Metal Music Studies - Volume 3, Issue 2, 2017

Metal music can be a means of artistic expression or an accessory of war. Making its first appearance in Iraq and Syria in the 1980s, it has found function as an agency of power, endurance, anger and abuse. Utilizable by artists, fans and the military of the Mashriq, metal can be used for catharsis, rebellion or torture. This article looks at how the extreme metal subgenres of thrash metal, death metal and black metal have become important inclusions in the Iraqi and Syrian civil conflicts. Integrating original qualitative interview data from local bands, the study shows that metal music can be a source of empowerment for civilians as well as the US military. It also shows that metal can be the only stability some draw from during the continual devastation to their communities and that it can provide passage out of the region in exceptional circumstances.

Death/doom metal music, from both sides of the name, usually occupies itself with the darker spectrum of human emotion. Depression, melancholy and death are common themes in the music and in the reception of this music from an outsider point of view. In line with symbolic interactionism, these emotional responses differ significantly when they originate from a well-socialized member of this music world. This suggests that one may think of emotional responses as conventions of a music world. Common responses provide an emotional repertoire for members, and furthermore they become an adhesive for the community. In this article, I discuss my research of the fans of death/doom metal and explore the ways in which the fan responds to the music while contemplating on how death/doom functions in the lives of these fans.

This article scrutinizes the rendition of the Viking imagery in metal music by the means of a comparative analysis of two Viking-inspired songs: ‘793 (The Battle of Lindisfarne)’ by the Enslaved, Norwegian Extreme band, and ‘Barbarian’ by The Darkness, the British rockers. Enslaved and The Darkness belong to widely different sub-genres of metal: the first cultivate an intriguing music characterized by Old-School Black Metal sounds blended with elements drawn from progressive rock, and the second are one of the most recognizable retro/heavy acts of the last two decades. Despite their widely different backgrounds, both bands have come up with two songs dealing with a particular aspect of early-Scandinavian history, namely, the Viking raids of Britain which took place in the VIII and IX centuries. It goes without saying that the differences between ‘793’ and ‘Barbarian’ reflect the styles and ideas of their respective composers: the juxtaposition of these contrasting musical and textual renditions of similar historical events (of particular relevance given also the borderline right-winged ideology propagated by Enslaved’s lyrics) will provide an innovative historical take on Viking-themed metal. I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers from Metal Music Studies for a number of valuable suggestions.

‘Shredding’, the fast and virtuous guitar playing, is a central stylistic element of many rock and metal genres. A recent empirical study reported metal guitar solos having become faster over the last six decades, thus indicating that shredding still is common in metal guitar, as argued in the earlier literature in rock and metal music studies. The present study extends such research by experimentally investigating the effects of distortion on playability, virtuosity and expressiveness based on a multi-methodical analysis from musicology, acoustics and music informatics. The findings contribute to acoustic-based evidence of distortion’s simplifying effect that increases the electric guitar’s potential as a virtuoso solo instrument. Yet, the results also highlight challenges of distorted guitar playing less commonly considered in research, journalism and performance practice. The article closes by advocating greater acknowledgement of the skills required for distorted metal guitar playing.

This article considers the ways in which metal has interacted with the aesthetics of electronic music since the 1980s, from its earliest exchanges with hip hop through to recent developments in the djent subgenre. It highlights the persistence of metal’s practitioners in adopting new technologies (including samplers, drum machines and Digital Audio Workstations) and the challenges that this has brought to established ideas of conventional metal music practice. Underlying the discussion is the notion of the ‘code’, a familiar term in metal music studies, which has been employed to articulate ideas of metal’s core musical attributes. In these terms, electronic music’s creative practices can be seen to have facilitated both the deconstruction and re-contextualization of metal’s code, enabling the genre to be re-imagined and ultimately enriched.

