Clipping Death- Deaf Magnetic: Mastered by Muppets

Killl Interview

Killl is another Norwegian oddity that – apart from lush namedropping – has crude music to offer. What is also interesting is the refusal to put out any music in conserved form other than the dvd format, given the possibility to visually enhance it. Given this, it was refreshing to share Are's views on metal and its neighbors, high-flown aesthetics and a no-frills approach.

What was so attractive about the thought of abandoning your former bands - some like JR Ewing with a strong reputation and probably having been about to break through - for a project that does neither release albums nor follows any interest to find a label? Also, you play a type of music which to describe as "uncommercial" is still put mildly...
Killl was something that happened on the side of our other projects, not instead of. Some of us have moved on to other bands, some still work with their longtime bands. KILLL was formed on request by a promoter who listened to our drummer Martin talking about the idea. We were booked to play a festival in Oslo based on sheer trust, and we all met at first to take a picture for the program. Most of us knew each other, but we were all busy in different projects and saw the concert as a one-off affair. All the tracks were made in some three days.

Since then, most of our concerts and tours have been based on requests, such as the Norwegian tour when we were invited to expand the visual elements of our show, which now is a crucial part of the experience. The composing of tracks follow the same gung-ho approach; anything else would be too time-consuming and make Kill a too demanding project given we are all busy with other bands and activities

Most of us are central in organizing our other bands (a total of some 14 bands), so Killl is very different, much more democratic and fast - no dwelling on complex ideas. Anytime we have tried that, it has lost in favor of simplicity.

When KILLL was started, it was a way for us to leave our musical habits behind and do something else. It is still an experiment as far as Iam concerned. Part of that is the setup: There are no amps on stage, the drummer plays an electronic kit, and we run all the sources through my mixer, opening up for primitive use of effects and – quite often – silence. The music is made to be played live, a studio record would be completely awkward. Which is why we are releasing a dvd, not a record.

What is your conception of Jazz as opposed to conservative notions about the genre (the American songbook, swing and bop). Do you follow the different currents of contemporary jazz or are you, after all, subscribed to the standards and classics?
The jazz parallel is not really relevant given only one of us has ever been playing jazz.

Do you think - also with respect to the meticulous divisions into "sub-scenes" - that rock/metal and jazz have something in common? Isn't it - on the other hand - rather impossible to reconcile jazz and rock/metal because the free-form- and improvisational approaches per se contradict the thorough compositional principles of popular music?
Yes, very much, and it does not stop there, of course. Basically though, I am more interested in attitude and methodology than genre tags. For example, I don´t really like the Naked City version of jazz and metal fusion. To me it´s still oil and water, it is jazz-informed minds introducing metal elements into an essentially open-ended jazz form - which is jazz nevertheless and not a problem in itself; I just do not appreciate the use of humor. It only underlines the “we know what we are doing” attitude, which is so far from the metal attitude. The metal attitude is about doing ridiculous things without any shame, only occasional insight and brutal energy. Metal is escapist music for the working class, theater for the poor, anger with no address.

Equally problematic is the opposite: musicians all of a sudden “dumbing down” and turning true, gentrifying their t-shirt and record collection to a mint condition grimness, as if they never listened to hip hop or pop. I´m interested in music where the fusing or transcending of genres happens as a consequence of following ideas and experimentation - from whatever limited set of tools you have. Maybe that is why I tend to enjoy bands who are moving from metal into other genres more than the other way around. Experimental black metal moving into ambient and electronic through experimentation with duration and noise textures, death metal moving into frantic free-jazz via the fascination of complex drumming and lightning speed riffs, doom metal moving into minimalism and physical sound through adoration of bass, sustained notes and volume... and equally much, musicians where metal references are nothing but a starting point for an ongoing exploration, such as James Plotkin, Mick Barr and Justin Broadrick.

Given that metal and rock are allegedly popular music styles (I mean, fans even complain if bands do not play guitar solos live the same way they can be heard on studio albums), do you want to break out of pop by stressing the jazz in Killl?
What has been a weird experience with Killl is how easy it comes across to people from all over the place. It is strange how we got an audience through not trying. If it is because of the lights and backdrop, the music or the combination, is hard to say. The unusual aesthetic surrounding and the music do force the audience to reconsider the relationship between the two, maybe making it easier for people to approach it. I really don´t know.

Anyone who has heard Fenriz of Darkthrone Deejay - which he actually did for our first gig - knows that there is no contradiction between having an open musical mind and making specialized music. The semiotic juggling of genre tags is very boring. The use of musical tools from all corners of experience is very natural. Killl does not claim to have anything dramatically new to contribute. We have simply said no to a few dominant elements of these genres, such as the inverted catholic aesthetic, and included a tad of electronics. The rest is very basic, bordering on primitive use of compositional ideas.

