Twelve miles away, the local fire chief was alerted of the unfolding disaster by an earthquake. Homes within that range had their window panes blown out. The sound would carry as far as Jacksonville, Florida, forty miles away. It’s a good thing too, as their medical facilities were going to be needed.

When the fires started, no one was too concerned. Thiokol creates fires by design. Thiokol began in 1929 as America’s first rubber company, a peculiar appendage off of Morton Salt. Providing synthetic polymers for use in jet propulsion, Thiokol was front-and-center for the global arms race that would ensue following World War II. “Thiokol” is a portmanteau of “theío” and “kólla”, respective Greek for “sulfur” and “glue”.

The Woodbine plant, opened in 1964, started with solid propellant for NASA. Come the space agency’s sudden pivot to liquid propellants, Thiokol would turn their sights instead toward the ensuing war in Vietnam via a contract to create 754,000 tripflares for the United States Army.

Tripflares are not designed to be lethal — at least, not directly. Their purpose is to illuminate the area of a breaching assailant, alerting the gunners who laid the trap. The illumination is created by magnesium, an element known for creating bright white light when it burns. Sodium nitrate struck by a similar pin to that used in a hand grenade provides the catalyst for combustion, triggered by a tripwire.

This volatile combination of materials was not easy to work with. Fires on the factory floor were so common that many workers had grown accustomed to evacuating the ill-fated building while a maintenance team doused the fires. The employees would wait outside, returning to work once stability was reclaimed.

None of them should have been anywhere near that building.

In October of 1970 — four months prior to the explosion — experimentation within the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal had shown that the particular blend of magnesium and sodium* nitrate being used in tripflares should be reclassed from merely a combustible to a much more-regulated explosive. The researchers at Picatinny notified the Department of Defense of their discovery, prompting the change in classification. Nobody at the Department of Defense relayed this change to Thiokol.

Three months later, a Department of Defense inspector paid a visit to the Woodbine plant. The inspector reported no issues.

In the weeks leading up to the explosion, work was becoming tense. The contract had sunk into unprofitability, a million dollars in the red1. The spontaneous combustion of the materials seemed to be happening more frequently, regularly delaying work. Miss Waye, who claimed to have witnessed the fire begin at her station, described the flames as seeming to emerge from nothing, likely catalyzed by a spark too small to see. From there, the flames hopped from station-to-station, the assembly line of magnesium and sodium nitrate discs igniting like a giant fuse.

Protocol began. Business as usual, the staff filed outside. A maintenance worker — Mister Aretz — grabbed the water hose they kept around for exactly this type of problem.

The hose was not working. Worse yet, the fire was rapidly moving towards the store room, where more than fifty thousand flares — and four more tons of explosive material — awaited.

As Mr. Aretz fled for his life through the door of Building M-132, Hell followed at his heels.

Awaking across the street from what used to be his workplace, little grace would be found in Mr. Aretz’s miraculous survival. His right arm was reduced to bone by the burning magnesium. The other side of his body suffered greatly from the concussive blast, his left eardrum and leg shattered.

Those less fortunate were obliterated on the spot — twenty-three people in the immediate, and more to come. Many more lived, but now found themselves ablaze and missing limbs. A survivor, Miss Cobb, only twenty-two-years-old, was burning alive, unable to find a place to collapse that wasn’t scalding hot metal or the entrails of her peers. The road bubbled like tar. A man was melted into a metal fence. More entrails hung from trees hundreds of feet away, the towering South Georgia pines now desecrated with the blood of their inhabitants.

Every hospital and ambulance for miles around was tapped into the emergency, planes and helicopters being leveraged to get the wounded help as fast as possible. The racial segregation typical to these facilities at the time was, in a needed glimmer of humanity, temporarily put aside to help the almost-entirely black victims.

Unsurprisingly, the Thiokol plant was forced to close. Surprisingly, it only closed for six months. The Vietnam War still had a few years left on it, and those munitions weren’t going to make themselves. Luckily for Thiokol, Georgia law greatly limits the liability of corporations, making it an attractive place for those who can’t afford the cancerous, profit-draining oversight that other states would demand. Hiding behind workers compensation payouts, Thiokol was able to avoid litigation over the dangerous environment their employees were in. Instead, the blame was veered towards the U.S. Government, who certainly played a role in the disaster by the failure to communicate and enforce the changing standards required of the holder of a defense contract. No sufficient explanation was ever given for the break in communication, but that did not stop the U.S. Government from fighting tooth-and-nail against the suit for seventeen years after.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would open its doors only two months later, its policies inked in the blood of Thiokols’ workers. When production resumed, so did their jobs. Of the sixty mostly-female, mostly-black employees working in Building M-132, the majority made at least $18 an hour.2 Where else was a black woman with no college degree going to make that kind of money?

In 1986, there was an explosion forty-six thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean. The rubber O-rings that maintained the seal of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s Solid Rocket Boosters had grown brittle in a cold-snap uncharacteristic of the Florida coast. Just over a minute after the shuttle launched, the O-rings gave. The burning fuel escaped the boosters and married with the liquid hydrogen fuel tank mounted underneath the shuttle. The rest is grim history, the seven crew members included. One of them was a school teacher, riding along via the efforts of the Teacher in Space Project. The countless schools that had tuned into the broadcast for a dose of inspiration for their pupils now found themselves with a terrible ordeal to explain to the shocked children.

As time would go on, damning details would emerge surrounding the national catastrophe. It would end up being that warnings were given prior to the launch, multiple engineers who worked on the shuttle having felt uncertain about the stability of the design. Deadlines prevailed over safety, and the ill-fated launch that killed seven in the plain view of millions became a public relations disaster for the U.S. Government, NASA, and the contractor who created the Solid Rocket Boosters with the faulty O-Rings: a company called Morton Thiokol.

Sources

Albert Scardino, New York Times, July 20th, 1986, Sec. 3, pg. 1

Jessie-Lynn Kerr, Florida Times Union, October 18th, 2010

Lauri Holton, The Fernandina Observer, May 17th, 2025

The Thiokol Memorial Museum Website

Georgia State University, on behalf of the Atlanta Journal Constitution

NASA’s Challenger archives

As I once again find myself longing for more.

I returned to my home, now a quarter a score

With the knowledge I gained on a prodigal tour.

I looked all about, saw many without,

But much of the hunger I see is for clout.

With ideas that stink as less than devout,

Forgive me for thinking you worthy of doubt.

A malicious mistress dragging all down

Who would perchance venture out of this town.

Lifting instead those of you who remained,

Value to all numbered roughly the same.

While I extrude change from the depths of my brain,

You stand around murmuring,

And mark me insane.

Unfortunately, this past year hasn’t all been rock ’n’ roll and checking off bucket list items. I suppose it was only a matter of time, but I also found myself the subject of slander on more than one occasion. A lot of our numbers have scattered at the hands of feuds and other various trespasses. Even in the cases where I wasn’t the target of any ire, I found myself caught in the middle, forced to bear the brunt of the drama and act as a conduit for the grievances of others. Putting myself in the line of fire to protect our mission has had some… interesting consequences.

Having seemingly out-of-nowhere moved-and-shaked my way through a scene as liberal as Savannah’s, some assumptions were bound to be made. Thankfully, the assumptions were so off-base that little was done to tarnish my already somewhat controversial image. (The most absurd to-date being a theory that I’m a strategically planted neo-Nazi running a covert enlistment program in the guise of a metal club.) As I’ve been decidedly vague about my background thus far, I might as well go ahead and prepare for Year Four by dispelling — or maybe reaffirming — any assumptions you yourself may have…

Ascent

After spending the first five years of my adulthood back-of-house, like any, I started bumping my head against Savannah’s very low ceiling. Having recently dropped out of Georgia Southern’s computer science program to take on more work hours, I was still very much fixated on establishing a career in technology. Today, Savannah’s small tech scene is just large enough to offer a noob some footing, but a decade ago, the idea of scoring a tech job in this town was laughable. I left Savannah, and headed for Atlanta.

Even being on a quest for fortune, I was far more fortunate than I could’ve ever predicted. While perusing Craigslist for any kitchen gig I could find in the city, I got the hopeful impulse to check for technology jobs. One entry called out exuberantly over all the rest: “Earn While You Learn!” Peering within, the listing described a nonprofit that would train its students in both technology and business practices, capping it off with a tech internship. Unbelievable. Almost certainly a scam.

After I applied, I resigned to the notion that I had sheepishly handed over my information to what were obviously scammers out of utter desperation to work in technology. Understandable, but pathetic nonetheless. I returned to my job applications, bearing my own mediocrity in mind, lest I return to the childish distraction of seeking my dream career.

A few days later, I received a phone call from a woman — Dr. Dee — purporting to be a member of the student services team of The Nonprofit. I wasn’t sure how the scammers managed to successfully rope a woman in Atlanta into their cause, but their ruse was growing more impressive by the second. Dr. Dee then began to say all sorts of things a person working at a real nonprofit would say, like “We’d like for you to come in for an interview”, and “You’ll need to take a drug test”.

This was too good to be true, right? There had to be a catch.

There was. Turns out, this program was really fucking difficult to get into, and harder to survive. Of course.

The first sieve was age — nobody below eighteen or above twenty-four. I was twenty-three. The second: no college degrees allowed. Done.

Next came careful vetting through background checks, interviews, and even a written essay detailing why you thought yourself worthy of admission. Of the eight-hundred applicants for the Spring 2015 cohort, one-hundred and twenty were admitted, including yours truly. One factor united us all: we were broke and wanted that to change.

Out of the Deli Slicer, Into the Meat Grinder

Long story short, I crushed it. We all did. That was the only option. Our attire, our punctuality, our speech, our academic performance — all discernible details of our person were closely scrutinized. Every misstep was penalized by docked pay and converse removal of points from a scoring system applied to all students. Bottoming out at zero points resulted in getting kicked out. (“Firing yourself”, they called it.) Losing one-third of our mass along the way, what emerged on the other side of the gauntlet was no longer a rag-tag gaggle of eclectic urbanites, but a mental-militia of finely-crafted young professionals, sharp in dress as in mind.

A key ingredient to The Nonprofit’s process is the ability to dispatch their students to various internships, each role carefully selected per individual so as to optimize their success at the hosting company. A truth that dawned very quickly on us students was that, stated plainly, some internships were more valuable than others. As many already know, internships are usually relegated for tedium seen as tiresome or beneath actual employees. What’s more, scoring an internship does not mean it will result in you being hired upon expiry. Certain companies became known as safe bets, where the success of prior interns had achieved tremendous buy-in from the hosts, who’d then taken in a dozen or more interns a year, and subsequently offering many of them jobs. (Cox Automotive comes to mind — some of my peers still have jobs there a decade later.) While such safe bets were plenty enticing for most, many of these jobs were “customer service”-oriented — call-centers, basically. I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t imagine anything less than being a coder.

Luckily for me, a board member of The Nonprofit had aligned interests. Having gathered his riches through co-founding the technology-fueled company ICE (Intercontinental Exchange, owners of the New York Stock Exchange — not the ethnonationalist paramilitary), he was keen on angling The Nonprofit towards the creation of programmers. Of the original one-hundred and twenty students, twenty were further selected into a “programming track” via an interview and logic test. I recall being so nervous about the test that I found the instructor, Uthra, afterwards and implored to her that I had considered a different solution to one of the questions and was worried that I had hastily chosen the wrong answer. Uthra assured me that I had long-surpassed the qualifying criteria.

While I was feeling much better about my odds of scoring a programming role, one-of-twenty felt too fractured for any assurance. I wanted to be certain that I would walk out of the program with the job I’d always wanted. Certainty could only come from being the best.

I was — at least by most of Year Up’s measures. I was the highest scoring student in the programming track, easily gamed. Using the combination of my brief time spent in college and a natural habit of autodidacticism, I scored perfectly on every assignment and completed every extra-credit question and assignment as a means of forcing my grade to above 100%. Uthra eventually forbade me from extra credit work so that my score would progressively normalize back (close) to 100%. I still managed to finish with a grade of 102% or so. While scoring high for its own sake is not unlike me, my goal was to ensure that I would not be precluded from any internship deemed too advanced for others. Who knows? Maybe I’d score some really cool job writing code for one of Atlanta’s many hosted megacorporations.

From Ghettos to Galas

My high academic performance caught the attention of those I needed, but with the gaze of the Internship Team came far more than I had bargained for. Inducting me alongside a handful of other high-performers (“rock stars”, we were dubbed), a team of poster children was assembled to be used for the courting of corporations. This would most often manifest in our inclusion on interview panels whereupon prospective investors would question us to the experiences that led us there. On more exciting occasions, we would be invited to rooftop parties and fundraising galas, given a couple of drink tickets, a stern warning, and eventually, a microphone through which we could relate to a well-dressed audience of encouraging smiles our then-unfolding rags-to-riches tales. We each learned how to lean into our backgrounds so as to strike a chord with the potential investors. My shtick was that of a natural talent overlooked by the education system and seeking to escape my family’s history of drug abuse and prison time. My programming counterpart — an Egyptian-American named Taha — would lean into the image of a tenacious hard worker hoping to care for his mother. The single mothers could really get a room going. Once the cracking voice and glistening eyes started, it was in the bag.

Don’t mistake my glibness for insincerity. As rehearsed as these speeches became, there was nothing but truth to our tales of sudden ascent. To spend our days in suits and skyscrapers and our nights in hoods and complexes amounted to a shared case of imposter syndrome. There was no way for us to peer over wine glasses at neighboring skyscrapers through anything but starry eyes.

On a venture to the rooftop of Atlanta Tech Village — a Silicon Valley-style startup incubator in Buckhead — I recall being washed in surrealism as I strolled over to an event-catering spread and realized this was the very first time that, after years of working in catering, I was to be the recipient of a painstaking arrangement of hors d’oeuvres. No longer would I have to hope that the party would conclude with some leftovers for any chance at getting a taste…

I stashed some for later anyways. In my solidarity with those across the table, I resolved to return anything gained to the place where I came from. At that very moment — and for years to come — I didn’t have a firm grasp on what that may look like in-practice, but I’d start with taking a few appetizers back to my roommate.

My internship went very well. I was hired on to a major US homebuilder, where I began studying reporting, statistics, data modeling, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence. For the first time in my life, I felt valuable. My intellectual power was not only hitting new heights, but I was getting the opportunity to be a leader within an industry. My decisions didn’t just matter — they were affecting lives. My workplace accomplishments went from benign drivel like “made sandwiches for Andre 3000 and Scar-Jo” to actions of measurable impact, like “helped reshape the way houses are priced during one of the biggest booms in American history.” Regardless, what good was my newfound effectiveness if it was only servicing those who were all well-off before?

My success, and that of my peers, ended up being shared by Year Up as well. By the end of the program, the gauntlet had worked its magic. Of the twenty programming students, only five were afforded programming internships. Of those five, two of us (Taha and myself) immediately entered into full-time employment as software developers. While seemingly meager in success at the start, the remaining eighteen students — and many others who dove into programming of their own accord — didn’t simply unlearn programming because they didn’t score jobs applying it right-away. In no time at all, most who had taken on coding were advancing faster in their careers than those who hadn’t. An international trade tycoon’s hair-brained idea to cram a fifteen-week programming course into an already rigorous Pursuit of Happyness-style program actually paid off.

Wanting to maintain the momentum, Year Up extended to many of us a request to help tutor the next round of programming students. I graciously accepted, seeing an opportunity to fulfill my promise to pay it forward. Every new class brought about more success stories, which brought about larger classes. It felt great to be apart of something that was measurably making lives better. I wanted to do more — to help with even more ambitious goals. This chance would to me in the form of an invitation to Year Up’s Alumni Summit, a gathering of success stories from around the country.

To my surprise, the Summit primarily served as an opportunity for alumni to mobilize their community efforts on a national front, collaborating with other “active” alumni to tackle shared problems. Subtly woven into this gathering of activists was the induction into Year Up’s organizational goals. A common rumor traded among the alumni was that The Nonprofit was primarily bankrolled by a shadowy Democratic billionaire family. Some credence was lent to the gossip when a Summit guest speaker, DeRay McKesson, instructed a roomful of dining alumni to vote for Hillary Clinton in the upcoming presidential election. Cold realization trickled down my spine. All-of-the-sudden, I was aware of my place in America’s political machine.

I despised Donald Trump (and still do), and while I’ve never much liked Democrats, I have historically preferred their sometimes-populism-fueled policies to the boneheaded Neocon strategy to, through sheer ignorance of economics, collapse the United States by “starving the beast”. Regardless, I felt extremely uncomfortable about being corralled back to a known Neolib with a tendency towards hawkish foreign policy. My discomfort was double in-light of the shady treatment of Bernie Sanders by the DNC, something that was obvious even before the true nature of the shenanigans surfaced in Wikileaks’ strategically dropped DNC emails.

Regardless of the donkey in the room, the Summit still achieved what it had set out to do. My wariness of being a pawn in America’s tainted bicameral system tucked to the back of my mind, I joined on with Atlanta’s local alumni board and got to work helping out with the continuous schedule of community events. This would carry for three more years, culminating to my attendance to multiple Summits, and eventually, my election as vice president of the Year Up National Alumni Association’s local board of alumni in Atlanta.

Descent

I didn’t initially want to step into a leadership role on the local board. If anything, I was hoping to start devoting more of my time to my own personal goals, largely due to a growing disenfranchisement from political activism, especially if that activism was at the behest of Democrats. After snubbing Bernie for Hillary and subsequently putting forward an absolute milquetoast like Joe Biden to take on Donald Trump and his army of Neocameralists, it had already become clear that Democrats were out-of-touch. What’s more, some of the non-Year Up activists I knew were espousing increasingly vitriolic rhetoric, causing ideological infighting within the scene.

