Tag Archives: Post Black Metal

Alcest – Lone Wolf: Live at The Deaf Institute, Manchester, UK

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alcest live in Europe spring 2015

A respectably full venue is greeted by support act Lone Wolf, whose name is something of an oxymoron has he has another keyboard player and drummer with him. He might look for all the world like an IT manager who has come straight from a meeting but surely his sensitive balladry will win doubters over? In a word. No.

Lone Wolf, by Rich Price Photography

Lone Wolf, by Rich Price Photography


Ponderous keyboard ostinatos and bleating falsetto vocals do little to inspire anything above tepid half claps between songs. “Mr Wolf’s” polite and apologetic banter does little to excuse the fact that the majority of this set is turgid singer/songwriter dross wallowing in mediocrity.

Alcest, by Rich Price Photography

Alcest, by Rich Price Photography

The blue stage lights usher in a sense of dreamlike reverie as Alcest launch into ‘Opale’. Neige thanks the audience for their patience for the technical problems the French men initially face, but said gremlins are soon banished in favour of blissful hymns like ‘Summer’s Glory’ and older number ‘Souvenirs D’un Autre Monde’.

Transfixed, the audience stare longingly at the quartet as the beauty and of the songs seeks to penetrate their very souls. Despite the supposed narrow mindedness of metalheads Shelter era material is well received, but not with the same appreciation and devotion that heralds the older material. ‘Écalies De Lune Part 1’ is greeted like a long lost lover, but the most fervent reaction is reserved for the triumphant salvos of  ‘Autre Temps’ and ‘Délivrance’ where a couple of audience members are so overwhelmed with emotion they actually shed tears.

Alcest, by Rich Price Photography

Alcest, by Rich Price Photography

Much like Anathema before them, new opus Shelter has seen Alcest shift their focus to more gentle atmospheric sounds while retaining much of their loyal fanbase. Not many gigs see punters in Hate Forest t-shirts cosying up to those in Mogwai tops but that’s a testament to the crossover appeal the band has garnered.

Seducing all in attendance with delicate, soaring cadences wielded to lush atmospherics, tonight’s performance is exceptional once the early technical hindrances have been banished. Another bewitching and mesmerising performance from a seminal act who continue their metamorphosis into a brighter, more ethereal act whose beauty transcends mere genre boundaries.

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WORDS: ROSS BAKER

PHOTOS: RICH PRICE PHOTOGRAPHY


Horsehunter – Caged in Flesh

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Any band with the word ‘horse’ in its name should be heavier than the gonads of a prize bull that’s gone without for months. This debut album from Aussie quartet Horsehunter, achieving a label reissue just months after its initial release, will indeed challenge the strongest shoulders.

Caged In Flesh (Magnetic Eye) sees its initial riff kick through a cymbal shimmer with the might of Atlas’ left boot; slow, yet dancing through colossal opener ‘Stoned to Death’. Leads flicker briefly in and out, the bass fizzes and lumbers into the quicker, rampant aggression of the second movement and vocals shift from booming cleans to savage roars. The agility of the musicianship, particularly of the lead solo halfway through this monstrous track, really allows the sound to breathe and gives added vitality, counteracting the slow, deliberate riff of the third movement nicely. That stellar lead squeals above the fulminating power, reaching the stars by the coda, with Nick Cron‘s pummelling yet measured drums laying the bedrock. It’s a magnificent early statement, a real flexing of both muscle and inventive potency, and fully portrays the mood the title demands.

A brutal, crawling intensity takes over the title track, chords and solitary beats dropping like manhole covers from the sky in a second stage pregnant with the expectation of explosion. When it comes it slurs and chugs in as a cushion for hostile screams, riffs and bass notes so gargantuan they morph under the sheer, pulsing weight. The largely serene ‘Nightfall’ is a delicious departure before the fluctuating, atmospheric coruscation of closer ‘Witchery’ twists both the mind, feet and soul in an amalgam of Sludgy groove and surprising yet ultimately euphoric Post-Black finale.

Too often its detractors malign ‘low-end’ metal music as the output of neanderthals; a narrow, one-dimensional blunder through mud with no variation or ability to change course. Those of us who are bewitched by its weight and tolling resonance know also of its myriad inventors, their creative talent and nuances which give light to the glorious shade. On the evidence here, Horsehunter are certainly pounding a road to this pantheon.

