Unintelligentsia

Wolves in the Throne Room

The following is taken from an interview with “Wolves In The Throne Room”, a black metal band I like and respect. I posted this because I thought it was a wonderful insight into why we listen, other than, “it sounds good” of course. Originally this was on my Facebook page, but fuck Facebook.

Definitely, we have nothing but disgust and hatred for the overproduced, homogenized, pro-tools drivel that mars so much contemporary metal. Don’t get me started on drum triggers. We recorded on analog equipment and mixed on the board: no computer. Still, I don’t see how this makes for a natural sound. Nothing about what we do is natural. From top to bottom, black metal relies on modern luxuries and space-age technology to exist and disseminate itself.

One of the many contradictions of black metal is that it is a music that decries civilization, but relies on so many modern contrivances to exist. I don’t think it is a natural sound at all. It is really the sound of paradox, ambiguity, confusion, being caught between two worlds that cannot be reconciled. I have had people throw this in my face before how can you play music that is supposedly anti-civilization on electric guitars? Frankly I find this line of reason boring and pointless. I remember a common line against rioters trashing the Nike store in downtown Seattle. There was a famous picture of some black-clad kid smashing the Nike sign, but zoom in and ah-ha! He’s wearing Nike sneakers! I say, who fucking cares? Catharsis is our objective, not a lilly-white and guilt free existence. We are all hypocrites and failures.

True Norwegian black metal is completely unbalanced that is why it is so compelling and powerful. It is the sound of utter torment, believing to ones core that winter is eternal. Black metal is about destruction, destroying humanity; destroying ones own self in an orgy of self loathing and hopelessness. I believe one must focus on this image of eternal winter in order to understand black metal, for it is a crucial metaphor that reveals our sadness and woe as a race. In our hubris, we have rejected the earth and the wisdom of countless generations for the baubles of modernity. In return, we have been left stranded and bereft in this spiritually freezing hell.

To us, the driving impulse of black metal is more about deep ecology than anything else and can best be understood through the application of eco-psychology. Why are we sad and miserable? Because our modern culture has failed we are all failures. The world around us has failed to sustain our humanity, our spirituality. The deep woe inside black metal is about fear that we can never return to the mythic, pastoral world that we crave on a deep subconscious level. Black metal is also about self loathing, for modernity has transformed us, our minds, bodies and spirit, into an alien life form; one not suited to life on earth without the mediating forces of technology, culture and organized religion. We are weak and pitiful in our strength over the earth in conquering, we have destroyed ourselves. Black metal expresses disgust with humanity and revels in the misery that one finds when the falseness of our lives is revealed.

Our music, then, is not true black metal for we have moved beyond this fantasy of a nihilistic apocalypse; beyond our own misery and failure. Our music is balanced in that we temper the blind rage of Black Metal with the transcendent truths of the universe that reveal themselves with age and experience. Our relationship with the natural world is a healing force in our lives.

Hippies? You mean like navel-gazing aficionados of the grateful dead? I hardly think so. I think that most people are so disconnected from a natural existence that anyone who doesn’t see the joy in playing first person shooters or dining regularly at pizza hut is a hippie. Frankly, I don’t have much interest in the opinions of urban lay-abouts. Also, it must be noted that radical environmentalism is very much a part of the tradition of the radical right. Even rabidly anti-Semitic NSBM has a strong ecological sensibility, following the Nazis explicit and well documented interest in preserving a pastoral, pre-modern Aryan utopia. At the same time, centrists decry organizations such as the ELF, who come from the anarchist tradition, as fascists and anti-humanists. Clearly there is a strong link between radical ecology and black metal, coming from the perspective of both the extreme right and extreme left. I don’t understand how one could find an earth-centered ethic and black metal incompatible to me, they are one-in-the-same.

If you listen to black metal, but you don’t know what phase the moon is in, or what wild flowers are blooming than you have failed. It is shocking to me that one could be seriously interested in black metal and not be deeply committed to radical ecology. Is black metal supposed to be about concrete highrises, suburbs, television, an easy modern existence with access to 4-tracks and corpse paint from the local hot topic? No! The music is about wild forests, unfettered rivers, nature: furious and vengeful.

Frankly, I think a good portion of black metalers haven’t thought too hard about why they are into the music. I remember reading an interview with Garm of Ulver, I think in Michael Moynihans Lords of Chaos. Garm just couldn’t say enough horrible things about the youthful malcontents who buy the majority of Black Metal records; I tend to agree with him. Black metal is a fairly easy thing to get into. There is a style, a sound, a set of beliefs its all there to be purchased or downloaded with nary a thought of ones own needed to get the whole package. There is deep truth underneath the facade of grim posturing, but one needs to search for it.