Interview with Brett Stevens at MetalRecusants.com

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Adventurous metal site Metal Recusants published an interview with myself that hopefully will not bore any of you too much. Metal Recusants is one of the more interesting sites out there as you found out when you read our profile of Editor Dom and his team a few months back. Be sure to poke around for their commentary and reviews, interviews, and other forays into the world of extreme metal.

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Don’t support the scene

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After death metal and black metal had made their meaningful contributions, a cry rang out: support the scene!

By that it was meant that you should go to local shows, buy records, and otherwise give monetary subsistence and publicity to local bands.

They left off a key detail: which local bands?

Actually, they don’t want you to ask that question. All local bands, they hope. That way, even if their bands are talentless, they’ll be able to sell merch and music because, y’know be cool man, support the scene!

In fact, what “support the scene” really means is “abolish quality control.” Forget trying to have good metal bands, let’s just have a lot. That way everyone can play at this neat game called being as cool as Euronymous or Azagthoth.

I have a different philosophy: support the good bands, and ignore the bad. This idea is often called “natural selection.” It means that if you want a strong scene, you only support the strong candidates, and let the weak ones die out.

Post-1994 people have no idea how cruel, judgmental and intolerant the older scene was — or how much this worked to its benefit. People shunned bands that weren’t the complete package: music, lyrics, name, imagery, music, production, visual art, and personalities. The scene was more elitist than these faux-elitist hipsters could ever dream of being.

It was downright hostile to people who didn’t “get it,” where “it” was a complex and insular culture so alienated from the mainstream it saw anyone who believed society had a future to be a mental failure. It saw society itself to be insane, and headed for doom. It realized how modern life was constructed of very many ancient lies, fluffed up and re-covered to look shiny and new.

The underground is not a place for joiners. It’s not a place for me-tooers. It’s not a place for the extra people of humanity who, having nothing they really care about, go casting around for an “identity” they can manufacture out of things they buy and activities they attend.

Don’t support the scene. The scene is a parasite. Support the good metal bands, and death to the rest.

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CIA agrees that later Deicide sucks, uses it to torture prisoners

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As part of its enhanced interrogation of prisoners in the worldwide police action against terrorist guerrillas, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been subjecting prisoners to abruptly-changing streams of loud music. The idea behind this interrogation is essentially to obliterate the prisoner’s mind with repetitive and offensive noise and make them pliable; how this is different from people voluntarily watching television and listening to radio remains to be studied.

Helpful journalists compiled a list of songs used by the CIA during torture. In addition to the predictably annoying like the Barney Theme or Meow Mix commercial, and the usual venality from pop divas, there’s Deicide with “Fuck Your God.” While that may seem like a nod to death metal, it’s actually the CIA confirming what we’ve all known for some time, which is that while early Deicide is amazing beyond words, later Deicide sucks and is horrible.

In fact, “Fuck Your God” in every way resembles what you imagine a television preacher from the 1950s would warn against. From the 40-IQ-point title to the pentatonic melodies and chromatic rhythm work without any phrasal significance, this song sounds like an angry rock ‘n’ roll band blaming an absent god for their failings between bouts of AA and parole hearings. Because we don’t want to torture you, dear readers and little profit centers that you are, we’ll leave you with the Deicide discography for thinking people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgUP5EGifKg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqPCVDQ1oMI

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Desecresy – Chasmic Transcendence released by Xtreem Records

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Finnish old school death metal band Desecresy released their third album, Chasmic Transcendence, via Xtreem Records (ex-Drowned) on April 21, 2014. Following more of a mid-paced approach in deference to the doom-death of past, the album offers 14 tracks of shorter length than previous albums.

Descresy, which consists of Nurmi T.G. on vocals and Tommi Gronqvist on guitars/bass/drums, might be compared to a fusion of old Finnish death metal like Abhorrence and doom-death like Incantation or Asphyx. The band released a promotional track, “Voracious Mass,” which demonstrates the changes in style.

Tracklist:

  1. The Ethereal Bane
  2. Shattered Monuments
  3. The Denied Legacy
  4. The Eye of Death
  5. Cyclonic Mass Consumptor
  6. Sons of the Burning God II
  7. Celestial Intoxication
  8. Climber of the Sky
  9. Hibernant Orbs
  10. Travellers of Forbidden Planes
  11. Voracious Mass
  12. Waters of Neptune
  13. Infinite Halls
  14. Autumn of Souls

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Crucifix – Visions of Nihilism

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Texan death metal band Crucifix released multiple demos during the early 1990s which showcased the band’s development of percussive death metal into an artistic voice instead of participation in a trend. Like many other neglected bands who were ahead their time, the band never released a full album. Those who desire a collection of the band’s original material can now obtain it through the efforts of Dark Blasphemies Records.