 

8.5/10

Horsehunter on Facebook

 

PAUL QUINN


Pyramids – A Northern Meadow

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Anybody here with broad tastes recall The Blue Nile? They of 80s Indie Electronica fame? For some reason the wrought moments of their minimalist, stark melancholy spring to mind when harmonized, plaintive vocals burst through the chaotic ambience of Texan super-project Pyramids. The rest sounds nothing like, of course…

Doubtless somewhat responsible for the complex, occasionally harsh noise surrounding those honeyed tones, Blut Aus Nord‘s Vindsval and Gorguts‘ Colin Marston join Mike Dean‘s men for sophomore album A Northern Meadow (Profound Lore). Lead track ‘In Perfect Stillness, I’ve Only Found Sorrow’ emerges like some lo-fi, Post-Black Doves; shoegaze Indie strains blending with slashing yet melodic guitar, while the high-pitched, soaring vocals bring Thom Yorke into the equation. Though this is the early template, strange soundscapes envelop the structures with the intricate rhythms and Post leadwork furthering the Radiohead connection, albeit with more weight to the body – an at times crushing sequence of blows bursting a colliding crescendo of noise in both ‘The Earth Melts Into Red Gashes…’ and ‘The Substance of Grief Is Not Imaginary’.

As the titles suggest cheery this ain’t, yet the euphoric effects of the music at times contrast from the intent and that pensive, melancholy voice despite the obvious emotion of the whole: the resonant, rising harmonies and emotive, synthesized atmospherics of ‘Indigo Birds’ charging the soul and calming the frozen wastes of agonised, railing riffs.

In many ways this is the aural depiction of a nervous breakdown, the conflicting emotions crashing together, those fluctuating rhythmic structures and occasionally blackened riffs being the violent mood swings. The complexities and contradictions in the sound are both zenith and Nemesis, highlighting both the harshness and the beauty but also occasionally dampening just as things threaten to explode. Picture Red Sparrowes or Alcest if you will, with the hostile anguish retained just to tease whilst remaining an integral part. The dark-Mastodon feel of ‘Consilience’, a sinister organ adding to the portentous mass, closes an album in equal parts exquisite, beguiling yet a sprawling achievement; one most definitely worth sticking on every time you’re dwelling on that crossroads between depression and ecstasy.

 

8.0/10

Pyramids on Facebook

 

PAUL QUINN


An Autumn For Crippled Children – The Long Goodbye

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An Autumn For Crippled Children have a very credible reputation, one of almost unreserved critical acclaim gained over the four albums that precede The Long Goodbye (Wicker Man), four albums that have established the Dutch post-black metal band as able to combine prolificacy and class in rare measure, and a band whose raison d’etre is in the beautifully dark and melancholic.

And release seven (in six years, for they have also produced two EPs)  will continue that reputation, and starts by snapping the head of the listener to attention with a deformed upbeat Death Rock opening trio that fuse goth-punk, black metal jangle and profound Cascadian melodies. Like a permeating disease, the white noise of distortion sits like an ethereal fog atop the bleak atmospheric music playing beneath its influence, as the dance beneath slows from the Death Rock four-step of the first three songs to a statuesque stall of reflection which subdues the mood.

Whether that is the right play or not depends on whether you’re prepared to accept The Long Goodbye for what it is, rather than what you thought it was going to do, or indeed what you wanted it to do. After the unexpected and pleasing opening, the expected combination of black metal shuffle and despondent atmospheres takes over from ‘When Night Leaves Again’.

Taking it for how it plays out, The Long Goodbye proceeds to unveil post-Black Metal dejection, with songs like ‘Endless Skies’ that segue from gentle mood pieces into evocative and epic movements, before recalling some of the simple touches that impressed from the outset towards the tail, with ‘Gleam’ an expansive story splashed with flickers of Americana that explodes , contradictorily, into an uplifting yet sad beauty in the manner of a Deafheaven.

As mentioned at the outset, An Autumn For Crippled Children have a strong reputation that they’ve cultivated and maintained at every step of their existence. The Long Goodbye will only serve to enhance that standing, with the exploration of death rock, alongside their usual despondency and delicate post-Black metal, adding a welcome vibrancy and impetus.

