The New Black/Death Metal: Introduction, Rough Draft

Here is something I have been thinking a bit about: the new black/death metal in particular, but more generally I have been concerned with subtraction, singularity, and so on, with special focus on the originally explicitly non-conceptual (i.e. on the subjectively and implicitly conceptual!). Lots of bullshit wordiness, but it is almost a necessity for me to begin writing anything of substance. I think overall it remains a problem of my inability to grasp audience and determine at what level of complexity I should write (I can never be sufficiently consistent).

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From time to time, in the grandiose motions of the heavenly bodies, in strings of painted cards, or, more to the point, in the bones of the old, we may, with no small success, come to know the future. It is thus that in the already-stinking corpse of the deceased, a certain tendency to the abstract and the speculative, that is, to alchemy, points the crooked path to a world-shattering redemption, a final judgment simultaneously birthing a new aeon, or shall we say a new aeon annihilating the old through its mere existence. If the old survives, as it doubtlessly must, it will do so only as a dead man walking, bolstered by the sheer weight of externality. Its innermost being, however, shall be irreparably shattered, its impotent fragments scattered unto eternity. And yet this is no old world-historical task, no metaphysical changing of the guard, no artistic (for it is of art that we speak) succession of the false by the true, no better correspondence and no more adequate representation. For the equinox of the gods of art falls not to the task of the translator, not to the quibbling of the far-removed observer, but to the serpent of light in its utter interiority, its isolate intelligence. The process that is our object, extrapolated to infinity, is therefore something divine, and this divinity retroactively annihilates the fallibility of its own individuation, though it be carried out with the utmost care and reverence. This work, then, will be a preliminary experiment with evental history from a particular point of view, namely that of the infinitely contracted point of singularity constituting the sublimated essence of an entirely subjective type; the roles of alembic and calcinator will be duly played by our principles of intelligibility and formalization, from which we derive the maxim of our alchemical Arte: There is no such thing as nonsense. Let this be a testament, above all, to the Idea, to which our at first entirely sensuous (indeed auditory) subject matter presents a particular challenge, but one which, precisely due to the staggering conceptual distances involved, enables a more perfect demonstration of the labor of the intelligible.

The entire undertaking rests upon an as yet rather vague notion, that of the interior view, or more simply, of the interior. First of all, an interior must be separated from that which lies outside it, its sometimes-relative and sometimes-absolute exterior. This gap might be the product of various operations or functions, different at the very least for the structural apparatus by which they are described, ranging from a set-theoretical operation (Badiou) to a mystical transcendence-within-immanence (various forms of esotericism). Our gap, then, is rather unlike its neighbor in the Lacanian tradition of psychoanalysis, which is a self-contained gap or lack, something that interposes itself between itself and its other (see also Badiou's notion of the void). Our gap is better put in the plural, as gaps, each of which is the result of a contingent but formal-logical and therefore also in a certain sense necessary process of subtraction, a transcendental structure in miniature, or rather a multiplicity of such structures. These gaps may be more or less radical, more or less gappy, and therefore constitute more or less peculiar regions (we will call an absolutely peculiar region by its proper philosophical name, singularity). Essentialization, the ultimate goal of the philosophical study of genre, is in these terms simply an extrapolation of peculiarity to infinity, the production of a singularity and therefore of a wholly internal region, an artistic-cum-philosophical Idea or abstract image that can then be studied with far more concrete interest and effect than could otherwise be possible. To take a genre on its own terms, then – this is our goal.

[What is an interior view?]

With these preliminaries safely out of the way, our subject matter can be better indicated, despite the lack of a proper term with which to distinguish it from its neighbors. This matter is the new black/death metal, a genre exemplary for its uncompromising and unique artistic and therefore philosophical vision. Precisely: we seek the abstract characteristics, in other words the essence, of the new black/death metal – or better, we must speculatively extrapolate, through a process yet to be delineated [speculative overflow? Subtraction? Formalization? Something like that...], the characteristics and hypothetical singularities of the genre. To the skeptic the question could be put: If there were such a thing as a coherent genre or style described by the term “the new black/death metal”, and exemplified by such and such a selection of musical groups, in what would its unique interest lie?

