The Extreme Metal Jape

 THE EXTREME METAL JAPE

 

 

I’ve recently watched a documentary on the origins of Norwegian black metal, which focused mainly on Mayhem, with comments from former and current band members and other musicians in the genre who were part of the movement back then or are in it now.

 

This led me to exploring other similar documentaries on YouTube, about  other black metal bands, the grind core movement, death metal, thrash metal, and others.  All of this was to refresh my memory, so to speak.

 

Some years ago  videos of bands at Wacken Open Air Festival, Hellfest, and other such events, appeared on my  YouTube feed, for no apparent reason, as well as some documentaries on extreme metal and its variations, and from this stuff I took away that I really like Tsjuder but that, on the whole, most of the music sound so much the same that, for the uninitiated, there isn’t much difference between black metal, death metal, grind core, Viking metal, or any of those subgenres that aren’t anything as melodic and anthemic as symphonic metal, and not even as tuneful, with recognisable choruses such as the thrash metal survivors Metallica, net to mention old school, classic metal and hard rock.

 

Most of extreme metal just sounds like fast, pounding drums and speedy, downtuned chord riffing with hoarse, screamed or grunted vocals and for the life of me, if I listened to the stuff blindfolded, I wouldn’t tell the difference between one band or genre and the other.

 

Having said that, I would dearly love to be part of the crowd at Hellfest, with the vast, roaring, blast of sound enveloping and  overwhelming me in the midst of a crowd  of metal fans.

 

I understand that metal musicians are highly technically skilled and pride themselves on this, working incredibly hard and long to hone their skills and that the apparent wall of noise camouflages intricate playing that goes well beyond simple three chord punk rock.  That is the serious part of the deal, but a lot of the rest, the outer trappings, seems to be ridiculous, a complex, involved joke only the initiates appreciate.

 

There is the dress code of black, with lots of leather, studs and spikes, the very long hair, the absurd face paint, the very specific style of guitar with angular shapes and always black and the really stupid Satanic trappings and lyrics or the pseudo-medieval costumes of the Viking metallers. I don’t know whether any of them believe in Satanism as a religious alternative to Christianity (usually) or whether it’s all a pose, but either way, it can only be a bunch of teenage youths who can come up with world view as a way to shock the middle classes.

 

On the guitars: it’s so weird to see these bands all play similar looking guitars (and it must be at least an unwritten law in the metal community that it’s not acceptable, or is at least an exception to the rule, that the guitars must have this specific, highly recognisable look) that I’ve wondered whether, say, at Hellfest, all the bands simply share the same three or four guitars and basses, with the musicians coming off stage handing their axes to the musicians coming onstage. 

 

If it wasn’t for the relentless brutal riffing of, for example Tsjuder, their visual impact on stage and the lyrical preoccupations  of the songs would easily come across as a parody, a grand spoof. Yet the musicians and the audience take the spectacle extremely seriously. There are a lot of bands and, I suppose, a large, underground audience out there, though it might not as underground as all that, considering the numbers.

 

I grew up with classic, blues based hard rock and metal of the ‘70s and, because of punk and new wave, ignored the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the hair metal bands and thrash metal bands of the ‘80s.  I heard odd  tracks by Metallica on the radio and saw the Slayer, Megadeath and Anthrax records in my local record store, but bot into Metallica only because of “Enter Sandman” and the Metallica (1990) album, but hardly listened to their thrash contemporaries.  The Cult and Guns ‘N Roses were my top reck bands of the ‘80s. The first Motley Crüe record I bought was a compilation of hits. I heard random tracks from Poison, Ratt, Headpins, Cinderella and others on a metal radio show, but was never intrigued enough to buy any of the music then, and now I don’t think I’d want to.

 

So, I came to the really extreme metal genres quite late in my life and I must say, apart from the sense that everything sounds so similar as to be materially  indistinguishable, I enjoy listening to a variety of bands, provided that it’s loud. I don’t care much about the lyrics, for the most part unintelligible, as I could care less whether they celebrate Satan (in whom I don’t believe), Viking warriors  or just a basic dystopian, mythic future.  All I want is loud, fast, or at least loud if it must  plod at a deliberate pace.