 

8.0/10

An Autumn For Crippled Children on Facebook

 

STEVE TOVEY


Hidden (Blackened) Treasures – The Watcher from Fen

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With their last proclamation Carrion Skies (Code666), British band Fen let the Black Metal flood back into their sound, releasing their strongest album to date and ultimately featuring in the Ghost Cult Magazine Top 40 Albums of 2014. In celebration of opening the sluice gates, front man The Watcher revealed the depth of his Black Metal love by unveiling his Top 5 unsung oft overlooked underground treasures

 

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Setherial – Nord (Napalm Records – 1996)

Cold. That’s the one overriding word to sum up this furious blast of mid-nineties Swedish black metal – cold. Freezing, even. Taking its cues fairly heavily from Emperor’s seminal In the Nightside Eclipse (Candlelight) album, Nord strips backs the keyboards whilst simultaneously cranking up the intensity levels considerably. Riff after riff of freezing melody pours forth across thundering percussion, lengthy songs (the opener alone is nearly 12 minutes long) buoyed by relentless twists and turns. An exhilarating, windswept listen and serious contender for black metal’s finest hour.

 

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Diabolical Masquerade – Nightwork (Avantgarde Music – 1998)

Anders Nystrom may be much better known for his “day job” in Katatonia but back in the mid-90s, as the mysterious Blakkheim he released four records of haunting, horror-themed black metal under the banner of Diabolical Masquerade. The pick is undoubtedly the third full-length Nightwork, a peak-laden brace of songs replete with infections fretwork, searing melody and an underlying sense of humour. This isn’t at all to detract from the ‘abandoned mansion’ atmospherics of the album and Nightwork simply oozes a convincing crepuscular ambience in amongst the riffage.

 

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Armagedda – Ond Spiritism (Agonia – 2004)

From pure early Darkthrone worship on their debut to ‘fist-in-the face’ muscular black metal on ‘Only True Believers’ to occult-themed dungeonesque roamings, Sweden’s Armagedda explored a gamut of expressions within their short, three-album career. Swansong ‘Ond Spiritism’ is the peak – a lengthy, sprawling opus with an undeniable cloak of darkness wafting across the whole thing. Graav’s guttural croak spits venom in his native Swedish whilst the guitars and bass swirl like a thick fog. Absorbing and unsettling work from the young Swedes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jyRiMz27aU

 

 

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Tenebrae in Perpetuum – Antico Misticismo (Debemur Morti – 2006)

Yet another band who are no longer with us, Tenebrae in Perpetuum specialised in a particularly brittle, shrill form of frozen melodic black metal – made particularly surprising by the fact that they were actually Italian! Mainman Atratus’ guitar sound is one of the most distinctive you’ll hear – a treble-heavy, reverb soaked saw that nonetheless manages to convey the band’s excellently-developed sense of melody and song structure. All three of their full-length releases are worth tracking down so consistent is their quality but Antico Misticismo probably edges it thanks to a couple of genuinely spine-tingling moments.

 

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Obsidian Tongue – A Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time (Hypnotic Dirge – 2013)

The most recent release on this list and hopefully a band who won’t remain ‘hidden’ for too much longer, this US-based duo ply their trade with a particularly punishing brand of “Post” black metal. Building on the template laid down by the so-called ‘Cascadian’ sound (Agalloch, Wolves in the Throne Room et al), Brendan Hayter and Greg Murphy lay down a serious challenge on their sophomore effort here. Winding passaged of considered guitar, inventive percussion and a darker atmosphere than many of their peers render them a real one to watch. That they can pull it off live is just the icing on the cake.

 

Fen on Facebook

 

The Watcher was speaking to STEVE TOVEY


Caina – Setter Of Unseen Snares

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When talking about Black Metal albums, the word “atmospheric” can be rather difficult to pin down.  Sometimes it means pine-scented forest sulking, other times bleak, suicidal caterwauling – these days, due to the odd and sometimes unpredictable shifting of underground trends, it’s as likely to mean “we are now a 90’s Indie band” than anything else. On Setter Of Unseen Snares (Church Of Fuck), long-running British two-piece Caina have pulled off the increasingly unusual trick of doing something a little bit different.

