Metal Elective AY 17-18

Week 8

1. Review

i) Having negotiated safe passage through NWOBHM, via hardcore, to American thrash
our attention was compelled to turn to extreme metal’s ugly (but heavily made-up)
sister: hair metal.

Establishing that the genre tends to be known exclusively according to pejorative

epithets (poodle metal, poseur metal, false metal), we recognised that it struggles for
credibility within and without of metal circles. Of what precisely ‘credible’ music (metal
or otherwise) consists is by no means straightforward, and the longstanding opposition
of serious and popular musics is immediately called to mind, but to this point we will
return. Nevertheless, the androgyne imagery with which hair metal is associated (not to
mention outright sexism and homophobia), coupled with the commercial orientation of
its musical aesthetic, has rendered the genre problematic.

We recognised, indeed, that the exponents of thrash had quite consciously developed
their sensibilities in opposition to the glam scene. And, thus, metal’s history can
reasonably be seen to be a series of developments and counter-developments, reactions
and counter-reactions, something that we’ll see intensify this week as we explore the
emergence of more extreme brands of metal.

ii) We then charted the pre-history of hair metal proper (this latter running roughly
from 1981 to 1991), identifying Alice Cooper, Kiss and Van Halen as its principal
progenitors. This was largely because in each case their music was mainstream rock
(retaining, at least, something of the instrumental sonorities of metal) conveyed with an
extravagant sense of theatricality – lavish stage designs, extrovert clothing, make-up etc.
This therefore forestalled the salient features of a genre predicated on a carefully
cultivated image as much as any musical commitment, anathema to those of a ‘serious’
disposition.

Eddie Van Halen’s guitar work, however, was to prove pivotal in the development of
metal guitar techniques and sonorities, despite its garish, meretricious glam-like
qualities. And, therefore, Van Halen can lay claim to a greater degree of substantial
significance than that for which the dubious accolade of being hair metal pioneers
allows.

iii) ‘Genuine’ hair metal, however, was the preserve of bands such as Poison, Europe,
Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi, Skid Row et al. In this context, we explored Mö tley Crü e’s
claims to fame as representative of the genre – their image was, of course, coiffed,
heavily made-up and spandex clad; their music was mainstream and melodic with just
enough by way of a metal instrumental sonority to qualify as heavy; and their lifestyles
were notoriously sleaze-orientated, narcotic and sporadically violent. Rose Tattoo once
sang ‘Nice Boys Don’t Play Rock ‘N’ Roll’, and this commercially viable illusion of
rebellion (commodified and subordinated to the Object, i.e. capitalist society) was about
all it amounted to.

We finally came to Guns N’ Roses and entertained the possibility that they embodied to
an extent a less manufactured attitude, retaining a strong punk influence. That they
were able to maintain enormous commercial success whilst exuding a genuine aura of
menace is remarkable. And yet, the vestiges of hair metal were to become all too
conspicuous once grunge emerged in the early 90s.

2. Extreme Metal Part I

The various stylistic tributaries that flow from hardcore and thrash are not easily
mapped, their courses being convoluted and interdependent. Thus, death metal,
grindcore and black metal are (somewhat) distinct as genres, yet their histories very
much overlap; our narrative, therefore, will trace each by turns consecutively and
concurrently.

i) Venom. A NWOBHM band that we consciously overlooked can in many respects be

seen as the instigators of much that we now know as extreme metal – the band in
question being Venom. Formed initially as a quintet in Newcastle in 1979, Venom were
ultimately to find fame as a trio; they assumed ‘occult’ names and thus consisted of
Cronos (the Greek titan – Conrad Lant, bass/vocals), Mantas (Etruscan god of Hell – Jeff
Dunn, guitar) and Abbadon (the destroyer, the angel of the abyss – Tony Bray, drums).

Venom are notable for having adopted an explicitly Satanic image in an attempt to outdo
Black Sabbath (though they were preceded in this regard by bands such as Pentagram,
Coven and Black Widow). Unlike innumerable bands that were to follow in their wake,
Venom’s Satanism was simply a shock tactic, an appropriation of otherness as an act of
rebellion. Nevertheless, their first three albums set a precedent for almost everything
extreme that was to come. These albums were Welcome to Hell (1981), Black Metal
(1982) and At War with Satan (1983), from the second of which black metal as a genre
takes its name.

