A common question among reviewers is how to contextualize albums that they are reviewing. This question becomes particularly important for bands such as Antestor, a band attempting to play Christian-themed black metal. Is it more correct to review this album paying close attention to its contradictorily nature, analysing the music in relation to how it works both as a part of the black metal and the Christian music scenes? Or is it better practise to say ‘bollocks’ to this and review the album simply as a piece of music, regardless of its context in the wider scene?

When I decided to review these albums I struggled with this question. I’ve decided that the fairest way to review any album is to at least begin by analysing it as a musical entity in and of itself, then move on to discuss it in context of Christian-themed metal as a whole.

Antestor – The Return of the Black Death

I’ll begin my reviews with The Return of the Black Death, Antestor’s seminal album which I found in the bargain bin at Real Groovy, recognised the name and thought “I’ll give it a go”. My plan to review The Return of the Black Death as a musical entity would prove an easy task if the album contained any decent music. But it doesn’t. It’s just, well…blah.

I try to be positive on this site, but I can find very few positive elements about the music on this album. The instruments all sound hollow and empty. This is partly due to sub-par production but partly just poor songwriting. The drums in particular stand out, for all the wrong reasons. Many of the riffs could be improved with decent blastbeats and more intricate fills, but the drums are slow and tinny. The guitars and bass have no soul, no atmosphere. The riffs are simply uninspired – there’s no Bathoresque epic soundscape here, no Darkthrone nilism or Burzum haunting dischordance. I admit I slightly enjoyed the riff on ‘Kongsblod’, and there are the beginnings of some interesting ideas on ‘Battlefield’, but I am trying to be nice here.

Adding keyboards to metal is always a risky business, and it didn’t save this album. ‘Sorg’ is a horrible slow track, with distorted keyboard and atrocious spoken chanting. The song is meant, I presume, to sound dark and atmospheric, but it has all the atmosphere of a choleric choir boy with a head cold.

Vocally, the lyrics alternate between barking, screeching and a sort of spoken chanting. The best vocals are on ‘gamelander’; a track which actually managed to sound mildly brutal, but was ruined by the chanted section in the middle.

So that’s The Return of the Black Death. Judging simply on musical merit, it’s not great, it’s not even ‘okay’. It is actually quite terrible. Many blame this on the band’s attempt to Christianize black metal, but I think that’s the easy answer. Many Black Metal purists would argue that Black metal is ‘so much more then just a genre’, and is seeped in idealism and imagery that make it impossible to be given a Christian slant. I disagree with this. Nowadays, even the first wave Black Metal artists argue the genre is simply a style of music, and practically every genre of music in the world has its Christian counterpart. Why not black metal, if that’s what you want to do?

This album’s inherent crappiness can’t be blamed on their Christianity. If this album were written by a bunch of Lev ay-worshipping, goat sacrificing Satanists, it would have sounded just as meh. The lyrics in the song ‘sovereign fortress’ would only need slight alterations to read as a Satanic ditty. Changing a few words here and there wouldn’t make the song good. And no, I’m not being unusually harsh on these guys – it’s hard to write a decent black metal album, and I would say black metal, more than any other genre, contains the largest percentage of complete and utter shite written by people who don’t know the first thing about making a piece of music that evokes feeling. It’s a real talent to write songs within the context of black metal, much less decent songs. This is just the album I chose to review.

Antestor get an A+ for effort. In their own way, being Christians writing this stuff back when Black Metal was an idealology, and one fiercly defended (ask the Jewish BM band Salam, who got sent a bomb in the mail from Norway), they are pioneers, and brave at that. I admire bravery – and anyone who puts something out in the world that they know won’t be popular, but that comes from the heart. That’s metal in attitude, even if the album falls short of musical genius.

Another reviewer pointed out the album’s flaws can be explained by the sense of “obligation”, the way in which the band attempt to fit a message of hope and salvation into a style of music meant to be utterly bleak, chaotic and devoid of hope. Other Christian black metal bands who embrace the nilism of black metal might produce better albums – that would be my guess. Although I’ve never heard any other Antestor recordings, apparently they moved away from the black metal sound. I’m not surprised – this album sounds forced – a square peg, round hole effort.

I read Hellhammer used to do session drums for these guys. I’m amazed Vikernes didn’t think to stab him for that.

Horde – Hellig Usvart

Yes, I have heard this album, and if you want to know what I think, go to the Metal Archives entry for Hellig Usvart and read the “Whoreship” review by Nightgaunt, one of my favorite metal reviewers. He writes much better than I could hope to. WARNING: Don’t read if you’re offended by a very skeptical, nilistic view of Christianity, because that’s what’s presented here. He argues his points (not all of which I agree with) very well, but I don’t want to offend anyone by telling them to go read this).

A quote, if you will:

“The distinction is key. The “un” is omnipresent within the relevant realm; “anti-” is a matter of degree. If Christian doom metal is like trying to fit a cylindrical wooden peg with diameter of 10.5 centimeters into a circular hole 10 centimeters in diameter, then this “UnBlack metal” business is like trying to fit a live, incontinent walrus through a star-shaped aperture 5 centimeters in diameter.”

Mortification – Scrolls of the Megilloth

Now Scrolls of the Megilloth, on the other hand, IS musical genius. Everything about this album – drums, bass, guitar and vocals – moulds together flawlessly, creating a relentless onslaught of untamed brutality. Steve Rowe’s vocals on this album are some of the most terrifying I’ve ever heard. Nothing is drawn back, unseen or dumbed down – this is death metal in it’s finest element.

You can hear distinct doom and grindcore influences, especially in the vocal lines and the doomish arrangements. Listen to “Necromanicide”, just do it! Fucking brilliant.

Can’t find much to fault here. If you don’t like death metal, you won’t like this, either. If you do, I seriously think you should give this a listen.

Evanescence – Fallen

First of all, Evanescene are not a metal band, and it gets me really angry when people say they are. They are a gothic rock band, like the Rasmus or HIM. Now, this is all fine and good. I happen to love the Rasmus. But at least they don’t get called metal.

So why are they in this article, then, smarty pants?

First of all, I’m running out of Christian CDs in my own collection. Second, Evanesence are placed in the metal section at all major record shops in New Zealand … at least, the two that have a metal section. I like to think this is because any metal-inclined CD shelf-stackers think “Well, if I put them in here, maybe there’s a chance Evanescene fans will pick up an Epica CD and turn into real metalheads!” It’s a conspiracy to turn more innocent teens into people like me … But if Evanescene are regarded by the general music-buying public as “metal”, they shall have to rise or fall on their perceived “metalness”. I think this is fair.

Evanescene were one of those bands who put out their album in the mainstream and then revealed their Christianity through various interviews. I think this attitude cost them a lot of fans in the end, as it seemed somehow “dishonest” to enter the mainstream and they go “Ah hah, we’re Christian! Fooled you all!” They’ve since moved away from that, I think. I don’t really know, don’t follow the band after the album turned into such a major disappointment.

This album makes me think the band heard one Nightwish song and thought “Our singer sounds kind of operatic. We could do that”, and voila, their alt. rock church band became uber goth operatic metal band. All I have to say is, “where is the double bass?”

The thing about metal most people don’t realize is that more than any other instrument, metal is defined by the drumming. Yes, there are specific vocal styles pretty unique to metal, and after drumming, guitars come a close, tight, screaming second. While I’ll concede there are the beginnings of some metalesque riffs on some of the songs, without the drums, it’s never going to be metal.

The singer, Amy Lee, lacks the range or power of real metal singers like Tarja Turanan or Christina Scabbia. There’s some vague attempts at growling by a dude who’s obviously never heard a Mortification record before. There’s some okay darkly-styled goth music. There’s a lovely-toned piano on the song “My Immortal”, which has a beautiful melody and a vocalist who could use a few lessons.

The cincher for me comes when Amy Lee ruins the best and most kick ass song on this album “Tourniquet” by misprounouncing it. It’s a French word, Amy. The “T” is silent.

Theocracy – Mirror of Souls

I was scouring Metal Archives for a Christian metal album with good reviews, so I could have another good album to counteract the less-than-brilliant offerings from my own list (since I ran out of Christian “metal” CDs and was going to have to resort to reviewing Creed :). And I came across this gem from Theocracy, Mirror of Souls.

