Is black metal finding God?

[Clef_Burton]

Is it just me, or does anyone else believe the lyrical themes in Advent Parallax largely revolve around traditionalism? Some choice cuts:


Viral Kinesis

Anoint. Alight. Align.
The Mind says, 'I am not of the Body. When the Body ceases, I will be set free. I direct the Shell to move.'
The Soul says, 'I am not of the Body. When Death comes, I shall reunite with the Void. I am the Engine of the Vessel.'
The Spirit says, 'I am not of the Body. If I die, there is no longer reason to Exist. I am the fuel that fills the Form and gives it Power.'
The Body says, 'It is only through Me that you are realized. I am that which makes you known. Without Me, you have no Home.'
The Fire says, 'I am your Master. I govern you all as Passions. The Body melts at my touch. The Spirit burns at ignition. The Soul ashes at recession. The Mind an inferno at my stoking.'

Crippled - Salvaged - Assimilated
Asphyxia - Deluge - Collapse

Mechanism exposed
In atrophy
Slime - Corruption - Filth

Polyphonic choking
Stifled
One ultimate prayer
For cessation

Our enigma of destination
A defined void
Thy mechanism plagued
Corporeal casket
In bloom
Relentless sacrifice
Thy ritualized absorbing cloak
Sterile devices of castrated passion
The airing of soiled, stained vestments
The preparation of thy temple
Sanctify thy altar
And tarry...

The lesser arrive
Pretenders
To fortify ego
To devour and prolong
Suffering upon
The traveler
The adept

His existence to illuminate
Yet thy ignorance manifest
Insight denied

Formulae turns immortal
Yet again denied
Delusion versus wisdom
Wisdom versus defeat

Build thy solar temple
Radiate thy measures
In failure of scheme
In favor of purity

Shine!

Anoint. Alight. Align.

Séance in a Warrior's Memory

I am the Key to Obliteration
Mandalora
Body without Spirit
Spirit without Flesh

Owning Your Own Shadow by Robert Johnson. Says, Johnson, “It is the duty of the true poet to take the fragmented world that we find ourselves in and to make unity of it. In  Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot writes, “‘The Fire and the Rose are one.’ By overlapping the two elements of fire and a flower, he makes a mandalora. We are pleased to the depth of our soul to be told that the fire of transformation and the flower of rebirth are one and the same. All poetry is based upon the assertion that this is that. When the images overlap we have a mystical statement of unity. We feel there is safety and sureness in our fractured world, and the poet has given us the gift of synthesis.” (102-3) The “mandalora” (the Italian word for “almond”) is like the mandala, itself a holy symbol that reminds us in Johnson’s words “of our unity with God and all living things.”The mandalora is a healing symbol. It “binds together that which was torn apart and made unwhole--unholy. It is the most profound religious experience we can have in life.” The mandalora, says Johnson, “is the place of poetry.” The Venn Diagram is a form of the mandalora.

Vomitorium Angelis

Warping foul Aeternity
A Palace of Empty Eyes
Wounds that forever feed
And ache when loss is gained

Acolyte of the Abyss
In Winds of Grief and Madness
Transcending the Other Side
Of Infinite Dimensions

Form hidden within
Tangible Reality
Hermetic power slumbers
Within the Shells

Séance of Galvanic Illusion
Rising from nowhere
Aeternally abandoning bones

As I write my Names
The stars go out
When all my Names are scribed
Matter returns to Divinity

Impression of a Soul
Yet Shadow
Dead residues
Of Manifestation

Now walk aloft this Kingdom
On limbs unclean, unwhole
Embrace the Quickening Abscess
Praise Hail the King of Sores

Recall the Names
Let them stir and shake
Rust from their chains
Raped unto the earth

The Names are writ
The Stars are gone

This album is nothing radically new musically (to my ears, an expansion of the Immortal style), but the mood it manages to channel; especially in the last triumphant, dare I say optimistic track; is incredibly spiritual. The lyrical themes fit this new mood perfectly. I think this album lays the ground for more of this type. It's almost as if nineties black metal was both an angry outlet against decadent modern religion (Darkthrone) and a mimicry of its forgotten but legitimate past (Enslaved), and now it's going to grow up, realise that the church burning and satanism haven't worked, and reflect once more.