Why the three "lll", and brash and blunt choice of band name, which evokes images of nothing but violent (metal?) music rather than sophisticated and allegedly "intellectual" avant-garde stuff?
Musically and visually, Killl incorporates a lot of binary and contrasting action: on-off, hi-low, loud-quiet, short-long, clean-distorted, composed-improvised, bright-dark, color-no color. KILLL was the first and most simple word we grabbed that embodied this type of “no”. Visually there are no curves in it, which is a hint at the digital instruments in our music. The third L is a greeting to our Swedish neighbours in Gothenburg as well as a welcoming to our fifth member, Kyrre, the man behind the lights.

What are your aims with Killl, considering the refusal to act within the common realms of music publishing, advertising and so on?
Again, there is no agenda from our part to pitch ourselves as anti anything, but by not subscribing to the noise of a music market in painful transition we can allow Killl to be a rare yet semi-cyclic event where we can do something we do not do elsewhere. We appreciate people coming out for it but we don´t ask pretty please. There is enough hustling in our other jobs.

Does an artist's aesthetic narcissism ("I have something unique to say musically and will do anything to get it out!") have to outweigh his personal narcissism ("oh look, I am a musician with glossy long hair - please love me!") to create something permanently relevant?
As much as I am a sucker for mythology, be it black metal or Egyptian, I have always felt that the most dangerous music does not need theater - it is terrifying in itself. On the other hand, music is ritual and ritual is visual. The combination of the two becomes ritual with relevance, a rare commodity these days. As author and philosopher Joseph Campbell would say, we are in a time where Christianity has monopolized ritual and we are stuck with an aesthetic not representing the times we live in. Not to say that this was a conscious take on that, but when light man Kyrre developed the stage show we are using today together with me, we wanted to explore an aesthetic that cultivated the rgb color logic of led-lighting - very un-metal. We made a 20 x 4 meters backdrop to frame the stage we play at and create a consistent look for all venues. The colors of the patterns on the backdrop are calibrated to be as close to the rgb color temperature as possible. Switching on and off series of quick color changes, the leds animate the patterns of the backdrop by turning “on and off” colors. The result is a simple but effective optical phenomenon of moving patterns causing occasional nausea. Each song of the set has a different color code, and the concert takes you through everything form one color modes to the full spectrum stroboscopic shebang.

Originality: I am sure all artists feels their music is very relevant, and there is definitely a difference between ambition - which is personal - and result, which is for all. Therefore, when one in addition knows how to evaluate work changes over time, it becomes obvious that pinpointing the relevance of music is only possible after time has passed, especially when it comes to ones own music. Personally, I am not bothered by the thought that KilllL is tossed out with the trash in the future music canon. I am having too much fun doing it, and that is my only aim... Less so with other work I do, which I think goes for all of us.

In return, can you imagine that metal and rock with trivial lyrical subjects and "primitive" musical substance can outlast time, also with respect to the relative youth of the genres?
Easily - if not, I would be a snob. I can get moved by anything that deals with the human condition, basically. Most experimental music is polished formalism, which I enjoy, but it is definitely more a spice than food. Experimentation is no endpoint in itself, it´s a constant reminder, reassessing and reestablishing of the dearest things, the basics. Killl is not a negation of the other music we have done; it´s a cleaning up of the tool box, a cold shower followed by a good drink, a celebration of music in crude form.

Interview: Next Life

Next Life
Interview

Next Life is a duo that touches metal only marginally, or at least: metal how LotFP perceives it. Nevertheless they join the ranks of those recent groups that blend heavy guitars with the odd sounds of old time video game consoles. Interesting enough for me to listen to the short eruptions that form their first recorded effort Electric Violence and contact Hai in Norway, the half of the band with Vietnamese roots.

Is it the short attention span of today's culture that makes for such short songs, or is it the lacking substance of your ideas and ressources?

We have always been very inspired by computer game music and hardcore punkrock. Both of these genres tend to have fast and short compositions. Much computer game music, especially from Japan, has a strongly ongoing drama that keeps progressing until a certain point (about one to two minutes) and then repeats itself. It is possible to recall this in many 2D games where music plays a great role in the narrating of a story, and also it has to keep up with the high tempo of fictional universes built upon simple elements.
In our case as with computer game music, I guess it is a way to keep up a high level of intensity and at the same time not to become monotonous, so that both player and listener become occupied with constant progression untill the next level appears. In a way it should match the tempo of modern consumer culture such as TV and newspapers, but as we try to be untraditional in terms of emotions and drama-building, the songs may - as compared to pop-culture - often remind of "find one/many error(s)"-pictures. There is something wrong that keeps them from becoming TV- or radio-hits, which we find great in terms of being progressive, but also a little bit sad because less people will get into the music.