Theocracy demonstrate that of all the sub-genres, power metal melds best with a Christian worldview. You can play aggressive, bombastic music while still being upbeat and triumphant. Theocracy blend a progressive style of power metal, with lots of tempo changes and thematic shifts, with a thrashy vocal style. These guys really know what they’re doing – the flamenco break near the end of Martyr shouldn’t be there, and I shouldn’t like it, but it is, and it works. I love the song “Writing on the Sand” with it’s mid-paced melodrama. It’s so quintessentially power metal, and so well-executed. I’m hooked.

Lyrically, I think they could do with being a bit more subtle – that’s just me. I like bands like Blind Guardian who use a lot of poetry and metaphor to extend the epic and progressive nature of their music. Overall, though, this was a great album and I’ll be looking into a few more of these Christian power metal bands.

So, two out of five ain’t so bad, and remember, I was mostly taking these from my own collection, not from the recommendations I’ve received this week. And I don’t think Evanescence actually count. Are they still going? Can she sing yet?

Tomorrow, an epic Christian Metal Mixtape, and then I promise we’ll talk about something different next week. I’ve really enjoyed writing these articles and reading everyone’s opinions in the comments. It’s a thorny and interesting subjet and everyone’s been discussing it without calling anyone names, which is so cool :)

Suger Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses

Antestor - unblack metal

Christian metal isn’t really a genre, because no specific musical characteristics define it, apart from “lyrics about Jesus”, which I don’t consider a fitting factor to determine a genre, and more than “lyrics about Vikings” should qualify a band as “Viking Metal”. Christian metal lyrics vary between generalized topics of loss, pain, regret and anger, to songs telling stories about the life of Jesus, to full on “repent or die” kinda stuff.

Christian metal began all the way back in the 1970s, and rose from the Jesus Movement – a loose collection of hippies who’d converted to Christianity. These hippies, calling themselves “Jesus People” mainly flocked to Southern California where they produced some music (called, not surprisingly, “Jesus Music”) influenced by their previous hippy leanings. As the hippy movement gave way to progressive and psychedelic rock (and with them, heavy metal) in the 1970s, so too did these Jesus People, and their music.

In 1978, the “Jesus Movement” group Resurrection Band released Awaiting Your Reply, an album heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin. In this same year, Swedish band Jerusalam’s first album Volume 1 hit the streets. The Christian music stores couldn’t believe that heavy music like this could sell so well, with Awaiting Your Reply hitting number 6 on the Gospel album sales charts. (I bet you didn’t even know there was a gospel album sales chart. See the things I can teach you!) Before you could say “amen”, a whole horde of these groups appeared on the scene.

The 1980s saw four notable Christian metal bands emerge: Stryper, Leviticus, Saint and Messiah Prophet. Leviticus’ early releases were typical Swedish glam metal, Saint’s heavier sound and bombastic vocals lend comparisons to Judas Priest. Saint differentiated themselves with negative lyrical themes – focusing on the more “metal” aspects of Christian mythology – the apocalypse, hell and evil.

But the heroes of Christian Metal in the 80s had to be Stryper. The orange-county glam-metal act embraced full-on glam metal stage shows while throwing bibles to their audience. They were the first group to reach platinum sales as a Christian act and to self-identify as Christian Metal. Stryper soon become popular with secular audiences as well, paving the way for more Christian metal.

stryper's concert set-up, circa 1986

Another term for Christian Metal also came out of the 80s, coined mainly as a reaction to the emerging black metal scene. “White Metal” was first applied to the Chicago doom metal band Trouble, whose first two releases Psalm 9 and The Skull feature heavy Christian lyrics. Metal Blade Records, a secular label, used the term “White Metal” as a marketing term to differentiate their Christian metal bands from the satanic bands on their list, and the term gained popularity and is stull used today. Trouble have tried to distance themselves from the term and the Christian metal scene, by saying their earlier Christian albums were more an exploration of singer Eric Wagner’s interest in Christianity and an expression of his Catholic upbringing, rather than any overt desire to become part of the Christian “scene”.

With the rising popularity of White Metal came the inevitable criticism, but this time, it came from both sides. While many metalheads thought the concept of Christiam Metal stomped on everything metal was supposed to stand for, many churches and ministries also denounced the movement. Tele-evangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s 1987 book “Religious Rock n’ Roll – a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?” denouncing the use of heavy music to spread the gospel. Others criticized the groups for riding on the popularity of musical styles pioneered by secular bands. Kris Klingesmith of Banabas said “If you want to know what Christian music will be doing tomorrow, all you need to do is see what the secular guys are doing today”.

Now we moved to the 1990s, where Kurt Cobain and grunge dug glam metal it’s well-deserved, deep, and hopefully eternal grave. Metal moved underground, and the music became harder, darker and more brutal. Christian metal followed suit. The first dabblers in extreme Christian death metal – Incubus and Living Sacrifice – produced some mediocre stuff. But it was Australian Christian death metal group Mortification with their 1992 release from a mainstream metal label (Germany’s Nuclear Blast), titled Scrolls of the Megalith that showed just how extreme Christian music could be.

Mortification - Australian death metal

Scrolls of the Megalith remains a classic death metal album, essential listening for any metalhead, God-faring or otherwise. It’s one of my favorite death releases of all time, and shot Mortification into the unusual position of being one of the few Christian metal bands loved by the extreme secular music scene. They’ve produced a steady stream of material over the last 20 years, although nothing comparable to their first three releases. Critics blame their lackluster efforts on the personal struggles of vocalist Steve Rowe. A critic wrote

“The weakest link of current Mortification are the lyrics. They are just somewhat naive and cheesy. On the old albums sinners screamed in pain in the fiery pits of hell, Satan was slaughtered; the rhetorics fit the spirit of the brutal music better. Apparently the fatherhood and going through the disease has calmed Rowe down too much, although on the early records the previous members Jayson Sherlock and Mick Carlisle wrote a lot of the lyrics.”

So with Christian bands invading the death metal scene, what did other holy musicians make of the rising threat of satanic Scandinavian black metal? Enter “unblack metal”, the most embarrassingly silly genre name since “shoegaze”.

Unblack metal incorporates all the musical elements of black metal – the shrieking vocals, fast tempo, tremolo picking, abysmal production and blastbeats – with lyrics depicting Christianity in a positive and over evangelical light.

The two earliest and most influential unblack metal bands were Horde (Aus) and Antestor (Nor). Antestor used to be a christian death metal band called Crush Evil. Mayhem’s Euronymous was so enraged by their very existence, he conceived a plan to force them to disband, thrawted only by the insertion of a sharp knife into her person 23 times by fellow bandmate Varg Vikernes.

When Nuclear Blast released Horde’s debut, Hellig Usvart, they probably should have predicted the shitstorm that followed. The label received death threats, demanding the release of the musician’s names. Horder was, in fact, the work of one “Annonymous”, none other than ex-Mortification drummer, Jayson Sherlock. In the 1990s, black metal wasn’t just a musical genre, but a set of idealogical beliefs borne of a desire to eradicate Christianity from the world and restore ancient pagan beliefs. So yeah, you could see why Sherlock’s lyrics about embracing Christianity might seem like a bit of an insult. A Norwegian daily newspaper described the phenomena as “an abrupt satire of the Norwegian black metal movement”, which I bet made Varg and Eury and that lot right pissed off.

While directly utilising the musical stylings of black metal, neither Horde nor Antestor wanted to be known as “black metal”, with all its satanic association. Horde used the term “holy unblack metal” (a pun on Darkthrone’s “Unholy Black Metal”) while Antestor preferred “Sorrow Metal”.Whatever you called it, critics in the music press and throughout the church universally rubbished it. A british black metal documentary asked it’s interviewees for their thoughts. Martin Walkyier of Sabbat said ‘Christian black metal?’ What do they do? Do they build churches? Do they repair them?” And then he laughs heartily.