Musically, Venom stand somewhere near Motorhead on the cusp of thrash and, subject
matter aside, only resemble what would become actual black metal in passing. It’s
worth noting, however, that a genre that takes itself perhaps more seriously than any
other often maintains the theatricality very much associated with Venom. They
themselves, in turn, drew on Alice Cooper and Kiss – that corpsepaint and elaborate
costumes/stage shows were to become so ‘serious’ given their frivolous origins is
remarkable.

It may also be said that critical opinion tends to the denigration of Venom’s capabilities
as a band, if not their influence (their sound is crude, the vocal style little more than
grunting, though this was to prove somewhat significant). For their part, however, they
hold themselves in the highest regard. Abbadon claimed in 1997 that ‘Venom is heavy
metal – it’s black metal, it’s power metal, it’s speed metal, it’s death metal. And all of
these sub-genres had never been heard of before. All of a sudden one band is considered
to be a speed metal band, one is considered a death metal band, and another is
considered a black metal or power metal band. What we meant is that Venom is all of
these things, and all of these genres could emanate from Venom. We didn’t mean for it
to happen, but that’s how it turned out. A band like Pantera have nothing in common
with a Scandinavian band, or a band from England like Cradle of Filth – they don’t sound
like them. But when you draw back to where their influences all came from, you find
Venom.’ Nothing, if not humble …

Play ‘Countess Bathory’ from Black Metal (1982)

ii) Bathory. We’ve alluded to King Diamond and Mercyful Fate before now, so we’ll
move straight on to perhaps extreme metal’s most revered figure – Quorthon (Thomas
Forsber, 1966-2004, adopting another random demon’s name). Although Sweden’s
Bathory were nominally a band, their output is effectively the work of this one (giant)
man. Interestingly, the band name seems to have been taken from a Venom song –
‘Countess Bathory’ – which itself was based on a Hungarian noblewoman reputed to
have bathed in the blood of young girls to maintain her youthful complexion.

Bathory’s career encompassed a variety of stylistic transitions, but their first three
albums were drawn from the black metal mould established by Venom (although
Quorthon disavows any influence); in this case, however, the crudity of the model was
enhanced by exceedingly low production values. As a consequence, the classic black
metal sound emerged for the first time – lo-fidelity, quasi-white noise with a demonic
snarl-cum-hiss by way of vocal delivery (the so-called ‘necro’ sound). The subject
matter tends towards the Satanic, once again, though with no particular depth or
commitment.

As Quorthon explained, in your youth ‘you tend to put more reality towards horror
stories than there is really. Of course there was a huge interest and fascination, just
because you are at the same time trying to rebel against the adult world, you want to
show everybody that I’d rather turn to Satan than to Christ, by wearing all these crosses
upside down and so forth. Initially the lyrics were not trying to put some message
across or anything, they were just like horror stories and very innocent. But
nevertheless at the time you thought that you were very serious, and of course you were
not.’ He came to feel, in fact, that Satanism was a product of Christianity and thus that
the whole area of thinking had to be opposed.

The three albums in question were Bathory (1984), The Return … (1985) and Under the
Sign of the Black Mark (1987), and these were followed by a move towards more
orthodox thrash territory with Blood Fire Death (1988), and what became known as
Viking metal with Hammerheart (1990) and Twilight of the Gods (1991). These latter
began to incorporate explicit Norse mythology into Bathory’s aesthetic, a gesture that
was to have profound implications for the second wave of black metal.
Play ‘Sacrifice’ from Bathory (1984)

3. Extreme Metal Part II

i) Grindcore – Napalm Death. We recall that hardcore emerged from the ruins of punk,
intent upon intensifying its attitude but without its commercial, media-manipulated
orientations. Discharge guitarist Tony ‘Bones’ Roberts opined that there are ‘a lot of
angry people out there … For them, the Sex Pistols and the Clash just didn’t cut it. It was
the same for us. When we started we sounded like the Sex Pistols. But we started
rehearsing more and came up with something different, something heavier and faster.

In a similar vein, Napalm Death formed in Birmingham in 1982 with the intention of
achieving something similar to Discharge (though they were only teenagers at the time).
As the band developed, the influence of thrash began to tell, particularly that of the
Swiss band Celtic Frost (who resist easy classification – Thrash? Death? Symphonic?
Avant-garde?). Guitarist Justin Broadrick, one of many transient band members,
recalled that ‘[w]hen it came to Celtic Frost, for some reason we were utterly blown
away … And that was when me and Nik Bullen [the one-time bassist/vocalist] came up
with the idea of the whole style we wanted to purvey. We wanted to put together a
mixture of Siege [an American hardcore band] and Celtic Frost. We wanted that
hardcore energy meeting slowed-down, primitive metal riffs, and to basically marry that
to a political message.’