Surely our genre is related to “cavernous death metal”, yet this misses the more sublime and spiritual aspects of the style. And the same can be said for “orthodox black metal”, which misses the more avant-garde and experimental instances; by the same token, terms focusing on the avant-garde miss more primitive and brutal manifestations. None of these pre-existing terms alone capture exactly the proper range of phenomena, and in fact elements of all three (and certainly several others) are to be desired. So, unwieldy though the term may be, “the new black/death metal” is the best one ready-to-hand.

Remembering that we are here assuming “the new black/death metal” to be a coherent and in fact singular genre (or better, singular Idea), we can propose its champions, its exemplars. From “cavernous death metal” comes Portal, Impetuous Ritual, Grave Upheaval, Abyssal, Mitochondrion, Irkallian Oracle, Desolate Shrine, Antediluvian, and so on. From black metal (partially “orthodox”) comes Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, Aosoth, Vassafor (undeniably the closest thing to “cavernous black metal”!), Nightbringer, Akhlys and so on. Other groups of more uncertain origin and coherence are Howls of Ebb (bizarro death metal), Ulcerate (churning and dissonant technical death metal), and Ævangelist (horror soundtrack meets death metal). These bands constitute, at their most extreme differences, a set of axes or poles (to the exterior eye, it is readily admitted): on the one hand we have the highly technical and complex compositions of Ulcerate, on another the primitive and nigh-incomprehensible darkness of Grave Upheaval. Another differential axis might be character of the spirituality being expressed in the music, for indeed one of the markers of the genre is its deep-seated and terrifying spirituality. This axis might range from the sublime “High” spirituality of Nightbringer of Deathspell Omega to the “Low” or dirty occultism of Howls of Ebb or Portal, to the nihilistic worship of death and destruction by Grave Upheaval (again notable for their sheer extremity) or even Ulcerate (a rather “High” variation on destruction). Obviously, this criterion should deal only with the expression of the music and not primarily with the professed opinions of the musicians themselves.

The above is, as noted, only a preliminary exterior view of the differentiations, the coordinates of our study. We see these groups and their musical compositions from an exterior perspective governed by mediocre and mundane criteria – the use of gradations, no matter how many or how complexly interwoven, is usually a good indicator of this. Throughout the course of the presentation, hopefully as many of these exterior layers as feasible might be shed.

[To be revised/continued...]

Canonization and Events

What is a canonization and why should we want it? At first glance it seems like positing a single album, or a set of albums, as the definition of a certain style, would be a bad move, relegating all other albums to a sort of in-between status of imperfect imitations. It would be to say, so the objection goes, that these other albums were derivative and subpar, when really we should want a democracy of values arranged (of course) non-hierarchically.

I would suggest that, on the contrary, canonizations can at their best function as an index of events (I at least want to say this is true within the extreme metal world, I'm not sure about the specificities of other domains). In this way, being minimalist in our claims and having a macroscopic view of the domain as a whole, we can look back and say for certain with musical moments were eruptions of the new and which were created upon the implications of that newness. These other bands/albums/whatever would not be "derivative" in some typical sense, since they would be creating in fidelity to that earlier event, would be focused on expanding that event with an eye towards completion. Music created in the name of these events could of course be of varying qualities, but which of those pushes the genre along and which are content to stagnate - this is another important question. If the event opens a space of possibility (speaking somewhat loosely here), the postevental fidelities work through the possibilities and cannot be content to stop. Also, of course, a genre may become saturated, which requires a new event.

All this so far is what I understand from Badiou. I am of course applying it on a more micro-level than I have seen him do - I look not at "music" (his favorite example of a musical event is Schoenberg) but at "extreme metal" or even smaller subcategories like "black metal" and its niches. I think, however, that the theory applies on a multitude of levels, since clearly not all events are equally realized, equally "important" or "influential", equally "large", etc. But they are all events - I think this flexibility is what makes Badiou's theory so powerful, and once learning some of it I couldn't help but begin to see the same structure everywhere, but especially in extreme metal, based as it is on insane fidelity (I'm a metalhead myself, I should know!). Also: This is only my interpretation of Badiou, which I may end up deciding is incorrect after further reading.