Nowadays, black metal is less about idealology than it is about a specific style, and many Christian’s feel OK called their bands “black metal”. Even old school BM musicians like Sigurd of Satyricon say “black metal doesn’t necessarily have to be all satanic, as long as it’s dark.” You’re going to hear my opinion about unblack metal when I write up some reviews tomorrow.

With all this Christian metal going around, and mainstream metal labels and tame Christian labels not all that interested, several Christian metal labels – such as Pure Metal, Intense Records and Pakaderm – opened their doors, as well as Christian metal magazines like Heaven’s Metal Magazine, Christian radio stations, Christian metal festivals and even, get this, a Christian metal church.

That’s right. Because Christian metalheads had long hair and didn’t fit in with regular church, a Californian pastor by the name of Bob Beeman set up Sanctuary International, a worldwide church with branches throughout the US and Europe. Stryper’s Michael Sweet led the first worship in this church of heavy metal. Sanctuary brought together many musicians – forming bands like Deliverance, Vengeance and Mortal. They organized the first Christian metal festival – Metal Madi Gras – in Los Angeles in 1987, and also the annual “BobFest” festival. Most of the parishes closed in the late 1990s. feeling mainstream Christianity had become more accepting of their metal legions, and now Sanctuary International focuses on teaching people about Christianity through metal, and running a metal radio station.

In Finland, where metal is more mainstream than anywhere else in the world, the former Lutheran state church holds regular Metal Masses attended by thousands of devotees. Christian metal slogans like “Turn or Burn” and “Faster for the Master” bedazzle t-shirts and bumper stickers, the once popular WWJD stickers thrown away in disgust.

Metal Bible

But wait, it gets even crazier! In 2005, the Metal Bible was released. That’s right – the bible, in Swedish, with a “metal” cover, old English font, and lots of interviews with metal musicians on what Christianity and scripture mean to them. In 2007 the Metal Bible was released in Dutch and the website reports an English version is on it’s way.

Call me crazy, but I think all this is mad cool. If you’re gonna be Christian, at least make it awesome. The Metal Bible? Only a tr00 Christian metalhead would have thought of that. Seriously, makes me smile.

Nowadays, the exploding influence of Christian music worldwide (don’t deny it – you know it’s true) has given rise to popular mainstream “metal” bands (term applied loosly), like Underoath, As I Lay Dying, Haste the Day, The Devil Wears Prada (yes, they’re a band), August Burns Red and P.O.D.

And there you have it – Christian metal, in all of its unrivalled strangeness. Thoughts? Opinions? Interesting anecdotes? I’d love to hear them.

Further information

Metal for Jesus
Holy Beats – Why Should Satan Get All the Good Stuff
Blabberjesus – Christian Metal News
Sanctuary International
Metal For the King – and they don’t mean Elivs

Buy Christian Metal Online

Crossing Music
Nordic Mission
Rugged Cross Music
Metal Mission

Christian Metal Albums

Mortification – Scrolls of the Megalith
Antestor – Under the Sign of the Black Mark
Horde – Hellig Unsvart
Narnia – Long Live the King
Resurrection Band – Awaiting Your Reply
Jerusalem – Warrior
Saint – Warriors of the Sun
Stryper – To Hell with the Devil
Messiah Prophet – Master of the Metal
Bloodgood – Detonation
Theocracy – Mirror of Souls
Venia – Victory by Surrender
Eden – Fan the Flame

At York Minster

Before I begin, I have to confess my own religious feelings, so you understand my opinion on Christian Metal. As a child I attended a Catholic primary school, and, unlike most metalheads I know, I must admit I enjoyed attending church.

We went to an old-school Catholic church, with high gothic arches and stained-glass windows. I loved the chanting and ritual and breaking of the bread – it was all so esoteric and occult. I read a lot of books about magic and witches and spooky happenings, and the church seemed to epitomize all that freaky stuff I loved.

But, most importantly, we had the kindest, most gentle priest – Father Cook – who would read passages from the bible and encourage the congregation to discuss them, offer their own ideas and interpretations. He encouraged people not to just read the bible, but to engage with it as a historical and spiritual document. He was also one of those rare, truly good men. Whenever I hear people rubbish the Catholic church, I remember him and feel like I should defend it.

As a teen, I started to make friends with many Christians, and I even spent a short period of time trying to “be” one. They were one of the vew groups who sort of tolerated me hanging around. My first best friend and my first boyfriend hung with this group (although my boyfriend was not Christian, he was weird enough that, like me, they were one of the only groups who liked him).

I spent much time in high school trying to fit in to various groups, the Christians being one of the more accepting. But I’m not a Christian, any more than I was a punk or a goth or a wiccan. I have some deeply held beliefs about gods and the nature of the universe, but I don’t want to discuss them here. Suffice it to say that I realized by the time I was about seventeen that I didn’t really want to subscribe to any specific religious order.

I still have many Christian friends – although they’re outnumbered by metalheads now – but although we disagree on religion, we share many other things in common.

I first came across Christian Metal in high school, when I started hanging around Christians in a big way. I was also heavily into metal at this time, and after my sister downloaded Kazaa onto our family computer, I was deseperately downloading every metal song I could find.

One of the local churches attended by many of my friends used to run a youth group every Friday night, and I would go on occasion. Some of the boys spotted my Metallica shirt and launched into a discussion about music. They said they liked metal too and started naming all these bands I’d never heard of, and at that stage I knew quite a lot about metal. My relationship with Christian metal had begun.

I looked up all the bands I could remember when I got home, and found them all terrible – the same nu metal drivel they played on the radio, but with happy-go-lucky lyrics about being saved. This wasn’t real metal. I remained unimpressed.

My second boyfriend (during my first years at uni) was a Christian, and I spent some time in his church, although I stopped going quickly because I disliked the more modern, evangelistic style and some of it’s biblical interpretations. I was studying Ancient Greek at the time and would love to have had a discussion about some of the bible text, the way my old Catholic priest encouraged, but this didn’t seem to be the done thing. I also disliked the silly, deliberately “modern” alternative rock music and the 40 minute lectures.

My then-boyfriend and some of his friends listened to a few Christian metal bands, and Christian hard-rock bands. He introduced me to Mortification, who remain to this day my only known example of an actual decent Christian metal band. As I got more deeply involved in metal culture, I met more and more Christians anxious to “bring me back” with suggestions of Christian metal. And I’ll give any band a chance, but none of it has ever impressed me.

Christian metal is also talked about on metal forums, which I used to frequent. Opinion divides between two camps: Christians who are metalheads, or metalheads who identify as Christians, who like Christian metal, and metalheads who are strongly against any kind of Christian metal. Their reasons are threefold:

1. Metal is the music of rebellion. Metal music primarily comes from young, middle class white males in predominantly Christian cultures. Metal speaks for generations of kids who don’t want to blindly conform to “Christian” ideals forced upon them by parents and schools. Many of these metalheads have dealt with extreme cases of prejudice and abuse in the name of metal. The idea of Christianity – whom they consider their enemy – corrupting something they hold dear sickens them. They consider it usurpation of their culture for the purpose of brainwashing people. They call it cultural misappropriation, and I can’t say I blame them.

(I’m not saying Christian ideals are bad, just that people want to be able to make up their own minds about whether they’re right for them or not.)

2. Metal deals with two main subsets of lyrical themes: larger-than-life, epic, fantasy type-themes (like slaying dragons, “fighting” for metal and shagging your way across barbarian Europe), and intense human emotions (fear, anger, pain, regret, hatred, rage).

Christian metal rarely falls into the first subset, as these “epic” themes tend to come from metal’s love of heathen, “barbarian” history and mythology, which they’re routinely tried to eradicate from the course of history. So Christian metal usually attempts to fall into the second category, but falls short because, in acknowledging a higher power, a person tends to deny their own power to influence their own future. Metal needs power – the power to stand up for what you believe in, the power to turn it up to eleven. Songs about relinquishing power just don’t appeal.

3. The majority of Christian metal just plain isn’t any good. This prejudices metalheads against it, because if you say you like Christian metal they are going to assume you have terrible taste in music (and they’re probably right ☺).