The consequence was a style so tersely brutal that it remains virtually unparalleled in
many respects, typified by brevity (‘You Suffer’, for example, is one second long),
exceptionally harsh instrumental and vocal deliveries, politically committed lyrics and
astoundingly fast tempos (even in the context of extreme metal). Their debut album,
From Enslavement to Obliteration, was released in 1987 (oddly consisting of different
band members on its A and B sides) and followed by 1988’s Scum – this latter being
their most celebrated/notorious achievement.

Play ‘Polluted Minds’ from Scum (1988)

ii) Carcass. Distinct but related, Carcass were no less the progenitors of grindcore –
though they occupy their own ‘hardgore’ subcategory (leaning towards death metal).
Sonically similar to Napalm Death, Carcass revel more in gore than political statements;
their lyrics predominantly consist of technical descriptions of extreme medical
conditions – e.g. ‘Vomited Anal Tract’, ‘Fermenting Innards’, ‘Foeticide’, ‘Cadaveric
Incubator of Endoparasites’ etc.

Formed in 1985 and hailing from Liverpool, Carcass’s preoccupations take them
perilously close to death metal proper with which they share an unmistakeable vocal
style (that being the ‘Cookie Monster’ growl). Their first two albums, Reek of
Putrefaction (1987) and Symphonies of Sickness (1988) are Carcass’s recordings of
consequence within extreme metal circles.
Play ‘Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency’ from Symphonies of Sickness (1988)

Whilst Napalm Death’s explicit political orientation (hard left wing) motivates the
ferocity of their music, Carcass’s motivations are more debatable; the thinking here can
be interrogated in the context of death metal in general [N.B. They went on to pioneer
melodic death metal.].

4. Extreme Metal Part III

i) Death metal was derived from a number of sources, most notably the morbidity
prominent in bands that we’ve already considered – Venom and Slayer in particular.
The style is predicated on the speed and aggression of thrash intensified into a highly
technical sonic assault that leaves thrash’s melodic tendencies far behind. Thus,
tremolo-picking, blast beats, death growls, rapid episodic tempo alternations etc. simply
intensify the basic components of thrash – whilst embracing an extreme sado-
masochism in its lyrical content. This extends to rape, torture, mutilation, murder,
cannibalism and so forth; in short, maximally offensive where gruesome physicality is
concerned (though not necessarily in other more political contexts – this is significant in
its contrast to black metal and its consequences).

The first death metal album seems to have been Possessed’s Seven Churches (1985),
consisting as it does of a song called ‘Death Metal’, but the more consistent pioneers of
the genre were Death. Effectively comprising Chuck Schuldiner (vocals/guitar) and
whatever musicians with whom he happened to be working at the time, Death was
founded in 1984 in Florida (which was to be for death metal what the bay area was for
thrash). From the 1987 release of Scream Bloody Gore onwards, Schuldiner managed
continually to refine and improve his creation through seven albums, culminating in
1998’s The Sound of Perseverance.

Play ‘Jealousy’ from Individual Thought Patterns (1993)

ii) Following in Death’s wake, amongst notable death metal bands were the likes of
Obituary, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Dismember and Entombed. Perhaps the most
revered death metal exponents, however, were Morbid Angel. Also formed in Florida in
1984, Morbid Angel’s first official album was 1989’s Altars of Madness, probably the
archetypal death metal album, 1991’s Blessed are the Sick running it a close second.

Play ‘Chapel of Ghouls’ from Altars of Madness (1989)

iii) Now, it will be remembered that in Week 3 we suggested that Satan was a
‘transgressive icon’, that he simply represented an alterior power, something
unassailable and phantasmic by way of liberation from oppressive socio-economic
circumstances (and thus a ‘hegemonic articulation’, as Laclau would have it). We later
invoked Foucault in suggesting that truth and power intersected historically and thus
that contemporary modes of understanding were social constructs that could be thrown
off.
Certainly, the brutality of death metal may be interpreted therefore as a shock tactic in
an anti-establishment war, marshalling the disaffection of youth against the oppressive
practices of arbitrary authority – sadly, it’s all too easy to believe that it’s just a bit silly.
Certainly, some of its principal exponents simply treat it as the aural equivalent of
horror films: it appeals to somewhat perverse tastes (there’s a certain thrill to
transgression, however understood) but it isn’t meant to be taken seriously.