In terms of longevity, can you think of Next Life as a long-standing outfit that in the future will be revered by a group of fans and spoken of in terms of "classic songs", like bands from the old days of rock?

Hehe, I think that would be the main goal of every artist - to be remembered and to be influental over time. The music scene today has become so big with different artists and styles, and as you said, they most often only succeed for a short time before the next big thing comes up. Even the bands that I am most inspired by such as Zeni Geva, Earth Crisis, Assück and Infest have barely made it to the "history books", so from these observations I cannot see that Next Life will survive any longer than most of today's underground artists. If Next Life or even some of the songs were to to become classics in the future, then we would consider this band project a success.

Is Next Life serious, in that you want to convey anything special beyond the sheer fact that you mix old 8-bit-sounds with elements close to metal?

The mix of 8-bit music and metal has become a style. In Next Life, the goal has always been to mix different genres in order to create an arena to cover our complete musical potential. The style itself is less important other than for maybe describing the music. We actually use anything that we find spine-chilling (again something we have learned from game music), but since me and Trond both grew up and worked a lot with 8-bit sounds plus hard rock music, these genres often surface in our music. The fact that Trond creates many of the sounds we use on Commodore 64, and that many of our base sounds are from Commodore Amiga and various old-school consoles, has certainly put us into the 8-bit metal genre. Actually though, we would more like to call it "electro-violence" as this is a more open and correct expression for us. We are much inspired by digital universes, not only 8-bit, and there has always been a great portion of the hardcore subgenre "power-violence" as we see it.

Would human vocals work well with your music?

We tried that in 2006 after “Electric Violence“ was released, and it did solve some problems live-wise, as it is easier to create high energy on stage the more people are on it. But we did it too fast and without a vision that was clear enough. It resulted in an electro-clash and kitschy musical expression that we simply could not live with, being so proud and happy with developing music purely based on rhythm and melody. Instrumental music is really an abstract expression that will become unique more easily than if you add a person's voice, face and lyrics to it. We want to explore music as an expression itself. Alos, we never stop being fascinated by the fact that there is no real answer to why human beings react how they do to different tone combinations, rhythm progression, the way songs are composed and so on

Do you sample sounds only or do you also actively implement and manipulate them?

We do whatever it takes to fit any of our sounds into the music, both sampled and generated. We never sample tone combinations or a complete rhythm, as we want to compose as much of our music as possible on our own. Manipulation is most often necessary for sampled sounds to fit into our songs, but we do sample voices from movies and computer games. In these cases the samples have not been altered much except for some EQ-stuff.

Where do your musical roots lie, and why do you think that guitar music, the attitude behind it and old video game sounds match one another?

I guess this has partially been answered above, but here is the story concerning myself: I got a Commodore 64 in 1984 and became addicted very fast to the games and sounds. I remember playing Exploding Fist so loud that I blew the speakers on the TV at home. In 1987, I learned to play guitar and got into better and better bands by the years. However, it was hard keeping bands together for a longer time in the small town I came from, either because people needed to do other things, or just because they were too bad musicians. So in 1995, I started using my Amiga as drum machine to play really tight riffs together with my older brother and a friend. In 1999, I visited my home country Vietnam for the first time. Driving by car through the entire country and at the same time listenening a lot to The Last Ninja 1 & 2 and Zeni Geva who used synthesizer in metal music in a way that I found very innovative and inspiring, the vision became more and more clear. What really meant something to me at that time was experimental punkrock and game music. These also had something in common, as game music has many connections to rock and metal, after all. Then I went back to Norway, and voilá.
It was hard to predict if Next Life would succeed in getting any listeners, but I chose to do it simply to cover my own needs to listen to very hard, dynamic and melodic music. It was only when my friends convinced me to do a show that the project became a band.

What is "Kampfkultur"? - It sounds kind of martial.

In order to earn money from art and music in Norway, one must have a registered company. I decided to call mine "Kampkultur" instead of "Next Life", as I also do other things such as theater, gallery, film, and so on. Next Life is a division of the company Kampkultur. I like distinct and straight-to-the-point music and colours, I have also always been inspired by political art, although I mostly work without words or lyrics. It felt natural to name the company after that. The company itself is not supposed to be a war institution, but as war and politics obiously are reasons for people to do anything, the art around it has become very strong as well. It is this art that Kampkultur draws its inspiration from – alongside more positive stuff as the divine, friendship, astrology and technology.

Is it necessary in post modern times to gather elements from various fields to create something that is supposed to be "new", or do you see any possibility for an artist to produce original art just out of him- or herself?