In any case, proposing canonizations is harder for larger genres (of course). I may attempt some smaller genres: Blasphemy's Fallen Angel of Doom... (and the demo? These discrete outputs make it a little hard to say) for bestial black metal, Conqueror's War Cult Supremacy for war metal of course, maybe Suffocation's Effigy of the Forgotten for brutal death metal (but a case could also be made for including Disgorge's early albums), Devourment's Molesting the Decapitated for slam (though the style was purified and first presented in its slam-without-death-metal form by Cephalotripsy's Uterovaginal Insertion of Extirpated Anomalies).

This already presents a problematization of the claim that canonization tracks events - Devourment clearly opened the way for slam, but at that time it was only a possbility. Devourment as event was a newness - Cephalotripsy was the most utterly faithful to that possibility of newness that it cast aside all that was old in Devourment (namely, death metal). So what should a canonization provide? Perhaps both event and full fruition. Sometimes these are the same however - Deathspell Omega's trilogy, but especially Paracletus comes to mind, that masterpiece of an album. What are the results of Paracletus? Who has the courage to have faith in it? Dodecahedron, maybe. The point is simply this: there are a number of possibilities, and due to the complexity of modern music production the field is pretty messy.

Question: Has every style found its full expression? Maybe every nameable one has! Full expression seems oftentimes to coincide with nameability. New elements may yet exist in music being produced today which we cannot yet separate and form into a coherent style - this is just the nature of the event, an ephemerality undecidable from within.

A better question: why haven't more people been doing Badiouian music studies?

War Metal and Black Metal: Alternate Fidelities

Here's a thesis I'm working on: Second wave black metal (early-mid 1990s) and war metal (Blasphemy's debut was 1990) are two responses to the same event - first wave black metal. Two things follow: both are "true" to black metal in a certain sense (though I think at this point war metal's fidelity to black metal is unable to produce much newness while still remaining distinct as war metal); both are fairly separate lineages (war metal is not a simple subspecies of black metal, but an alternate history, black metal's alter-ego, a different response to, say, Bathory).

Seriously, listen to something like Blasphemy's Fallen Angel of Doom... Conqueror's War Cult Supremacy and then listen to any album in the second wave. Totally different, no joke. It's about melody and lack thereof, it's about aesthetic, it's about atmosphere, and most importantly (I think) it's about negation. Second wave black metal was negative, but still had room to grow. War metal is so damn negative it negates everything that's not itself, including its possible future growth, what it could become. War metal is ideologically and musically restricted by its fidelity to what it thinks is "true" black metal. This negativity is articulated on every level - imagery, musicianship, production values, even distinct instruments and notes. It attempts to negate everything about western music - black metal as the coming of the musical/ideological antichrist. These things always go together in war metal. It is one of the most ideologically and musically restricted microgenres I've ever heard.

This is not to say there isn't good war metal. I would not be so insane as to claim war metal was always saturated, that it was always the bad counterpart to the second wave's good. Actually, quite the contrary - I think I like Blasphemy, Conqueror, Revenge, and Archgoat more than most second wave bands. But in all honesty, I think most bands labeled war metal are bad imitations. Strictly speaking, there was one bestial black metal band, Blasphemy, and one or two war metal bands, Conqueror (definitely) and Revenge (most probably). If I had to canonize, to define the definer of these styles (which for now I'm holding apart), those would be the bands I'd pick.

New war metal? Yeah, it exists, with the above caveat about stylistic purity. War metal's (and bestial black metal's) fidelity to black metal is not likely to produce anything really new and interesting, since I think it is pretty saturated at this point, but that doesn't mean it can't be a minor influence. New war metal-inspired albums like Diocletian's Gesundrian and Truppensturm's Salute to the Iron Emperors are great albums, semi-interesting and totally enjoyable. But the image of black metal held by war metal makes these albums... not really war metal. Both are more black/death of the usual variety (Diocletian used to be more rigidly war metal, as on Doom Cult). Truppensturm's guitar lines are way too melodic to be war metal. They play very down-tuned diatonic scales with a heavy as shit guitar tone and war metal style vocals. They are just not chaotic and filthy enough to be war metal.

So why not do away with war metal altogether, using it as an influence but abandoning its distinct identity? Well, war metal is a continuing position, a microgenre rallying-point. I can accuse war metal of narrowness and then define bands as war metal or not using that very narrowness and there is not a contradiction. What I'm doing is arguing for a different understanding of black metal. It's the fidelity that matters, what it means to be "true" to black metal. War metal has one understanding and second wave black metal has another.