Metal Music Studies - Current Issue

Lord Of The Lost’s Judas (2021) is a thematic concept album exploring different aspects of the Judas reception without a straightforward narrative or interpretation, but covering varying viewpoints on betrayal and salvation. It hereby pushes the boundaries of heavy metal as a genre by combining different texts. The band explicitly points out their first source of inspiration, the apocryphal The Gospel of Judas (~100–80 ad), and adds that the album also features the literary theme of impossible (here: brotherly) love. I argue that the album references a specific text implementing this theme, namely William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597), most prominently implied by ‘star-crossed’. These two texts are as different as they could be, contrasting, e.g. religious enlightenment and entertainment. Still, they have one thing in common: they both rely heavily on Christian astrology. By investigating how the album makes use of this shared motif to create its own version of star-induced fate, I show how both texts overlap and intermingle on the album. The result is a kaleidoscope that is a prime example of postmodernism. By refusing a fixed depiction of Christian imagery and even adding another text, Judas demonstrates that art does not have to be linear or limiting, and opens heavy metal to new, postmodern ways.

An exploratory study was conducted to investigate the relationship between heavy metal music and sexism based on metal subgenre preferences, lyrical preferences, artwork preferences and associated consumer behaviours. Previous literature has been inconsistent in defining the relationship between music, lyrics and sexism. Data was collected from 423 fans of heavy metal music including their subgenre, lyrical and album cover content preferences, affective responses to lyrics and album artwork, and intended consumer behaviours respective to metal music with misogynistic themes. It was found that the style of metal music preferred by listeners, including specific subgenres of styles associated with misogynistic themes like death metal, was unrelated to sexism. Hostile sexism was higher among those that preferred lyrics and imagery depicting misogynistic violence. Those higher in hostile sexism experienced more positive and less aversive emotions in response to both lyrics and imagery that depicted misogynistic violence, and they reported being more likely to buy albums, clothing, wear clothing and hang posters in their homes that depicted misogynistic violence. This provides evidence that enjoyment of specific styles of metal music is not associated with sexism, but there may be a subgroup of more sexist individuals that are especially drawn to lyrics and images depicting misogynistic violence in heavy metal.

Review of: Black Metal Rainbows, Daniel Lukes and Stanimir Panayotov (eds) (2022), Designed by Jaci Raia

Binghamton, NY: PM Press, 439 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-62963-881-2, p/bk, £28.99

ISBN 978-1-62963-882-9, h/bk, £56.99

Review of: We’ll Play Till We Die: Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World, Mark Levine (2022)

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 345 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-52035-076-2, h/bk, $29.95/£25