When rumor reached my ears that someone I was loosely affiliated with may have participated in the attempted firebombing of a police station, it occurred to me that I needed to distance myself from those who seemed to being getting a high from their delusions of being America’s next revolutionaries. The pendulum of reform-and-reaction seemed to be swinging harder-and-faster, and it has yet to decelerate. I became less fixated on affecting direct change and began to ask myself a more pressing question: why was change becoming so difficult to enact? The route my peers were embarking down seemed to be worsening the state of affairs. What was our plan? Was there one? Per the accepted definitions, I don’t mark any rebellion a revolution until I hear a compelling plan of what’s to come after. I never heard any such plan (and still haven’t — at least, not from any of you), but I have seen plenty of rebellion since.

Despite my mounting reluctance and uncertainty in our greater goals, former officers of the board nudged me towards relieving their burden — so I went for it, running largely unopposed. I don’t regret staying on the board, as the work we were doing ultimately had little to do with who was holding the presidency, or even local office. A school without supplies is only a school without supplies, and helping to gather those supplies is a good thing to do, plan-and-simple. No politics to it. Quelling my discomforts with the “top-down” liberal organization I was embedded in, I set my attention to helping our gang of activists keep tackling any issues we spotted in our community. Using a combination of organizational funds, donations, grant money, and elbow grease, we did just that.

Until COVID

This may not come as much of a shock, but running an events-driven organization is nigh impossible during a city-wide lockdown. The alumni board, and all of its operations, imploded. To make matters worse, my mental health was descending to new lows, the problems born of my messy childhood (some stuff about torture, a gun, and the wrong end of a custody battle) were spurred along by a series of ill-chosen relationships. In my concern for my career, I had neglected caring for my own sanity, becoming a workaholic and remaining in romantic entanglements that were demonstrably damaging my happiness and dignity. Not long after the conclusion of what I can only describe as a “seven-year break-up”, I had fallen into a subsequent relationship with a likewise damaged person, and suffered all the consequences one would expect.

Blending a failing relationship with the failure of the alumni board and the subsequent alienation brought about, every festering problem in my brain bubbled forth like a volcano. I was sent to a mental hospital after a suicidal mental breakdown, after which I spent a week trying to convince the staff that I was stable enough to go home. I wasn’t even close to stable, but my sudden disappearance from my job had been explained away under vague terms and each day spent in that loony-bin led to mounting curiosity. Plus, my week in the world’s worst hotel netted me a $5,000 bill.

Not too long after my mental breakdown, I moved back to Savannah. The change in scenery, wonderful as it was, did little to slow my descent into dissociation. My mind slowly fragmented into parts. Though home once again, I had no friends, scene, or direction, wholly unlike my life in Atlanta. Pressed by the vacuum, my struggling relationship collapsed, and I found myself living alone in a spaciously renovated Victorian apartment with two cats and far too many personalities. (Altogether, five, if you count the cats.)

Meet Seth

Carrying multiple personalities isn’t quite how it’s made out in the movies, but, weirdly, it’s not completely unlike it either. Blacking out is less like what one suffers when drunk on alcohol, where long periods, sometimes hours, can vanish. Instead, the morning after will yield only a scattered, disjointed chronology of the night before. Even the memories you do have seem incorrect — maybe you recall a situation, but not what was being said — or you do recall what was said but not where it occurred in relation to other recalled events. Maybe you misconstrued something altogether. Maybe they’re reframing events because they know that you don’t know any better… The slow breakdown of reality over years gave me far more empathy towards victims of dementia than I ever wanted. There’s also the matter of the personalities themselves.

The only time one of my personalities took a name upon itself, I was highly unsettled. Ironically, my discomfort was actually a source of my dissociation — my self-disgust was driving me to repress parts of my personality that I found scary or distasteful. This bubble forming in the back of mind festered for years, finally rupturing, spiteful bile pouring from my mouth in the form of three words: “I am Seth.”

I’ve always had a fixation with ancient cultures, and Seth would undoubtedly have to be my favorite of the Egyptian pantheon, largely because of his fractured image. In short, Seth is a god of the desert and storms, natural forces of chaos, but the politics of Egypt led to a shift in his public perception, resulting in the devilish image he carries today. A repressed pocket of my brain nominating itself as Seth wasn’t so much a declaration of identity as it was of nature. Knowing I would understand, one part of my brain told the other part of the storm forming in its hemisphere. By repressing the darker side of my person, I was becoming a monster. More time brought greater truth to the warning, and shamefully, only once left with no other choice, I begrudgingly heeded the call and sought help.

Annie, my shrink, was the first to plant the seed of an idea that would eventually become the Black Metal Book Club. In the time that I had been receiving treatment from her, I had picked up music and was practicing alongside Vlad, a local goth who has since moved along to better cities. After his departure, the sudden absence of anyone to continue working on music with was eating away at me. Annie, seeing the obvious void, threw out the idea of finding my people through music. “Also”, she added, “Have you considered giving Seth some time onstage?”

Having picked up instruments early, music has been a lifelong obsession of mine, but I had almost completely tabled any performance when I entered into adulthood. I went almost fifteen years without playing instruments — almost the same amount of time I had been bottling Seth up in the back of my mind. It seemed fitting that music be the vessel through which I release it. Black metal had become my favorite genre over the years. I loved the elegance of black metal, where impact matters more than complexity. Likewise feeling intellectually unsatisfied with pop music and frustrated by the degradation of artistic integrity at the hands of mass appeal, I was long impressed upon by black metal’s tendency for belligerency towards shallow music. I knew that if I started my own project, it’d be a black metal band…

…but I didn’t know many people who liked black metal in Savannah. Starting some secretive one-man project seemed like it’d make my problems worse, not better. I resolved to place a beacon: the Black Metal Book Club. The rest is history. That I could successfully start a club and metal band while being a nobody in Savannah’s music scene comes from, arguably, the most valuable skill Year Up taught me: how to organize. I doubt they ever foresaw their lessons being used for such a ludicrous goal. Maybe they did. I owe it to them nonetheless.

Fast-forward three years, and I’ve finally fulfilled what I had set out to do — but I was still left with a “Black Metal Book Club”. Truthfully, we’d become more of a “Metal Club”, because any semblance of a book club format had been stripped away, and we’d started to attract a lot more than black metal fans. This club, bankrolled mostly by my full-time job, was becoming difficult to run while being in a band. I needed to make a decision:

1. Do I pull away from the band and focus on the continued trajectory of the club into something more broad (my original goal, some of you might recall), or…

2. Do I jettison the waste and return us back to our origins as a club hellbent on creating a black metal scene in Savannah, now with an actual black metal project to center around?

Well, what do you think I chose?

What is Black Metal?

Really, what is “black metal”? After starting the club, that question was one I knew I was gonna have to answer, even if I wasn’t eager to. This need did not emerge from anywhere other than the fact that someone, eventually, was going to preclude themselves. At first, the reasons for preclusion were more social, say ousting a creep or a solicitor, but as we hit critical mass, in order to preserve the ethos of a black metal club, I was inevitably gonna have to say to somebody, one way or another, “If you’re not going to listen to black metal, you should leave.”

Some of you may bristle at the notion. “Gatekeeper”, you hiss, appalled at the travesty to the scene. Your response is a luxury saved for those who do not have to maintain a space for others. I promised a space for black metal fans, and once black metal fans started suffering on behalf of someone of spurious intent, the easiest solution was some good ol’ fashioned gatekeeping. (If you disagree, go start your own club. I’m sure the scene will only benefit.1)

Okay, Fine, So What is Black Metal?

As many a person found their way into our little group, I never fettered in my conviction on its purpose: I crafted this club as a discussion group centered on black metal. Our first meetup was three people: myself, Andrew, a friend of mine from Atlanta, and — as far as I’m concerned — the club’s first member. Today, he’s called Grey by many of us, mostly for our own convenience and not by any request of his, and — three years later — I still regard him as a friend in high esteem. To the point, Grey very much likes black metal.

Grey’s primaries in black metal aren’t my own. His favorite bands are all bands I enjoy — Taake, Watain, Gorgoroth, etc. — but they’re not my first choice. I describe as favoring “mid-tempo” black metal, more in the vein of Urfaust, Circle of Ouroborus, or The Ruins of Beverast. The worlds of difference between these styles are apparent to insiders, but completely lost on anyone outside of the sound. However, should one start roping in more metal fans, the small Venn diagrams chaining us all together start to become apparent. We did indeed rope in more metal fans, some with no discernible linkage to black metal fans at all.

Weirdly, most of the consistencies I spotted between black metal fans weren’t situated around the sound at all. Some of us were eclectic fans of all metal, while some were Sabbath purists. Some lauded the kitschy sound of bands like Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir, while some detested any departure from the more raw Finnish form. Some like Mayhem, and others, Burzum. Some will tiptoe into NSBM, while others never do so knowingly. It became rather apparent that a black metal fan could be… well… anybody really. The commonalities emerged not between each member’s musical preferences — or any preferences, for that matter. Instead, what defined a black metal fan was in what they were opposed to.

It’s easy to feel isolated as a black metal fan. Part of this is self-imposed. Nobody forces a fan into fandom. If the mythology of the scene bears any truth, the black metal fan in particular finds their way to metal’s slimy underbelly after tiredly sloughing through all the modern musical world has to offer, finding only boredom and weariness. For that reason, the best way to define what is black metal would be to clearly define what it isn’t.

Alright, For Fuck’s Sake, What Isn’t Black Metal?

Well it sure as hell isn’t Taylor Swift. My girlfriend once had to sit through a spiel from one of our most insufferable (now-former) members explaining how significant Taylor Swift is to the feminist movement. That anyone can believe this bullshit is already baffling for me, but that this person — being a professor at SCAD — can’t see through the obvious veil of capital to the marketing team beyond causes me no shortage of concern for the direction of American culture. Corporatism continues to creep into the world of art and activism, ensnaring the simpletons and pseudo-intellectuals into its masturbatory facade and placating them with assurances that purchases and fanhood are a sufficient proxy for getting off one’s ass and doing something.

My wonderful girlfriend admittedly only had to suffer this vomit-inducing drivel because she was attempting to extend an olive branch to this member due to me having upset them. This feud occurred because I removed this person from our Discord, among twenty others (one third of the server — a matter those of you who read the Year Two post may recall). When checking this members name against the server (to see if they had ever posted anything in the black metal recommendations channel), the lack of any results actually surprised me. This person had already been deemed a deathcore dipshit by much of the group, their utter lack-of-interest in black metal rather glaring, but I had assumed there would be at least one instance where this person — very active in other channels — would have tried to participate in the point of our club. They didn’t, simple as that, and the data stated it quite plainly. In that moment, I considered giving them a pass — partly because of having gotten along prior, but mostly because I feared the fallout of their removal. Upon realizing the fear staying my hand, I pressed forward, determined not to show this person any special treatment when they had measurably failed the fundamental reason for this club: to discuss and share black metal.

My fear of fallout was not unfounded. The Professor did not take it well, and immediately set upon her campaign against my misogynistic tyranny, citing a dispute we had a couple weeks prior as my motive for her removal. She likewise asserted that I had fabricated my basis for her removal, that she had actually posted some black metal recommendations and I merely deleted the posts. My girlfriend, being an admin of the Discord server, checked her claims in the audit logs (which would show her posts regardless of deletions) and found her to be full of shit. For this, my girlfriend herself was happy to shed the friendship. Neither of us like liars.

The original dispute that I was accused of having removed The Professor from our Discord over occurred during a Metal Monday. Immediately upon her arrival, The Professor launched into a particularly eye-roll-inducing tirade about how she had been stalked around the gym by “some creepy guy”. (He had consistently gone to the same stations as her.) Before I’m cancelled for my insensitivity towards the plight of well-to-do pretty women in public spaces, the recurrent nature of such tirades from The Professor had become a detractor for many by this point, including those who would generally agree with her.

After an excruciating five minutes or so, the group began to fracture into smaller conversations, the original discussion on music long forgotten. Interrupting The Professor, I firmly questioned her to what actual threat the guy posed to her, and which of his actions couldn’t be reframed into something benign by only a simple change in her perspective. The answers to those questions are simple: the guy posed no threat to her, not even interacting with her, directly or indirectly, and his perceived stalking was demonstrably harmless, by simple merit of her walking away unharmed. Instead of marking the perceived-yet-unfulfilled threat, she chose to manufacture one, finding a nemesis in someone who, at the worst, found her pretty and was too scared to approach her.

Biased as I am against The Professor, I truly don’t think the creeps who restrain themselves should be the people we lambast. As someone who has been continuously subjected to truly creepy behavior — everything from unwelcome groping to being taken advantage of while black-out drunk — I’m not inclined to give a shit about a fictionalized creep who kept their bullshit to themselves.

I believe many — namely those deeply immersed in what I call “pop politics” — would be shocked to know just how many people have recoiled from gender-fueled politics as of late, and the only reason I even know is due to people repeatedly expressing their thoughts to me in confidence. Contrary to common thought, almost none of these people are rightist, a few of them women, and all would eagerly stand in defense of queers and transgenders. Overall, the fears that have been expressed to me are less oriented around the differences those professed hold with others and more situated around matters of language, ideology, and feeling that they can’t voice agreeable dissent towards people like The Professor.

One of the most egregious incidents to occur to this effect happened on our Discord. A budding guitarist — a black woman — hopped on our general chat one day to ask if there were any female musicians who wanted to form a band with her. Another member, an able vocalist — and a white trans woman — replied. Unfortunately, instead of the vocalist heeding the call to opportunity, she chose instead to call out the guitarist for their “creepy” request, especially pertaining to the use of the word female. Anyone familiar with the Southern slang spoken among black folks knows “female” (in this context) to be as benign as “woman”, but this did not occur to our trans friend. Recognizing the situation as too volatile for a white man of my demeanor to go near, my girlfriend stepped in to notify the vocalist of their faux pas. It was too late. This was in our general chat, in plain view of dozens of people. I had to hear about this mishap for days.

I wonder what could’ve come of that conversation in a world without left-wing cannibalism? Given the proclivities of those involved, I expect the resulting project would’ve been blackened hardcore. Not mad at that. I’m sure the all-female membership in a machismo music style would’ve been a nice shtick. Given her fixation on women, fades, and gym-mirror selfies, I expect The Professor would have been a huge fan.

The Fallout Continues, Thankfully

There were far more effects to emerge from my reign of misogynistic tyranny, but I’d count most of them good. Chief among them would be the departure of a similar firebrand to The Professor, a local artist and bartender known around town for being wrong about most things. There’s a hint of good intentions somewhere in The Artist, but everything else seems to emerge from social media snippets of people pretending they care about Palestinians. Naturally, it didn’t take long for the club’s two whiniest members to convene and decide that I was a misogynist, a racist, and an abuser hellbent on using my metal group to bully the weak and vulnerable — my girlfriend included. The Artist promptly notified my girlfriend that she was being abused, which has become a subject of laughter for us since. Truthfully, who’s more hateful: the person who spends all their spare time trying to unify people of disparate ways of thought, or The “Artist” that attempts to start slanderous rumors about other people due to differences in opinion? Is your art your faux linocuts, or is it the image of a progressive that you painstakingly carve out of others?

Savannah’s “Left”

The blowhards that took advantage of my good will to sow disarray within our club are not very unique when held up next to the rest of Savannah’s left wing, especially those pouring from SCAD. It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of SCAD, but most of my criticism is towards the school’s selective curation of the local economy via land grabs and lease terminations, as well as the special treatment they get on local ordinances. The bullshit yuppie businesses that keep springing up across the Starland District — day spas, salons, personal training studios, crepe restaurants, wine bars — pair nicely with the overpriced apartment complexes and hotels angled towards well-to-do outsiders, most typically affluent students and their rich parents. Of course, some of those rich parents smell the trap, flip the script, and outright buy their kid a house on one of Savannah’s coveted park front properties for the kid to instead rent out to locals at the same prices originally targeted at them. I don’t hate the kids holding those houses — or even their parents, for that matter. They are the product of natural consequence. I do, however, hate everything about the meticulously curated economic disparity that enabled such a backwards scenario as outsiders hosting locals. I know I am one of many Savannahians harboring this disposition, and generally, the second-rate lives we live in our own town has a lot of us feeling fed-up.

To then have that same walled-off clique of affluent kids turn around and try to morally grandstand local black metal fans because of their “sketchy” tastes is tantamount in irony. Let me spell something out for you lot: nobody is buying the shtick. You can tell your friends and fans to punch kids in Burzum t-shirts all day, but it won’t make you less of a guest in the house of Liberalism.

To those of us who know better, you appear emotionally compromised and vainly engaging with politics for the artistic image. On the Left — not “hardcore kids”, but “people who’ve arranged cookouts in community parks, donation drives for hungry kids, and grant money for inner city schools” — we have enough adversaries to face without a bunch of infighting persisted by “Nazi-punching” wannabe-punk posers radicalizing kids who would have otherwise lent at least an ear to the cause — why else would they be at your show? A few of the musicians guilty of this onstage vitriol, I not only know personally but have counted as friends. Even if not expressly a target of these remarks, my status as a known ambassador of the local black metal scene still precludes me towards being offended on behalf of anyone of us with the mental fortitude to take something from an artwork contrary to an artist’s intentions. You may be unable, but that’s your weakness, not ours. Don’t make your closed-mindedness our problem, and don’t bring violence into what would have otherwise only amounted to a fashion faux pas. You are musicians, not militants. Despite the childish fantasies showcasing via your careless rhetoric, music is not a battleground, literally or figuratively. It’s a form of entertainment. It’s a marketplace of ideals and aesthetics, where one can walk away with any impression they choose — and that can include a liberal kid being inspired by Burzum while still harboring hatred for Varg. If you would encourage infighting and violence within the music scene, you have more in common with Varg than any of us seeking a place of unity.