We live in times of much information; you cannot grow up without getting into the many music styles that exist, and that in itself can become a limitation. The culture around you becomes the universe in which you can choose and to which you relate when creating own stuff. But how did the earlier composers come up with new styles? I guess it happened over time (with some exceptions), and we will hopefully see over time that our generation will bring orginality to different fields in one way or another. That aside, I quit watching TV at the same time I founded Next Life to not be too informed. I can say that it has left me with a certain lack of knowledge about society and social development, but hopefully, it also has done or will do something to Next Life that is positive.

In this context, how do you see your band's abilities to progress - are you a flight of fancy as a musical entity, or can we expect a certain development? Have you already said everything you wanted to say, and if not: what is there in addition?

We want to keep the future open for Next Life. In that way, it can perform dramatic changes more easily if desired, and we may become influenced by things left unconsidered so far. However, I also admit we always try to lay out strategic plans in order to forsee problems regarding the music industry and our audience to legitimate the name Next Life, which for us means many things. To be one step ahead of ourselves and the music buisness is one of them, and as we see it, that won't come out of pure improvisation.

Review: Falcon- Die Wontcha

Falcon
Die Wontcha
Liquid Flames Records – 10 – 53:18

As I am writing this, two years have passed since this album has been recorded. However, Falcon did not release Die Wontcha until a couple of months ago and even now are not going to receive the exposure they deserve – mind you, I am not talking about currying favors with the many potential buyers of all the things currently perceived as “metal”; neither do I expect that the retro craze appreciates the band's second release more than the eponymous debut. Hypothetically though, Falcon could appeal to both audiences, only if some smart label marketed them as cool and authentic – which they are, only that these people won't know without getting it shoved down their throats by some tastemaker. Let us play that part, then.

Live in the backlash of hipper times
When music had much more to say
Not just faceless brutality
A vicious cycle revolves today

No trapdoors. No look beyond any horizon, and not over anybody's shoulder either. This bird perches in backwoods devoid of irony and would rather bite its tongue than put it into the cheek to betray its own cause. The reason for this lies in the respective backgrounds of the band members. Rock.

Trio rock, this is. Singer and guitarist Perry M. Grayson delivered some power metal greatness with Destiny's End before moving on to Artisan and Isen Torr, where he displayed a fond love of more classical forms of the genre. Darin McCloskey is also the skinsman of Pale Divine and now teams up with no other than Greg Lindstrom, former bass player of Cirith Ungol, as the rhythm section of Falcon.

As the band's backbone, Lindstrom and McCloskey do not waste any time with frills and decorations, giving Grayson space to develop his equally heave-ho riffs and especially some delightful solos and leads. This is where one strong influence of Falcon becomes obvious: Thin Lizzy's signature guitar sound, which was both sweet and beefy, thus making for a nowadays rare kind of heaviness - it is refreshing to hear riffs that are actually given a chance to unfold and in return allow bass and drums to be individually discernible... not that Falcon are in any way progressive, but as they do not indulge in redundant staccatos as the conversation-enders and no-brainers of modern metal, their four-on-the-floor beats will do...

...and this already in the energetic opening Jimmy Clark. Why a band of this stripe writes a song about a race car driver (Primus may do that) I don't know; maybe it is because Clark died at the peak of the hippie movement in 1968. Anyhow, Grayson's eulogy sounds familiar immediately to those familiar with the debut. The mention of Tim Baker is almost inevitable with respect to the band's four stringer as well as Grayson's personal preferences, although the two voices are less comparable in stylistic terms than because of their crudeness. Corporate whore shows the frontman as not particularly versatile in his angular approach, but if these melody lines are not catchy, then what is? Actually, the fluent shift between melodic and rhythmic passages is admirable and shows nothing of other bands' frequent ineptness to reconcile both without predictable interruptions. Instead, the breaks in this and the other songs pick up on the lost practice of changing between contrasting (thematically, rhythmically, etc.) motifs without losing the compositional red thread... cool as well how the track returns to its initial motif in the end.

Accordingly and apart from the occasional hint at an harmonic extension especially in Elfland's Daughter, Lindstrom plays in unison with the guitar and locks in tightly with McCloskey, all the time keeping his characteristic plucky tone, which is not as prominent as on the classics of his old band. The song refers to a story of Lord Dunsany; the title says it: fantasy stuff in the old vein, and a love story, too. Cirith Ungol were similarly prone to myth, legend and the more imaginative spheres of storytelling, while Falcon also admit the Grand Funks and Blue Cheers from a better past as influential peers. This branch of hard rock (often tagged “obscure” maybe for the respective groups' lasting status as commercial also-rans) has often procured the kind of frank but brash lyrics that make for a certain embarrassment on the listener's side. Get an impression of it during Corporate Whore, an accusation of former rebels turned conformists, featuring hilarious rhymes of “Hendrix” and “cocaine fix”. However, Grayson's at times clumsily simple truisms ring true in some ears. After all, Finger-pointing to the moneyed usually works from the position of an alleged has-been. Personal hardships read well on the suffering artist's CV, so if you have not encountered any so far, you might dramatize a little – it is all for the sake of good music... did I mention that the bass and cripsy guitar spots here make up for all that?

