I’ve always liked metal, but it took me a long time to come around to black metal. First, there’s the culture. I have a strong negative reaction to the self-righteousness of white males slavishly copying a handful of mentally ill teenaged white males from decades ago. Besides the cultural *shudder* “purity” of a movement, there’s the sonic rigidity. The tropes of #trveNorwegianblackmetal are so rigid that I struggle to tell any of the thousands of copy cats apart. But black metal is ubiquitous, so it was inevitable that I would find a few bands to enjoy. In fact, one of the best concerts I’ve been to in recent history had a line up heavily skewed towards black metal. Mostly I enjoy groups whose blackness is polluted with other colors, or bands who blacken other genres. Anyway, here are a few black metal and black metal adjacent bands I’ve enjoyed lately.
When I wrote about Asian metal I like, a few mistakes were made. Some album covers were switched, some bands in my notes were overlooked. Plus I keep running into more great Asian metal. So I’m doing another post on Asian metal I like.
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Laang
I had already heard and liked Taiwanese one-man project Laang 冷 when I wrote that earlier post, and don’t know how it slipped my mind. It even has a dramatic backstory. The album Hǎiyáng 海洋 was written as a response to – almost a description of – the artist’s experience of being carjacked, shot in the head, and surviving a coma. I think it is literally impossible to be more metal than that.
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Symphony of Horror
I rarely look at email promoting music (hard enough just to keep track of emails from my editors). But the message alerting me to the existence of Symphony of Horror and their album Gekommende Aus Abaddon caught my eye, because it contained the word Kazakhstan. I’ve never heard music from Kazakhstan before, but I once had a boss from there, and we sometimes would talk about music. She preferred 70’s style prog to the heavier metal I like. Like Kazakhstan itself, my boss was both Asian and Russian; but Symphony of Horror, inexplicably, seem to be singing in German. Nevertheless, I had to click through for old time’s sake. And what I found was symphonic metal, but it was, dare I say it, tasteful? So much symphonic metal banks in too-muchness. Symphony of Horror has just enough.
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ZaRRaZa
Kazakhstan doesn’t make the news much, but when it does, it seems to be heavy metal. And I usually like it. So when I saw that ZaRRaZa is from Kazakhstan, I had to give a listen.
Their album wasn’t out yet, so there were only two videos. I ended up watching them over and over again and not just because they were badasses playing guitar in the snow wearing tank tops. One was “The Grudge19” which reminded me of a heavier The Hu with its use of traditional instruments and images of nature. The other was Failed Apocalypse19, a much more straightforward bit of death metal that grabs you by the throat and shakes you around – but in a good way. (BTW, both songs have ’19 in the name because the album Rotten Remains is a collection of old demo songs re-recorded in 2019.) I loved them both.
I’m a total cheapskate, but you can bet I pre-ordered Rotten Remains. It barely cost more than a double latte.
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Takafume Matsubara
Grind is not usually my subgenre. But I’m always interested in music from Japan, and I’m a sucker for a good backstory. So when I read about Takafume Matsubara and his battle against hand paralysis in the Bandcamp Daily, I was intrigued. Not all good guitar playing is virtuosic, but grind’s speed seemed like a big ask. Add to that his background in the martial arts and his self-description as “just a salaryman,” and of course I was curious. So I listened to Strange, Beautiful and Fast – and it was.
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Facelift Deformation
Facelift Deformation only put out two promos on Bandcamp (three songs total) back in 2017. I only discovered them because they share a name with another band I like – which might be the same one? This Hong Kong Facelift Deformation is not quite the same sound as the OSDM of the Facelift Deformation on Cybernetic Organism Atrocity released by Realityfade on Bandcamp. But both bands are anonymous, and the timelines fit together…But anyway, the Hongkies play(ed) a brutal kind of music I didn’t think Hong Kong was capable of. I think I like the newer (album/band) better. But you have got to love the title Dim Sum Massacre.