Even amidst the sometimes-all-too-real pageantry of the black metal scene, the stakes are not high enough to harm people over, and if you believe otherwise, it’s because you’ve never accomplished anything meaningful outside the art world, where real work gets done. If you would mistreat anyone over music, what would you do over something that actually mattered?

Here to Stay

They say success is the best revenge, but I’d argue that revenge is the best revenge, followed quickly by success to really rub their dumb fucking faces in it. Despite my person and my people being the target of attacks, snubbing, sideways gestures, and even occasional hate, this club will continue, Savannah’s newfound black metal scene will continue, and I am sure everyone in this town who likes metal will somehow benefit. We shall remain a place for black metal fans to escape the vitriol, corporatism, and political pageantry of lesser scenes, and doubly so a place for those who can’t shake such habits to be ridiculed.

We have dusted off some of the older parts of the club that I had tabled — like Metal Mondays, which will be spearheaded by Grey going forward (first and third Mondays, 7p, at White Whale). That is the benefit of organizing a collective after all — no one of us has to do it all themself. Arguably being the most controversial of the group, I’m happy to recede to the comfort of my music studio and let what I’ve planted grow on its own accord, descending from my ivory tower only occasionally to chastise the pretenders.

Some of you that I’ve counterattacked, besmirched, or otherwise called out, there’s no hope for, and now that I've spoken my piece, I can return to a life unaffected by the ineffectual. Know that I haven’t spilled near as much tea as I could have, and the most salacious of it awaits any further provocation.

The rest of you, I recognize as impressionable in a world that gets more difficult to handle everyday. It is easy to misplace ones fears and find foes within friends. If you count yourself among those simply afraid, know that I mean well. If you’re going to tackle that fear by sporting liberalism, never do so in vain and never forget that, no matter how you frame it, liberalism is a philosophy of community and, quite plainly, love — in my case, maybe tough, dark, or even scary love, but love, nonetheless. If you want to see our world get better, start by turning your sights away from your fellows and neighbors — me and my black metal kin included, but, really, whoever your chosen bogeyman may be — and aim instead towards the very real powers that would drive us further apart, outwardly and inwardly. Until you can manage to do so, fuck off, and leave those of us who know what we’re doing alone.

Sincerely,

Set

Are any safe from the data centers blotting the sky?

The Indian Chief looks back, a glimmering bead in his eye.

“Save us!” he cries, “lest our culture dies!”

“We hear! We will help!” comes the eager reply.

Wings pounding, deafening the digital skies,

A new word is spread that none shall belie.

Through every screen, channel, circuit, and eventual eye,

The world-ending technology will meet its demise.

Finally! Success! A new version arrives.

A new crowd gathers ‘round, eager gleam in each eye.

“Llama, do tell — what do you think of A.I.?”

“Data centers are bad”, comes the eager reply.

Much like rock ‘n’ roll’s eventual evolution into metal, the ‘80s marked a period where comics grew harder-hitting, tackling mature concepts and leaving behind the dualism of Superman in favor of the moral ambiguity of Dr. Manhattan. It is within these fuzzy boundaries that the reader is called upon to construct morals of their own from the complex assembly of human lore laid in piecemeal before them. While comics never quite drew the gaze of the Satanic Panic the same way that metal music did, the Comics Code Authority that had served as a seal-of-approval since the moral panic of the 1950’s would at the same time begin to lose its hold on major players of the scene, starting with DC’s departure over Swamp Thing. When held next to each other, the separate-yet-similar trajectories of rock’n’roll & comics through the 80’s serve as two of many distinct markers for a greater shift in the Overton window away from morally-driven artistic censorship.

In a nod to a scene that I hold as dear as metal music, here’s a list of some comic recommendations — some new, most old — that showcase the parallels from the cousin artforms. These recommendations are likely to scratch an itch for any metalhead, but especially the fantasy-loving, face-painting, axe-wielding type. Enjoy.

Dark Regards

Written by Dave Hill, Artwork by Artyom Toplin

Dave Hill is new to the comics game (and apparently, active on Substack), but he’s come out swinging with Dark Regards. The story follows Lance, an aspiring black metal musician who antagonizes a handful of Norwegian black metal projects via a hate letter to their label, prompting a quest to America to set the record straight. Hilarity ensues. Littered full of nods to proto- and first-wave black metal, Dark Regards is a playful, yet earnest, love letter to the genre.

If the story wasn’t already great enough, it becomes funnier when you learn that Hill based the story on his actual email exchange with industrial black metal pioneers Mysticum (yes, THAT Mysticum).

hey mysticum guys,

i got your e-mail off the internet. i was surprised someone in a black metal band would use e-mail but whatever i guess we can't expect you guys to live in caves all the time (if you were serious about black metal you would though). anyway, the reason i am writing is because i was wondering if there were two bands called mysticum or something. the reason i ask is because my friend todd told me about a band called mysticum that were really heavy and extreme and that i should totally check them out. so i went out and bought your record and all i got was this total pussy metal instead. is there another band called mysticum that i should know about? i'm really into super heavy and extreme black metal, so if there is another mysticum that plays this kind of music i would really like to know. don't get me wrong, i'm sure tons of chicks dig what you guys are doing, but i'm into some serious shit, not this strummy bullshit you guys seem to be into. anyway, let me know if you have heard of these guys. are you guys on mtv?

dark regards,
lance AKA the king of black metal

Pure gold. Dark Regards wrapped up recently, so pick up some issues while you still can, and maybe go show Hill some support on Substack as well.

Dave Hill: From the Diamond-Paved Streets of Cleveland

Hi, I'm Dave Hill. Here are some hastily written posts with not nearly enough profanity. I apologize. Life is beautiful. Just ask my dog.

The Creeping Below

Written by Brian Azzarello, artwork by Vanesa Del Rey

The Creeping Below takes the more self-serious approach to black metal, but it’s a fantastic homage nonetheless. When Val, a professional photographer on a work trip to Oslo, crosses the wrong black metal band, she’s made the subject of a ritual sacrifice to primordial gods. However, said primordial gods have different plans for her, inducting her into their unclear cause to avenge her own murder upon her prompt return to the mortal realm via a very leafy undeath.

The story is fun, but that’s to be expected from the Eisner-winning writer of Joker (the graphic novel, not the egregiously pseudo-intellectual Scorsese rip-off). The star of The Creeping Below is the lesser-known Vanesa Del Rey. Her cover art invokes an ethereal magic perfect for the subject matter, and the inner art tastefully balances literalism with the abstract. The detailed settings hosting the narrative regularly morph into expressive visual sequences that heighten the story-telling and enrapture the gaze in the trips between speech bubbles. Color me impressed.

At The Mountains of Madness

Adapted & illustrated by Gou Tanabe, originally written by H.P. Lovecraft

Gou Tanabe’s Lovecraft adaptations are some of the best entries into horror manga of recent years, and personally, I count them among my favorite Lovecraft adaptations of any medium to-date. Chief among them is At the Mountains of Madness, my favorite retelling of the story since Alien vs Predator.

It’s not easy to adapt Lovecraft, with few movies, games, or TV shows demonstrating the visual chops required to convey the uncertain nature of Lovecraftian horror. Tanabe shines where so many have failed, using the medium to skillfully toe the line between the literalism commanded by sequential art and the abstract prose that has made Lovecraft such a polarizing figure in literature. (Besides the racism, that is.)

American Gods

Written by Neil Gaiman, co-written and illustrated by P. Craig Russell, artwork by many, but most notably, Scott Hampton, Glenn Fabry & Colleen Doran

Speaking of authors we love to hate… Neil Gaiman was recently the subject of the slowest cancellation ever (and deservedly so) but it’s going to be very difficult to diminish the impact of his writing, largely lauded as some of the best of modern literature. No work demonstrates this more than American Gods, originally a novel, but since adapted into both a TV show and comic book, the latter by Gaiman himself. The former isn’t a half bad on-screen adaptation either.

Gaiman is joined by what I can only describe as the dream team of 90’s-era comic book artists. As a result, the series ends up being a visual feast start-to-finish. Regardless of the line-up, what truly makes this series worthwhile is Gaiman’s storytelling.

Ex-con Shadow Moon, upon the sudden death of his wife, takes a chance and enters the employ of a mysterious Mr. Wednesday. Immediately, he’s thrust into an all-out-war between the Gods of Old and New, struggling to understand where he fits into it all. Well-researched and endlessly imaginative, American Gods serves as a thoughtful compare-and-contrast of modernity with the primordial, questioning what it really is we’re worshiping when we call upon our gods, whether Odin or The Internet. This is a must-read that continues to grow in relevancy. Sure, Gaiman sucks, but metalheads are well-adjusted to hating their heroes. Maybe pick up a used copy.

Preacher

Written by Garth Ennis, inner artwork by Steve Dillon, covers by Glenn Fabry

It’d be folly to write up a post about metal-friendly comics and not mention what might be the most blasphemous comic of all time. Speaking anecdotally, Preacher is one of those comics that is more widely known than read, especially thanks to the TV series adaptation (which I cannot recommend, unfortunately. Decent show, bad adaptation).

After a mishap in Heaven lets loose Genesis, the unholy offspring of an angel and demon, the Will of God is accidentally bestowed upon an unsuspecting Jesse Custer, a preacher from rural Texas. Upon realizing the mistake made, the forces of Heaven set out to clean up their mistake — as well as any witnesses. Spurned by the offense, Custer turns his sights towards The Almighty himself in a divine Oedipal mission to slay The Father. Fucking awesome.

Garth Ennis is a force to be reckoned with — while not originally his character, he is the longest running writer for Hellblazer, and the continual success of the TV adaptation of The Boys demonstrates his ability to craft stories that impact a generation. If you've enjoyed any adaptation of Ennis’ work, I can’t recommend Preacher enough.

Conan

Originally written by Robert E. Howard

Any long-enough conversation about Sword & Sorcery is inevitably going to lead to the story that started it all. Originally penned as pulp fiction by Robert E. Howard in the early ‘30’s, Conan the Barbarian found its way into comic panels via a Mexican adaptation of Queen of the Black Coast published in 1952. Upon being picked up by Marvel in the 70’s, the series went on to be the driving force in fantasy comics.

Conan’s early arrival in the 20th century affords Howard a retrospective place alongside Tolkien or Lewis, but in the immediate company of “lower” pulp writers like Lovecraft. The first Conan story was even published in Weird Tales, the same pulp publication that introduced the world to Lovecraft’s unique (and, of course, xenophobic) brand of horror.

It’s difficult to oversell Conan’s place in the minds and hearts of fantasy and metal fans alike. A connection that illustrates just how deeply the links run can be found in the cover for Hard Attack, an album from 70’s fuzz rockers Dust. The Frank Frazetta painting, Snow Giants, was prior used as a cover for a Conan collection titled Conan of Cimmeria, released three years before Dust’s use of the image.

Heavy Metal

Alright — technically not a comic, but I’d be amiss to talk about heavy metal comics and not mention the legendary magazine that inspired so many. Originally started by National Lampoon in 1977 as a republication of the Mœbius-associated Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal has persisted against all odds and continues to be published today.

All-in-all, Heavy Metal is geared more towards comic shorts than music, but the hard bent towards fantasy and sci-fi did not go unnoticed by metalheads. The bridge between is showcased clearly in the publication’s eponymous 1981 movie, the rock ‘n’ roll-laden soundtrack even including “The Mob Rules” from Dio-era Sabbath. The cover of the associated album, Mob Rules, was created by Greg Hildebrandt, an early contributor to Heavy Metal.

Den

Written & illustrated by Richard Corben

While we’re discussing Heavy Metal contributors, we might as well bring up the obvious: the incomparable Richard Corben. Those of you who have seen the Heavy Metal movie may recognize the legendary hardbody Den, ironically voiced by the late John Candy.

Corben is an artist of a caliber far beyond what many could ever hope to achieve — truly your favorite artist’s favorite artist. His penchant for hyperrealism contoured across uncannily proportioned bodies is immediately identifiable, giving him the kind of visual signature that any artist longs for. It’s art that must be beheld with your own eyes — holding the book in my hand now and comparing with images online, the loss is obvious. Corben’s colors are too rich, the details too fine, that to cast his work into pixels feels like sacrilege. Den’s story is forgettable, but it matters little, as the story and setting really only serve as a conduit for one of the most… uh… stimulating (wink-wink) journeys in modern fiction.

From Hell

Written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Eddie Campbell

Being one of the most lauded comic writers of all time, Alan Moore needs no introduction. It was his penchant for pushing the comics genre into new spaces that lead to the aforementioned abandonment of the Comics Code Authority by DC in 1982. When forced to choose between CCA approval and allowing Moore to take Swamp Thing in a darker direction, DC smartly chose Moore, paving the way for such seminal works as Watchmen in ‘86, The Killing Joke in ‘88, and, most relevant here, From Hell in ‘89. (That all three of these works have found their way to the silver screen speaks volumes towards Moore’s impact.)

From Hell is not a comic that could have existed in an industry dictated by the CCA, largely due to its graphic retelling of the infamous string of murders committed in Whitechapel a century before by the serial killer named Jack the Ripper. (It’s worth noting that the drama over Swamp Thing centered around a scene that merely implied the sexual assault of a woman, which pales compared to the brutal depictions of murder in this work.)

The case of Jack the Ripper remains unsolved, though far more is known now than was at the time of Moore’s writing. Factual accuracy matters not however, as this is a tale more about the myth than the murders themselves. Jack the Ripper is regarded by many to be a historical milestone in the popular world of “True Crime”, a scene known for fetishistic portrayals of murder — a trait shared with metal. As such, Moore anchors his thesis to what Jack the Ripper has become in modern Western culture.

Eddie Campbell’s artwork deserves mention, especially with how distinct his chosen style is from anything else on this list. Portrayed through pen-and-ink, From Hell regularly pushes into the expressionistic, giving a further unsettling quality to the already highly graphic portrayals of Jack’s murders. This untethered style fits perfectly alongside Alan Moore and his legendary fourth-wall-breaking style of writing. In fact, From Hell is observably the point where Moore smashed through the ceiling into the transcendental style he’s known for today. As the story reaches its astounding climax, you can practically see Moore becoming aware of his own godliness within his story. For this, From Hell is an absolute must.

Berserk

Written & illustrated by Kentaro Miura

Berserk is a perfect comic, and that may be the easiest opinion I hold. There aren’t many that are going to challenge that claim; even those who haven’t read it know better. This story’s repute in the world of anime and manga is that of “The Greats”, Fist of the North Star, Dragonball, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, or any Ghibli work sitting alongside. What’s more, Berserk achieved its fame while being one of the most depraved comics to ever sport a coherent plot, complete with stomach-churning depictions of violence and rape. This is the comic your mother warned you about.

Berserk doesn’t make this list because of some interesting link between artists or some subtle influence across decades. The reason Berserk finds itself crowning this list of metal comics is quite simple — brutish even:

Berserk is metal as fuck.

Berserk having achieved its fame while being the comics equivalent of an NC-17 film is owed largely to it being so goddamn good. Kentaro Miura’s art is jaw-dropping, his characters, lovable and compelling, the plot as motivating to the reader as those entangled within. It’s here the parallels between comics and metal stand like monoliths — so often has a metal fan heard the condescending question, “How can you listen to this?”, to which the compulsory response is always, “Are you not hearing the [insert rock’n’roll instrument here]?!” You will likely find yourself having to answer similar questions should anyone walk upon you reading Berserk (especially at the legendary close of the Golden Age arc, when things get pretty… uh… tentacle-y).

At the core of metal is belligerent talent — artists who do things they know will make you uncomfortable, but do so with such mastery that no one dare cast them aside. That is Berserk — unsettling, often disturbing, laden with gut-punch after gut-punch — but you can’t tear your eyes away.

(Post-Script) More Weight: A Salem Story

Written & illustrated by Ben Wickey

I began writing this post some months ago, well-before encountering More Weight: A Salem Story, Ben Wickey’s first solo venture into graphic novels. Upon finishing, while on tour in October, I was so impressed that I decided to squeeze in a last-minute entry.

That More Weight is Wickey’s first foray into novels is unbelievable, as it’s a work that would make nicely for any writer’s magnum opus. More Weight is head-spinningly ambitious, centering on a message that pairs nicely with Moore’s From Hell — and similar to Moore’s handling of Jack the Ripper, Wickey is doing a touch more than retelling the Salem Witch Trials. The setting stretches across three different time periods — the 17th century, during the trials themselves, the 19th century, in fictional conversations staged by Wickey between the ghosts of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the 21st century, in modern-day Salem. Across these periods, Wickey has painted an intricate picture of American culture, showcasing how we never quite recovered from the wounds the shameful trials left in our national identity, and, what’s more, how the fetishization of the tragedy continues to fuel gaudy fixations on Halloween and witchcraft.

More Weight centers around Giles Corey, one of the accused men of the trials and the husband of likewise accused Martha Corey. While the tragic story of the Coreys is fascinating on its own, where Wickey strikes a “Moorian” quality is in the examination of the story-of-the-story, largely done by the ghostly exposition between Longfellow and Hawthorne. Self-acknowledging as a fictionalized retelling of true events, Wickey’s tale seems less concerned with recounting the story exactly as it happened so much as properly representing the mythological image of Giles Corey, the defiant spirit of America personified. Do not misunderstand my assertion however — Wickey isn’t making up events so much as filling the gaps of his extremely well-researched work with little embellishments here-and-there that serve to make the characters and setting more rich.