As an instrumental, The Wreck of the John Deere sidesteps any such issue and pads along bluesy paths in the lead guitar section, adding some keyboard strings for texture: a nice break or alternately the intro of the hypothetic b-side – which starts with a cover version of Leader the opener of Buffalo's 1972 album Dead Forever. The Australians' song passes as one of Falcon's own, being rhythmically simple and lyrically pushing the right buttons once more to blame all the world's wrongs on the movers and shakers. The midsection of the eighth song – named after the band – returns to pushing some synthesizer keys as well as emotional ones, being of a dreamy quality that allows the listeners to drift away for some time; he will be back spot on for the highly memorable Everything There Is To Know with a (fake?) hammond more burning than Grayson's natural organ. The singer stays as distanced from his audience as his lyrics permit, being the straightforward display of basic feelings they are. This text is probably the best on the album, since it is open to at least a bit of individual interpretation.

Finally, we have Show You All, apparently a 1970s tune by Lindstrom for which Robert Garven drew the background image in the CD booklet. Where Cirith Ungol had Michael Whelan, Falcon grabbed an image by sci-fi artist Virgil Finlay for the front cover of Die Wontcha. This rounds up how the band wants us to see them: Falcon carry the torch of the likes mentioned, not to forget Pentagram and Sabbath as the usual suspects. What makes this album so appealing though is of course not its novelty, but the fact that it is a cut above the lasting vintage buzz; Grayson may be in his mid thirties only, but he plays and thinks not like one born too late. The music will seem beyond criticism anyway if you like the references, as it does not force any strained novelty. However, only through Grayson's mouth, the messages turn into truths timelessly valid rather than pushing for mock authenticity and faux nostalgia.

To paraphrase what The Lamp Of Thoth recently sang, doom has nothing to do with laughing, but when I hear sullen reality depicted in such warm colors as on Die Wontcha, I can do with this and any other stereotype. I have been living with this album – this reality – now for some weeks, and I could not prove Falcon wrong so far; rather than belittling what is a dying breed of rock music, I admit it has grown on me.

I'm going through the motions of having a good time
I'm trying to like it, but something just ain't right

Review: Conquest of Steel - Hammer & Fist

Conquest of Steel
Hammer & Fist
10 – 40:04

(review by James Edward Raggi IV)
I must say that when true/traditional heavy metal is presented with absolutely no thought, there really isn’t more embarrassing music on this planet.

When I think of England, I think of the ridiculously sensational media, from the Daily Mail all the way down to the language-mangling juggernaut that is Terrorizer. In that proud tradition comes the outspoken waivers of the metal flag, Conquest of Steel.

(I couldn’t decide which opening paragraph to use, but they both fit, and we’ve got a minor mess of an album on our hands.)

First, credit where it’s due: musically the album is pretty good, very Iron Maiden-inspired, at its best everything the band says it is (“Britain’s finest heavy metal warriors”), and at its worst merely some different ideas that don’t pay off. Vocalist Dan Durrant has a solid melodic voice and never once tries to do anything that he can’t – these guys are pros. If you’re not paying attention, there’s not much to complain about on this album.

Really, the band has a sharp sense of how to place hooks within their songs, and every single number is memorable and unique within their narrow style. So they succeed there where so many fail horribly. The only complaints I have involve their little sonic experiments, the little bits where they go to high harmony guitars and leave absolutely nothing filling out their sound below, in order to highlight a vocal passage. It’s not bad at all, but the drums and bass seem so inadequate here and they can’t make the idea work. Cheers to them for not filling in a phantom extra guitar track that would never be played live, at least.

Yet I still have a dirty feeling after giving Hammer & Fist a close listen and seeing what the band is all about in their lyrics and image. Every single member of the band is clad in denim vests adorned with a various patches, both in the band portrait and in the live shots. The singer runs around with a sword on stage, apparently. When this happens, there is no middle ground – it’s either pathetic or awe-inspiring. Shall we examine exactly what this band is singing about?

Metal. Heavy fucking metal. Heavy metal songs that surely “go down a storm” at their live shows as well as with people that consider Manowar their religion, and other unfortunates. It’s fan pandering, populist bullshit, like somebody with Down’s Syndrome got hold of Lost Horizon and Manowar albums and decided he wanted to be in a band just like them.