The first half of Setter… leads from a genuinely haunting True Detective sample into four short, dynamic tracks of Black Metal that are contemplative, aggressive and catchy.  Favouring strident riffing and surprisingly melodies underpinned by solid blasting and shrieked vocals, they pull off the trick of being “atmospheric” without losing any of the power or dynamics that Black Metal is supposed to have.  This is particularly evident on ‘I Am The Flail Of The Lord’ and ‘Applicant Supplicant’, which bookend this first half with genuinely catchy riffs and something approaching a sing-along chorus. Taken by themselves, these first five tracks would form a genuinely effective EP of mature, listenable Black Metal in its own right.

The album doesn’t end with those five tracks, however, and the sixth track – the fifteen-minute ‘Orphan’ – either transforms the rest of the album or contradicts it.  Ditching the forceful Black Metal riffing for a slow-build swell of feedback which rises into “Post-Metal” atmospherics and clean vocals, ‘Orphan’ almost sounds like a different band at first, and initially the effect can be to break the momentum built up over the first five tracks.  As the song develops, however, more traces of Caina’s Black Metal sound start to introduce themselves, until ‘Orphan’’s final few furious minutes, where we’ve returned full-circle to where ‘Applicant Supplicant’ left us. It’s not a comparison all fans will be glad of, but the band Orphan most calls to mind is controversial “hipster BM” merchants Deafheaven. After a couple of spins, it really coalesces into a single entity, with ‘Orphan’ throwing the catchiness and power of the first five tracks into sharper relief, while highlighting more vividly the atmospheric and contemplative nature of the band.

Setter Of Unseen Snares, then, is a genuinely remarkable album in its own, quiet way, but it needs a bit of time to reveal itself as such.  On initial listens it may well sound competent, polished but ultimately offering little new – but for those with the patience to join up the dots between the first and second part of the album and allow the experience of one to affect the other, this may well stand as one of the most interesting and accomplished Black Metal albums they’ve heard in a while.

 

8.0/10

Caina on Facebook

 

RICHIE HR

 


Lotus Thief – Rervm

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The act of tagging a ‘post’ prefix onto an act which operates uninhibited by the confines of a single genre has become a label for both the fiercely exciting and the odiously pretentious.

Inspired by a 1st Century poem by a mysterious writer Lucretius, which “grazed the ideas of the universality of energy, atomism and rational thought over superstition and free love” apparently.

Rervm (Svart Records) could we have fallen into the pretentious category if it wasn’t for the beguiling nature of the material on offer. Drummer Otrebor also applies his trade in Black Metal act Botanist, but the scope here is much wider, encompassing Space Rock, ambient textures and the majestic and eerie vocals of co-conspirator Bezaelith.

The resulting six tracks weave a rich tapestry of ethereal beauty using Black Metal as the template to explore far more vast and expansive territories. The ambitious nature of such a bold enterprise could have seen the duo fall flat on their faces, yet listening to ‘Dicere Credas’ and ‘Mortalis’ there is rarely a lull in proceedings.

Fully comprehending the multifaceted concept of this grandiose collection is not essential to taking pleasure from the songs herein as these deeply emotive compositions are supported by an outstanding vocal performance which lures you into its vespertine grasp.

‘Miseras’ bedrock of visceral blastbeats seems an odd foundation on which to build cinematic ethereal textures, yet somehow the duo manage to make this make complete sense. Fashioning a rich tapestry of subtle melodies and haunting ambience, this album dares tread a ground where few heavy bands dare inhabit. “Oh wretched minds, oh blinded hearts” croons Bezaelith. This seductive chanteuse possesses an eerie ability to conjure transcendent beauty in a manner few, save Jex Thoth, are able to muster.

Lush arrangements are gracefully realised eloquently and make for stimulating listening with or without the highbrow concept behind it. The hypnotic voice of Bezaelith works wonders, conjuring many emotions on this esoteric journey into the beyond.

 

What could have been a grandiloquent and somewhat pompous affair, Rervm surpasses expectations with a truly mesmerising set of charismatic material full of soul and charm.