Promoting a religion, at its core, includes the practice of discriminating against other religions. This is as true for songs promoting Satanism, bhuddism, deism, or Antidisestablishmentarianism. The very nature of embracing a religion involves the denial of the others. Now, I’m not saying this is a bad thing – it’s certainly a very unique thing. And it’s not unique to religion, either. Does not embracing the metalhead subculture involve the shunning of emo?

Stryper - you'll be learning about them tomorrow :)

I noticed when I used to attend youth group and the church with my old boyfriend, there was a real fad of using youth culture to “convert” youth. I didn’t want to go and tell people about the bible, because I had been given no opportunity to fully understand it myself. I hadn’t been given any opportunity to “study” it in any kind of depth. Sure, there was lots of role-playing and group work, but it approached the bible from a “we already know the answers” point of view. I remember attending a bible-study meeting one night and I sparked a huge debate because I had a differing opinion on the text than everyone else. My opinion was essentially invalidated because I hadn’t been studying the bible since I was seven, like the others. I never went back.

Some might argue that metal has its own culture of conversion. We have hundeds of songs praising the glory of metal and essentially arguing why metal is the best form of music. But these songs aren’t written to bring more people to metal – they’re written for the people already here, to celebrate this wonderful world we’ve created. They are the metalhead equivalent of “worship” songs. They’re for us, not for the potential acolytes. No one’s going to listen to “Kings of Metal” and suddenly say “that’s it! I am now a metalhead.”

Essentially, “White Metal” is a marketing ploy, designed to repackage Christianity with distortion depals and double bass and growly vocals to make it palatable for metalheads. But as a marketing tactic, it’s ill-conceived and poorly executed – metalheads are sticklers for authenticity – they want to feel insense human emotion, they want music to give them power, not take it away. Promoting Christianity in a metal song ultimately alienates the majority of people who might be potentially interested in the song. Metalheads are put off by the Christianity, Christians by the metal. “White Metal” targets the wrong audience.

If you stop to look, metal actually has a long history of utilizing Christian themes and myths. Listen to Black Sabbath’s “After Forever”? I’ve heard songs like that sung in church. Old Testament bible stories inspire hundreds of metal songs.

After all, a large part of traditional metal (and I include power metal here, too) is about larger-than-life, epic stories. Musicians draw on various mythologies, including those they learned about in their youth. Most of these songs approach these myths as just that, myths which create inspiration of epic soundscapes.

So is it only okey to sing about Christianity in metal if you DON’T believe it?

Much of metal – and I’m talking extreme metal here – is about raw emotions, the dangerous ones lurking beneath the surface. Christians feel pain and hatred and anger and fear too. I bet lots of our favorite metal songs are actually written by people who consider themselves Christians (but don’t wish this to be overt), as well as many other religions. Once you get past all the silliness, emotions are universal. Saying to someone “Don’t write metal songs because you’re a Christian, and you don’t belong” is about as un-metal as you can get. Anyone belongs in metal, that’s the point.

I do believe, and I say this whenever I review a band, that when one listens to music, you should take do what you can to discard it from its context, and simply attempt to enjoy and analyse it for what it is. I know this is a contentious point, as my love for Burzum (the music, not the man) has shown. Some would argue separating context and text are impossible, and they’re probably right, but I think you should try. Tomorrow, I’ll be attempting just this, but conducting a no-hold’s barred review of five Christian metal albums in my collection.

Modern Christian youth culture has its own share of cliques and subcultures. I wonder what it is like to be in an overt Christian metal band nowadays. I remember my ex-boyfriend telling me stories of Mortification back in the day, when fights would break out at their concerts between Christians and non-christians. I certainly don’t see that nowadays – metalheads tend to keep their negative opinions for online forums and Facebook flames, and the concert scene is better for it.

Or is white metal not actually for metalheads at all? I certainly don’t hear of white metal bands on metal radio, or discussed on metal blogs or forums (except derisively). Is it that White Metal actually caters for Christians who want more extreme music that fits into their worldview. Is it metal for people who want blastbeats without satan?

With the rise of local metal scence throughout the more, more diverse cultures and religions are redefining metal’s themes and finding new meaning in extreme music. I remember the musicians from the Indian band Kryptos, in Global metal, explaining how one of their band members was hindu, one Christian and one muslin, but this didn’t matter. “The music unites us.” I think that’s the wisest comment yet.

With authenticity, comes solidarity. I ultimately believe metal is a force for good in the world. Metal unites people and gives them a positive force in their lives, whatever their social, political, cultural or religious leanings. Any metal band, Christian or otherwise, who attempt to use metal to promote one viewpoint to the denial of all others, won’t find much favor here.

What say you, readers? How has your relationship with Christianity – or another religion, political or cultural group – impacted your opinion on “White Metal”? Who do you think is ACTUALLY the audience for white metal?

If anyone can recommend any GOOD Christian metal bands, please list them below (My metal mixtape is looking a little sparse). If not, tell me your favourite songs using Christian mythology or your favorite bands with Christian members.

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses

Who are JBO? Well, JBO (“James Blast Orchester”) are a heavy metal band from Erlangen, Germany, and one of our Wacken German friends first introduced us to them. We sauntered up to the show, not sure what to expect, but certainly not this rowdy crowd of drunk Germans dancing away, splashing tall jugs of beer over each other. I was accosted by some mad bastard who, through hand gestures, poor english (his) and poor German (mine), somehow managed to convey the fact he thought I was beautiful, which is always nice to hear. Upon seeing I had no drink, he forced all of his friends to pour a little of their beer into a cup, until he could hand me a full cup of beer, and then gave me a hug, called another friend on his cellphone, and said “I stand with most beautiful woman, but my english … is crap!” I gave him a hug and he

My friend Jonowar was right up the front, and another German with poor English was next to him, trying to explain why JBO were so awesome. “This song is great!” He said to Johnowar. “You must head your bang!” Head Your Bang became our catchphrase for the whole trip.

So, yes, JBO. They started off as a joke band, parodying popular english songs by changing the lyrics into German and using german / english puns and common translation mistakes to make the lyrics humorous. I love them beause you need a decent knowledge of both English and German to get the jokes, and it’s such a delightfully German humour, too.

JBO

Their original name was “James Blast Orchester” but they shortened this to J.B.O. in June 1996 after James Last (a big name in German big band) threatened legal action. The Patrizier brewery of Nuremberg have also threatened to sue J.B.O. for slander. The band have since changed references to “Patrizier Bier” in their lyrics to “Pariser Bier” (Parisian beer / Condom beer).

Since 2000, they’ve been writing a few more original songs, but they still produce many parodies, which they call Blöedsinn – an intentional misspelling of “Blödsinn,” which means “nonsense” or “stupidity” in German).

So, would you like to learn some German with JBO? Here are some of my favorites:

Head Bang Boing

This song makes me smile SO much. You should have seen the crowd at Wacken go mental when they played this. It’s a parody of Manu Chao’s “Bongo Boing”. Head Bang Boing Lyrics.

Ejaculatio Praecox

Even though I can’t stand Nirvana, I think this is great. Ejaculatio Praecox lyrics.

JBO – JBO

Manowar’s “Carry On”. JBO Lyrics.

JBO – Noch ein Meister

I love Mike Oldfield, and this AWESOME parody of “Shadow on the Wall” where they sounds a little like sheep, cracks me up. Mostly in English.

JBO Symphonie der verstopfung

Megadeth cover, translating into, I believe, “Symphony of Constipation”. Symphony der verstopfung Lyrics.

JBO – wir sind die champignons

Yes, it’s a queen cover, and yes, it’s about mushrooms. We Are the Champignons lyrics.

JBO – reigning Blood

A bad Wacken vid of another favorite – “It’s Raining Men” with the word “Men” replaced with “Blood”.

I couldn’t find many english translations of the lyrics, but if you’re interested, ask a German friend to explain them :)

Head Your Bang!

Black Sheep, a wicked funny NZ horror film

In the interest of spreading the Steff Metal wuv (awwwww) you’ll find today’s post over on No Clean Singing, where I share a few of the more well-known (meaning, you’ve probably never heard of them) New Zealand metal bands. I’ll be writing a second post on more underground New Zealand metal at a later date. There might even be a third post, but I’m running out of bands …

So check out Metal From New Zealand over on No Clean Singing. Feel free to leave comments there or here.

