In many ways I came to the world of heavy metal and its varying micro-genres very late in life. In my early teens one of my best friends was the lone school “metaller” and we found common ground in our love of American hardcore punk bands Dead Kennedy’s, Fugazi, Black Flag and the industrial noise of Ministry and Nine Inch Nails. Many of his favourite thrash bands like Slayer and Sepultura wore the influence of these groups proudly and once I heard, at his prompting, “Morbid Visions” and “Reigning Blood”, I was hooked, astounded, deeply impressed by their aggression, showmanship, outrageous chops and obvious commitment to this blatantly non-commercial venture.
At that time I was very into punk, hip-hop and indie. Other than seeing the odd metal band at festivals I didn’t really get deeply into it until my 30’s when another friend, after seeing the sort of music I was listening to re-introduced me to the genre through the mind melting work of Converge and Dillinger Escape Plan. Both of their albums “Petitioning The Empty Sky” and “Calculating Infinity” blew my mind and opened the gate that still holds some 20 years on.
There was such a rich multitude of astoundingly crazy bands on labels like Hydrahead, Ipecac, Man’s Ruin, Slap-A-Ham, Relapse, Skin Graft, Earache, Southern Lord and Peaceville. Over a very intense decade I totally immersed myself in the huge worlds of death metal, black metal, post, avant-garde and prog metal, grindcore, power-violence and some of the more, I guess, “traditional” forms. The brutality, musicality, aesthetic and ethos somehow dovetailed with my love of high bpm electronic music, low fidelity garage punk, horror movies, the more out-there moments of IDM and the freewheeling textures and atonalities of free jazz, ambient and modern avant-garde classical music seemed to be in there too, thus creating a mutated but nonetheless perfect emotional match for me.
Once I started actively going to see these bands play live I realised just how on the bleeding edge of technology and performance they were. This dialogue is fascinating and deeply inspiring to me and I don’t really see it expressed to these levels of commitment in any other artistic form. Be it SUNN O))), Merzbow or Swans truly testing the volumes their audiences can cope with but also testing the architectural fortitude of the venues they play in. Or when bands like Dillinger Escape Plan, EyeHateGod or Lightning Bolt play how rebuilding their battered, malfunctioning equipment between songs becomes a part of their performance, an inevitable bit of run-off from expressing themselves in such an extreme way. The sheer audacity of it is enormously exciting.
I also think that the history of recorded extreme music is very interesting and it ties in well with my theory about it being a force, a substance standing on the outermost edge of “normal”understanding. Some of the bands with a more punk ethos actively promoted the primitive or “necro” nature of their music in how they laid it out on record. The black metal groups and the early DIY grind bands didn’t spend much money or time, unsurprisingly, in the studio, which defiantly fitted their aesthetic, financial situation and politics. But in 1986 when Rick Rubin finally worked out with Slayer how to get all that ferocity on tape but also showcase their obvious musical ability, it was a huge game changer for the genre at large. The Florida death metal bands who’s staggering chops were often hidden by unsuitable recording practices jumped all over this. The great Morrisound Studios in Tampa became THE place to “get” that tighter, closer production. Infamously though that production style didn’t always work with everyone even though it was the trend. When Napalm Death, at the time the fastest band on earth, went to Florida to record it had to be abandoned half way through due to the “mistakes” it showed up in “Mad” Mick Harris’s “sloppier” drumming style. The philosophical split in the scene that this caused was very controversial, but now due to a general musical evolution, doesn’t really exist anymore.
Max and Iggor Calavera, now firmly friends again after decades of animosity are re-recording, to amazing effect, the earliest Sepultura records. According to recent interviews they were never happy with how those records sounded originally so re-hitting them using up to date, suitable technology is a very healthy revisionism in my opinion. It doesn’t stop the original version of “Morbid Visions” being an iconic record, but that joint does sound like it was recorded in a skip, especially when put next to the immense results achieved by Andy Wallace on “Chaos A.D” less than ten years later. In response to the trolls who have been telling them they shouldn’t be doing it, they can actually do what they fuckin’ like with their own extraordinary legacy and it’s not like these albums are coming away from this process sounding like Coldplay.