Accenting this beautiful tale is Wickey’s hand-drawn art, perfectly cartoonish and ever-morphing in style. Every panel portrays with utmost clarity the emotions of those caught in the nexus of the scandalous and fatal series of kangaroo courts, and, make no mistake, the emotions are abound. On multiple occasions, I found myself unable to put the book down, and despite knowing the conclusion foretold by history, a part of me clung on to the potential of a happy ending for the tale’s central characters, hopeful that maybe there was a version of the Salem Witch Trials never before heard where everything worked out and everyone went home, healthy and happy. To make me cling so naively to his characters is already no small feat, but to handle such a dark subject with utter elegance is nothing short of magical. For that, More Weight: A Salem Story is my true top pick for Comics for Metalheads, and my favorite read of 2025 overall.

“Is it AI art?”

Well… yes, probably. The album art definitely is. I don’t know about the music, but there hasn’t been much evidence that suggests it wasn’t AI generated…

Let’s back up a little bit. Truthfully, the only way to know whether the music was generated is to have had a hand in the albums creation. Most discussions I’ve seen around the matter do not seem to draw from first-degree sources, instead focusing on damning elements of the album art — and having finally spent time with the album, I can certainly attest that said damning elements are indeed there.

Bad Album Cover Is Bad

The first I heard of this album — “Cruel World of Dreams and Fears” — Torrentius, my guitarist, brought the album up in passing, asking if I’d given it a listen. Upon my response that I hadn’t heard of it, he flashed me a picture of the album cover from his phone, to which we both shared a chuckle. We enjoy a “good bad” black metal photo, and this certainly has the halmarks of some of the best — medieval adornments, cornball romanticism, and a tinge of self-awareness all give this cover the trappings of an instant classic.

Yesterday, while preparing for a performance at the Sentient Bean, a local cafe, the members of Mired — Nero, Torrentius, and I — sat down over some beers and gave the album a listen.

At this point, Nero got me up-to-speed on the controversy surrounding the album since its release, particularly on the claims that the whole album was created with AI. Having only seen the photo in passing on a phone screen, I did not immediately understand the criticism, but upon closer inspection, the issues with the cover image became glaring.

Firstly, let’s get the obvious problem out of the way: roses of all varieties grow on bushes.

Right off the bat, we’re going to need to offer an enormous benefit of the doubt to go any further, but we’ll do so anyways. We’re going to say that Draugveil meticulously clipped anywhere between 25 — 50 quality roses (an expensive flower, mind you), subsequently planting them in the ground (with little evidence of upset soil) to make the ideal bed of flowers for his album cover. Personally, I enjoy that degree of insanity in my black metal, so I’m happy to believe it for now.

On to the matter of the roses…

That’s not what rose stems look like. Top-center of the highlighed box, you can see a case where the general-purpose algorithm — having no clearly modeled concept of a leaf opposed to a stem — scribbled out similar blobs to suggest both. Those weird green smears certainly suggest rose stems, but they have none of the physical presence needed to support a flower as hefty as a rose.

Here’s an example of a photo containing a clear shot of a rose stem — the difference is noticable when focusing on how the stem angles itself to better hold the visually clear weight of the flower. Source

There’s more issues with the cover, but before we move on from the roses…

That’s not how perspective works. And maybe the most egregious artifact…

I know it’s contradictory to expect an AI-powered artist to not be lazy, but this stem-to-nowhere would have required thirty seconds at most with Photoshop’s blend tool to hide.

So what of the other problems with the album cover? Well, take your pick.

There’s the sword tapering in a way that suggests the point is planted only an inch-or-two into the ground, giving its extremely upright positioning an air of uncanniness.

There’s also the unnatural way the black corpse paint blends with Draugveil’s hair above his aged left eye.

Having worn corpse paint quite a bit myself, I’m sympathetic to how smears and smudges can appear on camera, but there’s something noticably off about how smooth the gradient is compared to the “film grain” of the rest of the “photo”.

These aren’t the only issues I’ve heard, but I don’t really feel a need to continue. I have no doubt in my mind that this not a photo — or even a doctored photo — but a generated image.

Maybe the cover is AI-generated… So what?

Say what you will of black metal — it’s a goofy genre wrought with mediocrity and shallow interpretations of the sound that grow more numerous every day. Nonetheless, that very same goofiness is what imbues the genre with a special sort of magic. Without a doubt, fantasy is integral to the genre, so when Draugveil says himself that “I just wanted the cover to feel like a dream you've seen before”,1 sure, AI can reasonably be a tool to achieve that. However, to actually use AI towards this end ignores another important (albeit, also silly) part of black metal: that you, as a musician, not only harbor fantasy, but that you live fantasy. The magic inspired by calling oneself a black wizard, donning robes and medieval weaponry, painting ones face, and taking flash-stained photographs amidst the cold stone of a historic crypt only works because you really did it. Sure, it’s silly and wholly detached from modern reality — but that someone did so anyways anchors all the fantasical elements of black metal into our very real world. Behind it all is photography, an artform GPTs have little trouble spoofing.

Photography’s Role in Black Metal

Photography is not the only artistic front GPTs are shouldering into, even within metal2, but for our purposes, I’ll keep my focus there. To understand what’s being lost at the hands of generative art, it’s important to establish why photography is important to black metal at all.

What has historically given all photography value to people is its ability to capture events that actually occurred, even within the abstract freedom of studio photography. A photographer finds the wiggle room to create in the physical limitations of cameras, forever unable to truly capture an event as it occurred in-person. Honing ones skill towards making the subjects of a photo transcend the in-person experience is what seperates the wheat from the chaff, and this space is likewise where a great deal of black metal’s magic occurs. A good photographer captures the black metal musician in a way to lend even the slightest shred of credence to the absolutely kooky notion that the subject is actually a wizard learned in black magic on a hellbent mission to subjugate all with their spells, tear the curtains from modern reality, and usher in an era where said musical wizard rules supremely as a tyrannical agent of the Goddess.

Take Kommodus as an example.

You know the person in the photo isn’t really a black wizard, but you also know behind their spikey visage is an extremely large bonfire. Suddenly, the hilarity of the situation sets in, you laugh, squint a little, and try to reimagine the goofball before you as some evil musical magi, and “You know what?” you say, “I can kind of see it!” The bewilderment at how they ever staged such an ordeal is to many as exciting as it is inspiring, driving more to both participate and contribute to the mythological pantheon of black metal icons. We begin to see the black metal persona as distinct from the individual, something tangibly abstract, real as it is imaginary. It’s in this same space that mythology and religion thrive, giving black metal a unique place in the stories of humanity. All of this came to be because some nerds had the wherewithal to stage some goofy photographs and music videos in extreme or uncomfortable scenarios out of sheer dedication to the bit.

When Draugveil gets an AI to generate an image of himself wearing armor he neither bought nor made, lying in a bed of roses that couldn’t exist… there’s no magic in that, only fantasy. Without the authenticity of the “photo”, there’s little seperating Draugveil’s album cover from the army of teeny-bopper DSBM fans sporting corpse-paint in bathroom selfies. Arguably, Draugveil’s album art might be a step lower, because at least those kids bothered to put on the makeup.

The lack of authenticity inherent to AI art undercuts the work required to bring a black metal creation to life. All-in-all, Draugveil has all the creative liberty in the world to use AI towards the creation of music and its associated art, but by that same token, I’m allowed to perceive him a lesser artist than those who actually put in the work to do so through skillfully wielding an instrument, be it a camera, brush, or guitar.

To that last point — all this talk about visual art aside for a minute — what of the music itself?

The Music Is Boring

As we — Mired, that is — listened to Draugveil’s release, we all arrived at a similar consensus: there’s certainly elements here that we like to see in a track, but none of them are done in a way that stands out from the tens of thousands of black metal albums to come before.

Even if you can pass the litmus test for generic black metal, that’s not enough to deserve praise. I guess achieving mediocrity is better than nothing at all, but truthfully, without even considering that the album was made by AI, Draugveil’s Cruel World of Dreams and Fears is nothing to write home about.

So what of the AI allegations? Frankly, they’re a little harder to prove than the claims surrounding the cover, but at the end of the day, the mediocrity of the album makes the accusations matter little. A boring album is boring, no matter how you arrive there.

The Hype Is Not Boring

Unpacking the whole situation, Draugveil’s album is only impressive if it was made with AI, because even after five years in a post-GPT world, it is still shocking for many of us that something so “human” can be generated by a mathematical algorithm. Unfortunately for Draugveil, what's impressive in this case is not his musical prowess, but the beautifully mathematical order of music and language (something he can’t take any credit for.) That such an impressive method can only achieve mediocrity is a known limitation of GPTs, which can only generate an approximation of human creation, not the maximum — simply put, GPTs can create, and they can even help a human innovate, but they do not innovate on their own. Without a human in the loop, they will only create that which has been created prior.3

So what if Draugveil actually played the music on the album? Well, he’s chosen to play the mysterious angle, stating simply, “Let people decide. I have only made art and shown it to the world.” His decidedly vague response could read as an indictment if one wishes, but he very well could just be leveraging the controversy to drive more sales.

Taking it all in

We’re left with a few ways to look at this.

The album art is definitely AI generated, but whether you think that matters is up to your demands of artist. I find it inauthentic, lazy, and destructive to the magical ethos of black metal, but that’s only my opinion.

If the music was generated, any accomplishment here is that of the creators of GPTs, not their users. Claiming credit for a work created by a GPT is like taking credit for a book you edited with White-Out — sure, whatever, but both the author and the inventor of White-Out put in more work to create the final product than you did. If Galileo stood on the shoulders of giants, you rode their coattails.

If the music wasn’t generated, then Draugveil is at most a mediocre project that used an AI album cover, and thus belongs in the bottom of the bin with other similar projects. It would be extremely easy to prove that either the cover or music wasn’t generated. Music production is a messy process that creates many artifacts, such as bad takes, shitty masters, practice recordings, etc. Any photoshoot would have produced numerous duds that didn’t make it past the cutting room floor. To date, none of that has been produced, and as it stands, Draugveil is only benefitting from keeping such proof under wraps. It is on us, as both fans and artists, to demand demonstrable integrity from creators. Anyone failing to provide should be cast as one-step above plagiarists.

In Conclusion

If it wasn’t obvious, black metal is extremely taxing to create, play, and record. The allegations that any element of Draugveil’s music was made with AI doesn’t do him any favors in the eyes of musicians who actually shed literal blood, sweat, and tears to create their music. If you can create a rock-solid black metal album with AI, sure, consider yourself a creator of sorts, but don’t confuse yourself with someone who actually physically performs their music. As a drummer, I’m not going to be that impressed by programmed drums. That goes doubly so for generated drums. Anyone creating AI art should not be shocked when noone considers them a worthwhile member of the scene.

Turned on, copping out.

No skag, no gas,

Only Tango & Cash.

At last, a commercial break...

Skip out and grab a beer.

Pretty tasty craft!

I deem it worth a share.

Success impressed, measured,

Who became aware?

"Aware" might be generous.

It's a count of mindless stares.

I need to make a difference,

But none say what to do.

Besides,

NBC's predictions are on at 8:32.

Ever yearning for more,

Knowing not where our vestige is,

The Revolution will return

After these sponsored messages.

The Good

We keep growing, slowly but surely. Our Discord group reached over sixty members and our Instagram has over four hundred quality followers, mostly locals and businesses. Metal Mondays are a weekly rotating roster of five-to-ten people, usually being the bulk of the crowd present in the bar (it is on Mondays, after all). We’ve been doing weekly events since the very beginning of 2024, so I’ve long stopped counting. I can only hope my vinyl collection can grow at a converse rate, as our new vinyl-centric format is inherently costly. I hardly consider it an extraneous cost. I was going to waste my money on music anyways.

The recognition the club has begun receiving around town is quite enthralling. Savannah is a small city, but dense. Throw in the presence of a famous art school and the inspirational setting, the result is a world-class hub of creativity. The downside of all the worldly influence migrating into this town is that a large number of SCAD kids seemed to have learned everything they know about metal from TikTok. Apparently, they also never learned the differences between metal and hardcore, or, for that matter, any hardcore dancing beyond the two-step.

Enter the local black metal club, the snobby group of offensive metal purists who are happy to tell you, “No, your music sucks, and that stupid dance you’re doing – you’re completely out-of-time.” Or “Juggalo paint isn’t corpse paint.” Sure, nobody likes elitists, but I contend that black metal is inherently elitist, tilted towards the radical preservation of traditional metal culture. It is the reaction to metal’s ever-flowing reform. We don’t seek to stop the reform altogether, only make sure that shallow idiots two-stepping to blast beats don’t corrode away at metal’s iron heart. Many agree, but aren’t belligerent enough to say anything about it. But not us. Not us.

Emerging from the muck and mire…

Another benefit I’ve enjoyed is my inclusion as the drummer of a band. I didn’t start this club with the intention of starting a band, but somewhere amidst my reasons would be the desire to play music and to see more extreme metal in this town. Most of our members were driven here by the same longing. A handful took the obvious next step. We are called Mired. I think our music sounds great.

We hosted a festival…

In August 2024, we partnered up with the local Sabbath-worship project Space Coke to host a farewell festival dubbed Junkyard Dogs. The expectation is that the band will be relocating, and as friends, we were happy to help send them off. Reno, the frontman, needs no help in organizing shows, so our involvement was angled towards vendors, set-up, and promotion. Numerous hands came on deck to assist. Creating art for merch, creating the merch itself, promoting, and showing up early to help set-up were all handled on a volunteer basis. I am extremely humbled by the enthusiastic support. Overall, everyone who turned out (that I could speak to) lauded the festival, and I personally consider the event a success. Doubly so, when considering that a generous donation towards t-shirts by Elate Apparel enabled us to walk away with cash in the bank.

We intend to host Junkyard Dogs again this year. We want to bring back all of the same bands and vendors, sprinkled with a little more. I have no doubt we can carry the torch being passed to us. Nonetheless, we’re very grateful to Space Coke for taking a chance on us, as well as Starland Yard for allowing us the festival space.

More to come…

To build up some funds as a backstop for the next fest, I’m hoping to get a metal zine put together. Unfortunately, still being the sole organizer of the club, I’m skeptical I will find the time. Between my full-time job, being a band member, and keeping the club afloat, my time is stretched very thin. I seldom have time for my other responsibilities and interests, much less taking on another out-of-pocket venture for the club. In the short term, I intend to pull back heavily on maintaining the club. I’m hoping this allows attacking the next Junkyard Dogs with some fervor.

Overall…

The effectiveness provided to one by such a valuable web of minds is immeasurable. Each of us harbor their own talent, and likewise have additional talents a shoulder-tap away. Our most active members are musicians of varying skill, allowing many newbies the opportunity to learn an instrument. Some are experienced in the technical realms of music, acting as resident sages of audio engineering and production. Two of our members regularly offer up space for practicing music. On the fringes, we avid black metal listeners continuously serve up recommendations and friendships form in their own macro- and microcosms. If one were to wonder what they have to gain from participation, they needn’t look far for an answer.

The Bad

We’ve had some bad seeds crop up, but the worst of them we ousted almost immediately. These types have included a homeopathic medicine salesman, a junkie, a malicious gossip, a floor-stealing egoist, and a firebrand. Except the first two, none of these people are barred from the group. Most show themselves out. Only two amounted to my direct intervention, much to some members’ humor. I prefer not to get involved with the reprimanding of other members, because I am not as nice as a lot of others, and likely never will be. My tendency towards brusqueness can be intimidating at best, insulting at worst. For that, if I’m getting involved, the matter has likely already gone too far.

Ask not what your black metal club can do for you…

Sadly, most of our personae non gratae are actually black metal fans. In hindsight, I feel badly for having ousted members who actually contribute to discussions about music when other members of this club are using us for their own vanity, neither caring for black metal nor its culture. These members skirt by largely because they are more charming, escaping my ire by being a friend. As an individual, I am happy to have more friends, but this can conflict with my being a fair organizer. I strive to be a friend to all of our members, but within the scope of our events, my primary role is that of an organizer, not a friend. While I will try to be less heavy-handed, where I fail, I will still strive to err towards an even hand before a lighter one. I apologize to anyone I may react harshly to; I implore understanding of the unique position I’m in.

The Ugly

A year ago, I wrote that a club exists to serve its members. Since embarking on the doomed venture to please everyone, I’ve learned to recognize who contributes more than they take, and vice versa. To call out that we have members contributing more-or-less than others begs the question of what I consider a valid contribution. I am happy to spell it out:

We are a black metal club.

During our events – currently only Metal Mondays – discussion is to be centered around metal music and topics of immediate relevance. The discussion should be kept as diplomatic as possible, because black metal is full of dark corners that strike fear and revulsion in fans of mainstream music. Detracting from the value of the club for others purely to make it more valuable for yourself is downright unacceptable.

You vs Us

The most common way an individual detracts from the group is stealing the floor to rant about a recent crisis. Some will call me insensitive, but on the contrary, I consider floor-stealing for such reasons to be egotistical and inconsiderate of those who might likewise be going through a crisis and need the club as a place to forget. Some of our members are going through incredibly difficult problems with utmost poise, patience, and stoicism, whereas some of our members treat the club as a gossip column or a support center. To add insult to injury, there are those who only come around during a crisis, and never any other time. Making the club about you hurts the function it serves for us, which is, once more, to be a black metal club.

Us vs Them

Another issue is the continued descent of American political rhetoric into populism. In this club, populist takes (e.g. The Deep State, MSM, The Patriarchy, “Eat the Rich”, etc.) are unwelcome, plain-and-simple. The beliefs harbored by black metal fans can be as extreme as they are various and nuanced. What’s more, longtime black metal fans are accustomed to quelling the cognitive dissonance created by enjoying the art of someone they hate. Calm detachment is the lingua franca of this scene.

Populism – more simply, “Us versus Them” – is the antithesis of the stoic interpretation of music’s shadowy underbelly and thus has no place in a black metal club. This doesn’t mean you can’t harbor your own extreme beliefs; it means to consider the pantheon of extreme beliefs gathered around the table and demonstrate the appropriate humility.