Keep it Krieg

Metal can learn a lot from Indie – not in musicianship (I think we own them in this regard) but in the power of creating buzz. Indie has cleverly created a culture around knowing more obscure bands than anyone else.

If you’re in an obscure band, this is only a good thing. There’s no better way to sell hundreds of records than telling people that guy in the corner has already heard of your band.

Mind you, knowing obscure bands is easy to fake. Dr. David Thorpe of Your Band Sucks! shows you How to Fake It. How to Fake It (Part 2) and How to Fake It Reader Advice.

You’ll definitely find this attitude in metal too, but I don’t think it’s as much an ingrained part of the subculture as it is for Indie. You can listen to Slayer all day, every day, nothing but Slayer, and you’re still a metalhead. I don’t think you’re allowed to do this if you’re Indie. Indie encourages exploration – to reach into the furtherest depths of the underground to find the new, exciting, innovative sounds.

Indie men go out of their way to appeal to women. With their twee clothing and fondness of tea and songs about falling in love, they appeal to a broad female market, hence – Indie will never die out, due to it’s ability to procreate and continue the species. For metalheads, finding enough chicks can be a real problem, and is the main cause of the metal genre being on the brink of extinction more than once.

A lesson learned from Indie: the female metal fan is an untapped market. That’s why Ville Valo gets so many chicks – he’s only competing against himself.

Indie merchandise always looks awesome, and they’ve always got something to fit girls. In contrast, women’s metal shirts suck. They’re better than they were 10 years ago, but they still suck. C’mon guys, what do chicks love more then loud music? Shopping. Lets put two and two together, man.

A thought: I’d love to create a pin-up calendar of hot metal blokes. Volunteers?

Label-less musicians have to think outside the box when promoting their bands. Indie musicians embrace so-called “new” media – they’re the ones talking up their music on blogs and twitter and creating buzz online. They’re the ones partnering with local artists and performance dancers and forming collectives with other bands and being generally proactive.

They’re the ones figuring out how to get their music noticed by advertising professionals, TV producers and movie professionals. They understand there are more methods than ever to get their songs heard.

Also, since within “Indie” all the subgenres sound the same, apart from being labeled as Indie – an ubiquitious label as is – a band can actually sound however you want without people calling them “sell-outs” or musing about their new direction.

Metal, on the other hand, demands slavish adherence to sub-genres.

If your band starts in one sub-genre and then try to something radically different, you’re “selling out” or “going commercial”

If you start in one sub-genre and create ten albums strictly adhering to you distinctive sound, you are “not developing your sound”.

If you start in one sub-genre than move to another, you were never “

I’m not sure how much the musicians care about these things – since as long as you’re playing what you love, who cares what genre it’s in? – but the fans and critics sure do. Indie critics devote less space to debating genre dynamics and can spend more time discussing … I don’t know, the music.

Here are some Indie bands and why I love them:

Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer

She did have major label representation but now does not – is a prime example of an Indie artist creating unprecedented buzz online. She also uses her reach on twitter and her blog to create epic mean buzz, and add additional income streams to selling records and touring, which I think is pretty much essential for any artist today.

I adore her music but also, I enjoy reading her blog and watching her career because of her business sense.

The Killers

One of those rare indie successes who – I feel – deserve every ounce of success. When I hear their songs, I think of England (no, not like that …).

They are excellent musicians who’ve perfected a signature sound, use beautiful production and they kill live. Can’t fault them.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave

Um, because he’s beautiful.

Clearly, I am not particularly well-versed in the genre of “Indie” but if you’ve got any decent recommendations – or you’re an independent metal band with a video on YouTube – shout out in the comments below. There might be an “Indie” Metal Mistape at the end of the week …

Yours with two forks and a spoon

I actually don’t hate anything, and if I did, I wouldn’t be wasting such a rare and intense emotion on a genre of music that probably, if I felt like digging deeper, has some amazing gems to offer. So I don’t hate indie music – but sometimes I pretend that I do, because I write a metal blog, and metalheads hate Indie music.

Or do they?

First of all, there are two types of indie music: indie and Indie. The first – indie – refers to musicians and bands who make their careers without help from a major label. indie musicians place fierce value on maintaining control of their music, and rely on word-of-mouth, airplay on independent / college radio stations / touring and the internet to spread the musical word. You can be an indie band in any genre – there are metal indie bands, emo indie bands, pop indie bands, hip hop indie bands and probably classical indie musicians, although I’ve never met any.

In fact, whole subgenres of metal have built up a culture around the “indie” concepts. Black metal, I’m looking in your direction. If your black metal album isn’t printed on the corner print shop with a handdrawn cover and a pasted-in photocopy of a picture of your grymm band staring wistfully into the forest, with a hand-scrawled linear-note about your kinship with Odin and an aural soundscape akin to shovelling
dirt down the stairs of your apartment onto a microphone (thank you Venom), then, you’re just not Krieg enough, are you?

Metal – at it’s heart a grassroots global tribe – embraces and <> the concept of indie. Independently represented bands jostle for space alongside our major label faves, and the <> community of online blogs, forums and review sites give indie bands the chance to shine. In short, we don’t care where you come from, as long as you kick our ass. Yes, indie is a good thing.

But then, somewhere along the way. Indie got corrupted into a subgenre of its own. Someone gave indie a sound – a kind of wimpy alternative rock that seemed to be less about virtuosity than making sure your lyrics made no sense. indie became Indie.

And, even though they could never hope to replicate the originality of their idols – The Velvet Underground, The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain, the Stone Roses … Indie bands started acting like rockstars. They adopted a Dress. They played huge stadium shows. They got into the magazines, where they were described as having the voices of demons and the chops of satan’s minstrel. They threw the goat.

Arctic Monkeys. Look at them, all snuggly warm in their stripy sweaters. Where's the corpsepaint, guys?

Yep, right there – you know we were doomed to hate them.

Indie started stealing our schtick – we corner the satan market. We own goat-throwing and backstage antics and distorted guitars and demonic vocals. That’s ours. They wish they were as bad-ass as us. Who asked our permission to corrupt it into another genre?

If it’s one thing metallers hate, it’s subgenres who wish they were metal. To make matters worse, Indie idolizes Kurt Cobain, who we detest because he killed metal in the nineties with his sweaters and angst and
droning vocals.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Indie is not alone in our wrath. We hate emo – because the general public have no idea what the difference between emos, Goths, metalheads and punks are, and dammit, it’s important. We’re not terribly fond of
goth or punk, but they were sort of here first, and we share certain successful genre crossovers with them.

We hate all indie sub-genres, including BritPop, Shoegaze, Math Rock, CB6, Twee Pop, Dance Rock, chillwave and indietronica – because their ridiculous genre names give Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal, Blackened Death Metal and Gore Metal a bad and ill-deserved rep for being redundant.

We hate hip hop and rap, because it’s a culture completely foreign to us, and we’re all white supremesists.

We hate pop music because it’s insipid, none of the guys are hot, and all the girls are hot but would never sleep with us.

We hate musicals because they make people happy. Only metal should make people happy.

We hate anything with the word “post” in front of it, because we dread the day “post-metal” arrives.

We hate electronic and dubstep because in the grymm future world of Hello Kitty all music will be made at a giant Mac manufacturing plant in Japan.

We hate everyone with a silly haircut.

We hate anything with the word “core” at the end of it, simply because it’s crap.

Such a happy bunch of characters, aren’t we?

What I’m trying to say is that metalheads love to talk about music – the music we love, and the music we don’t love. We have strong opinions about music because it plays such a huge part in our lives.

I think she's kind of hot. She'd look hotter in a slayer t-shirt

Here are some Indie (not necessarily indie) bands I hate

When I say hate, read can’t understand what’s so great about them.

The White Stripes I’m counting them as indie because their first albums were on a popular Indie label, and then they were part of that whole Garage Rock Revival subgenre. And I hate them. Because I’m sorry, but if there’s only two musicians in your band, and one of you can’t play your instrument, and the other it barely covering for that, then I’m not listening. Their music videos are really imaginative and I love the amount of SOUND they get from only two musicians – but it’s just not my thing.

