is often understood as an unclassifiable fusion of horror, science fiction (SF) and fantasy, and therefore a kind of generically hybridized writing. Here I discuss various parallels between Weird Fiction and music marketed and recognized as ‘extreme metal’, an umbrella term for bands playing in the core styles of black, death and doom metal, and their various offshoots like grindcore and sludge. Analysis of all Weird Metal is beyond the scope of this article, so I focus on artists who achieve Weirdness through the presence and interrelationship of hybridity, numinosity (an overwhelming feeling of majesty) and alterity (radical difference), especially: Wolves in the Throne Room, Howls of Ebb, Portal, A Forest of Stars, Voices and (The Unsearchable Riches of) Void. I also consider how metal relates to the ‘New Weird’, radical developments in traditions of the form, concluding with thoughts on the wider theorization of The Weird.","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43434995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite being one of the oldest and largest metal nations, little research on metal music from Germany exists. This article focuses on the formation of the West German power metal scene. This subgenre was one of the first to be played in Germany, and bands such as Helloween, Running Wild, Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian produced a characteristic German sound that was to become famous worldwide. Based on interviews with music producers, musicians, journalists and academics, this study analyses stylistic musical features of (German) power metal, the artists’ influences and their different aspirations for international success. The findings suggest that a characteristic German power metal sound emerged in the 1980s and 1990s that might be called ‘Teutonic’. Germany was amongst the first countries to burst out countless successful power metal bands before the genre spread to other parts of the world. No standards existed in those days, and production resources were limited and individual. This restricted infrastructure – the unique characteristics of a few recording studios along with the small circle of professional musicians, engineers and producers – has shaped the classic German power metal sound. With standardization of production resources, new techniques and consequences of globalization such as internationally operating record labels, American culture in public media and increased English language skills, these national characteristics gradually diminished.
{"title":"The formation of the West German power metal scene and the question of a ‘Teutonic’ sound","authors":"Jan Herbst","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.2.201_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.2.201_1","url":null,"abstract":"Despite being one of the oldest and largest metal nations, little research on metal music from Germany exists. This article focuses on the formation of the West German power metal scene. This subgenre was one of the first to be played in Germany, and bands such as Helloween, Running Wild, Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian produced a characteristic German sound that was to become famous worldwide. Based on interviews with music producers, musicians, journalists and academics, this study analyses stylistic musical features of (German) power metal, the artists’ influences and their different aspirations for international success. The findings suggest that a characteristic German power metal sound emerged in the 1980s and 1990s that might be called ‘Teutonic’. Germany was amongst the first countries to burst out countless successful power metal bands before the genre spread to other parts of the world. No standards existed in those days, and production resources were limited and individual. This restricted infrastructure – the unique characteristics of a few recording studios along with the small circle of professional musicians, engineers and producers – has shaped the classic German power metal sound. With standardization of production resources, new techniques and consequences of globalization such as internationally operating record labels, American culture in public media and increased English language skills, these national characteristics gradually diminished.","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46525005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Myth and Magic in Heavy Metal Music, Robert McParland (2018)","authors":"Ruth Barratt-Peacock","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.2.279_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.2.279_5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42273151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article presents a case study of how obsolete vinyl records are transformed into concert souvenirs through fan labour, using it as a springboard for an enquiry into fan creativity – both in terms of making do with a culture that excludes materially disenfranchised fans, and also in terms of re-purposing objects and discovering new ways of deriving pleasure from their use. It shows how embodied knowledge and dispositions are deployed to casually resist an economy of alienation and obsolescence, how fan productions are often exchanged in both the cultural and financial economies, and, in so doing, makes an intervention into an under-researched aspect of metal culture and fan cultures more generally.
{"title":"Vinyl records, metal fandom and fan labour: Productions and exchanges at the intersection of the cultural and financial economies","authors":"Eleftherios Zenerian","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.1.89_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.1.89_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a case study of how obsolete vinyl records are transformed into concert souvenirs through fan labour, using it as a springboard for an enquiry into fan creativity – both in terms of making do with a culture that excludes materially disenfranchised fans, and also in terms of re-purposing objects and discovering new ways of deriving pleasure from their use. It shows how embodied knowledge and dispositions are deployed to casually resist an economy of alienation and obsolescence, how fan productions are often exchanged in both the cultural and financial economies, and, in so doing, makes an intervention into an under-researched aspect of metal culture and fan cultures more generally.","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44228100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the music and transgressions of Norwegian black metal in the early 1990s. Facial and vocal masking, emblematic in corpsepaint and screaming, lay at the intersection between these two modes of existence, musical and criminal. Masking in black metal leads to the creation of a new persona, what I call the ‘black metal double’. This double enacts a splitting of subjectivity between personal and public personas, and the vocal scream comes to navigate the space between these personas. This bifurcated existence predicates an alternate, abject mode of being for black metal performers. Masking becomes a theoretical means for living two lives: one as private citizens and the other as black metal musicians who transgress criminal and musical limits. By collapsing the boundaries between abjection and subjection, black metal musicians create new spaces of political and cultural meaning-making through masking.
{"title":"Norwegian black metal, transgression and sonic abjection","authors":"Woodrow Steinken","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.1.21_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.1.21_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the music and transgressions of Norwegian black metal in the early 1990s. Facial and vocal masking, emblematic in corpsepaint and screaming, lay at the intersection between these two modes of existence, musical and criminal. Masking in black metal leads to the creation of a new persona, what I call the ‘black metal double’. This double enacts a splitting of subjectivity between personal and public personas, and the vocal scream comes to navigate the space between these personas. This bifurcated existence predicates an alternate, abject mode of being for black metal performers. Masking becomes a theoretical means for living two lives: one as private citizens and the other as black metal musicians who transgress criminal and musical limits. By collapsing the boundaries between abjection and subjection, black metal musicians create new spaces of political and cultural meaning-making through masking.","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48932079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A mermaid’s song in distortion: The recreation of ancient myth by a medieval metal band","authors":"Martine Mussies","doi":"10.1386/MMS.5.1.115_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/MMS.5.1.115_1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36868,"journal":{"name":"Metal Music Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45166890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}