I realise most people here think Wolves in the Throne Room suck and are humiliating, but a few useless interludes aside, I enjoyed Two Hunters, and the closing lyrics are also pertinent here (especially as WITTR are often thrown around as a lefty-type band who would be expected to eschew all spirituality).


I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots

The wood is filled with the sounds of wildness
The songs of birds fill the forest on this new morning
This will be my new home
Deep within the most sacred grove
the sun god is born anew

I will lay down my bones among the rocks and roots of the deepest
hollow next to the streambed
The quiet hum of the earth's dreaming is my new song

When I awake, the world will be born anew

[uvanimon]

it's the logical next step

[Helmholtz]

Well, in Averse Sefira's situation, it absolutely is a sign that the better bands in metal are evolving.  No protest music, no emo whine, nothing of the sort mars the grandeur and wonder of their music, and this is the concept evolving, though I feel that this was to an extent presaged on Tetragrammatical Astygmata as well, and that Advent Parallax is a solidification of that direction.

[istaros]

i don't know about "god." but there has been a definite move towards finding transcendentalism. which god, at one point, served to do. in Averse Sefira's particular case, the strongest notion i infer from their last two albums is an osmosis of the mind into the fulld depths of the complexity of the universe and man's place within it. viewing it as if transposed, momentarily, to having an outside perspective looking in. as in self-reflection, but applied on a grander scale

[Devamitra]

A more pessimistic way to put it is that as the original spirit of black metal becomes lost and forgotten, through mostly natural but unfortunate reasons such as lack of excitement for the concept which has become a joke in the hands of imitators, and personally growing up and finding other beliefs. Then separate fragments from the original thinking either become recombined in a "new age" style synthesis or are really the point of view of a completely different belief system but are dressed up as black metal through vocabulary. .

For comparison, see the lyrics of the fusion/prog death metal wave: Atheist, Cynic, later Death (gasp!), Pestilence "Spheres", Gorguts "Obscura"... interesting also is that many very young bands of the era were also close to this cosmic/transcendental spirit, maybe because of their innocence? I am thinking some early Finnish death metal lyrics, the first Darkthrone and so on.

It does not need a judgement whether it's a "good" or "bad" direction.

[David_Ravel]

Be it the search for ''God'', ''Cosmic Perfection'' or the ultimate Idealism, intelligent groups and classical composers all tend to feel the same energy and express it through music. As someone said above, it's the next logical step (idealism and esoterism) for any intelligent group :

      “Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.” - Ludwig Van Beethoven

[Pro Abortion]

I've always thought a number of black metal bands/albums sound "spiritual."

[ASBO]

To nihilists, the only sin is dualism.

We are about reality.

In that sense, God and Nature are one and the same.

Metal has always sounded like church music -- major scales, classical composition, "serious" outlook. It's not unlike Romantic poetry in that respect: it competes with an externalized vision of God, by finding God in everything.

Pantheism, paganism, Hinduism, idealism -- they are all about a single idea, which is that god pervades the world and we are here to fix the organization of the world, not to fight for the individual -- a means -- as an end in itself.

In that sense, metal and any intensely reflected spirituality are the same.

People over 125 IQ points tend to find transcendental idealism in any religion they approach, in every culture, but most concentrated in European and Indian cultures.

Metal is using logic to find this same path.