Speaking frankly, the average political take I hear is regurgitated tripe that could only permeate into the most insignificant corners of the Internet. I know for a fact that less than a handful of us are learned enough to extrapolate greater value from the Web than what is spoonfed to us, and truthfully, those aren’t the ones prattling on about their respective political bogeymen. If both the most extreme and the most informed members of this club exhibit enough tact to not bring populism to our forum, I expect the same from anybody else.

If you find yourself unable to keep the discussion angled towards black metal, either because of stress or because you don’t know enough about the subject, consider using our events as a place to practice listening.

That’s all I’m going to ask for. These guidelines only apply in our hosted spaces, whether at Metal Monday or in our Discord channels. I could not care less what conversations occur to the side. However, at the table, we are a place of diplomacy and discussion – for black metal fans – in a world with less-and-less every day. In my eyes, the detraction for infringing upon this core idea is greater than any contribution. Some members will disagree with my staunch position, but they also haven’t maintained a black metal fan club for two years.

For a Few Dollars More

I’m going to keep it up. To enable the continued growth, I’ve begun pruning away non-essential elements of the club. I’ve driven down the cost of the website to practically free and piled up our funds in an isolated bank account. I’ve taken down the Meetup, and don’t plan on renewing my organizer license. Instagram will remain our primary means of online outreach for now. Metal Mondays will continue in the vinyl-centric format, and will continue as the core of our club.

About Discord…

Pruning non-essential elements included axing most of the Discord. We trimmed away the #general channel altogether, as well as #blasphemers, #market, #show-off.

Likewise, we removed all members accept those who

1. use the #recommendations channel

2. are active in select hidden channels, e.g. #jam-sessions

3. are demonstrably active community organizers or musicians

4. joined recently

Those who posted in #recommendations were left, regardless of the nature of the post. The #recommendations channel is probably the most apt channel for the purpose of this club.

Our most popular hidden channel — #jam-sessions — was trimmed down to a very select few. We can’t afford the risk of that channel staying so populated. Another popular hidden channel — #coven — was removed altogether, in favor of direct texts. The remainder of hidden channels are intact.

To be explicitly clear: if you ONLY posted in #general, #blasphemers, #show-off, #market, or #coven you were removed. Furthermore, nobody is banned. Getting back into the Discord is as simple as requesting access from a moderator directly.

If you were removed, I assure you it was not for any personal matter. The measures used to determine continued membership were very specifically targeted to preserving the portions of the server that run themselves. Any members contributing to that autonomy were left to continue doing what they already were. There were a couple members that I was surprised to see fail to meet the criteria, and some I expected to fail who did not.

A Fistful of Dollars

Going forward, we will be playing with our cards closer to our chest. There’s a strong potential for this to develop into an enterprising venture, heavily contingent on the success of the next Junkyard Dogs festival. My immediate goal afterwards will be to craft a set of legs for this operation so that it can walk on its own. Long term, I intend to mint the club as, first, an LLC, and later, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. As an LLC, the primary goal will be crafting a set of books for continued events. Once the appropriate accounting and tax guardrails have been established, it will be easier to argue for non-profit status to the IRS.

To mint a 501(c)(3), you must appoint a board of advisors. I intend to rope our most able-and-willing members into board roles, as well as other members of the community acting as organizers in Savannah’s art scene. Once the club acquiesces to the public, I will be allowed the peace of mind I seek. In such an arrangement, I can be certain the torch we’ve ignited will remain lit, but I will no longer have to be the one to carry it. My arms are tired, and I’ve got drums to play.

See you next year.

We all crawl the web; who wove it first?

Techies and dreamers, or lackies and schemers?

Hackers, Crackers, or Bitcoin Believers?

Freedom now fettered with the greed of deceivers

Nevertheless, we stay

Concerning…

Never discerned was any contention

To how we became the ad man’s possession

Aswim in the æther of ads and attention

Spiraling the drain into dim definition

Vibes vexed, veering harsh

By shallow semantism

Wrong heads, impure hearts

Run rampant pedantism

Pretention, hypocrisy

Populist mockery

…

The pendulum returns

…

Au contraire…

We're crafting this Void into which we all stare

So what if we all stopped?

Emptiness — Not For Music

Entering from the world of blackened death, Belgium’s Emptiness harbors the unique chops necessary to take death rock to new extremes. Not For Music is so well-executed on all fronts that it actually sells its overbearingly edgy shtick.

Cursed Moon — Rite of Darkness

Cursed Moon has been steadily gaining popularity, and not for nothing. Rite of Darkness is such an anthemic album that its appeal stretches far beyond the boundaries of both black metal and goth. Sounding more like a compilation of 80’s slasher theme songs, it could act as a Halloween playlist all on its own.

Behrosth — Д​е​н​ь и Н​о​ч​ь

When a black metal act alludes to Depeche Mode in their sound, it’s more often the likes of Violater than Construction Time Again. Russia’s Behrosth is goofy enough to attempt the latter, sprinkling in a touch of Fields of the Nephilim to great effect.

Sunrise Patriot Motion — Black Fellflower Stream

Being heavily associated with Yellow Eyes, it’s no surprise that Sunrise Patriot Motion has so many post-black metal elements. Regardless, the decidedly rare project shares more in common with The Cure or My Bloody Valentine than anything from the NY post-black metal giants.

Svoid — Neptunian

Svoid is on the way to not being considered black metal, but they undeniably were at one point. As they were crossing through the borderlands of the genre, they offered up this rather unique entry. They’re touting to be inspired by Siouxsie and the Banshees and U2 — both of which I concede to hearing in their sound — but fans of Christian Death or even the Killers will likewise enjoy what Svoid is bringing forth.

Gost — Rites of Love and Reverence

While we’re on the topic of acts that aren’t really black metal, it seems appropriate to mention Gost, given the frequent use of black metal elements in what would otherwise be a darksynth project. Gost is often brought up in the same conversations as French darksynth titans Perturbator and Carpenter Brut, but Rites of Love and Reverence is the first album where Gost is truly batting in the same league.

Furia — Księżyc Milczy Luty

Being a major player in Poland’s churning post-black metal scene, it’s not surprising that Furia eventually detoured into — at-times — frustrating levels of experimentalism. Księżyc Milczy Luty is probably the best album to emerge from that portion of their career, sporting a uniquely patient swagger that would feel very familiar to fans of Nick Cave.

Duszę Wypuścił — Przekr​ó​lewszczenie

It’s probably a bit lazy of me to include another Polish act that is so closely related to Furia (via their bassist), but Duszę Wypuścił is a unique enough project that it bears mention. Przekr​ó​lewszczenie has a rather bleak sound, leveraging lo-fi black metal to add a haunting edge to the goth riffing throughout. Plus, being Polish, the project exhibits the distinct dreariness characteristic of post-punk from the Balkans and beyond.

Urfaust — Der Freiwillige Bettler

Urfaust was always strange, even for a black metal band. In their two-decade career, the Dutch duo was known for sporting an aesthetic best dubbed as “drunken spiritualism”. While overt elements of goth music crop up regularly, the sound is ever-present in the form of a distinctly German brand of doom & gloom spread across their entire catalog.

VampyreSS & Billy Odal — Emascula / Death Machine

If you’re looking for an extra-evil guilty pleasure to enrapture the unsuspecting guest with, look no further. I’m not going to explain why; maybe read some of my other posts.

That seems a good place to call it. Happy Halloween!

Trelldom — …By the Shadows…

Jazz and metal have danced together many a time, but most embarking to blend said styles tend to opt for the energy more typical of swing or fusion. There’re only a few metal bands willing to toy with the maddeningly patient playing style of dark jazz, as it requires a highly tentative approach to dynamics. One band known for toeing into the legendary Twin Peaks-inspired ambience is the Ukraine’s White Ward, but their generally high-octane sound would more aptly be described as post-black metal with departures into dark jazz, never fully embodying the long-winded atmosphere denoted by the latter genre.1

Enter Trelldom, a side project of Gaahl. Trelldom sits closer towards the center of the black metal/dark jazz Venn diagram, maintaining an entrancing atmosphere through even the heaviest sections. Of course, being a metal project, Trelldom never sinks into the quietude expected of true dark jazz acts (e.g. Bohren & der Club of Gore, or The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble), but it is still the closest I’ve ever seen any metal act come to the sound.

Kommodus & Celestial Sword — Constellations of Fatality and Metamorphosis

Kommodus — masterminded by The Infernal Emperor, Lepidus Plague — has kept my attention since the 2023 release of Wreath of Bleeding Snowfall. The latest split alongside the raw/dungeon synth act Celestial Sword (a.k.a. Nocturnal Effigy) has only reaffirmed the afforded attention. Both acts deliver on a variety of sounds ranging from energetically upbeat to depressingly dreary. Anyone looking for new bands sporting the old sound, take heed.

The Gates — …of the River Styx

The Black Magick SS copycats have returned, this time represented by their portly mascot, Bufometh, the Toad of Death. The Gates have always been the best example of “Magick Metal” outside its creators, but on this most recent release, their songwriting has started to develop a flavor of its own. At times, the quality of the production climbs to levels that BMSS always deliberately avoided, but the result nonetheless ends up sounding true to form. As such, The Gates have moved on from emulation to innovation.

Alcest — Les Chants de l'Aurore

It’s hard to keep the designation of black metal attached to Alcest with how far the band has developed their sound from where they broke ground over 20 years ago, but Neige & Company’s place as originators of the ever-popular blackgaze sound keep them in the canon of modern relevancy. Their ability to craft soothingly vibrant works that imbue all the haunting energy of post- and black metal is still unparalleled in the ocean of competitors they gave way to. Fans of Kodama will enjoy the reprisal of its decidedly Japanese aesthetic on this latest release.

Doedsmaghird — Omniverse Consciousness

Finding this album was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. At first, I was ecstatic to see that a new Dødheimsgard album had come out so soon after last year’s superb release. I then realized, rather dejectedly, that I misread the name of the band — because it contains all the same letters as Dødheimsgard. At that point, it occurred to me that this oddly-named new band was also on Peaceville, making them label mates with Dødheimsgard…

Rejoice! This is Dødheimsgard’s Vicotnik under a different name, Mr. Vicxit Baba Maharaja. All of the uncultured swine who found Dødheimsgard’s masterpiece from last year, Black Medium Current, to be too spacey and progressive will likely enjoy the increased edge of this project. In general, Doedsmaghird bears a closer resemblance to Dødheimsgard’s 666 International era, minus all the nu metal elements.

Circle of Ouroborus — Ajattoman Uni

Per their usual, Finland’s Circle of Ouroborus have delivered masterful grooves in an unseemly package to the undiscerning eye. Their decades-long existence in obscurity continues to keep their prolific roster from netting their deserved repute, giving them the edge of a gem hidden within one of best black metal scenes in the world.

Ævangelist — Perdition Ekstasis Meta

Speaking of Finnish bands, the once-Floridian-now-Finnish act Ævangelist has returned. As one can expect from any act that goes out of their way to make their name untypeable on most keyboards, Ævangelist is nightmarishly experimental, exhibiting a lot of similarities to kindred Blut Aus Nord’s Disharmonium albums. If you enjoy this particularly haunting take on blackened death, Matron Thorn — the mind behind Ævangelist — developed this sound in an alternative project dubbed Skrying Mirror.

Cigno — Nada​!​Nada​!​Nada!

What a strange album this is. It doesn’t even pass my litmus test2 for black metal, but it’s certainly adjacent in themes. This act never would have caught my attention if not for their place in Avantgarde Music’s halls — and what a fitting place it is. I’m not really sure what to say about this album that won’t amount to metaphors about the extramarital conception shared by Italian disco and doom that gave way to this unholy bastard. You might hate this album. Nonetheless, many of the tracks here wouldn’t be out of place on a Halloween playlist.

Curta’n Wall — Yr Gwyddbwll

Abysmal Specter — the dumbest son-of-a-bitch in the black metal biz — has somehow managed to deliver another hilariously killer album. Funnier, heavier, and even better written than Siege Ubsessed!, Curta’n Wall’s latest is the ren faire album nobody wanted, but all needed.

Oranssi Pazuzu — Muuntautuja

Oranssi Pazuzu is yet another act that has wandered far from their black metal origins, but I don’t think you’ll find anybody complaining about that. Their newest release doubles down on all the sonic psychedelia they’ve spent their entire career honing, scattering throughout departures into hip-hop-inspired drum rhythms interwoven with entrancing bass riffs, plucky classical piano over dissonance, and frequent descents into hair-raising walls-of-sound. Synthesizers and vocoders are leveraged heavily towards creating a sci-fi atmosphere particularly reminiscent of their debut Muukalainen puhuu. Overall, the culmination of these odd influences results in such a distinct identity for Oranssi that they could be fairly described as one of the most unique bands in the scene — both in black metal and rock ’n’ roll broadly.

With the fourth quarter of the year kicking off, it’s worth mulling over which albums will be making the “Best of 2024” list, and I’m reasonably certain this album will be making the cut… but we’ll see. It’s been a good year for metal.

That’s all for now. Keep an eye out for some of the aforementioned updates.

Happy Halloween!

When anyone dives into black metal, it is not long before they’ll hear of National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM). NSBM is a catch-all term used to denote radical right-wing metal, but like many blanket terms, it is absent of nuance and does a poor job painting a picture of metal’s political landscape — especially how neo-Nazis ever came to be there in the first place.

A Fair Warning

Some of the content discussed is going to be extreme, complete with uncensored examples of racism and antisemitism. Hateful language and imagery will be shown in totality. Please, do not brigade any provided links or use any takedown methods on the sources. Much of these sources are maintained by archivists of pure intent. Those hosted with ill intent are still important for research. The biggest favor you could lend towards stopping the spread of fascism is to not engage in it yourself.

All that said, I’d recommend opening any YouTube links in a private window, unless you want to ruin your recommendations.

So what is National Socialism?

National socialism is Nazism, but only connotatively. The term was derived from Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or the National Socialist German Workers Party. The use of the term “National Socialist” itself origins from the works of Rudolf Jung, who held a close relationship with Hitler. Jung self-described as the Karl Marx of National Socialism.

Despite Jung’s own anti-capitalist views, Nazis were never truly socialist. Nonetheless, they did toy with the ideology publicly as a means of appealing to Germany’s then-suffering lower class. This façade carried far enough to result in the infamously unfulfilled 25-point Program, a series of directives towards creating a more worker-centric Germany.

Apart from Jung, the adoption of socialist rhetoric was spurred along by Gregor and Otto Strasser, formative members of the Nazi Party who were indeed socialists. The caveat here is that upon Otto’s eventual exile1 and Gregor’s execution during the Night of the Long Knives, the most prominent left-wing members of the Nazi party were snuffed out. Even Jung was eventually sidelined into a minor position within the party. Pairing Hitler’s vain use of socialism with his courting of industrialists as a means to recover Germany from its ongoing recession, it’d be fair to deem Nazis as very capitalist.

National Socialism can be more simply understood as a fully-realized Lebensraum, a term denoting imperialist Germanic ethnonationalism.

Völkism, Ariosophy, and Nazi Esotericism

The core ideology of Nazism is Völkische Bewegung, which is a term that does not translate to English smoothly. Google Translate will spit out “nationalistic movement” in a noble attempt, and Wikipedia plays it safe with the more common “Völkisch movement”. While Translate almost hits the mark, Völkisch more specifically refers to the racialist cultural revival of German tradition that arose in response to Enlightenment and the modernity it ushered into many places of the world.

It is from Völkische Bewegung that the seeds of Nazism first sprouted, including the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi party. The DAP was started by Anton Drexler, who would go on to induct Hitler.

The revival of Germanic paganism through Völkische Bewegung gave way to Ariosophy or “the wisdom of Aryans”. This unique breed of racial occultism would stoke the coals of Nazism via a shadowy organization of Bavarian aristocrats known as the Thule Society. The Thule Society was the Munich chapter for a larger secret society known as the Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail (which loosely translates to “the Allfather Teutonic Order of the Holy Grail”). The Germanenorden Walvater formed in a schism within the original Germanenorden, founded in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch. Fritsch was the publisher of highly influential antisemitic works, such as The Handbook of the Jewish Problem and the German translation of Henry Ford’s antisemitic newsletter known as The International Jew. It is from Fritsch’s Germanenorden that the swastika found its way to being a symbol for Nazism.

The Germanenorden took great interest in the supernatural and the occult, giving way towards fixations on myths like Hyperborea, Agartha, or Vril. This hodge-podge of intrigue — an occultic secret society of rich white men igniting the largest geopolitical conflict in history — has since become such an object of fascination for countless works of fiction that it is easy to regard it all as a conspiracy theory. Regardless, the Thule Society was indeed real and acted as a key sponsor for the formation of the DAP. Many formative members of the DAP were members of the Thule Society, including Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, and Karl Harrer.

Neo-Nazis

Neo-Nazism is the continuation of Nazism beyond the collapse of the Third Reich. Due to emerging as early as the 1950’s, neo-Nazis are worldwide and heavily engrained in almost every other form of white supremacy. True to its origins, the primary tenancies of neo-Nazism are imperialism, militarism, aryanism, and antisemitism.

Antisemitism vs Anti-Judaism

Antisemitism is a core belief of neo-Nazism, insofar that the absence thereof would preclude one from the designation. Determining if a band is antisemitic requires distinction from anti-Judaism. Metal being a very anti-religious genre, it is highly common for bands to speak in extreme terms about the elimination of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — especially through violence. This can appear similar to religious antisemitism, which is a stance that calls for the extermination of Jewish people due to religious rivalry. While metal’s areligious nature does put it at odds with Judaism, a band only crosses the threshold into antisemitism when their hatred is angled towards Jewish people over the religion itself.