The problem is the juxtaposition of individualism and collectivism within the lyrics. The band, in all its metal fervor, pushes two completely opposed ideals and I wonder if they understand their Manowar albums at all.

It’s very simple. Lost Horizon was talking to its audience, commanding them, if you will, not to join together in some homogenous mass of metal, but to stand up and excel. There are no armies. Manowar exalts themselves and themselves only, even when they seemingly give praise to their fans. Read those lyrics from Army of the Immortals. It’s something akin to jingoistic manipulation for anyone to think that Manowar places true importance on their thralls. They sing about them a bit and laugh all the way to the bank. Perhaps this is why I like Manowar, but only the songs where they aren’t singing about heavy metal – they know what they’re doing and they do it well, but I don’t like being manipulated. In the Manowar world, that scary guy on their DVD trailer had it right. “Manowar is my religion!” he screams. And in a religion, there are gods, and there are the not-gods. It’s a frighteningly brilliant thirty-year campaign to build and keep a following, if you think about it.

Conquest of Steel either can’t figure this out, or think they can run around the truth of the matter. Time for them to be on the receiving end of the Clue Hammer:

You are a leader or you are a follower.
You are free, or you are not.
If you are in a crowd, you are not standing alone.

Which brings us to the brain-dead collection of words that are the lyrics to “A Million Strong.” They look the contradiction right in the face with the line, “Part of the pack you stand alone,” and there is no evidence to be found that they realize how silly that is. No effort to give meaning to or explain what that means. So I have to take it at face value. They’re idiots. The song starts by talking a good game about self-reliance and realizing one’s potential. It’s all about the individual and pressuring him to not be a fuck-up. Right out of the Lost Horizon book of tricks. But it goes from there directly into the chorus of “A million strong we are the ones / Who live our lives wild and free.” Say what? The next verse confuses everything further, going on about how a person, presumably the listener, is this alone-standing person who is part of the pack and becoming a great leader. And back to the chorus. And then it starts going on about a “primal tribal movement.” Ah yes, the primordial age of man, that great time for individualism. Really, the band is telling some mythical million listeners (do they actually aspire to be a pop band to have that many people listening to them?) that they are all capable of being leaders. Reminds me of my days working in an office when some middle-management fucktard was delivering a message from on high about employee empowerment. Yes, Conquest of Steel is the musical equivalent of the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert.

“Born in Hell” reveals even more troublesome issues around this band’s philosophy. Check out the final bits of words that will inspire confidence:

All for the glory, all for the whores
All for the king of heavy metal
All for the glory, all for the whores
All for the glory, all for the whores
All for heavy metal
Pure heavy metal

Now, women haven’t been mentioned at all in this song, or on the album at all up to this point. But out of nowhere, “whores.” Classy. Just what we need from leaders of men, or a million-strong group of nitwits. Now I can understand completely if someone doesn’t like women, but I’m hardly going to take inspiration or advice from someone that doesn’t mention women, at all, aside from their being called “whores.” The chorus is full of elegance as well: “Show me the way, metal god of hell I pray.” Repeat. But there is more hidden idiocy here. First verse:

The metal god who burns inside
Born before the dawn of time
Almighty overlord we crave
To be the greatest of warrior banes
Fighting ‘till death, on our knees
All for heavy metal’s greatest deeds

That first line makes me wonder if these guys aren’t just a bunch of heavy metal Scientologists and if Hammer & Fist isn’t just a musical Battlefield Earth. I really doubt the band has a solid enough command of advanced literary techniques like metaphor to be saying anything of substance here. And the little bridge with “I’ll fight for the one, I’ll bleed ‘till the end,” I just know the band isn’t intending to say that heavy metal is just one big suicide cult run by some “overlord,” but damn their intentions, that is actually what their words are saying.

Third verse:

Born in hell metal’s son
Master of the sword number one
Leader to the ranks of men
Who live for metal ‘till the end
With steel we ride never to die
Victory burns in our eyes

Compare carefully the verses. Note the use of “we” and “our” in the first verse, as the song tells us we crave an overlord and we’re going to fight until we die. In the third verse, note that the “we” are the ranks of men, not the leader, and we get a contradiction of whether we are going to die or not for heavy metal. Fight ’till death for heavy metal? Live for metal ‘till the end?

This is the problem with singing about heavy metal. Heavy metal is a bunch of malcontents guys sitting in a cramped room (or by themselves!) fiddling around on tools made of wood, plastic, and yes, metal. Heavy metal is a tool, heavy metal is a servant of its makers and of its listeners. If all you’re using heavy metal for is to glorify heavy metal, you’re caught in a feedback loop of worthlessness, because you aren’t creating anything of yourself with this tool… you’re just glorifying what other people have done before you, and you can’t rise to the level of the gods if you won’t even stop kneeling before them.

