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Metal
This review of the new Slayer album reminded me of something I was thinking about earlier this weekend. I'm not a fan of Slayer, but I have been listening to a lot of metal lately. The review could be written about any metal band, or metal generally. Anytime the review mentioned Slayer, I've inserted the word metal, because for me this is about the bigger picture.
From the review:
Metal always has an internal obligation to be different from the rest of rock ’n’ roll, and Slayer’s kind was faster, darker, leaner and less ambiguous....The images of its songs, then and thereafter, were projected coldly: war, suffering, death, torture, organized religion and the connections among them all. There will always be those who seek comfort in pessimism, and there will always be war. Slayer [metal] set itself up to be around for a long time....
But the band [metal] has for a long time seemed a limited subcategory. Though the music has taken some slight side routes into slower tempos, grooves and sung-instead-of-shouted vocals, the themes of the lyrics have always been the same.
So you could age out of the relentless grimness, or grow numb to it. You could follow music and not be aware that Slayer [metal] existed anymore: the music has changed so much in 20 years, and Slayer [metal] fans tend to be the people who are invisible to the news media: immigrants, kitchen workers, unpopular teenagers. [and disgruntled 30-something women working in publishing...]
“Christ Illusion,” Slayer’s 10th studio album, deals again with the same type of material, but more pointedly about violence and religion in the service of war. Timing is everything. The band’s last album was released on Sept. 11, 2001, and only the most devoted took it in. But with religious extremism and death tolls the subject of casual daily conversations, “Christ Illusion” makes Slayer sound as if it has been holding the trump card all along. This is how a new record — all right, a very good new record — by a hoary death-metal band can feel significant.
I've been listening to a lot of metal again, and other kinds of loud, angry, rock. (There's so many sub-categories, I never know what to call anything.) I find something incredibly comforting and cathartic about it, in the same way it made me feel less alone when I was a teen. But I've noticed there's been a trend away from pure destruction and criticism, and more towards catharsis. A lot of songs are structured to go to interesting emotional places instead of just straight-ahead loud and fast. I guess this is the prog-rock element that was supposed to be an aspect of the so called nu-metal (which is a term no one wants to touch these days, since it was stickered on everything, just like "alternative" was years ago.) But there's some kind of focus not just on the hypocrisy and rage; but on this sort of personal growth aspect, consciousness raising.
And I find it incredibly beautiful, even as I feel like a weird cliche listening to age-inappropriate music. (It's me and a bunch of angry young men,) and still feel critical of the fact that there are still so few women in rock.
Anyway, these thoughts aren't fully formed, but the review put words to a few of the things I've been thinking. The new found relevence in old things. But also the strange flowers that have grown from "bad seeds."
From the review:
Metal always has an internal obligation to be different from the rest of rock ’n’ roll, and Slayer’s kind was faster, darker, leaner and less ambiguous....The images of its songs, then and thereafter, were projected coldly: war, suffering, death, torture, organized religion and the connections among them all. There will always be those who seek comfort in pessimism, and there will always be war. Slayer [metal] set itself up to be around for a long time....
But the band [metal] has for a long time seemed a limited subcategory. Though the music has taken some slight side routes into slower tempos, grooves and sung-instead-of-shouted vocals, the themes of the lyrics have always been the same.
So you could age out of the relentless grimness, or grow numb to it. You could follow music and not be aware that Slayer [metal] existed anymore: the music has changed so much in 20 years, and Slayer [metal] fans tend to be the people who are invisible to the news media: immigrants, kitchen workers, unpopular teenagers. [and disgruntled 30-something women working in publishing...]
“Christ Illusion,” Slayer’s 10th studio album, deals again with the same type of material, but more pointedly about violence and religion in the service of war. Timing is everything. The band’s last album was released on Sept. 11, 2001, and only the most devoted took it in. But with religious extremism and death tolls the subject of casual daily conversations, “Christ Illusion” makes Slayer sound as if it has been holding the trump card all along. This is how a new record — all right, a very good new record — by a hoary death-metal band can feel significant.
I've been listening to a lot of metal again, and other kinds of loud, angry, rock. (There's so many sub-categories, I never know what to call anything.) I find something incredibly comforting and cathartic about it, in the same way it made me feel less alone when I was a teen. But I've noticed there's been a trend away from pure destruction and criticism, and more towards catharsis. A lot of songs are structured to go to interesting emotional places instead of just straight-ahead loud and fast. I guess this is the prog-rock element that was supposed to be an aspect of the so called nu-metal (which is a term no one wants to touch these days, since it was stickered on everything, just like "alternative" was years ago.) But there's some kind of focus not just on the hypocrisy and rage; but on this sort of personal growth aspect, consciousness raising.
And I find it incredibly beautiful, even as I feel like a weird cliche listening to age-inappropriate music. (It's me and a bunch of angry young men,) and still feel critical of the fact that there are still so few women in rock.
Anyway, these thoughts aren't fully formed, but the review put words to a few of the things I've been thinking. The new found relevence in old things. But also the strange flowers that have grown from "bad seeds."