Maybe it’ll start a trend in the genre. Personally I think it’s healthy. This music is not in any way normal and now it’s been worked out how to properly put it on record, why not do it if that’s what the bands want?God knows they put enough time and effort into learning to play this frankly insane material. It must be infuriating for the finer points of its composition to be inaudible solely because the technology and studio knowhow just wasn’t there in 1984. It’s a testament to just how great these bands are live that they could overcome these technicalities and navigate these uncharted waters. Once people experienced the full power of those drums and guitars it was just about waiting for the technology to catch up.
My inauguration the fastest edge of this music in a live setting was a genuine epiphany that will stay with me forever. In 2000 I went to New York City for a solo holiday/record shopping trip and at the iconic CBGB’s one Tuesday evening they had a grindcore all-dayer on featuring Mortician, Cephalic Carnage, Vile and Disassociate among others. I was still pretty green as far as this sort of music went so this gig was a real dive into the deepest end of the genre. On reflection it was a pretty extraordinary day of music featuring some of the most brutal bands in America. Seeing how these individuals went about performing that sort of material was like nothing I’d seen before and I’ve been hooked ever since.
On the other end of the BPM scale the sonic savagery discovered by bands playing as slowly as humanly possible was also a revelation. Taking deep inspiration from the lowest frequencies and feedback manipulations pioneered by bands like Black Sabbath, 13th Floor Elevators and Blue Cheer, doom brutalists like Sleep, Burning Witch, Sunn O))), Khanate and Primative Man also channel the most cosmic edges of Miles Davis, “Filth” era Swans and Karl Heinz Stockhausen to produce some of the ugliest “music” you will ever hear. The power electronics scene also finds an unlikely bedfellow with this most horrific side of the riff. For example Japanese white noise legend Merzbow often collaborates with these groups, providing soundscaping and textures that add even more ghastlyness to proceedings. Instead of filling the soundscape with millions of blast beats, these lunatics use gaping voids, outrageous volume and utterly abstract mathematical precision to quite literally beat their audiences into a state of anxious submission, joyous negation and a solidly psychedelic euphoria.
I’ve also developed a pretty strong fondness for so called “post” metal which arguably shares a fair amount of common ground with indie rock and post-rock, especially the hugely influential quiet/loud/quiet, mathematically precise, screamy workouts of bands like Slint, Rodan, Don Caballero, Shellac and Mogwai. Aaron Turner’s band ISIS and his record label Hydrahead Industries is were I started in on this universe. Today is The Day, Converge, Cave In, Torche, Sumac, Russian Circles, Pelican, Neurosis and Mastadon all offered a very specific type of deeply unconventional brutality both in a live setting and on record. The production values behind much of these bands is so perfect for where they live sonically, capturing the immense dynamics, frequencies, subtleties in their often epic songs.
On reflection 20 + years ago was something of a halcyon period for extreme music and I was fortunate to have gotten involved with it, not in its infancy perhaps, but when it was truly coming into its own, and crucially when all of these groups were finally starting to consistently tour outside of America. At that time of discovery I felt like I was 16 again, going to my first gigs in London, thrilled, scared, genuinely enraptured. I’d not felt that way about “rock” music for over 15 years. From about the age of 16 until my early 30’s I had pretty much fallen out with most guitar bands and was hairline deep into techno, drum’n’bass, house, funk, hip-hop, soul and disco. I’d carved out a semi-career as a DJ and the last thing I thought I’d be getting deeply into was heavy metal, but there it was waiting for me. The today scene is as impressive as ever.
As the heaviest genres continue to constantly mutate and cross breed it’s heartening to see how for example hardcore bands like the ferocious Jesus Piece and death metal beat down goons like Sanguisugabogg can do huge DIY joint tours, selling out venues night after night. (Much like how Black Flag and The Obsessed used to tour together in the 80’s) Or how Sunn O))) took David Pajo of Slint and Ariel M on tour as a support, to perform solo guitar pieces. This disregard for regular genre constraints is for me one of the most attractive sides to extreme music, and is a a real fraternal thing at the more ridiculous edge of the scene.
I’m also constantly amazed and inspired by just how many young immensely talented musicians still choose this wildly uncommercial lifestyle; living in vans, touring endlessly, playing in loads of different bands, recording and releasing new music on a regular basis. Anyone who plays their own music knows just how tough this is even if you’re walking a more easily swallowed path. The commitment needed to “live it” to this level is bottomless.
This music will never be for everyone but for those of us who love it the wildly niche universe it exists in is an endless multitude of excitement.
Thanks for reading/listening.