This non-committal attitude was amongst the overriding motivations of the second
generation of black metal in founding an even more extreme alternative …

5. Extreme Metal Part IV

i) Black metal begins its second phase initially through Mayhem, amongst whose
members were two of the more notorious figures in all metal Euronymous (Øystein
Aarseth, guitar) and Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin, vocals). As it happens, Mayhem began life
as a rather inept (by all accounts) death metal band recording demos as early as 1986
and dressing in the downbeat style associated with the genre. Euronymous (the name
being that of an underworld spirit in Greek mythology), however, influenced by Venom,
the Viking death metal band Unleashed and a Brazilian extreme metal band called
Sarcofago (who wore corpsepaint), zealously began to set himself against death metal –
‘the true black metal scene and lifestyle … means black clothes, spikes, crosses and so on
… But today there are only children in jogging suits and skateboards and hardcore
moral ideals, they try to look as normal as possible. This has nothing to do with black,
these stupid people must fear black metal! But instead they love shitty bands like
Deicide, Benediction, Napalm Death, Sepultura and all that shit! We must take this scene
to what it was in the past … Death to false black metal or death metal! Also to the trendy
hardcore people …’

Euronymous then set about cultivating a committed underground movement, centred

around himself, dedicated to the ‘evil’ goals of true black metal – these amounted to an
all-out war on Christianity and a reclamation of Norway’s heathen heritage. He was,
however, seemingly more of a propagandist and thus how sincerely he believed in his
cause is debatable – aside from his enthusiasm for the music and a penchant for snuff
films it appears that his involvement in what was to follow was limited – but the people
who gravitated to his anti-crusade were altogether more sinister.

Firstly Mayhem’s singer Dead, who was actually Swedish, would appear to have been
genuinely disturbed as he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a
shotgun in 1991. Euronymous exploited the circumstances mercilessly to promote his
vision, even supposedly making a necklace out of fragments of Dead’s brain (having
eaten part of it …). Euronymous, in fact, claimed that Dead had killed himself out of
hatred of and dissatisfaction with the death metal scene.

Following Dead’s death, Euronymous opened a record shop in Oslo called ‘Helvete’
(‘Hell’) which became the centre of operations for the ‘Norwegian Black Circle’ (and for
Euronymous’s Deathlike Silence record label); amongst the bands that became there
associated were Emperor and Burzum (originally Uruk-Hai, as it happens, whilst
Burzum itself means ‘darkness’ in Tolkein’s black speech). Emperor’s then drummer,
Bå rd ‘Faust’ Eithun, was convicted of killing a man who propositioned him in
Lillehammer (on 21 August 1992) whilst Varg Vikernes (Kristian Vikernes, a.k.a. Count
Grishnak, an acolyte of Sauron in fact), who effectively was Burzum murdered
Euronymous himself (on 10 August 1993) by stabbing him repeatedly (including in the
head).

In both cases, the actions appear to be those of simple sociopaths but Vikernes, in
particular, seems to have taken black metal’s ‘evil’ identity very literally. Indeed, he had
been active in the spate of arson attacks on Norway’s Stave churches (which were
wooden) as part of a loosely-organised anti-Christian terror campaign. The most famous
attack, that on Fantoft church in 1992 (near Vikernes’s home town of Bergen) was in all
likelihood Vikernes’s doing.

Despite the Satanic overtones, Vikernes in fact seems to have been an ardent nationalist
hell-bent on taking revenge on Christianity and reclaiming for Norway its pagan
heritage (Á satrú or Odinism). Norway, however, was affluent, casually religious if at all
and relatively innocent in occult terms at this time (horror films were heavily censored
and extreme forms of culture very much taboo). As a consequence, Satanism in this form
seems to have caught the imagination of the country’s thus receptive youth and been
taken very literally indeed – far more so than by Euronymous or Vikernes.

ii) The principal albums released during this period were Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom
Sathanas (1994), Burzum’s Burzum (1992) and Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse
(1994). Perhaps the best known second wave Norwegian black metal band, however, is
Darkthrone (another former death metal band that fell under Euronymous’s sway) who
released three albums in quick succession that define the movement: A Blaze in The
Northern Sky (1992), Under a Funeral Moon (1993) and Transilvanian Hunger (1994).

Burzum stray into electronic territory at times, whilst folk (and even symphonic)
tendencies set Emperor apart, but the classic sound remains that of Bathory – low
production values, frigid instrumental sounds and unearthly shrieking vocals.

Play Darkthrone’s ‘In the Shadow of the Horns’ from A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992)

6. Next week we’ll finally contextualise this all within Nietzsche’s writings before
finishing the lecture series with a survey of developments within metal of the last
decade or so.