Visions of Nihilism displays the blueprint for the sub-genre that came into fruition along with bands such as Suffocation and Baphomet. By relying on bursts of energy that emanated from palm-muted guitars, which alternated with structured rhythmic variations of tempo, Crucifix simultaneously achieved a morbid atmosphere and created forward motion by extending and contracting the components of a song, like a slinky falling down into a dungeon.

Dark Blasphemies released this compilation of demo material as Visions of Nihilism in homage to the name of the the band’s planned but unrecorded album. An enjoyable return to death metal’s spirited and threatening years, the CD can be picked up from Dark Blasphemies Records’ bandcamp page for €6 (around $8).

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Tom G. Warrior agrees with our review of Triptykon – Melana Chasmata

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As always, Warrior is self-deprecating and honest to a fault:

At any rate, I, too, think Melana Chasmata might be the most deficient post-Celtic Frost reunion album I have been involved in. I have made uncounted such statements within the band during the extended time we were working on the album, and there exists a long string of very unambiguous mails to this effect, addressed to the band’s management and to our partners at Century Media.

Melana Chasmata was an exceedingly difficult and complex album to make, and that is never a good sign. There were reasons for these difficulties, and they were far from superficial, on more than just one level. In the end, I couldn’t have worked on this album for even one more day, even though I seriously pondered at least a remix, if not far more drastic revisions. But I eventually felt I needed to wrap it up and thus also conclude the entire emotional landscape attached to it.

Frankly, I personally am utterly puzzled by the extremely favourable opinions the album has garnered from most in our audience as well as from reviewers, record company, management, and fellow band members. My own stance is far, far more critical, and I have so far been unable to listen to the album as a whole. The faint light on the horizon, for me, is that I felt the same way about To Mega Therion in late 1985. Only a few years down the road did I begin to digest that album and its production, eventually enabling me to think of it as one of Celtic Frost’s most significant albums.

The difference perhaps is that To Mega Therion encapsulated what many were feeling but did not yet know how to say, where Melana Chasmata encapsulates what many are saying, but not what they are feeling.

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Sadistic Intent announce May tour dates

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Sadistic Intent became known for their brand of intense death metal that carried the dark, foreboding atmosphere of speed/death metal bands such as Possessed and Slayer to its logical conclusion. Later, the band further developed its technical capacities into a style of death metal similar to Morbid Angel. After years of relative silence, Sadistic Intent have announced the itinerary for their Lurking Terror Crusade 2014 tour:

May 2 Detroit, MI (The tangent Gallery)
May 3 Chicago, IL (Cobra Lounge)
May 4 Lakewood, Oh (The Foundry)
May 5 Buffalo, NY (The Rocking Buffalo
May 6 Philadelphia, PA (The Milkcreek Tavern)
May 7 Wallingford, CT (Cherry Street Station)
May 8 Boston, MA (Sammy’s Patio)
May 9 Brooklyn, NY (The Acheron)
May 10 Hyattsville, MD (Schizophrenia)
May 11 Chesapeake, VA (Roger’s)
May 15 New Orleans, LA (Sitheria)
May 17 Houston, TX (Mango’s)

Sadistic Intent‘s legacy consists of short-players and compilations, never having recorded a full expression of the band’s artistic merit. This is a great shame in that few bands were able to fully leave speed metal behind and adopt the style that bands like Morbid Angel, Massacra and early Sepultura did, which allowed the full promise of death metal in intricately-knit combinations of riffs which each symbolized meaning through their shape and in combination told a tale of successive revelations. Possibly this sort of joy in perception can be yours as you catch Sadistic Intent on tour.

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Call for papers for Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, Practices, Cultures conference

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The international academic research conference Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, Practices, Cultures has issued a “call for papers” or request that those of you with something to write on this topic announce your thesis and send in your paper(s). This conference is hosted by the Aalto School of Business in conjunction with the International Society for Metal Music Studies and will occur from June 8-12, 2015.

According to its description, the conference focuses on this nexus of metal’s growth: “The evolution of metal, as any other music genre, is impacted by the technological and economic revolution that has radically reshaped the forms of music production, delivery, consumption and culture – let alone the role of social media in communication, community building and fandom. Altogether, metal is embracing new fans and markets, creating new practices, forming new cultures, while treasuring the strong and polymorphous legacy of the genre.” To address this, the conference participants plan to analyze and explicate “the current standing of metal; the plethora of its forms, cultures, practices, and markets.”