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Coffins
On Beyond the Circular Demise, Japanese band Coffins 東京都 presents an anthology of every death metal element I love, with none of the ingredients I don’t like. On all of my many trips to Japan I have searched for music like this and never found it. But Coffins has been spewing this vitriol since 1996. They are even scheduled to play Seattle in May, although I have no faith that concert will actually take place. Now that I know they exist, I’ll be looking forward to seeing them in the future.
I don’t know why, maybe it’s the echo-filled production, the sparkly guitars, meandering song forms or emphasis on atmosphere, but if the genre tag has a “post-” in it, I’m probably going to like it, whatever comes after the hyphen.
It’s happened more times than I can count. I see a band that looks interesting on a streaming site. I hit play. The opening notes of noodly guitar or hooky riffage immediately capture my attention. Drums kick in, and my head starts to move. For a couple glorious, extended intro minutes I think I’ve found my new favorite band. Then the vocals start aaand I’m out. Nasal prog-rock vocals where I wanted a death growl; faux-demonic hisses where a scream belongs; emo screaming where literally anything would be better. Vocals are often an afterthought, especially in metal, and it often shows. Some people think they are required, but I prefer the honesty of a band that focuses on what they do well, and skips what they don’t care about. Especially when I’m working, I like instrumental music. But as long as the songwriting is there, I don’t care if the vocals aren’t.
My taste in music is broad and eclectic. I have very few prescriptive standards. But I’m not quite jaded. It doesn’t happen very often, but every now and then I hear something that totally confuses me. It’s usually the kind of stuff that sends other people screaming in the opposite direction (remember Ween’s “Push th’Little Daisies”?) but I like that WTF feeling.
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Fire-Toolz
The discovery that inspired this post, Field Whispers (Into the Crystal Palace) has way too much going on, and most of it is abrasive. So why is the overall effect so calm and meditative? I’d try to summarize what Fire-Toolz is up to, but it’s already been done better than I could by Bandcamp Daily.
an unholy combination of extreme metal, experimental noise, pop, and vaporwave…
combine New Age tranquility (complete with bird calls) with distorted spoken word, bombastic guitar solos ripped out of a racing game for the Sega Dreamcast, and paint-stripping shrieks. ..
The TV show Twin Peaks ran during the years I didn’t own a TV, so even though it seems like it would be right up my alley, I missed it. By all accounts, it was the kind of show to make you say, “WTF?”
So there’s a band in Portland (of course) inspired by the show. They are called Laura Palmer’s DEATH PARADE, which is apparently a reference to the show. And their music sounds like it belongs on the Twin Peaks soundtrack (which I have heard – that music was everywhere back in the day). I don’t really get it. But I like it.
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Lindsey Stirling
A dancing violinist is absurd for reasons that are obvious reasons if you’ve ever once drawn a bow across strings and tried to make it sound good. But the absurd captures attention. Dancer/violinist/cosplayer Lindsey Stirling has built a career on elaborate YouTube videos in which she dances and plays violin, usually at the same time. As a fan of both ballet and violin music, I remember when she first started to get attention.
Then, I did an article on Jennifer Thomas and discovered a whole world of classical YouTubers. But Stirling is the original.
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Fishslaughter
At first, Fishslaughter sounds like a typical heavy metal band name: animal + death word. But on closer inspection, they’re dead serious about the name, which references the impact of pollution and overfishing on the oceans. The bio “true aquatic black metal” is not a reference to Metalocalypse.
Ecological destruction is a fitting topic for a genre that deals in pain and rage. And environmental awareness is not enough to make you say, “WTF?” But add unusual instrumentation – in this case, an octave mandolin (what’s an octave mandolin?) – and you get some seriously weird shit.
Fishslaughter put their money where their mouth is. They have a newer album out, but all proceeds from their August, 2019 release Morfar go to Ocean Conservancy. In fact, if you provide evidence of a direct donation to the Conservancy, they’ll send you the album for free.