The purpose of this research is to explore a concretely analytical approach to power chords and harmonic structure in Scandinavian death metal. While often approached from sociological or anthropological perspectives, traditional music theory tends to be overlooked in the study of metal. While many harmonic progressions in death metal do err on the side of being more simplistic in nature, the textural changes and unexpected harmonic shifts help to create recognizable idioms of the genre. Using thorough harmonic and melodic analyses of Viking metal, melodic death metal and folk metal examples, conclusions can be drawn about the similarities and differences in power chord usage throughout them. There are also definite links between Western art music and death metal, most notably in harmonic function, form and manipulation of texture for a desired effect. Distinct emphasis on virtuosity and soloistic playing is also characteristic of death metal, which is where it diverts from similarities to Rock and other pop genres, despite their shared superficial harmonic simplicity. This project provides insight into how power chords in context are used to create the quintessential ‘metal’ sound and how the genre thrives off of subtle alterations to the listener’s expectations of traditional tonal harmony. Harmonic analyses focussing on the use of power chords and resultant textural changes show that consistent compositional idioms of metal can be isolated across Scandinavian subgenres and will ultimately provide a basis for further analytical research.

With recourse to commentarial remarks on the composition of Moévöt’s Voèkrèb I (1994), in this short article we draw on ‘nonlocal’ correlations in quantum physics in an attempt to speculatively account for a creative process Vordb Na R.iidr (previously Vordb Báthor Ecsed: 1991–94; Vordb Dréagvor Uèzréèvb: 1994–2012) calls ‘instinctization’. Engaging the same conceit as Xasthur’s ‘Telepathic with the Deceased’, from the eponymous 2004 album (Moribund Records), the composition of Voèkrèb I forcibly returns us to the otherworldly aspects of a mode of transmission Einstein famously dubbed, ‘spooky action at a distance’ (spukhafte Fernwirkung).

There has been a substantial amount of productive scholarship, particularly in the areas of critical and cultural studies, regarding the depictions of women in metal music. At the same time, there remains a divide between this important academic work and those who are popular consumers of metal. This short essay offers a potential middle path between the two. Through the use of interviews with three women involved in creating content related to metal, the author offers a two-part suggestion: (1) that the divide itself might be a matter less of content than of translation and (2) that rhetoric, of the sort practiced in departments of speech communication, could potentially provide another useful option when presenting scholarship to popular audiences.

Drawing on the authors’ sustained immersion and participation in local music scenes, this short article lays the groundwork for Taiwanese metal music studies. Heavy metal music arrived in Taiwan in the early 1980s through the precarious mediation of daoban [pirated] tapes and foreign television channels and, in the course of three decades, it has moved from a niche and hardly accessible genre to an established ensemble of scenes, subgenres, bands, venues, record labels, booking agencies, distributors, rehearsal spaces and audiences. After sketching a history of metal music in Taiwan in dialogue with a local record distributor, the authors describe how a subgenre such as death metal is practiced, discussed and sustained – through equipment, skills and judgments – during a few hours of a local band’s rehearsal. In light of the history, development and practice of metal music in Taiwan, more research about local bands, audiences and scenes appears urgent and necessary.

The Death Archives: Mayhem 1984–94, Jørn Stubberud (2016)

London: Ecstatic Peace Library, 256 pp.,

ISBN: 9780997285031, h/bk, £30

Zwischen Germanomanie und Antisemitismus. Transformationen Altnordischer Mythologie In Den Metal-Subkulturen, (‘Between Germanomania and Anti-Semitism: Transformations of Norse Mythology in the Metal Subcultures’), Niels Penke and Matthias Teichert (eds) (2016)

Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 216 pp. ISBN: 9783848712755, p/bk, 39.00€

Sounds of the Underground: A Cultural, Political and Aesthetic Mapping of Underground and Fringe Music, Stephen Graham (2016)

Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 304 pp.,

ISBN: 978-0-472-11975-2, h/bk, $70

England’s Hidden Reverse: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underground, David Keenan (2016)

London: Strange Attractor Press, 446 pp. ISBN: 978-1-907222-17-7, p/bk, £20