Kings of Leon They had this one catchy bass line and what did they do? Ruin it.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs No No No

Le Tigre Satan fuck what an annoying voice.

Modest Mouse such a COOL name for a band, with music that just doesn’t GO anywhere. It just drones on and on and on.

But indie lovers, don’t despair. I think no less of you for liking these bands than you think of me for liking overblown orchestration, ten minute guitar wanks and gargly, cookie-monster vocals. Take out “The White Stripes” and add “Venom” and the description still fits. We can’t help what we love.

Stay tuned next week for the second half of this story: “Why I Love Indie Music”.

In the meantime, listen to Venom \m/
Steff

Svartsot (photos courtesy of Napalm records)

First, for a bit of background, can you tell us about Svartsot, the music you play and how the band first got together?

Svartsot started in Randers, Denmark, in early 2005. Right from the start we mixed Nordic folk music and metal, but the whistles weren’t added until after a few months. Since then we’ve increased the array of instruments to include mandolins and accordions too. The vocals have always been growled and the lyrics – which are mainly about drinking, fighting and women – have always been in Danish. The themes for the lyrics are usually either taken from history or folklore, or are written into a historic context.

We recorded a couple of demos, Svundne Tider in 2005 and Tvende Ravne in 2006, which brought attention to us from across the world, and ultimately led to us being signed by Napalm Records in 2007. Our debut album, Ravnenes Saga, was recorded and released in 2007 and have just released our second album, Mulmets Viser, also on Napalm Records.

The original line-up was formed of four of us who had previously played together (a couple of us had known each other for a few years) and a mutual friend. As mentioned, a sixth member joined a little later on. Since the beginning we’ve undergone various line-up changes. The latest and most significant occurred at the end of 2008, when four guys quit and one took a break from the band for an indefinite period. The line-up was again fully manned again within a couple months, and has remained unchanged since then.

I’ve always been curious about the origins and the increasing popularity of folk metal throughout Europe. My sources tell me one of the first proper folk metal band was England’s Skyclad. How did the idea spread into Europe and become so popular? WHY do you think folk metal has become so popular in Europe – is it because it appeals to hordes of “dispossessed Vikings” who wish to get in touch with their heritage?

I think that folk music and rock and, later, metal have always had some kind of affinity. Some accredit Bob Dylan as being the originator of folk rock, and thereby also folk metal, as he was the first “folk” musician to use an electric guitar. But folk rock (the originator to folk metal) has certainly existed since the late 60’s/early 70’s when bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention arrived on the scene. Later on bands like Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Jethro Tull started incorporating folk melodies into their music at some point in their careers. These bands were of course also big on mainland Europe, as they still are.

The folk metal wave started with Skyclad, and even they paid homage to the “old boys” by covering Thin Lizzy’s “Emerald”. But it still took a few years before the wave of folk metal really set in. Generally I think the black metal scene has had a folk streak in it for a long time, and Finntroll were one of the first folk metal bands to make a big impression on the metal scene with a kind of black metal style to their music. Finland has actually provided the scene with many bands. Since then things have just taken off and folk metal has off-shoots all over the world now.

Somehow metal and folk music just seem to gel well. I guess there are many comparisons between the two: for example the raspy, distorted sound of the instruments used (here I’m thinking hurdy gurdies, bagpipes, shawms and fiddles compared to distorted electric guitars), the use of power chords in both styles and powerful drums, and in some ways even a similar ethos.

Maybe this has been a part of the reason for the popularity; that the two styles simply go well together. Maybe also the whole attitude of the style has been a major factor. But to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. Maybe there is an appeal to the hordes of dispossessed Vikings, as you put it – or at least people who wish to be dispossessed Vikings. Personally I’m getting tired of the whole Viking/pagan side of the folk metal scene – it’s become legitimate for any band from anywhere to be “Vikings” and sing about the Nordic gods. What’s wrong with looking at one’s own heritage instead of borrowing from other peoples’ heritage? And something that has been done to death at that!

Many critics say there’s a rush to “cash in” on this Folk Metal trend that’s producing a lot of lackluster bands. What do you think of this?

Seeing as we’re a comparatively new band, we’ve also been accused of jumping on the trend! All I can say is that I’ve personally have played folk music and metal side by side for around twenty years now, and even played with the idea already of combining the two as far back as 1991 or so. I just never had the chance to do it as a band before the precursor to Svartsot.

In general there is a rush on. There are a lot of folk metal bands appearing now, and that has a lot – if not everything – to do with the popularity of the style. Of course there are a lot of really untalented bands amongst them, and only very few good bands – which is the way it should be! The same happens with all styles – heavy metal and thrash in the 80’s, death metal and black metal since then. But the style won’t die out. The better bands will survive and continue when the next trend rolls over the metal scene. That’s how it always goes.

When I brought Ravnenes Saga in Oslo, it had a little sticker on it which said “The Next Generation of Folk Metal.” What do you think is the future of folk metal?

The “The next generation of folk metal” was what Napalm Records were marketing us as back then. I don’t really have a clue about the future of folk metal. I don’t pay very close attention to the new bands coming up. And I haven’t even heard the latest albums by Finntroll or Korpiklaani yet! It’s almost impossible to predict the future if you more or less ignore the present.

How have people reacted to your more “brutal” form of folk metal?

It’s been really mixed. Some say it’s a breath of fresh air for the scene, others can’t stand the vocals. Some have even said that it sounds just like all the other bands! We’ve had really good and really bad reviews. But from what I’ve read in the reviews very few have actually understood what the band or the music is even about! The music normally goes down really well in the live setting though, and we seem to have quite a few fans out there, so it can’t be all bad.

How do you choose the myths and stories you write about in your songs? Do you do research or do the ideas come from visiting old sites, or are they just part of the Danish folk tradition?

Basically all of our lyrics are about drinking, fighting and women! We just find suitable passages from history or tales from folklore that can be adapted to our purposes. Occasionally we write new stories and set them in a historical past. In a way it’s a continuation on the normal themes from folk song, but maybe presented in a slightly different way. All of the themes for the folklore/historical themed tracks are researched. In essence we just want to write good songs with good stories. It’s certainly not about conveying any messages or ethics.

Svartsot (Napalm Records)

I’m a whistle-player myself, and I’ve been wondering what’s it like playing with a whistle in a traditional metal setting? How on earth do you make sure the audience hears him? How do people react when they see a whistle player with a metal band?

It’s not really something we consciously think about, as it’s just a part of the band. For me, folk metal is about the folk instruments as much as it’s about the other elements. On the first album the whistles more or less just doubled the lead guitar, but they have become even more integrated on the new album, and we’ve added more mandolin and even accordion.

The audibility of the whistles in the live setting is the soundman’s job! I’ve got no idea about that side of it, but I know there’s a fine balance between audibility and feedback when it comes to whistles. We’ve been lucky on a few occasions and had soundmen who could work the whistles, but we’ve also had many who just didn’t have a clue! The right microphone is also very important.

People who come to folk metal shows in general expect to see the “weird” instruments, so that’s not a problem. We very rarely play shows with no other folk metal bands on the bill, and the past few times that we have were all shows with Svartsot headlining them. Remembering back to the first shows, it always seemed that our reputation preceded us, so no one seemed surprised. Of course we meet people on occasions who don’t like the whistles. But it’s up to them if they want to stand and listen to us or go to the bar.

I read you’ve been confirmed for Wacken Open Air – congratulations! Wacken is the best festival I’ve ever attended – it’s very special. How did that came about?

Thanks. Our booking agent got us the job… No matter how it came about we’re really looking forward to it!

I’m looking forward to the new release, Mulmets Viser, which was released in Europe this week (although in lowly NZ it won’t arrive in stores till … ever). Can you tell us about the new album, how is it different from Ravnenes Saga?

The new album is very much a continuation from the old album on the one hand, but also quite different at the same time. We wanted this album to be more folk music inspired, yet heavier, and I think we managed to do this.

As I mentioned earlier, we’ve used more mandolin and introduced some accordion too, and have actually less whistle on this album than on Ravnenes Saga. The guitar work is generally heavier, and there are more harmonies between the lead instruments on Mulmets Viser.