8/10

The Lotus Thief on Facebook

ROSS BAKER


Ophis – Abhorrence in Opulence

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If there’s one band that’s been criminally starved of attention, it’s German hostile miserabilists Ophis. I felt Effigies of Desolation, last year’s compilation reissue of the outfit’s first EP and album, would boost their profile and hopefully Abhorrence in Opulence (both Cyclone Empire), their latest supreme slab of deathly, funereal doom, will send that reputation soaring.

The early entrée of Asian chants cedes to the potentous thud of Nils Groth‘s cavernous drums and, when the tolling riffs are dropped in like manhole covers from the sky, the languorous yet ominous tone is set. Philip Kruppa‘s initial roar is a vile, scouring monster with the depth of the Marianas trench, whilst the sorrowful lead work at the two-third point of epic opener ‘Disquisition of the Burning’ hauls a warm yet desolate cocoon of misery to the close, curtailing a savage anger which never quite explodes into breakneck speed. It’s a crawling behemoth which embodies the Ophis sound perfectly.

The brooding ‘Among the Falling Stones’ tantalisingly swells and ebbs, some powerfully resonant and dictatorial stickwork joined by pulverising bass and riff sections; the whole magisterial in its funeral march section when a sparing lead builds into an affecting post-Black crescendo, eased to its demise by a heart-rending violin. The eerie ‘A Waltz Perverse’, though retaining the crushing force, possesses a slight technical air and strange rhythms reflecting the title, while the slithering hostility of ‘Somnolent Despondency’ is by turns oppressive then violent in its power.

A masterpiece of darkness and misery, the track’s middle section is brutally onerous, the drums creating a pounding intensity while desolate, delicately-picked leads and a howling solo send shivers down the spine, only increased by the single bark and seabed-deep scours undercutting them. Thunderous double kicks drive the mournful, murderous closer ‘Resurrectum’ to its wonderfully depressing end complete with resigned, despairing roars and intonations, through to an explosive and blasphemous finale.

The despair and emotion positively bleeds from every pore of this colossal album, a stunning powerhouse from a band growing in capability and maturity. You’ll bathe in the luscious suffocation of its unbearable weight and power.

 

9.0/10

Ophis on Facebook

 

PAUL QUINN

 

 


Dreams of the Carrion Kind (Part IV) – The Watcher from FEN

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To celebrate the release of their stunning 9/10 album Carrion Skies (Code666 – review here) The Watcher, guitarist and vocalist of England’s atmospheric post-Black Metal band Fen spoke to Ghost Cult on a range of subjects. In the last of our four part feature, with a further feature to follow in the next Ghost Cult digimag, he opened up about the lyrical concepts and themes prevalent on the new release, and the folly and failures of mankind…

 

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There seems to have been a change in your lyrical themes and style. Would you say you’ve changed the emphasis and topics as you’ve gone on?

“We have. The last couple of albums Dustwalker and Epoch were quite personal, it was internal thoughts being expressed via metaphors of the external – the inner landscape being presented as an outer landscape. We really ploughed that furrow extensively on Dustwalker, in particular, and that led to a lot of the lyrical themes being quite spiritual and transient discussions. This album is going back to The Malediction Fields (all releases on Code666) and is a lot more of an external reflection on mankind, the follies of the human spirit, and how we engage in endless repeating cycles tending towards self-destruction, failure and misery.

“People have said how lyrically it speaks of ancient times, but we’re trying to draw that line, because we are here in 2014 and we exist in a really technocratic age and society but, really the same failings that have plagued humanity since the birth of civilisation still occur and continue to haunt us, and that’s where a lot of the thought processes have gone on this album.”

It’s worrying that in 2014 and we’re still witnessing people being executed due to beliefs, a  high degree of exclusion and negativity towards diversity and in the UK, with the rise of UKIP, we’re seeing a worrying trend in terms of what is becoming popular in people’s politics.

“It’s worrying. I was talking to Gunnar (Sauermann) and he was saying there’s similar themes on the new Winterfylleth and was asking ‘Is there something going on in England? Is there a problem, and is it serving as an inspiration?’ The answer is, not consciously. We’re not a political band, I have no interest in discussing politics, and in fact I’m sick to the back teeth of this whole English Heritage Act concept that keeps getting thrown at us, but I suppose, subliminally, the entire discourse of society at the moment, and I don’t want to sound dramatic, but day by day there’s more negative news stories, and there’s the whole rise of UKIP…”

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That’s a big part of what worries me, thousands of years down the line and a right wing party with an exclusive agenda can still be popular and on the rise…

“People don’t learn. Everyone that lives in the present day thinks we’re more civilized and advanced than in the past, and it’s not true. It’s a lie. Just because we’re more technologically progressed than we were 50 years ago, 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, well, human mentality and physiology doesn’t evolve that quickly. Every person is 3 good meals away from a riot, we haven’t advanced. It’s just a Western perspective, too, as there’s vast tracts of this planet that still live in medieval conditions.