[roshan]

I believe that there is room for the expansion of the Black Metal ideology. One of the reasons why I find black metal so attractive is that ideologically, it is very similar to classical Hindu values. The Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, is IMO one of the greatest works celebrating and expressing nihilism, romanticism and the warrior spirit, all of which are supported by an underlying system of spirituality. Recently, black metal seems to have discovered a greater reverence for nature, as well as a nationalistic aspect to it, both values espoused by classical Hinduism. I think it is only natural for BM to eventually develop a spiritual side as well. And by spirituality, I dont mean some faggy left wing new age nonsense, but rather, a nihilistic spirituality that is conducive to the ideology of BM.

[Chains]

An amusing comcenpt, considering the fierce anti-religious stance black metal has on the surface. I do agree, however, that to some extent this spirituality is there. However, I believe that it's fairly limited to specific bands. Apart from Averse Sefira and, to some extent I suppose, NoEvDia, I can't think of anything recent with strong interests in these subjects.

[roshan]

To nihilists, the only sin is dualism.

We are about reality.

In that sense, God and Nature are one and the same.

Metal has always sounded like church music -- major scales, classical composition, "serious" outlook. It's not unlike Romantic poetry in that respect: it competes with an externalized vision of God, by finding God in everything.

Pantheism, paganism, Hinduism, idealism -- they are all about a single idea, which is that god pervades the world and we are here to fix the organization of the world, not to fight for the individual -- a means -- as an end in itself.

In that sense, metal and any intensely reflected spirituality are the same.

People over 125 IQ points tend to find transcendental idealism in any religion they approach, in every culture, but most concentrated in European and Indian cultures.

Metal is using logic to find this same path.

The sad thing is, many Hindus are unable to overcome dualism. Religion can only help so much. In the end, intelligence is still necessary to comprehend such concepts. The level of comprehension of the practitioner depends on their level of intelligence andtheir ability to use their logical thinking skills.

Take for example the metaphorical Hindu trinity, Brahma (Creation), Vishnu (Existence) and Shiva (Destruction). An intelligent Hindu will realize that the grouping of these dieties together is meant to indicate that creation, existence, and destruction are one and the same. When a house is burnt, ashes are created. When a human dies, a corpse comes into existence. There is no duality between creation and destruction, and neither is there any such thing as existence, as everything is constantly in flux. Creation, existence, destruction are illussions, concepts invented by humans, as it is we who decide what to label as creation or destruction.

Hindus that are not exactly intelligent will end up with a superficial interpretation of there being "one god" who creates the universe, preserves it and then destroys it (which is still better than "destruction is evil and the work of satan!"), those who are better off will apply a similar sort of thinking to everything they encounter and realize that what we normally label as "destruction" is not exactly a bad thing and is natural and necessary for the continued functioning of the universe, whilst the stupidest amongst the stupid are busy drawing parallels with the Christian trinity purely based on the "three" factor and continue to think in completely dualistic terms.

[ASBO]

I agree.

This is why traditional societies united religion, government and culture.

That way there is one definitive source.

Now, it is "pick a source who says what is convenient for you to believe" -- so hordes flock to whatever requires the least of them.

Satan himself could not have designed a better system of division of populations.

We distrust definitive sources because we distrust society and the motivations of one another, in this modern time.

That can change.

I believe the Bhagavad-Gita shows us the way.

[Consvming Impvlse]

Spiritualism and theism are very different things. I'd say that this band seems into exploring esoteric ideas without it being tied to ideas of dualism or Jehovah.

[ASBO]

"I think there's a large percentage of people who are born without the ability to detect injustice," Nirvana's Kurt Cobain recently told Alternative Press. "Those are the people who usually resort to religion."

http://www.rockrap.com/archive/archi102.html

People who worry about inequality turn from religion.

People who accept that there's an order bigger than human preference turn to it.

Interesting conjecture by Mr Heroin Addict.

[KiSSy]

An amusing comcenpt, considering the fierce anti-religious stance black metal has on the surface.

Don't mistake anti Judeo-Christian or anti-humanist for anti-religious. Black metal has always been spiritual and religious, so this thread doesn't make any sense to me. Are you guys just discovering this?