For those who have an opinion on metal-as-industry as it has come about in the post-1994 years when it left underground and transitioned to being aboveground but a recognized “niche market,” much like in the 1970s, this conference is an excellent time to record those thoughts in orderly and studious fashion and present them to an audience of not just fellow metalheads but also academics and industry. The organizers invite input of many forms:

We are particularly interested in contributions shedding light on the markets, practices and cultures, faced by the metal practitioners and fans in the current multifaceted and global expression of heavy metal and its countless forms and sub-genres. The event is open not only for academics focusing on metal studies (in business studies, cultural studies, social sciences, humanities, musicology, arts, and other fields) but also for scholars from the wide range of popular music and popular culture studies. We warmly welcome also views from “the outside” to discuss and compare metal with other genres and cultural forms and helps in positioning metal in the bigger picture of cultural production and consumption.

The suggested themes include (but are not limited to):

  • Metal music industry and markets; global and local views, formation and structure of markets, entertainment and cultural industries
  • Metal management; strategic thinking, branding, visual communication in metal, metal export/import, leadership and roles, creative management
  • Metal practices; music, production, technology, performance, delivery
  • Metal cultures; fandom and fan communities, local communities, transnational/global communities, tribalism metal and social media, mainstream and subcultures, metal generations, gender and metal, artistic identity
  • Form and philosophy of the metal genre
  • Sound and structure of metal music
  • Metal narratives, lyrics, and storytelling
  • Metal and belief systems, metal and religion
  • Politics, ethics and moral of metal
  • Artistic and aesthetic considerations; metal (in) art, metal representations, aesthetic experience, bodily experience
  • History, present and future of metal; transformations of the genre
  • Scope and methods of metal studies
  • Metal on the borderline; positions and connections of metal within the popular music and popular culture context
  • Various topics exploring the phenomena and representations of metal and related genres.

Alongside with more traditional research papers, novel and creative approaches to research are strongly encouraged. Theoretical reviews, practical case studies, conceptual studies, methodological papers, ethnographical reports, lyrical and visual analyses, qualitative and quantitative approaches, and various other forms and approaches are supported. With the long abstract and paper process, we hope that many new studies get ignited and completed for the conference.

Please note that the paper review process comprises two stages: abstract and full paper. Final acceptance is based on the full paper.

For more information, see the Call for Papers announcement.

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How the internet ruined metal

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A common sentiment expressed by “diehards” (or as cynics call them “tryhards”) is that the internet ruined metal. It was a paradise before, they say. You bought zines, traded tapes, bought from small labels, and everything was pure and innocent. The demon of convenience and commerce had not yet reared its ugly head.

With the internet, it is said, all of that ended because it became easy to acquire a band by just typing the name into a search engine. There was no commitment that way, the story goes. People became accustomed to everything being easy and no longer cared about quality. They stopped going to shows and “supporting the scene.” Underground metal became armchair metal.

While I don’t doubt there is some legitimacy to those complaints, I offer another view: what made the internet kill metal was that it turned the process of being a fan inside out. In the old days, you picked bands you liked. Now, you pick bands to make your online personality look good. When someone asks a question about a type of music, you want to have something unique to answer with.

The result is blog posts and threads on forums which are dedicated to “being different.” You get zero scene cred for stating the obvious top ten, and that list can be found anywhere, so people are now craving bands that are more obscure. But the problem is that wanting something for a trait unrelated to its content means you no longer care about quality. Thus quality has plummeted as people seek novelty.

For the aboveground metalheads, this novelty-seeking manifests itself in the same trends that black metal talked about. This week it’s shoegaze; next week it will be “industrial black metal” again, or maybe punkish black metal, or ironic ABBA covers by grindcore bands, who knows. For diehards, the novelty-seeking is obscurity bias: a desire to dig back in the vault and find something that no one else knows about, then make it your favorite band ever.

The point is that no one is a fan anymore. Fans decide what’s good and celebrate it. But hipsters and scenesters have a different approach. They look for ways to make a name for themselves. “That’s my man Bill, he’s an expert in Seattle drone metal.” This is why there are ludicrous genre names in the post-internet arena, and why the advice you get on metal from the internet is almost universally garbage. It’s hipsters being hip, not people talking about quality or relevance.

The internet has made us all into hipsters. To get people to pay attention to your online profile or blog, you need to invent something “important” whether it’s there or not. You to find novelty either in the past or the present. The last thing you’re going to do is offer up some honest opinion. It’ll never get you Google AdWords dollars. It’s not unique and different enough for the social environment the internet has to offer.

Diehards need to quit complaining about the internet. It has had no different effect than moving all of metal into a dense, high social and cosmopolitan city like New York City would. City culture has always rewarded the “different,” which is why cities have always had hipsters. Bands struggled against that culture, not succeeded because of it.

What’s ironic about this whole situation is that complaining about the internet is another way of being “different.” That in turn serves to conceal the fact that since 1994, metal has produced little worth writing home about. Why has that been, you wonder? The black metallers told us: when hipsters appear, trends arrive, and then quality leaves the hall.

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