Issue date: 3/2/09 Section: Showcase

Discussing the barren outskirts of pop culture might shed a unique light upon it. This week, I'll take a look at a specific music genre that has been abhorred and misunderstood by most. It has also been something of a devilish interest to me lately: black metal … atmospheric black metal, to be precise.

Beginning with the idea to write about a "pop antonym," I wondered which music forms consciously reject pop music. In fact, music historians agree that significant musical movements are often times reactions to their predecessors, using their own weapons against them. Post-punk, for example, was reacting to punk's simplicity, speed and gut outrage over society. Punk itself was a reaction to long-winded, elaborate compositions by egotistical artists obsessed with their own integrity. Post-punk swung back toward complexity, but kept the jarring guitars. It retained the radical philosophies, but harnessed punk's passion in a unique way.

In post-structuralist thought, critics argue that even opposed entities rely on one another in order to identify themselves. Though post-punks were fed up with "The Ramones" and wary about "The Clash," they depended on them for their own identity.

When considering who directly refused to live pop, the first movement that came to mind was New York's "No Wave" in the mid-1970s. Performers like Lydia Lunch, James Chance, "Suicide," or Arto Lindsay barely even consider themselves musicians (many question No Wave's validity as a musical movement and prefer to consider it a general cultural movement), but I think they still needed artists like Bruce Springsteen or "Earth, Wind and Fire" to bounce off of. I needed to find something more naturally antagonistic for this column.

It dawned on me that most black metal bands appear to be tucked away in the secluded regions of Scandinavia. While pop still thrives in those countries, the available options to both physically and mentally escape into secluded terrain are more realistic. People who are born into those environments, which contain varying levels of pop culture, develop different world views. If there ever were a genre of music furthest from pop, it might be black metal for its frank disregard.

Allow me to set some things straight. Black metal is distinguished in that it downplays traditional metal's stress on instrumental proficiency. In other words, there aren't always lightning-quick guitar solos or mathematical drum lines in black metal. The genre instead focuses on lo-fidelity production and foreboding or downright terrifying moods. Black metal groups strip away studio sheen, developing experimental tactics and instrumentation.

Having read much about the genre and its constituents, I've found that the use of Satanic/anti-Christian lyricism and imagery is a half-truth of black metal. This is because the press tends to gravitate towards controversy. The black metal artists who are anti-Christian (see: the band "Gorgoroth") more often make the news for murders, church-burnings and other "Metalocalypse"-like behavior, though they are hardly representative of everyone.

After all, you must agree it seems unfair to attribute soul/R&B music with sex, drugs and tabloid-culture because of Amy Winehouse. True, soul music never was prude (see: Ray), but I still can't picture my grandparents being involved in any adventures similar to "Detroit Rock City" when they put an Arthur Alexander CD in their stereo and then ask me how to turn it on. Actually, I would say Winehouse has more in common with "Gorgoroth" than with Aretha Franklin; what with the hair, the make-up, the mock-crucifixions and everything.

What's worse is that bands like "Gorgoroth" pronounce themselves as the leaders of "true black metal." My own opinion is that "Gorgoroth" is actually quite generic and mediocre. They also seem to believe that genres are static and carry a single, collective message that may be determined dictatorially by one individual. "Ulver," another Norwegian black metal group, would argue differently.

Atmospheric black metal (ABM) is one of those esoteric metal genres that's funny because it's ridiculously niche'd out. Differentiating ABM is actually quite simple though. One Swiss artist, "Paysage d'Hiver," uses instruments in a way considered blasphemous by metal convention. The one-man band sets the amplifier to buzz wildly out of control, all but obfuscating the "melody" from a tremolo-picked guitar. The trigger-less drums and the vocals sound like severely withered field recordings of portentous pagan rituals and "Nosferatu" dying by the winter sun, respectively. A solo violin floats wraith-like in this hostile environment.

That's probably the most succinct I can put it.

"Paysage d'Hiver" is a textbook example of ABM, which separates itself from black metal in that it circumvents outright rock structures. ABM 'songs' often play over fifteen minutes, usually beginning with periods of ambience. It's usually branded as "just noise," even by metal heads. Naturally, I'm intrigued.

Black metal bands:
"Burzum"
"Bunget"
"Paysage d'Hiver"
"Ulver"
"Negur"
"Summoning"
"Drudkh"

Waldbillig is a senior English major, with a creative writing emphasis and guest columnist for The Spectator. Pop Itself appears in the showcase section every Monday.

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