“In the last 6 to 12 months there’s been some very unpleasant discourse that is becoming increasingly mobilized, and that is the first step to badness. I went to the Holocaust Exhibition the other day, now, a visit to that is always going to be sobering but looking at it through the prism of where our political discourse is going at the moment, it sent a chill down my spine. The holocaust isn’t some evil entity that happened in biblical times, or distant past – it was only 70 years ago. It’s within living memory, and it started with rabble-rousing discourse about “others”. That’s how it starts; a charismatic demagogue talking about “others”, gradually normalizing demonization through political discourse.

We’re also in a society that’s awash with Middle Class apathy…

“I don’t want to get too bogged down in this, because my band isn’t about this, but if you’re ruminating on human failure, you’re ruminating on human tendencies towards conflict, and violence and aggression, this is happening now. There’s a lot of misplaced anger, saying ‘look at the different, look at the others’ and it’s always about ‘blame the foreigners’, because that’s an easy one. But look at where the real problem is, and it’s in the paymasters of this country, they’re playing people like puppets.

“But what is quite interesting, though, is that a lot of the lyrics for the album were written over a year ago, and this wasn’t happening, and it’s since I’ve written them, now I’m even more heightened to what’s going on. The first two tracks, ‘Our Names Written In Embers’ [which comes in two parts – ST], it’s human beings are just this endless cycle of conflict, of war, and then the obligatory introspection and “we can’t let that happen again” and then ten years later the same thing happens again. It’s a propensity for, a lust for slaughter, yet nobody ever “wins”, nobody gets anything out of it, it doesn’t have to be that loads of normal human beings get killed or wounded and then that’s it.

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“As a species it hasn’t stopped. We are so-called evolved in 2014 with our ipads and iphones and all that bollocks, and yet people are still being massacred on a daily basis. Is it ever going to stop? And that’s the over-arching theme for the album. You look at the title, you know, Carrion Skies, and that’s the future, that’s the future of man, it’s just  a blood-drenched. carcass-strewn horizon. Throughout it, I don’t think nihilism is the right word, I think there’s a sense of furious despair.

“‘Menhir – Supplicant’ is about sacrifice, because you’ve also got this propensity towards sacrifice and subjugation. You talk about a middle class apathy to our political environment, and this is people just giving up and surrendering, surrendering their responsibility. Why are people so keen to throw away their responsibility and tether themselves to some abstract yoke? Why? Why sacrifice themselves towards ideals and values that only do harm? It beggars belief.

“The lyrics, they’re addressing those concepts. You do have to consider what’s going on around you because it’s all well and good to mull over these things on a higher-level abstract point of view, but when things are happening at a slightly lower level,  more local point of view, you do look at it with a sharpened perspective. It’s happening now, it’s happening around us as we speak. Society is built on foundations of sand, the illusion of freedom, and easy comfort and distraction and that’s the only thing keeping people from marching into the streets and burning things.”

 

Fen on Facebook

Order Carrion Skies here

 

Words by STEVE TOVEY


Dreams of the Carrion Kind (Part III) – The Watcher from FEN

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To celebrate the release of their stunning 9/10 album Carrion Skies (Code666 – review here) The Watcher, guitarist and vocalist of England’s atmospheric post-Black Metal band Fen spoke to Ghost Cult on a range of subjects. In the third of four parts, with a further feature to follow in the next Ghost Cult digimag, talk turned to the role of the audience in the development of a band…

 

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When it comes to writing music, and developments and changes in Fen’s sound, do you care what your fans think, or is writing music for Fen purely for the band members?