We also chose a different producer; this time we went to Lasse Lammert (known for his work with Alestorm) in Lübeck, Germany. He managed to get a more organic, natural and yet rawer sound than we had on Ravnenes Saga, and I feel it really fits the music and the band in general. All in all I feel the band and the material has developed and matured since the debut.

What advice would you give to anyone else wanting to start a folk metal band?

An in-depth knowledge of both folk music and metal is essential. If you don’t understand the styles you’re trying to play and write in it is gonna sound fake. Everything else that you do with the music, the lyrics, etc. is a question of taste, technique and ability.

What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you because of Svartsot?

That’s difficult to say! There have been several things, kinda like milestones I guess, but I don’t know if I’d set any of them above the others. Getting signed, recording, playing a couple Paganfest shows, being booked for Wacken etc. But I suppose it just comes down to being able to play in the band is really the best thing about it.

What is the next step for Svartsot?

We’re really starting to get busy now. I’m writing new material that we’re gonna start working on as a band very soon. Then we’ve got some jobs coming up with Negură Bunget and the Napalm Records 15th anniversary at Metalfest Austria. Then we have the show at Wacken Open Air. There should hopefully be some touring towards the end of the year too. So basically writing and playing.

What was the first album you ever brought? Your first metal album?

I can’t actually remember! I’ve been listening to metal for over 20 years now, since I was 8-9 years of age or something! I remember getting Iron Maiden’s Killers on vinyl for Christmas once, and I remember buying Napalm Death’s From Enslavement to Obliteration and Megadeth’s Killing is My Business on vinyl, but I know had I bought several albums before then. I’d have to look all my old cassettes out to tell you that, I think …

Can you name your top five metal albums?

That’s a pretty difficult question to answer as there are so many albums and individual tracks that I could name that have been important for me. The list below is based on the albums that really grabbed my attention when I heard them for the first time. I wouldn’t necessarily say that they have been more influential on me than other bands or albums, but are certainly amongst my influences.

1. Opeth – Orchid
2. Iron Maiden – Somewhere in Time
3. Bathory – Nordland
4. Ulver – Bergtatt
5. Dissection – Storm of the Light’s Bane

What bands and albums have you heard recently that have stood out to you?

I hardly listen to music any more – I just don’t seem to be able to find the time. I can’t actually remember when I last bought an album even! But I can mention this one Danish band in particular who supported us recently, called Huldre, who I thought did a really good job. I don’t think they’ve even recorded a proper demo yet.

What was your best ever live music experience?

Again, it’s difficult for me to answer that, as there have been many really cool experiences. The most recent ones was playing the two Paganfest extended shows we did, as it was a real honour for us to be able to play those shows (we got called in at the last minute, as Equilibrium had to cancel two shows). But I could name many other shows too.

Who or what inspires you?

Lots of things – everything and anything can inspire me! The music is in me the whole time, and any number of things could trigger something off. It could be watching my children or just walking down the road, or being in some place with a specific atmosphere, or just reading a book. It’s pretty random really, but I often feel inspired to write something at a time when I can’t just reach for my guitar!

Thanks very much to Cris and the team at Napalm for setting this up. It’s always interesting to learn about folk metal from the musicians who are writing and performing it.

Don’t forget to check out Svartsot’s new album, Mulmets Viser, available worldwide from Napalm Records.

Raise Your Horns! \m/
Steff

This week, Steff Metal is hosting a special series of posts on one of my favorite musical sub-genres: Folk Metal. Now, since some of you rock-dwellers might not even know what folk metal is, I present you a brief and inconsistent history of the genre, its major players, its strengths and its criticisms.

Metal experts mostly agree (I say mostly, because Gene Simmons probably thinks he invented folk metal, just like he invented toothpaste and breathing) that the first folk metal band was England’s Skyclad, who released their first album Wayward Sons of Mother Earth in 1990.

Wayward Sons is essentially a thrash album (owing much to vocalist Martin Walkyier’s time in Sabbat) with folk influences, but after the Skyclad added violin, keyboard and started experimenting with traditional folk instruments, their sound really came together. Skyclad became particularly well-known for their lyrical content – they make frequent use of puns, wordplay and clever imagery to explore themes of religion, war, paganism, social norms, politics, racial issues and issues of identity and modern living.

Skyclad - the Silent Whales of Lunar Sea

Despite Skyclad earning critical acclaim for their innovative use of folk instruments, melodies and themes, it wasn’t until 1994 that folk metal started gaining a following in other European countries, with Cruachan in Ireland, Orphaned Land in Israel and Subway to Sally in Germany developing and cementing their own unique sounds. Subway to Sally’s unique blend of hard rock, traditional folk melodies, and “romantic-symbolic German speaking poetry” in their lyrics, set off the sub-sub-genre known as Medieval Rock – which has exploded across Europe alongside the folk metal genre in recent years thanks to the resurgance of interest in European folk history.

Meanwhile, in Scandinavia, black metal descended in its cloud of satanic, dischordant mayhem. As we know, the early black metal served as an antithesis to all that was good in the world – focusing on being as unmusical as possible and spouting anti-christian lyrics. Gradually, the first and second wave bands got a bit bored of the whole satanic shindig (after awhile, you run out of rhymes for “Christian Scum”) and started exploring traditional Scandinavian myths and religions. A unique style of folk-inspired black metal emerged, typified by Bathory’s forth release, 1988′s Blood, Fire, Death. Many consider this album to be a competitor for Skyclad as the first folk release.

The Norwegian superground Storm – made up of Fenriz (Darkthrone), Satyr (Satyricon) and Karl Ruselatten (The 3rd and the Mortel) released Nordavind in 1995, using keyboards to simulate folk instruments.

So, we’ve got a few random folk metal bands doing their thing in the nineties. While these bands grew in popularity, not many new folk metal bands emerged. The genre remained dominated by ten or so bands, and record companies weren’t exactly clamoring to sign new folk groups. One newcomer of note during this time was Finland’s Amorphis, who’s 1994 release Tales from the Thousand Lakes, and 1996 follow-up Elegy incorporate distinctive traditional instruments and melodies, and lyrics from traditional Finnish poetry with their melodic death style.

In 2000, folk metal exploded. In the best possible way, of course. Blame Finland. Blame the trolls.

Finntroll’s 1999 debut Midnattens Widunder fused Scandinavian black metal with a traditional style of Finnish polka music called “Humppa”. Well, that was it. Everyone wanted on the folk bandwagon. Finland produced a vitual army of “Humppa” metal bands – Korpiklaani and Turisas and Ensiferum. These three bands grew so popular the genre started getting active radio play. Last year, Subway to Sally won a major mainstream music competition in Germany.

Korpiklaani

Although it’s relatively unknown outside of Europe, folk metal isn’t exclusive to Vikings and trolls;. Mago de Oz (Spanish for Wizard of Oz) formed in 1989 and released their debut in 1994. The nine members of Mago de Oz play a variety of instruments, including my favorite whistle. They are chart-toppers in spain, Mexio and South America. One day, I’m certain New Zealand will produce a Maori-inspired folk metal band. Somebody do it! I can’t, cuz I’m white.

Nowadays, every major European festival’s lineup is probably half folk metal. More and more bands are being signed and radio play of folk metal and medieval rock is increasingly common. As always, this adoption into the mainstream of a metal genre brings with it mixed opinions.

Critics condemn the genre as unimaginative, boring and goofy. And yes, some of it is. I am a general believer that 80% of all metal sucks. And the people waving giant plastic swords around at festivals is goofy. I don’t have a problem with goof, though. Labels have rushed to sign bands to cash in on the trend, and there is a glut of mediocre folk on the market. Much of the radio-friendly stuff

Still other critics believe the music actively promotes alcoholism in a positive light, with songs like Korpiklaani’s “Beer, Beer” and Alestorm’s “Wenches and Mead”. But I’m not seeing how that’s any different to certain other metal genres (cough death metal cough). But now that folk metal has entered the mainstream, it will come under fire for being socially responsible.