An example of an anti-Judaist metal song would be Inquisition’s Crush the Jewish Prophet, which is sung from the perspective of a “warrior of Satan’s legion” calling for the murder of Jesus. While Dagon and Incubus heavily toe the line in specifying a Jewish prophet (and flirting with NSBM for the release of this very track), the term is not used in any way beyond a distinction. While violence is expressed, being towards a long-dead mythic figurehead invokes symbolism over literalism. For these reasons, the content of the song itself never strays beyond the violent secularism that is heavily present in both black and death metal.

In contrast, The Shitagogue by Grand Belial's Key calls instead for the genocide of Jewish people, whom it dubs “nomadic human pork” and “the chosen people of ZOG”. The ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) is a widespread conspiracy theory that claims the governments of Western nations are controlled by a Jewish cabal. Grand Belial’s Key and Inquisition bear a lot of similarities in their aesthetic and areligious stances, but the rhetoric within their music is heavily separated by the literalism of the former.

Nazis, Klansmen & Skinheads

Völkism, the Ku Klux Klan, and racist Skinheads all emerged distinctly, but today, these groups are near homogenous. There were many groups that are responsible for this coalescence, but some have had profound impacts that persist in the metal scene to this day.

The American Nazi Party (1959)

The American Nazi Party, founded by George Lincoln Rockwell, is one of the longest standing neo-Nazi parties in the world. Rockwell served in the US Navy during WWII, but afterwards became politically active as a neo-Nazi. Rockwell ran for office twice: once for president in 1964 (against Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater), and once for Virginia’s governor. While he only netted approximately 200 votes for president, his bid for Governor of Virginia netted one percent of the vote with over 5,700 ballots cast in his favor.

Rockwell was a supporter of black separatism and was vocally in favor of Nation of Islam figures like Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. This odd alliance was brought about by Muhammad’s espousal of antisemitic rhetoric and encouragement of black Americans to repatriate Africa.

National Front (1967)

Of all hybrid groups of nationalists, few have had such a lasting impact on the music scene as the National Front. The NF began in the United Kingdom during the 1960’s and was very active in the promotion of white power punk and rock bands. The NF’s involvement with the music scene would culminate into the formation of white power music collectives and labels, such as Blood & Honour. The NF achieved a great deal towards uniting white supremacists under a single banner by championing neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and racist skinheads alike.

Nationalist Front

While the National Front largely fizzled out in the 90’s, newer organizations have assumed its mantle, including the similarly-named US-based coalition of far-right extremist groups known as the Nationalist Front, which adopted a near-identical logo to the National Front. The Nationalist Front rose to infamy in 2017 due to its involvement in the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which culminated to vehicular homicide when a protestor ran their vehicle through a crowd of counter-protesters. The Nationalist Front has since disbanded, but the associated organizations and members have continued under splinter groups.

National Alliance (1974)

The National Alliance, founded by William Pierce, emerged two decades later than the American Nazi Party, but nonetheless went on to become the most prominent neo-Nazi party in the US during the 90’s. During this peak, the National Alliance would go on to follow in the footsteps of the National Front by venturing into the music industry as a means of outreach.

The National Alliance’s adoption of an Algiz rune (ᛉ) as their logo is a notable milestone in neo-Nazism’s departure from Christian Identity towards its Völkisch roots. While the National Alliance is defunct today, it has found spiritual succession through online splinter groups, illustrating its impact on modern white supremacy.

White Aryan Resistance (1983)

The White Aryan Resistance (WAR) is an American neo-Nazi organization that stemmed from the Ku Klux Klan (not to be confused with the Arkansas prison gang of the same name). Within US extremism, they played a role in bringing together neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, and Klansmen under a single unified goal of white supremacy, with the added flavor of being highly militant where many prior groups had been political. Another unique distinction carried by WAR is founder Tom Metzger’s adoption of the Third Position, a movement that gave new life to the ideas of the Strassers.

Due to challenges the group encountered in the ‘90’s at the hands of its members’ violent actions, WAR shifted to a more decentralized approach, seeking to radicalize individuals as “lone wolves” through which to enact WAR’s agenda via subversion and disorganized acts of violence.

The Order (1983)

The Order (a.k.a. Silent Brotherhood) was a Christian white supremacist group that existed during the 90’s that likewise banded together a variety of white supremacists from various organizations. However, instead of the usual crowd of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and racist Skinheads, the Order was also comprised of Christian crusaders, survivalists, and other members of the far-right typically regarded as less extreme.

The Order was criminally active, and disbanded after the arrests of key members following the murder of the staunchly liberal radio host Alan Berg. Berg was targeted for being of Jewish descent.

While the Silent Brotherhood is a defunct group today, it bears mention for its association to David Lane, a member who died amidst a 190-year prison sentence for his involvement with Alan Berg’s murder. David Lane is one of the most influential white supremacists since the 90’s, and started a movement known as Wotansvolk. Wotanism is a form of pagan white supremacy very prevalent in both metal and neo-Nazism.

The 14 Words & 88 Precepts

Another notable creation of Lane’s was the coining of the Fourteen Words, a slogan used by many white supremacists.

We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children…

— Fourteen Words

There is an additional fourteen words that act as a second part to the slogan.2

…because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the Earth.

— Fourteen Words, The Sequel

The impact of the Fourteen Words on white supremacists is immeasurable, and even finds a place on the webpage of the American Nazi Party. To go along with this credo, Lane further penned what he dubbed the “88 Precepts”, a manifesto overflowing in racist, sexist, homophobic, and fascist rhetoric steeped in contradictions and platitudes.

David Lane’s choice to create eighty-eight flimsy rules was not a coincidence: “88” is a numeric shorthand for “Heil Hitler”, with H being the eighth letter of the alphabet. This fascination with phrases reduced to numeric representations is common in the world of neo-Nazis and their ilk. 28 (BH, as in Blood & Honour), 18 (Adolf Hitler), and 198 (Sig Heil) are all common examples, but 88 is by far the most prevalent in the metal scene.

Neo-Nazis and Music

Neo-Nazis have found their way into all sorts of random corners of the music scene, including country, folk3, rock’n’roll, punk, hardcore, electronic music, metalcore4, and — of course — black metal. Today, NSBM comprises an estimated 2.5% of all black metal releases (1% of all metal).5 Black metal is now considered the de facto genre for neo-Nazis, who began cropping up in the genre in 1993. However, the road they took into the genre was a long one that began almost thirty years prior.

The earliest neo-Nazi record label was Hatenanny Records, started by George Lincoln Rockwell. Hatenanny6 only released two albums, both in 1964. From these releases emerged two acts: Odis Cochran & the 3 Bigots and Rockwell’s own G.L. Rockwell & the Coon Hunters. All lyrics are credited to Rockwell himself, and they are not for the faint of heart. One tracked performed often enough to survive via recordings is the title track of Hatenanny’s first release, the shamelessly bigoted Ship Those Niggers Back.

America’s for whites

Africa’s for blacks

Send those apes back to the trees

Ship those niggers back

Woven into the brazenly racist lyrics is Rockwell’s own stance on repatriation of black Americans to Africa, the basis for his alignment with black separatists. The political aims of Hatenanny are only further accented through examining the equally egregious album artwork.

The inclusion of what appears to be Lyndon Johnson alongside racist caricatures of black Americans is likely due to Johnson’s platform of desegregation in the 1964 presidential elections, the very same one in which Rockwell suffered a dismal defeat.

The close political association with a neo-Nazi organization differentiates Hatenanny from labels like Reb Rebel Records. Reb Rebel was far more active in the production of white power country music than Hatenanny and released a string of singles over decades. Reb Rebel’s biggest act was Johnny Rebel (an alias for Clifford Trahan), whose lyrics were segregationist, pro-Confederate, and very pro-Klan. Despite Reb Rebel’s success in relation to Hatenanny, the founder, producer J. D. Miller, was more of a common racist, being unaffiliated with any political organization. Political affiliations aside, both Miller and Rockwell realized the power of connecting to a larger audience through music, whether the motive was for accruing capital or spreading propaganda.

That white supremacists latched on to country and rock’n’roll music is undoubtedly ironic, as both are heavily derived from the blues and thus born of black Americans. Unfortunately, little amusement is to be found in their blunder. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that nobody in this corner of politics gained any degree of self-awareness in the coming decades. Thus racist country continued on, eventually finding an unlikely successor almost two decades later: the British punk scene’s Oi! movement.

Skinheads and Oi!

Oi! arose to combat the commercialization of punk occurring in the late ‘70’s, separating itself from the likes of post-punk, New Wave, and hardcore by leaning more into punk’s hard rock roots of the 1960’s. This gave it a distinct sound from the fast-paced riffs of hardcore punk developing in tandem in America, though the two genres have similar underpinning ideologies of activism and representation of the working class.

Oi! erupted from the Skinhead movement, which is where it finds its connections to neo-Nazis and white supremacists. While “skinhead” is presently used to denote white supremacists, the Skinhead movement was originally a worker-centric punk subculture that dealt more in fashion and music than ones political beliefs. After almost three decades and two waves, a schism formed between the left- and right-wings within the movement. Right-wing skinheads began succumbing to the appeals of Martin Webster of the National Front, giving rise to the distinction of “racist skinhead”. Webster was acting on behalf of John Tyndall, who was chairman of the NF from 1972 to 1980 and had been an active neo-Nazi dating back to the 1950’s.

Martin Webster first met Tyndall as members of the British National Party, and would go on to follow him through multiple organizations to the National Front. Despite his steadfast loyalty to Tyndall, Webster would eventually be ousted from the NF for homosexuality.

Rock Against Racism

The influx of white supremacy into music brought along a counter-movement called Rock Against Racism. Rock Against Racism began as a one-off concert, largely catalyzed by Eric Clapton’s infamous racist onstage rant of 1976. Due to the outcry from Clapton’s onstage actions, the public rallied behind Rock Against Racism. This gave it the momentum to maintain through a series of performances, rallies, and carnivals.

“Keep Britain White”

During his onstage rant, Clapton is reported as having stated “Keep Britain white.” It is likely Clapton did not coin this phrase himself, as it was regularly parroted by the likes of the NF and nationalist pundits. This long-standing racist slogan was allegedly penned by Arnold Leese in 1952. Leese was a veterinarian-turned-neo-Nazi who mentored Colin Jordan, the creator of the White Defence League (WDL). The WDL co-opted this slogan for their 1959 demonstration called “Stop the Coloured Invasion”.

Tyndall had been a member of Jordan’s League, which eventually merged with the National Labour Party into the British National Party (BNP), where Tyndall would meet Webster. When ideas between the two once-separate groups began to cause tension — namely, Jordan and Tyndall’s public neo-Nazi beliefs — Jordan split off to form the National Socialist Movement (NSM)7 with Tyndall as his deputy. Jordan was spurred along into forming the NSM by a letter from none other than the American Nazi Party's own George Lincoln Rockwell. It is from the NSM that Tyndall would continue on into the National Front.

From Rockwell and Leese, to Jordan and Tyndall, to Webster and Skinheads and finally, somehow, Eric-fucking-Clapton — from pariah to popstar, a web of ideals formed between the remnants of the Nazi party and the music industry. Rock Against Racism was the countermovement to these influences surfacing into the public eye. However, it would not be enough to quell the seed that Webster had planted in the Skinhead movement. Upon RAR’s explosion, yet another countermovement reared its ugly head from within Oi!

Rock Against Communism

After the success of the Rock Against Racism movement, the National Front began organizing its own response: Rock Against Communism, or RAC. The genre’s title is deceptively agreeable, but in reality, RAC is a predominantly nationalist music movement that began with some of the first known Nazi punk bands. Rock Against Communism quickly became a global genre, and almost always carries with it themes of nationalism corresponding to its locale — even in places as far from Europe as Japan.8

RAC’s sound kept its footing in punk, but took on a stronger kinship to metal than its predecessor, Oi! While not typical of all RAC, the tendency of some bands to sport thrashy riffs bore a strong likeness to the hardcore-rooted crossover scene. Many RAC songs incorporate fast punk rhythms, tremolo picking, and barked vocals, styles that meld well into black metal.

While RAC carries more torches for punk, rock, and metal than it does country, the influence of Rockwell’s Hatenanny appears in the work of the German RAC act Landser.

Landser was disbanded when the band was deemed a criminal organization by German law for the espousal of hateful rhetoric. Invoking decades-old hatred from across the world, their track titled Afrika Lied (Africa Song) pays homage to Rockwell’s Ship Those Niggers Back.

Afrika für affen (Africa for monkeys)

Europa für weiße (Europe for whites)

Steckt die affen in ein boot (Put the monkeys in a boat)

Und schickt sie auf die reise (And send them on their journey)

This reference is a significant marker between the early roots of neo-Nazism and the ideology’s eventual move into black metal.

National Socialist Black Metal

A widely-known example of the unholy matrimony between RAC and black metal is Absurd. The three original members of Absurd were charged with murder at 17-years-old after they killed their peer, 15-year-old Sandro Beyer. Beyer’s murder occurred roughly a few months before Varg Vikernes’ murder of Euronymous, and after Faust of Emperor murdered Magne Andreassen. These three separate events have gone down in history as a bloody milestone in black metal.

Today, Varg Vikernes remains one of the most known figures associated with NSBM. Many know him for his continuous racist and antisemitic public statements. Vikernes’ repute as a white supremacist kicked off with the publication of his book Vargsmål (Varg’s Speech) in 1994. This book sparked a new brand of Germanic ethnonationalism known as the Heathen Front, and its associated ideology, Odalism. Similar to Lane’s Wotanism and emerging two years prior, the Heathen Front is another significant step taken back towards Völkism. Despite the assumed pivotal role he played in the Heathen Front, Vikernes has disavowed ever being behind its formation.

A more proud participant of the Heathen Front is Absurd’s own Hendrik Möbus. Möbus started the German chapter of the Heathen Front (DHF) after his release from prison in 1998. The DHF has been defunct since 2005, during which time Möbus was in prison for a variety of parole violations. Möbus has been free since 2007, and while he has continued with Absurd, he more notably runs the label Darker Than Black Records. Darker Than Black’s continuous roster of eighty-eight bands has included the likes of Goatmoon, Hate Forest, and М8Л8ТХ.

Neo-Nazi Record Labels

Darker Than Black is not the only label known for pushing NSBM content. Similar labels would be the hate-rock-centric Panzerfaust, which rather humorously came to an end upon the discovery of the founder being Hispanic, and Resistance Records.

Resistance was purchased by the National Alliance for the money and reach the label offered, but the label’s sales eventually imploded when the leader of the National Alliance, William Pierce, made remarks against the common white supremacist shortly before his death.

Möbus’ Darker Than Black and the loosely affiliated No Colour Records are lesser-known than Resistance Records due to not being affiliated with a major neo-Nazi organization. Their rosters are very apolitical, but both labels publish enough NSBM to be considered among the most significant of NS labels.

The Borderlands

Not all modern NS labels use the approach of ambiguous political affiliation. Russia’s Barbatos Records is so heavily focused on neo-Nazi content that the label is sweepingly banned from most platforms. Their own Telegram profile describes their focus as “NSBM/R.A.C./Oi!/NSHC9/PEAC10/Black Metal”, with their alias including two Sowilō runes (ϟ) — the calling card of the Nazi SS. Barbatos being so staunchly focused on pushing white supremacist music damages the plausible deniability of any band that joins the roster, even if the band is of apolitical themes. That said, two of six genres claimed by Barbatos aren’t inherently racist: Oi! and black metal. Thus it is not impossible to encounter an apolitical act in their roster.

Sheep in Wolves Clothing

Behrosth of Russia is a band caught in the borderlands of neo-Nazism. Behrosth’s music is overflowing in camp and contains no overt political themes. However, the albums Behrosth released under Wunderwaffe (a subsidiary of Barbatos) were limited to eighty-eight releases, forever branding them with neo-Nazi symbolism. It may be that the members hold neo-Nazi beliefs themselves, but if so, it is not made evident through their music. Behrosth has since moved to the apolitical Goatowarex, possibly to distance themselves from Barbatos’ overt political leanings.

Magick Metal

Apart from their label affiliations, Behrosth finds kinship with other bands of neo-Nazism’s borderlands through their sound. The Russian duo sports a peculiar blend of psychedelic doom, New Wave, and black metal known as blackened psychedelic rock, or Magick Metal.

Magick Metal brings with it terrible production and abundant camp, familiar to fans of raw black metal and dungeon synth. Most Magick Metal invokes imagery from extreme politics like Nazism, communism, and everything in-between. The imagery is a reflection of the equally eclectic political views that comprise the scene. Determining the true nature of the artists behind the music is difficult, as a common trope of Magick Metal is utmost secrecy concerning the band members’ identities. This tendency towards anonymity is born of the genres namesake, Black Magick SS.

Black Magick SS, or BMSS, have been the subject of controversy since their inception in 2012. Many found their music as outrageous as their liberal use of Nazi symbolism. Due to the latter, BMSS is banned on all common streaming platforms and sale of the elusive merch is prohibited in most online marketplaces. Broaching the topic of BMSS in online metal music forums is a great way to invoke a four-way debate between if they’re Nazis, if they’re not, whether it matters at all, and why-are-we-even-talking-about-them-they-aren’t-even-metal. Most will agree that they bear none of the politics or self-seriousness that has become the standard for neo-Nazi music.

Any debate about the use of Nazi symbolism is generally centered around whether or not it can be done playfully. The naysayers claim that any use of Nazi iconography is distasteful and validates the abhorrent beliefs of neo-Nazis, even if the music itself does not espouse the ideals. Those unopposed typically regard it as Nazisploitation, the intentionally distasteful use of Nazi imagery and ideology towards the creation of shock art.

Regardless of any controversy, Magick Metal still managed to carve out a distinct identity that bridges the space between the darkest depths of the music industry to the lighthearted tones of psychedelic and New Wave. Whether this achievement is to be owed to neo-Nazis or pranksters is up for debate, but it is an impressive feat nonetheless.