First and foremost you have to write music that satisfies yourself; that is an absolute underlying fundament of being in a band, but I do care, yes. I think a band takes on a life of its own after a point. We’re on our fourth album, we seem to have quite a few people out there who support us, and I think it’d be disingenuous to say that your audience, or the buyer, isn’t in mind when you’re putting together material. If people are willing to take the time and effort, and potentially money, to invest in your art, then there has to be an element of reciprocation there. We are conscious of the fact we have listeners; it’s not like we’re a global phenomenon but we are aware, and if we put out a record and our established fans didn’t like it, I’d be really interested to know why.

By not being a band that is overtly a touring artist, does that audience becomes more distant, and contact with the people that buy your product is reduced? It’s not like you are a 5fDP with 18 month tours…

“It isn’t, but that’s not to say we wouldn’t like it to be [on tour that long – not that they want to be Five Finger Death Punch – ST]. I enjoy doing this, I enjoy doing shows, we enjoy getting opportunities, and if you’re in a band and you have an audience, you look to grow that audience, and it’s important. I think there are bands that are disingenuous, and they say ‘We just write for ourselves, and it’s a bonus if people choose to listen to us’, but if you’re just doing it for yourself, then just play your music loudly in the rehearsal room.”

To Misquote Al Jourgensen, as soon as you play music to other people you’re selling out…

“I think it’s a dishonest thing to say ‘We just in it for ourselves’. When you pick up a guitar when you’re 13 or 14 years old, you just want to rock the fuck out. You want to be the man! No matter how many permutations your musical endeavours go down, or whatever prisms you view yourself through, as an artist the minute you’re going onto a stage and plugging into an amp that’s cranked up, there’s an element of that original instinct that kicks in, of wanting to just rock out in front of a crowd. I’m not going to lie about that just to make myself look a little bit cooler or more detached, or more intellectual.

“OK, we have signifiers and caveats to it – we’re playing “Atmospheric post-Black Metal…” Well, ultimately, we’re playing loud rock music. That’s an underlying fact. And a part of that is an audience. It’s an important part of being in a band. No one in a band can look me in the eye and tell me they enjoy playing in front of fuck all people. That’s not true. You can lie to yourself with your ‘There were only 2 people there, but those 2 people really loved it’.

“So… ?”

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“I remember in my old band, in Skaldic Curse, we started working on a 25 minute long progressive black metal epic, and we were ‘Oh, this is really going to piss people off’… Hang on a minute, where’s this thinking leading? Are we getting so wrapped up in trying to do what people don’t expect of us? But then you are still thinking about what the audience think, you’re just looking at it through a different end of the telescope. It’s an un-ignorable part of the artistic process, unless you are going to record music on your own at home and only listen to it alone. The minute anyone else enters the picture, even band mates, you’re sharing, and there’s consideration for the listener, and I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t see why that has to somehow compromise the purity of the art.”

I guess it’s always been something that’s intrinsic within the Black Metal / Kvlt Metal mentality or mindset…

“Yes, there’s always the isolationist thing, but if you look at the second wave of black metal, Euronymous still wanted to shift records. He ran a record label. He wanted to sell records from a shop. It was under the guise of spreading the message of the horned lord, or whatever, but he wanted an audience.”

And let’s not pretend De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (Deathlike Silence) is shit…

“It’s a brilliant record, and Euronymous wanted an audience for it. He’d do tours; Mayhem were touring around Eastern Europe in 1990, 1991, and they were one of the first second wave Black Metal bands out there doing it. And there are some real headbanging moments on De Mysteriis… take the riff on ‘Pagan Fears’, that’s a proper fists in the air riff. The mid-section of ‘Freezing Moon’… that’s a head-banging classic, and that’s why I don’t think considering your audience has to be a compromise at all. I think there’s some dishonesty in that level of thinking because you can be inspired, you can write with integrity and you can still consider your audience.

“If you’ve got to a point where your band has a fanbase, then your band has overtaken you. It’s no longer yours and yours alone. And I know John from Agalloch gets really upset with this, he gets upset with fans having a sense of entitlement, and that’s fair enough, but these people are buying and consuming your music, and it’s a sense that’s born from them enjoying your music. While that can be annoying, in a sense, you can listen to them and take some stuff on board. There is a line, but if they’re genuine fans, buying physical releases and merchandise, and they’re investing in your band and your music, then you owe it to them to take them into consideration.”

 

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Words by STEVE TOVEY