How about “Taste the Metal”? It’s all about the devil possessing you. Check out the chorus:

The beast declares your soul
Your mind your form his own
Forever now your (sic) dwell
Blackened tainted realms
Bleeding raping
The sadist feeding taking
Burnt and twisted your life
Belongs to him now

Now this isn’t some 80s Satanic Panic advisory. I’ve got albums that are more blatantly Satanic and if you take your metal seriously, so do you. The problem is these same lyrics are grouped in the same song as this shit:

You’ll taste the metal, you’ll taste your tears
You’ll be forever the pilgrim without fear
You’ll kneel and worship before the
Altar of steel You’ll know you’re worth it
More than any man can feel

See, if they’re a Satanic band, whatever, but this kind of confused thinking reminds me of Christian zealots who think Satan is so much more powerful than their own God that the faithful are going to be tricked, tricked, tricked into wickedness and only by pointing out how insidious the devil is, and only by getting rid of everything that might even sort of have a passing resemblance to deviltry can the all-powerful God be safe from that powerless trickster Satan. And these British Boneheads take this Satanic philosophy as described by people who hate Satan and apply it directly into their art without comment, without sarcasm, without irony. Imbeciles!

Then there’s the bog-standard lyrical topics like valkyries and pirates and stuff before the final proper song, “Warrior’s Decree.”

Ever in this night we belong
This stage is ours by right
Never fading the flame is gaining
Souls rising with strength beyond

At least here (and on the opening song) they seem to realize the artist/audience divide, but really, I’m just done. You’ve been cool and you’re the best reader of this issue. Give yourself a hearty round of applause for all your support of LotFP – I really appreciate it.

The shame is they have the potential to be producing solid, non-dairy heavy metal. The song “Lamentations of War” (even this band wouldn’t dare put the word lamentations on a bunch of bullshit) is great. It’s an effective and powerful condemnation of… war and the manipulation of people by their leaders. You know, the shit they spend the rest of their album glorifying.

Dumb.

Cunts.

Losfer Words

Why isn’t instrumental music more popular amongst heavy metal listeners?

The fact that it isn’t should prove that the long-chanted mantra of “only the music matters” is just a load of shit. I suspect that many heavy metal listeners require an image and focus they can identify with in order to properly enjoy listening to music. I believe that many heavy metal listeners secretly want something close to guitar-driven, pop-oriented albums that allow them to listen to music effortlessly. Neither of these are crimes (although I wish the pop-focused listeners – and musicians – would choose another scene to fool around in), but the overall difference between what heavy metal listeners say, and what they actually listen to, would seem to be at odds.

The most divisive element of any heavy metal composition is the singing. The vocal style and the actual words used in the lyrics embellishes every last thing that a band does. Fact: If Metallica was a neo-Nazi band and had released Master of Puppets with nothing changed except for the lyrics being harshly fascist and racist, very few people would know the album. That’s an easy, and extreme, example, granted… but a band’s lyrics are often in close alignment with their overall image, and right now every one of you reading this can think of some ways to creatively insult Rhapsody of Fire, Cannibal Corpse, and Cradle of Filth that would be both accurate and unrelated to any sounds that come out of the speakers.

It would seem that removing that entirely from a band would create a situation where all barriers to enjoyment are removed. Different corners of the metal scene have at different times wished that heavy metal would be afforded the same respect given to jazz and classical composers, citing the similarities of instrumental prowess and compositional complexity. This is perhaps a laughable idea in these days of chart metal and “metal” bands involving kids with emo swoosh haircuts, but in metal’s less popular days these ideas had merit for the scene as a whole.

(It should be noted that metal’s compositional complexity (at its most advanced) is definitely exaggerated in comparison to orchestral music simply for the sake of writing music for a three-to-six piece ensemble versus writing for a full orchestra… and musicians who can improvise, a standard quality in jazz, should probably be considered better than those who can not. But this does not make metal less, it just makes it different.)

I do believe metal’s image and absolutely abrasive nature has been the reason why this didn’t happen in the 90s, which is a shame. I feel that in the eyes of most outside observers, metal’s lyrics and image destroys its musical credibility, while in the hearts of the metal faithful, it is musical credibility that elevates the lyrical concepts and often makes ridiculous themes palatable. Which brings us back to “it’s the music that matters.”

I believe that heavy metal bands themselves have devalued the instrumental. While there have been stunning examples of well-planned instrumental compositions on well-regarded albums (to cut to the chase: “Call of Ktulu” and “Orion”), they are not the norm for heavy metal instrumentals. Far more representative of the early heavy metal instrumental album is a guitarist’s solo album. Commonly regarded as nothing more than “wanking,” the view is that the only value of such albums is for fellow musicians to compare their abilities. It’s nothing to actually listen to, right? “Yeah, he can play, but when is he going to join a band?”