An Inseparable Link

Neo-Nazism has been a festering at the fringes of Western society for over half a century, and the music industry has always provided its adherents a place for expression. As the world became a more unwelcoming place for their hate, neo-Nazis retreated into darker recesses of the music industry, eventually finding themselves in the shadowy refuge of black metal. The anonymity typical of the musicians, the air of misanthropy, and the deliberate subversion of social norms proved perfect for those seeking a harbor for their hatred.

When viewed wholly, the migration of neo-Nazis into black metal is an unsurprising outcome. The bigger question is whether ridding black metal of those we find to be of contemptuous beliefs is more important than preserving the air of “anything goes” that has afforded refuge to far more than neo-Nazis.

Upcoming Posts

• An extremely apologetic recommendations post for May and June ‘24

• The statistics of neo-Nazism in metal (our first Premium post)

• Some more death metal recommendations from Duke

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Sources, Shout-outs, and Additional Material

Band photos and additional details about bands were found on Encyclopaedia Metallum. Everything I do on this blog is made easier by that site. Go buy some merch from them.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been extremely useful by keeping tabs on many of the mentioned organizations. The FBI has made a lot of their files on the same organizations public, which proved very handy.

The work of both Mattias Gardell and Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke has been absolutely invaluable in understanding the links between white supremacy and modern paganism. Anyone looking to learn more on the subject should begin with their books.

Please feel free to report any issues to me directly at set@blackmetalbookclub.com.

Duke's Newest Video

Often misunderstood and misaligned, Duke sheds some light on some early technical death metal, as well as progressive death metal. Despite its controversial nature amongst fans of death metal overall, there are many gems to be found.

The Video!!!

I didn’t enjoy as many bands this month as last, so there’s no need for two posts this time around. That said, I’m squeezing as many bands into this post as I can without Substack truncating the resulting email, so I’m going to forego getting into the stats. Maybe I’ll create a separate post for that.

Sorry — I’m getting distracted. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Sunrise Patriot Motion — My Father Took Me Hunting in the Snow

Sunrise Patriot Motion is an act to be keeping a close eye on. While their debut album Black Fellflower Stream flew under the radar for many, it ended up being one of my favorite releases of 2022. Their latest release being an EP, I’m not as blown away this time around purely for wanting more. There’s a marked improvement in their songwriting, but there’s only two actual songs on the EP. Nonetheless, if post-punk and goth are sounds you can enjoy, you’d be amiss to overlook this release.

Listen on Bandcamp

Lutto — Coscienze Infelici

Speaking of gothic black metal, Lutto cropped up with a fun album. This isn’t quite as post-punk inspired as Sunrise Patriot Motion’s style, drawing instead on the organ-driven sounds of goth metal. Lutto’s opting for melody over complexity pairs well with the haunting tones of organ and harpsichord. Being an Italian band, the harsh vocals flow elegantly and thus strike a nice vampiric sound. All these parts assembled result in a perfect album for some spooky atmosphere.

Listen on Bandcamp

Blood Eclipse — Н​е​б​е​с​н​а​я К​р​о​в​о​т​о​ч​а​щ​а​я Л​у​н​а

The Russian black metal scene has been pretty busy, and unlike most countries churning out regular releases, Russia is putting out consistent quality. Blood Eclipse stands out even amongst the Russian crowd. I would consider this album a perfect example of the sounds prevailing in Slavic nations as of late. It has the occultic lean typical of the Mediterranean crowd, but captures all the intensity sought by second wave die-hards of Scandinavia. If the vibe of Lutto is something you enjoyed, but you’re craving something a little… louder, go with this album.

Listen on Bandcamp

Walg — IV

Walg really surprised me here. I’ve listened to some of their past stuff, and while I found it all solidly performed, nothing had grabbed me fully. This changed with their fourth release since 2021, very drolly titled IV.

Title aside, this is a damn good album. Great guitar work is essential for anyone touting to be melodic black metal. While you’d think that be a given, I’ve heard many a lackluster melodic act. What’s more, the Dutch black metal scene has been popping off for a while now, but an overwhelming amount of bands coming from the Netherlands have veered towards depressive and post-black styles. For choosing for a more traditional style, Walg’s IV has ironically proven to be a breath of fresh air.

Listen on Bandcamp

Dark Goat — Abyss of Annihilation

Dark Goat has been an interesting act to follow. This isn’t even the first time this year that I’ve recommended an album from them. Highly prolific in their short lifespan, their now monthly releases vary just enough to keep one coming back. Their sound tends to shift around between black, death, and grind, but this album fits squarely in the blackened death realm of the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Listen on Bandcamp

Herxheim — Contrapasso

Patrick Brown of the now defunct Howls of Ebb has returned with another Herxheim release. (Firstly, if you haven’t heard Howls of Ebb before, fix that.) Herxheim has always had a very distinct sound. Sure, the similarities to HoE pop up here-and-there, but in my opinion, Herxheim never quite captured the same evil magic. On Contrapasso, all the grimy grooves that make HoE so great are present but in a way that still keeps with the very raw style that Herxheim has asserted on past releases.

Listen on Bandcamp

Darkthrone — It Beckons Us All

Darkthrone has been busy this past decade, and every release has brought forward a slight variation on their famous style. The latest may be the biggest leap in their sound for some time. It continues on with the doomier elements of recent albums but with Fenriz bringing along some of the vocal stylings of his recent trad- and doom-inspired side-project Coffin Storm. This is a worthwhile album for those of Mercyful Fate, Candlemass, or Celtic Frost fandom.

Listen on Bandcamp

Venomous Echoes — Split Formations And Infinite Mania

Here’s something else for the blackened death fans. This is the second release from I, Voidhanger on this list (the other being Herxheim). The Italian label’s roster is known for avant-garde, death, and black metal of the highest caliber, and that makes it a perfect home for Venomous Echoes. While most of the album keeps to styles typical of blackened death, the bizarre sampling throughout the album drives it into the realm of the unsettling. Even ignoring the samples, the vocals and instrumentation range from intense to spastically dissonant. Bands like this are why I never forget to peak at I, Voidhanger’s releases each month.

Listen on Bandcamp

Inter Arma — New Heaven

This album is much better than the stupid album cover might lead one to believe. Inter Arma has always been a powerhouse in the USBM scene, known for their sludgy riffs that carry on in an entrancingly psychedelic fashion. New Heaven is a much more visceral work than past releases, pushing into sounds that one would expect more from death metal. It may be that Mike Paparo’s time in Artificial Brain is seeping through.

Listen on Bandcamp

Dystopia — De Verboden Diepte I: Veldslag op de Rand van de Wereld

At least a couple of people will remember Dystopia from my recommendations last month. I had mistaken their released single for this album with their prior album Geen Weg Uit. I’m very glad I did, as Geen Weg Uit ended up being an incredible album. I’m split on whether I prefer De Verboden Diepte I or Geen Weg Uit, but I can say that De Verboden Diepte I is quite ambitious. It appears to be an operetta. (I don’t feel like deciphering the Dutch at the moment, but the titles and album art definitely invoke that feeling.)

I was surprised to find that the trumpet is not as present on this album, instead appearing at strategic moments to drive home certain tones. I think the same could be said of the songwriting broadly; everything feels more calculated and the result is an album with greater purpose than the albums before.

Actually, I’ve made up my mind — I like this album more than their last.

Listen on Bandcamp

That’s all I can squeeze into this post before it is no longer email-friendly. There were some other bands I wanted to include, but they got axed for not quite standing out enough (Nimbifer and Howl, to give some examples). Feel free to add your own favorite April 2024 releases in the comments section.

The Internet is Not Real

The Black Metal Book Club exists in a few places online. We use Instagram for promotion, and Discord for discussion. Obviously Substack is in play as well. Meetup is what got us started, but my attention there has dwindled. We even have a website. However, none of these elements are what I'd consider the club itself. The club occurs every time we meet in-person. For that reason, I've started denoting our online followers as passive members and our attendees as active. Our subscribers here on Substack are more than appreciated, but I would consider them passive members.

The whole of followers, channel members, and subscribers are still valuable insofar as they are aware of the group and nonetheless help evangelize to potential active members, but at the end of the day we aren't advertisers (or influencers, as our namby-pamby verbiage of today calls them). We are musicians, collectors, enthusiasts, and writers. That requires that we actually get together and do something.

Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Discord would love for people to think otherwise. That's because it services their bottom line. The reality is that staring at your screen is about as productive as staring at the wall.

Loose Formats are Better

A lot have wondered about the name “Black Metal Book Club”. It's mostly a joke, but there is actually an origin to the name. I had recently acquired a copy of an album by A Forest of Stars, A Shadowplay for Yesterdays. This was a special issue of the CD release that came in a storybook case. As I amusedly thumbed through the pages, I found myself wishing that I had somebody to share it with, or even to discuss black metal with at all. I had been living in Savannah again for a couple of years but had yet to connect with anybody else of the same musical proclivities. I then decided that I would need to take the initiative to do so, and I set upon creating a black metal discussion group on Meetup. Silly black metal book fresh in mind, I decided to give it a book club format. Members would submit their favorite bands, and we would all spend the month listening to the associated discography. Thus, the Black Metal Book Club was born.

For the first eight months, we adhered to the book club format. We hosted at my favorite local watering hole, White Whale Craft Ales, where I had developed friendships with the staff. There, we were able to drink quality beer and play our music of choice. All was going well. By the eighth month, our numbers had grown and challenges emerged.

Firstly, wrangling together a large group of drunk people into a roundtable discussion is… challenging, to say the least. Some people got bored, some people hogged the floor, and, of course, some didn't even listen to the band of the month.

Secondly, it became apparent that the most impactful elements of the club were everything around the discussion format: the conversation, the learning, and the relationships. For that, I decided to drop the discussion format altogether in favor of simply hanging out, drinking beer, and listening to metal. Doing so also allowed us to move from monthly sessions to weekly, now known as Metal Mondays. Since then, the club is more lively than ever, and we all see each other enough to keep it fresh in everyone's mind. For myself, this weekly format is much easier to administer, even if it's more frequent.

Pulling back on the structured format also allowed room for more events, each of a focused topic. We have a record club at Two Tides Brewing on Sundays, and jam sessions on Tuesdays and Saturdays. This gives everybody a variety to choose from, based on their availability and their preference. When looked at altogether, we have something going on at least four days a week. Going from one or two events a month to around fifteen in the same timeframe has stricken me with complete awe. My first post on this blog mentions having hosted fifteen events in the span of eight months. I can’t imagine ever going back to meeting so scarcely. It really feels like this club is running itself now.

Embrace the Ridiculous

All-in-all, black metal is pretty stupid. It's a self-serious genre popularized by angsty idiots who thought people actually cared if they killed each other, killed themselves, or burned down churches. They changed nothing about the world we live in beyond giving us something to laugh at while listening to their surprisingly-good-while-intentionally-bad music. For that, there's no harm in us acting a bit ridiculous ourselves.

Many of us have had truly bad experiences in our lives, some even horrific. We count among us victims of torture, rape, and abuse. We have veterans. We have people of color, immigrants, queer folk, and other marginalized groups. None of us really asked for these experiences, unlike the pampered Scandinavian punks of yore, but we do our best to make the most of it. Sometimes that means being a bit ridiculous.

Our most usual outlandish behavior is simply playing our music loud and proud in local bars. We're lucky that the White Whale and Two Tides are so accommodating to us, as it's a regular occurrence that clientele walk in, hear our music, and turn right back around. Of course, we are consistently paying customers, so I do believe it's in their interest. However, other Metal Mondays have failed to really get off the ground for the same reasons. (Looking at you, Whitaker's - we would have been valuable clientele. Maybe not enough to keep the bar from going under, but who knows?)

Of course, there's also the corpse-painted pub crawls (corpse crawls, we call them) or all the… uh… sharp objects. There's the spike bats and lighting them on fire at neighborhood parties. The medieval weapons, skulls, and taxidermy set up at bars. The raiding of abandoned churches. The stand-offs with people who’d presume us Neo-Nazis. The hauling of boomboxes blaring blast beats down the sidewalk. The jam sessions that echo down the street. It’s all ridiculous, and all worth it. What matters is all it inspires in onlookers. One member's first encounter with the group was walking into our record club, during which I was adorned in war paint and far too many knives. He's been a steadfast member since — a valuable one at that, overflowing with musical and production talent, and great connections to boot. One moment of ridiculousness can go very far.

Embrace the Ridicule

You’re not going to act out the way we do without pissing off a few cowardly nobodies. They don’t matter individually, but the optics of how the matter is handled do matter. This goes doubly for preserving the belligerent spirit of black metal.

The bar crawls dressed as various spooks have earned us some delicious hate in the cesspit of lonely, pseudointellectual losers otherwise known as “reddit”, which may be my favorite case of our group being ridiculed. Never engage the halfwit horde directly, but at least harness their hate. To this day, the most traffic we’ve ever achieved on this blog in one day came from redditors piling in to learn more about us. Of course, most of them are simply looking for ammunition with which they can make themselves feel better about their pathetic existences, but a few may actually like what they find.

Of course, an occasional sad sack on Instagram wanders into our comments for an attempt at bullying our members. My personal policy on this is to never block them, but to make them block us. I’ve always seen blocking as something of a cowardly move. What’s more, it’s not really in the spirit of black metal to turn tail and hide. So whenever some idiot appears in our comments, I reply in as provocative a manner as possible and lure them in to replying. Rinse-and-repeat, with increasing belligerence on each cycle. Sometimes, I go to their page and mirror their behavior. Eventually, they get exasperated and block us, after which, I clean up their comments on our posts. To this day, we have never blocked anybody harassing our group, but we have been blocked several times.

Rebuke Power

In my time in the corporate world1, one concept that I’ve seen proselytized more than practiced is the idea of servant leadership. (I have seen it practiced before — just rarely.) It’s a disarming concept to believe that a higher-up is a servant to you and not vice versa, but it doesn’t change the experience in any meaningful way. Unlike a business, a club is actually conducive for such a concept, because everyone participates in a club for some sort of benefit. The role of the organizers of a club is to ensure that everybody continues to benefit from their membership.

A club works best when one person does not have all the power. At times, it’s advantageous for the group to have a person or persons having the final say on big decisions, but in the day-to-day sense, everyone gains the most when certain responsibilities are left to the most able or willing. This ensures that those responsibilities are done to the fullest, improving the quality of the club for all. The added benefit for the organizers is that they aren't spreading themselves too thin.

This is largely why I have passed off responsibility for some of our events. Jam sessions are handled by a member who had the space for gear, the desire to keep the sessions going, and trustworthiness for the responsibility. The torch for our record club is being carried by the most avid participant — the one with the most motive to keep it going. I already have a few members chosen to hold down Metal Mondays in the event that I can’t make it.

Self-Publish, Hire Your Friends

The Black Metal Book Club relies on very little for it to continue. There are certain elements that rest in the hands of large companies but none that are essential. As mentioned before, our group chat is hosted on Discord and our social media on Instagram. Sure, if any of these sites went out, there’d be some confusion and difficulty, but these platforms aren’t what make the club. If we really needed to, this club could exist solely through word of mouth and phone calls.

In contrast to the services we use, our website was built by me and cloud-hosted on Digital Ocean. No Wix or Squarespace. No Wordpress. If Digital Ocean were to implode overnight, we could simply move along to another cloud provider and keep it going. So long as the website is in place, we have a mouthpiece for reaching anyone with an internet connection.

Everything else about the club can be done in person. Clubs are people. They aren't screen names, profiles, emails, or statistics. Followers are not friends, and a “like” isn't an action. Get away from the phones and the feeds, and dive into a hobby or craft of your own. Afterwards, get out and meet those who do the same. You’ll find that everyone has their own skill to bring to the table, and once enough are in a room together, you’ll have a means to accomplish things that you never would have been able to on your own. In regards to the club, we not only have enough talent to start at least a few bands, but we could likely get our own production company off the ground. (All in due time, of course.)

Continuing to lean on businesses for something a friend could do only gives up your power to do things the way you’d truly want. Once you have effective people around you of a like mind, the empowerment such a network creates is a unique force. It’s in such a network that you'll find your real friends. If your experience is anything like mine, you might find a family there as well.

Ivy Ledbetter Lee is known today as one of the most significant figures in the formation of modern propaganda. Lee was born the son of a Methodist minister, in Cedartown, Georgia, 1877, but these humble roots did nothing to hinder his climb to the top. A graduate of Emory and Princeton, he went on to become a journalist for New York-based newspapers including the New York Times.

Following his time as a journalist, Lee moved into the management of publicity for major corporations, known today as public relations or simply “PR”. His client list was not insignificant. As an early success in his career, he was behind the quelling of concerns created by the 1906 Atlantic City train wreck. The public’s concern was remediated by Lee consulting the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to address the travesty in what has become known as the first press release, published in the New York Times.

More egregiously, he assisted the Rockefellers in cleaning their sullied name after the brutal Ludlow Massacre that resulted in the deaths of twenty men, women, and children. The violence was in response to striking miners calling for improved work conditions from the Colorado Fuel & Iron company, who turned towards the Colorado National Guard for a forceful solution. The respondent conflict, known as the Colorado Coalfield War, led to many more deaths, with the exact number unknown.

After the bloody 10-day skirmish, the reputation of the Rockefellers was greatly damaged, as John D. Rockefeller Jr. was a significant stakeholder in the CF&I. With Ivy Lee’s counsel, Rockefeller Jr. set out to repair his besmirched name. It’s hard to say if Rockefeller Jr. was guilty of anymore than being ignorant of how a company he inherited from his father was being run, as unforgivable as the consequences of his ignorance may be. It’s equally hard to paint with broad strokes the nature of Ivy Lee’s character. While he was helping to stifle the outbreak of striking workers across the country, his approaches were decidedly less nefarious than that of his highly-manipulative contemporary Edward Bernays. In most cases, his pursuant strategy for helping to mend a company’s reputation was to encourage honesty, transparency, and compromise towards the requests of strikers.

