Metal Music Studies - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2016

This article examines the metal scene in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and attempts to explain how the resources crucial to its birth and continued existence can be understood through Bourdieu’s different forms of capital. This local metal scene, which is part of a larger alternative music, is a youth-based male-dominated, non-commercial and non-professional music scene based on international genres of metal, located in the unique urban socio-historic milieu of this postcolonial developing country. For this research, a total of fourteen participants involved with this scene were interviewed, supplemented by participant observation at local gigs and analysis of related texts. This local metal community revolves around the activities of primarily middleclass, part-time, male musicians who share particular economic, cultural and social resources that afford their participation in it. Economic and cultural capital involves resources such as privileged upbringing, ability to invest time and money in such semi-professional activities like playing and being involved with metal music, covering costs of buying necessary gear like music instruments, amplifiers, multi-effect processors, microphones, etc., and learning instruments like guitar, bass and drums from music schools or professional music teachers. Being involved with the local metal milieu also entails participating in shared spaces like jamming pads, recording studios and small venues, having access to English-language education, which in turn enables the understanding of foreign music content as well as bringing together people with similar socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, and having access to foreign cultures and music through record stores, travels, cable TV channels and the Internet. Of equal significance alongside such economic and cultural capital is social capital. This includes maintaining social networks with, and receiving the approval of, certain influential agents known as Murubbis or Boro Bhais.

This article analyses the tension between the local and the global in metal pesado argento of Almafuerte, the most massive band in the metal scene of Argentina. This group reinforces their local identity through their dialogue with tango and folklore, the emblematic music genres of this country. Metal pesado argento, as a bricolage of genres and metal, can be seen as contradictory and controversial. Here these aspects are studied in relation to a particular type of nationalism and its historical context, and as a feature of global metal code. Three dimensions of Almafuerte’s production – sonic, visual and verbal – are analysed and discussed against the theoretical framework that accounts for the production of music and culture in the context of globalization, with particular emphasis on processes of mundialization as well as on the semiotic of culture and the notion of semiosphere. Both theories make it possible to engage in a dialogue without hierarchical levels.

The Canadian band Nickelback has faced substantial negative feedback in the media. This article examines discourses constructed in the critiques of the band, focusing on the theme of authenticity, by analysing reviews of the band from Finnish media in the time frame of 2000–2014. Traditional discourses of authenticity are widely present in the critical reception, valuing uncommercialism, subversiveness, correspondence of art and persona, originality and truth in particular.

Machismo and other thematic representations of masculinity have informed much of the scholarly research into 1980s heavy metal’s aesthetics. Although some studies have provided more substantial insights than others, the discourse has largely been shaped by scholars who criticize 1980s heavy metal because of its (hypermasculine) thematization of sexism and misogyny. However, on closer inspection hypermasculinity manifests itself in 1980s heavy metal’s aesthetics in more ways than simply through sexist and misogynist themes, but these have largely been ignored by the discourse. As a way of bringing 1980s heavy metal’s hypermasculine aesthetic into sharper focus, this article garners a closer look at how hypermasculinity was used as an important idiomatic hallmark. It provides examples of bands, songs and albums with ‘alternative hypermasculine’ aesthetics, and elucidates how other macho themed subtexts were just as important as sexism and misogyny in defining the genre. It also argues for a paradigm shift in how scholars evaluate 1980s heavy metal’s hypermasculine aesthetics in general. This article will be of interest to scholars of critical musicology, cultural studies, decade studies, gender studies, historiography and metal music studies.

Studies from social and media psychology on the impact of heavy metal music are mostly concerned with negative effects while the main reason to listen to any kind of music has not been taken into account: positive expectations. Besides, many methods used in these studies are critical concerning study design and/or used measurements because they focused either on problematic behaviour such as aggression, which is almost impossible to assess, and/or left out important variables such as individual taste in music. Instead of testing for aggressive behaviour it will be argued that a test for different cognitive concepts that are activated after listening to metal music will lead to more insight on the associations made based on individual taste in music. A laboratory study is presented that tested how aggression and emotional stability as negative concepts and fun and relaxation as positive concepts were activated by fans and non-fans after they had listened to metal music. To operationalize this, the lexical decision task was used. Findings showed that both groups link aggression to metal music while only non-fans associated emotional instability with metal. For positive associations it was found that fans link metal to relaxation such as stress reduction but not to mere fun. Besides the discussion of these differences based on fan status, the benefit of the application of the lexical decision task as a specific approach to test for activated cognitions is addressed.

Many academics assume that extreme metal music cannot be identified to an understandable narrative, because of the difficulty to perceive the lyrics and the poor harmonic and melodic structure. The author of this paper demonstrates the opposite, using a methodology called narratology, derived from literary studies and musicology. She analyses the song ‘Mad Architect’ from symphonic death metal group Septicflesh (2011), which narrates the alienation felt by a protagonist who thinks that he is lost in a maze before he realizes that this maze is actually a construction of his mind. The specific narrative of the song, which evokes the madness and the alienation felt by the protagonist, will be better understood by analysing jointly the lyrics (using narratological parameters being the time, the modality and the voice of the narrative) and the musical parameters (namely harmony, melody, vocal timbre or sound technology).

Text and band logos based on blackletter scripts are a common sight in visual metal music culture such as on album covers. This article develops a framework for analysing the affinity between blackletter script and metal music. The analytical framework includes five themes: genre tradition, religion, history, geography and shape. The first four themes have to do with connotation whereas the fifth theme has to do with experiential metaphor. Though these themes the article demonstrates how meaning is produced when blackletter scripts are used on visual artefacts such as album covers. These insights provide an answer to the question why blackletter scripts have become part of the visual repertoire of metal music and why so many famous metal band logotypes are based on blackletter.

Cradle of Filth has certainly received considerable commercial and critical success, but one area neglected by commentators is the essentially satirical and ironic tone underpinning their work. Indeed, there are obvious parallels between the band’s music, lyrics and public image and elements of extreme satire, from the Roman period, with its combination of physical disgust and horror, to the studied brutality of modern British satirical cartoons. The conclusion is that the band is both more subversive and politically aware than may have been realized by many, including its fans.

Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, Practices and Cultures, Helsinki, Finland, 8–12 June 2015

Floating Tomb: Black Metal Theory, Nicola Masciandaro and Edia Connole (2015) Milan: Mimesis International, 295 pp., ISBN: 9788869770081, p/bk, £19

Bergmetal: Oro-Emblems of The Musical Beyond, Lieut. Nab Saheb of Kashmir and Denys X. Albaris, O. S. L. (2014) Austin/New York, USA: Hworde, 88 pp., ISBN: 9781494907204, p/bk, £6.44