What is amusing is that the very things that cause shred albums to be disregarded are the same things that drive the reputations of “real” bands. You know, the ones with singing. Technical instrumental ability? Check. Speed? Hell yeah, lots of bands, especially in the old days, made reputations based on how fast they played. General sonic chaos and lack of easily digestible hooks, melodies, and chorus? Yeah, some of those guitar player instrumental albums are something else. Perhaps the real problem is the public perception was that those guitar players were complete loudmouth pricks whose entire world was their guitar and their belief that their ability to play it made them superior human beings.

Many “normal” albums contain instrumentals. But they are completely devalued and shown to be nothing more than preparation for the “real” music. Intros, interludes, “instrumentals” that are nothing more than a quick musical idea that hasn’t been fleshed out to reach “composition” status… they are everywhere in metal. This isn’t a bad thing by itself; many examples are completely justifiable and make sense within their context. As a whole, they do send the message that instrumental work, in the context of a heavy metal album anyway, is not the “real” music.

An instrumental album is more difficult to create than a “normal” heavy metal album because of the expectation of vocals. The space in the listener’s head must be filled by some unusual sound. Because of this, many instrumental albums are performed by advanced musicians, and this destroys their credibility with the general metal listener. It’s all good and well to be a great player, but the really good ones don’t just listen to metal, and they don’t just idolize metal musicians. As soon as the words fusion, jazz, progressive, or any sort of talk on theory escape from a musician’s mouth, people tune out. Look what happens to the most capable players in heavy metal. Spiral Architect. Cynic. Atheist. Psychotic Waltz. Watchtower. This entire segment of heavy metal is barely a blip in the overall landscape, and that’s with vocals. Why?

The easy way to answer this is to say, “Heavy metal fans are just stupid and don’t recognize talent when they see it.” But that isn’t true. Does anybody who chooses not to listen to Spiral Architect claim them to be untalented? No. But a perceived lack of “hooks” and “real songs” is definitely a common opinion. And to take away the singing? Instrumental albums are not easy, passive listening experiences. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, “Heavy metal fans as a whole have little interest in truly top-level musicianship.” Be good enough, be worshipped. Be too good, be shunned. I think the “most metal listeners want pop music on steroids” theory is a pretty good one.

The impact of the surrounding culture can not be ignored. Popular music in the Western world has been vocally-oriented for the last century. The mass opinion can have an absolutely crushing influence on individual tastes, no matter what one does to counteract it. For all the unoriginality throughout rock and metal’s history, and complaints that people are trying to ride a bandwagon to success, the truth is most of it is done by people who think they are being really cool and expressing their unique selves. Making that separation from groupthink is difficult and often painful – how many iconoclasts and free thinkers lead miserable lives filled with self destructive behavior? – and the rewards for doing so are private and personal. Masses of people are just not going to follow a severe diversion from the usual path.

The instrumental metal album wouldn’t quite have such a burden, as by definition it is staying within the parameters of heavy metal. But what keeps an instrumental band metal? A lot of metal is defined by lyrics, or vocals, or imagery. It’s hard enough to determine if top bands in the genre these days should really be considered metal (Nightwish’s current Eurovision-ready singles, anyone?) without examining the more obscure, and decidedly different bands. If you go by the guidelines of LotFP’s Scum, it might seem like instrumental music is unable to be heavy metal. “Lyrics are the biggest key to discovering whether a particular band, album, or song can be considered heavy metal,” and all that. Of course that’s not the case; heavy metal does have a purely sonic component. “Heavy metal is in the motivation. It isn't in the noise.” It’s obvious when listening to Behold… the Arctopus or Electro Quarterstaff that these bands are metal. Mastery is all about pure thrash; they just have no singer. If bands like Dysrhythmia and Canvas Solaris have outside influences, that’s just natural, but enough to make them non-metal as a whole? That debate can get messy.

In the end, instrumental metal is about one thing: Musical excellence in its purest form. It doesn’t blend into the background, and it doesn’t just hand you anything. It requires, and rewards, close and attentive listening. Maybe that isn’t what the general metal fan wants, but it should be what music listeners demand.

Proof that Heavy Metal Sucks the Life Right Out of You

Me: I've seen Fudge Tunnel live.
Matt: Wow. Too bad.
Me: Opening for Sepultura, so it makes sense.
Matt: Right.

I mean, really. Knowing why Fudge Tunnel opening for Sepultura makes sense without even having to think about it? Even a little bit? Think of how much more we could have accomplished in our lives if all that brain capacity which has been wasted on frickin Fudge Tunnel trivia was spent on something productive.