However, some truly innovative music is being made. Never before has metal seen the incorporation of so many varied instruments, or bands thinking outside of the box of “a vocalist, a guitarist a bassist and a knob behind the drums”. It’s folk music for the 21st century. And while a lot of it is quite silly – drinking and fighting and whoring and drinking some more – a lot of it is actually rather serious: dealing with social and political issues that are just as pertinent today as they were in centuries past.

You also have to remember that most “mainstream” music is crap. The folk metal they don’t play on the radio – you’ll find good stuff there.

Eluveitie

Metal Sucks happily declared the genre dead in 2009. Having visited Europe after this article was written, I can unequivocally state folk metal is definitely not dead. Although I know America experienced an influx of touring bands in 2007-2008 and maybe you’re all sick of it over there.

So why is folk metal so popular? Why now?

I do believe part of the reason for Europe’s embrace of folk metal comes from the September 11 attacks, Global Warming and the economic crisis. Yes, I really do. The world over, people are becoming more aware of what modern, “Western” living is doing to our planet, our resources, and our lives. Buying more stuff isn’t making us happy. So people are seeking – more than ever before – a way out of the rat race; a simpler way of life. This manifests itself in several ways: giant supermarkets struggle, while local seed-growers report record returns as more and more people grow food from home. Movie theatres lie empty, while children wait in line to get on the swings at the local park. More and more people start their own business in an attempt to halt their daily grind.

And when people want to live a simpler life, they look back … to their ancestors. A romanticised view of history shows us ancient people <>, who care not for iPhones and <>, as long as they have cows and <> and a warm women in their bed. It sure doesn’t sound like a bad life.

So people embrace their history in a modern way – by taking up swordfighting, by joining their local medieval society, learning to churn their own butter, and listening to folk-inspired music. For years now, Europeans have been taught to be ashamed of their history – penitant for the various atrocities they visited upon the world – but now, they are finding something to be proud of.

When I visited Hamburg’s Medieval Market – the largest of its kind in Europe – everyone who wasn’t dressed in medieval garb wore a metal shirt. We were constantly stopped by people throwing the goat and yelling “Wacken!” We listened to several local up-and-coming folk metal bands. A fact often ignored by folk metal critics is that folk metal’s popularity stems from it’s merging of two seemingly disparate scenes – it’s bringing a whole new section of society over to metal. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Listen:

Skyclad – Silent Whales of Lunar Sea, The Vintage Whine
Amorphis – Elegy
Orphaned Land – Mabool: The Story of the Three Sons of Seven
Korpikaani – Voice of Wilderness
Cruachan – The Morrigan’s Call
Turisas – Battle Metal
Ensiferum – Iron, From Afar
Bathory – Blood, Fire, Death, Hammerheart
Subway to Sally – Nord, Nord, Ost
The Lord Weird Slough Feg – Down Among the Deadmen
Agalloch – The Mantle
Eluveitie – Spirit, Slania, Evocation I: The Arcane Dominion
Equilibrium – Sagas

Resources:

Metal Folk – a folk metal online community
Folk Metal on Metal Archives.

So folk metal – your thoughts and opinions. Share them below.

Raise Your Horns! \m/
Steff

Steampunk iPod mod

I read a post over at Gala Darling today, and she talked about your palate band – the group or songwriter who made you realize music was more than just the top 20.

I can’t define just one song, or one band, but I can name about ten pivotal songs, bands or musical “epiphanies” that have not just impacted my taste in music, but affected my life and personality profoundly.

Ever since I can remember, we always had music on in the house – whether it was the local classic hits station, my “Snoopy’s Christmas” tape, or my parents’ vinyl collection, my sister and I spent many a happy hour sitting in front of the huge speakers, drawing and playing and arguing and absorbing all that wonderful music. Queen, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper and T-Rex stand out during this period – bands I still love today.

As a child I listened to more music than I watched cartoons – and for a kid, that’s saying a lot. Even the TV I did watched tended to be taped replays of my favorite snoopy cartoons, the rugby with my dad and Walt Disney’s Monster Hits (one of the first major musical influences of my life). If you’ve never seen this, it’s a collection of all the darkest, spookiest clips and songs from disney films. Songs like “Bad Moon Rising”, “The Monster Mash” and “Evil Women” should ave given the world the first clue I was born to be a darkling. It gave me delicious shivers – a sense of the kind of art I eventually wanted to create.

snoopy: my childhood hero

At primary school, I was bullied. Horribly, brutally bullied. And I found solace in the music. I developed my first ever “obsession” over a song – “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum. I still get teary every time I hear that song. I wanted so badly to just up and run away, go somewhere where no one knew me, and I could start over – a couple of times I even did, but I never got very far. I’m always drawn to songs about freedom, like Iron Maiden’s “Running Free” and Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam”.

At around age 10, I caught the Spice Girls bug. Yep, I did. The local radio station I listened to played mostly classic rock, but would sometimes play a few “chart” hits, and they stated playing Wannabe and I just LOVED it. So catchy. My parents brought me the album for my birthday and I got caught up in the whole Girl Power thing. I was quite insufferable. I dressed up to look like Sporty Spice (she was my favorite, and the first girl I ever saw with a tattoo), and I wanted to be just like them. The Spice Girls appealed to me because they were the first solely female band I’d ever heard, and the first female singer that made me feel like being a girl made me special and powerful, rather than weak, like I felt at school. This started my lifelong love affair with women in rock and metal.

At around age 12, I met Alanis Morrissette. From the first note, I was in love. That voice, that rage, those lyrics like poetry. This was around the time I started going off the Spice Girls.

At age 14 I was listening to a local chart show, that “Phat Forty” and they were taking requests for a “Back Phat” – a hit from somewhere back in time. Someone rang up and requested Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”

Changed my life.

Metallica

This was what I had been waiting for. This was the music I was born to listen to. All I wanted was more, more, MORE. I went to the Warehouse and brought my first Metallica Album – S&M (Yeah, a weird pick, but I didn’t know what any of the albums were, and that one had the most songs on it. I didn’t even know it was a live album). I took that baby home and it was like a religious conversion, I loved it so much. Over the next couple of months, I brought every metallica album. Someone told me about a radio station “The Rock” which played lots of Metallica and other metal, so I swapped over and started listening to that instead. I brought my first ever metal shirt – an original, official Metal Up Your Ass one, which I still own. I became a little Metallica-obsessed. I heard Iron Maiden for the first time and brought a couple of their albums.

I became annoyed at The Rock, because apart from Metallica and Iron Maiden, they didn’t really play any “metal”, and I knew there had to be more. When I was … around 16, I think, my parents got the internet! Eeeeee! Napster had already gone under (we were late to the game) but my enterprising sister downloaded Kazaa (remember Kazaa?) I started by downloading the back catelogue of every artist Metallica covered on “Garage Inc” and obsessively reading Metallica forums and checking out the bands they listened to.

I discovered Slayer, I discovered Meshuggah and Testament and Saxon. My CD collection started to grow. I was hooked for life.

I also discovered Nick Cave.

A young Nick Cave

Who I will marry one day, even if I have to gag and kidnap him. Nick Cave is … heaven. His songs sound like my books – at least, they sound the way I want my books to read: darkly funny, incredibly clever, full of puns and mythic reimaginings and literary figures. I was lucky enough to see him live and meet him in person and I tell you he is hands down the best performer on earth, metal or nay.

And his voice … ergggggg *drools on keyboard* Nick Cave’s voice haunts my dreams. I am a sucker for men with dark, interesting voices. My BFF’s ex once rang our flat and CDH answered and ever since, she’s wanted to meet him because his voice gives her orgasms.

At uni I met a wonderful friend, Johnowar, and he introduced me to Manowar and Blind Guardian. My love of metal from Europe was born. I, in turn, introduced European metal to CDH, who used to be a no. 1 Cradle of Filth fan, but now bounces around like a happy baby at a Blind Guardian concert.

So these are my palete bands. If you haven’t guessed, these songs will feature in this week’s Metal Mixtape. But now I want to hear from you – what were the turning points in your music appreciation? How did you discover these bands – did you hear them by chance, did you have a metal “mentor” who thrust CD after CD upon you until you heard something that made your knees weak? Don’t worry if you’re not actually into metal – just tell me about how you found the music that shaped your life.

Yours with Nick Cave’s Bastard Children \m/
Steff Metal