Lee’s penchant for straightforwardness in his work may have been born of his roots in journalism, where the integrity of the work calls for deadpan impartiality. In contrast, Bernays’ claims are often taken with a grain of salt, even in his writings. In his two most famous works, Crystallizing Public Opinion and Propaganda, it's hard to tell when Bernays was communicating earnestly or trying to manipulate readers into seeking his services. Ivy Lee’s works veer differently, resulting in highly interesting reads that allow one to peer into the minds of persons in PR and advertising, the most prominent propagandists of our time.

One such work is Ivy Lee’s Publicity Book: A Citizen’s Guide to Public Relations; Unpublished Writings of Ivy Lee, 1928. This book originated as an internal manual compiled within Lee’s own PR firm Smith & Lee. The first chapter of this guide, titled “The Dilemma of Mr. Jones” paints an uncanny picture of the mind of the average person under the influence of numerous forces that unconsciously drive their actions every day. Almost a hundred years later, this yarn bears a striking relevance to our lives today. For this, I have chosen to transcribe it for easy reading online. The footnotes of this post are footnotes lifted directly from the text, which help clarify some of the dated jargon and events.

Anyhow, without any further ado…

The Dilemma of Mr. Jones

Although his father and grandfather were Republicans and he himself had always been loyal to the party, Mr. Jones once felt compelled to vote the Democratic ticket. At first he was frightened at the audacity, but looking back on it, he felt that vote was his declaration of independence. Thereafter he voted the Republican ticket faithfully, but he no longer considered himself a slave to any party, or to influence of any kind.

To himself, Jones appeared the perfect embodiment of Robert Burns’ ideal — “the man of independent mind.”1 He rather looked down on people whose minds were continually being made up for them.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord
   Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
   He's but a coof for a' that:
        For a' that, an' a' that,
             His riband, star, an' a' that,
        The man o' independent mind,
             He looks and laughs at a' that.

Excerpt from Robert Burns' "A Man’s a Man for A’ That"

In order to get to his office on time, Jones had to get up at 7:45 a.m., but he rose regularly at 7:30 a.m. and spent a quarter of an hour doing deep breathing and calisthenics by an open window. As part of his breakfast he insisted upon an orange from a certain state, although he never examined the comparative food values of oranges from other states and could not tell the difference in taste between them.

Every day as he went downtown, Jones complained about the transit system of his city. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays his complaint was directed against the transit company. Jones had not examined the company’s books, but he was convinced that the stockholders were getting enormous returns, that the stock was watered, the financial reports fraudulent, and the company generally a menace to the city. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, Jones still complained, but the object of his attack was the public service commission which was hamstringing the transit company, refusing it permission to charge an adequate fare, and standing in the way of the creation of new subway lines. Jones was far too busy to attend the public hearings of the commission, but he was pretty sure that all its members were political appointees without any adequate knowledge of the city’s needs and no public spirit.

Swaying from a strap, Jones read his newspaper and when he got to his office he frequently remarked to his partner, Mr. Smith, that “that was a great speech the governor (or the president) made last night.” Sometimes, if his mail was light, he took time to tell Smith what was on his mind in regard to farm relief and the situation in China. Jones had never been on a farm, and his acquaintance with Chinese matters was limited to a pronounced distaste for chop suey (which he believed to be a native Chinese dish); but he had pretty definite opinions on these subjects whenever Smith ventured to hold a hostile view. Jones remarked that Smith was getting all his ideas out of the peculiarly untrustworthy newspaper he read, and wasn’t thinking for himself at all.

Note from Seth: It’s likely that Smith and Jones are a reference to the essay by Mark Twain titled “Corn-Pone Opinions” (written in 1901, but published in 1923). However, it could have been further influenced by the famous comic strip “Keeping up with the Joneses” by Pop Momand in 1913.

Jones’s office was up to date. It was furnished with the proper number of push-buttons, filing cabinets, trays, and under the glass tops of his desk there lay two cards: a list of his insurance policies with the dates premiums were due, and the motto “Do It Now.” Jones had once been in the office of a great American executive and saw his insurance list under a desk top, and, although Jones’ own insurance was all in one company, which always sent him notices of premiums due a month in advance, he thought the executive’s idea a good one. As for “Do It Now,” everyone had that card.

It had been Jones’ habit to eat some meat for lunch, but one day a friend had argued the immeasurable benefits of crackers and milk and, from that time, Jones, although he occasionally felt a bit faint at four o’clock, ate lightly at mid-day. At 4 p.m., he fell into the habit of chewing a chocolate bar. It was his own idea and he wondered why more people didn’t do the same; one day he saw chocolate advertised for this very purpose and pointed out the ad to a friend. He was rather annoyed to later discover that the advertisement had been displayed in the same place (which Jones passed every day on his way to work) for several years.

Jones had grown a beard when he started in business for himself, because he thought it made him look older and more dependable, but as he grew older and business prospered, he decided that he could afford to be clean-shaven. It was entirely his own idea and he was pleased to see that other people followed his lead. His wife, who kept up with Charles Dana Gibson’s2 heroes seemed particularly pleased, and Jones was convinced that a man of initiative need never fear the consequences if he acts boldly. Many years later, when his wife bobbed her hair, he discovered to his amazement that he did not dislike the effect (although he had originally protested loudly against the change). He was glad to find that he was liberal-minded, and the fact that millions of imitators of Irene Castle3 had made bobbed hair as familiar to him as bread and butter never occurred to him.

In dress, Jones was never swayed by fashion. Advertisements of sport shirts and baggy trousers, pronouncements from English tailors, the snappy appearance of young men home from college, did not affect him. Jones chose his own clothes, to suit his own personality. The result was that Jones was dressed as a good conservative business man should be dressed, his clothes rich not gaudy, and not expressed in fancy. He never wore a soft collar or a bow tie to the office; his suits were dark and woolen; his handkerchief was never in his sleeve. Jones did not know it, but he dressed exactly as he had been told to dress — told by his observation of other conservative business men, by his friends, by his reading of advertisements, by listening to sarcastic remarks about novelties, by an ingrown fear of being eccentric. This complication of forces Jones was not aware of, and he called his taste in clothes an expression of his own personality.

Although he disliked walking, Jones walked halfway home from his office and kissed his wife whenever she happened to meet him in the hallway of their home. There was nothing freakish about the furnishings of the house, but each room was just what Mr. and Mrs. Jones wanted it to be. The twin beds which had replaced their original four-poster were of the same kind as those used by a duchess and a New York society leader. Jones had a reclining chair that had a trick button that pushed out a foot-rest. Every month the Joneses received and read a book which was the best book of the month. They had recently switched from auction to contract bridge4 and their Mahjong tiles had all disappeared into odd corners of the children’s playroom. They never slapped their children.

Jones’ beliefs were almost all of the result of his own thinking. He went to the church into which his father and mother had brought him, but he was not bigoted. In politics, he once voted against his party, and in local elections he put character above party, voting always for the best man and being gratified to discover how often his party managed to select a more competent and more honest man than their opponents. He was a liberal in international affairs, believing that the European nations ought to pay their debts, but that they ought not to spend money on armaments and that the United States ought not to be too harsh in its terms. He disapproved of Soviet Russia and thought that nationalization of women5 was a crime against human decency. He never got over the fact that during the war the Germans were disrespectful to their own dead, and when he heard that the cadaver-melting factory6 was a fake, he was much relieved, but he maintained that Germany, under the Kaiser, had nevertheless set itself outside the bounds of international honor. He thought Mussolini a great man, but wished that Italy had freedom of the press.

Jones had been in the habit of going to his Rotary Club luncheon, because he considered the fellow members the salt of the earth, but one day he discovered he did not care for them so much. It was an entirely independent decision and it was out of his own personal experience that he decided the Rotarians were “a bunch of Babbitts.”7 Instead he went to lunch at a restaurant picked out at random as he walked down the street and was surprised to find half a dozen of his friends there.

“Joining the crowd, eh?” one of them called to him. “Everybody’s lunching here nowadays.”

Jones took a vacant seat and presently was discussing prohibition. He said it had reduced crime. Pressed for proof, he confessed that the figures escaped him, but he was sure he was right. While his neighbor was talking to him, Jones overheard another man say that Mammoth Motors was about to go into the airplane business.

“I’m in a position to deny that,” he cut in.

“Oh, really? I didn’t know you were on the inside.”

“I’m not,” replied Jones, “But they issued a statement to their stockholders today and specifically denied it.”

There was some discussion, but in the end, Jones felt he had carried his point. Cheered by the impression he had made on his friends, he decided that he would take his wife to the theater that night. “What’s a good show?” he inquired.

“They say The Black Hat is selling out weeks in advance,” someone told him.

His wife, over the phone, was delighted at the thought of going to The Black Hat. “Everybody’s seen it,” she said.

Jones, having selected the play by use of his independent judgement, was well-pleased.

One day, Jones was staring at a “Safety First” sign and smiling at the thought of people who needed to be warned to take care of themselves. In his amusement he stepped off the curb and was promptly run down by a motor car.

In the delirium which followed, a terrible thing happened to Jones. He saw himself as he really was.

He discovered that his clothes, his habits of living, his thoughts, everything he considered part of his individual personality, were all the results of outside influence and decided that the best one was “propaganda” because it had a suggestion of impropriety. He realized that even when he went against the current, he only did so because some outside force had suggested that idea to him. He became sadly aware of his ignorance about Congress and China and of the street car situation. He had a flash of insight during which he decided that he loved his wife, but that perfunctory kiss he gave her when he came home was not due to his affection but to reading little sermons on happy marriage in his evening paper. He knew that he did not slap his children because a great fuss had been made in public about new ideals for child education. He discovered a suppressed desire for loud socks.

During his convalescence, Jones determined that when he got out of the hospital he would really live independently. He would armor himself against propaganda of every sort. He would read only the facts in the newspapers and would reject all propaganda whether it was in the form of editorials, electric signs, or word-of-mouth.

On his first day after he was released from the hospital, Jones waited for the streetcar at his usual place, but the car whizzed by him and he noticed the laughter of a few people in the car. After two more cars had refused to stop, Jones noticed that the motorman was waving him toward the next corner. He went there and got on the next car, learning from the conductor that a skip-stop8 plan had been instituted.

“You might let people know,” Jones said angrily.

The conductor, making change for someone else, muttered something about Jones needing to read the newspaper.

At his office, Jones had nothing to say to his partner after his accident had been exhausted as a topic, and when his partner asked him what he thought of the situation in Nicaragua,9 Jones had to confess that hadn’t had time to study the subject. Nor was Jones able to understand Smith’s reference to a new coastwise shipping line to which he wanted to throw some business, and when a client came in and began to discuss the presidential campaign, all Jones could say was that, until a man studied the whole situation, he ought not to make up his mind.

That evening he started to study the whole situation. A methodical man, he summarized his investigation under headings: domestic affairs, farm relief, corporations, tariffs, financial policies, electric power and the Boulder Dam, foreign affairs, European debts, The League of Nations, treaties for outlawing war, Latin America, and so on. What he wanted was impartial statements of the facts — no propaganda. On the third night of his studies, he began to be aware of difficulty. He discovered that each of his subjects was a special field of study on which experts had worked for years, and that the experts often did not agree.

He found that facts were pretty slippery things unless you knew exactly how to handle them.

Gradually, he was snowed under. He could not understand the statistics on which he had pinned his hopes. Reparations and payments of war debts began to create a chaos of meaningless figures in his brain. In connection with the League of Nations he discovered that there were no facts, only arguments, and rejected all argument because it was propaganda. He kept his mind clean of prejudice — but his mind refused to make any decisions of any kind.

He dined at a neighbor’s house and was called on to admire the new refrigerator. Instantly he was aflame with envy because he wanted to be the first in his gang to introduce the new system. “How did you get onto this?” he asked, and was told that there were ads in all the papers about it.

On the streetcar that night, Jones had stopped reading the paper after he had got “the facts alone” and had plenty of time to listen to his neighbors.

“Johnson’s breaking up,” said one, mentioning the name of a prominent city official.

“So I hear,” said the other. “Wife’s divorcing him, hey?”

“Not only that. They’ve got him for using municipal bonds for security — he speculated in the market and lost.”

“Too bad.”

Jones was shocked. After dinner he was talking to his host, while their wives chatted about schools for the children, and he said, “Too bad about Johnson.”

“It sure was,” said his host. “A coincidence like that—.”

“I mean about speculating and getting divorced,” Jones said, not quite understanding what his friend meant.

“Yes. Of course it’s all straightened out.”

“I get the idea he’d resign rather than be brought into court.”

“What the dickens would he resign for?”

“Well, they say—.”

“Good Lord man, don’t you read the papers?”

Jones muttered something about propaganda and his host went on.

“You don’t mean to tell me you’re still under the impression that was really Johnson? Why everybody knows it was a distant cousin with the same name. Of course a rumor like that hurts a man — but thank God the facts came out promptly.”

Jones said he was glad to hear it.

A few days later he heard that Complicated Petroleum was due for a slump and sold all his shares. It went up eight points, and Jones belatedly looked up the financial report of the company to learn why.

Another matter that annoyed Jones was connected with electricity. He had been receiving letters from the utility company, but, with his new resolve not to pay attention to publicity, he had thrown them [sic] into the waste basket unread. When Wilkins, who occupied the adjoining apartment, spoke of taking advantage of the contract offered by the utility company, Jones laughed vaguely, until Wilkins explained that the new contract saved him $40 a year.10

When Jones had to invite some friends to the theater, he found himself unable to choose a play. Since he would not be influenced by publicity nor by the propagandized minds of his friends, the only way he could evaluate them was to go to all the plays himself and to judge their merits unaided. He could not afford this and the situation baffled him.

He was being baffled, in fact, by a great many things. He seemed to be living in a void. He read the news items in the papers, but he could not quite understand what the significance of the items were, hardly knowing whether the election in France meant a victory for sound finance or for socialism, and remaining utterly at a loss about the qualifications of the several candidates for alderman in his own ward. From the conversation of his friends he realized that new things were going on in the world — new inventions, new ideas, new motor cars — but Jones had no opinions on them whatever. Somehow the materials for making up his own mind were lacking.

In his discomfort, Jones became fanatical. He decided that he was against everything advertised, everything publicized. He began to dream of a society in which these things did not exist, and gradually he eliminated everything he hated, not from his daily life, because his wife saw to that, but from his imagined ideal city. There were no streetcars and no motors, no telephones and no newspapers, no electric light, no running water, no elections.

Jones came to with a start. In his mind he was becoming a savage. The things that made life desirable were all products of advertising, publicity, and information. So long as he lived as a respectable father, husband, and citizen, he was part of a group created by the forces of public opinion. And he wanted to be in the group. He wanted to be among those who went to the movies, and among those who use the best razor, and among those who voted for the best man.

So long as he rejected all publicity, he isolated himself. He took on the impossible burden of solving all problems of the universe unaided and alone. He had to do the work of a 100,000 experts before he could make the simplest decision. On the other hand was the plight of Jones before his accident — when everything was decided for him by outside forces. It was a dilemma.

In Conclusion

If it isn’t clear in the conclusion of this yarn, Lee held a favorable view of publicity. Undoubtedly, he was biased — it was in his interest for people to seek out help in navigating the confusing web of information being woven in the early 20th century. Furthermore, Lee’s ability to paint a story that feels so applicable to so many really illustrates his preacher-boy roots. We all know a Mr. Jones, and we all are Mr. Jones. Some of us differ in which side of the dilemma we stand, but that’s the only real difference.

My real reason for bringing the plight of Jones to light today is two-fold.

1. I wanted to demonstrate that people have not changed much in the past century (or ever) and likely won’t be anytime soon. If you’ve ever fully exited social media platforms, you know the isolation and disconnectedness it brings about. Social media platforms are soul-sucking advertisement platforms taking advantage of a very real human need: to connect with others towards understanding the world around us.

2. I am seeking to highlight that there’s no right way to be. Nobody should buy fully into the information being placed in front of them, as it takes money and power to move information, not unlike merchandise. If you’re hearing about any given event, product, or person — unless you are an insider or viewing the phenomenon with your own eyes — there was a vested interest by somebody much more rich and powerful than you to make sure that you did. However, to shut out the outside world entirely is a folly. That doesn’t mean to buy into the idea that you must know (or even care) about what’s happening everywhere in the world. It means to turn your attention towards the community, your friends, and your family.

The world of black metal is full of iconoclasts and know-it-alls, hermits and sycophants. They all suck. We all suck. Those in power who keep us in this confusing web suck the most. Nobody is special, and nobody knows anything that wasn’t presented to them without somebody more powerful hoping to influence them. Participate in the world and your community, but be your own person and don’t buy into every cause beamed into your eyes. As I said, information doesn’t move for free. Maybe one day, it will. Until then, keep your focus on what’s in front of you — and that doesn’t mean your screen.

That’s all. Happy 420. Have some Terror Propaganda.

Convulsing — Perdurance

After a six-year wait, Convulsing is back. The one-man project of the blackened death aficionado Brendon Sloan is something of legendry today, with three rock solid albums that will eviscerate your mind as badly as the physical copies will eviscerate your wallet. The latest album delivers on all the heavy-hitting sounds of prior, but with even better instrumentation. My only complaint is that the album artwork feels boring when held up next to the nightmarish cover of Grievous (created by Jef Whitehead), but that’s hardly important.

Listen on Bandcamp

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To keep the list of March recommendations easily digestible, here’s an early peek at the albums from March 2024 that are worth your time.

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