Expose Your Pose

When I was a teenager reading Metal Hammer GR, there was a little column whose name I can't remember where an interviewer would play ten songs for a metal musician that was featured on the issue, and the musician would strive to recognize the songs, or at least the bands. It was always an entertaining read and I do remember some famous flops by highly visible metal artists that you'd guess have never heard of metal music before. I remember also that one of the Cavalera brothers from Sepultura did sterlingly on his try.

So, I'm bringing that back. But in a whole new, horrible twist, I'm not even going to ask actual metal musicians to tell me if they recognize this or that. After all, it really is besides the point if a metal musician is also a well-read metal affictionado. For all I care, they could have never listened to anything else than two Iron Maiden songs, if their own music is great, that's fine with me. Actually, I think too much slavish devotion to 'the history of metal' and its various sacred cows might lead to unambitious metal-making, but that's besides the scope of this little experiment.

No, I'm going to ask metal bloggers. I'm not even going to select the music beforehand. They'll be hitting 'shuffle' in their grand collection of mp3s and not looking at the media player's display. I bet most people that write on the web, especially for niche metal genres won't be able to tell their Generic Death Metal #4 from their Generic Death Metal #8, but we'll see.

The rules are as follows for those that are brave:

0. Put all your media in there and shuffle. If it's on your hard drives, you have to put it there. If someone only has say, ten records on their hard drive, this does not preclude them, in fact it is a very prudent choice and they should be applauded for their skillful play.

1. No Cheating in your reports. You're only cheating yourselves with further self-delusion. Write it like it is, if you don't know what the hell is going on in your hard drive, then that's what's going on. Chalk it up to terrible debris of modernity, chalk it up to middle-lower-class upbringing urging you to collect everything you once listened to like a little pack rat. Say whatever, just don't lie about knowing what you didn't.

2. If you want to go easy on yourself, informed guesses (artist name is enough) count as positive entries. In fact, guessing what something is by elements of it being familiar to you whereas the song itself isn't, is a whole different metalhead game tradition, so you shouldn't feel too bad if you can spot a Glenn Benton in some Vital Remains or whatever. You know a few things about the things you're pretending to know a lot about, at least.

3. Recognizing the artist and the album is enough to consider that a solid plus one on your final score. Further bragging about personnel on the record, date of release or other trivia is optional and will not change the score (but feel free).

4. If you didn't know at least Artist - Record (and *especially* if you guessed wrong), you have two after-play choices. Either listen to the record attentively three times in a row and keep it, or delete it outright. Be brave! Listening to music is not supposed to be fun!

So, no more delaying the inevitable. Let all poses be exposed. I will be the first to go.


1. If you feel like playing a more difficult variation by a degree of separation, middle click here to start the link in a secondary tab and try not to look at the name of the tab while you figure it out. Read below when you get it or if you've given up. If you do better than me with my own music library, I'll bend my knee in your general direction.


Starts with a wash of reverberating distortion... no idea so far. More noise. Am I listening to some leftover industrial hidden somewhere on my hard drive? Oh, the trills of 'Night on Bare Mountain' come in, this is Mekong Delta covering Modest Mussorgsky's masterpiece, off of their own masterpiece "Dances of Death (and Other Walking Shadows)". The cover is fair and I can't complain as it served as an introduction to the composer for me. Mekong Delta would go on to cover a lot of Mussorgsky, some well, some less so but that's a whole different story. Full recognition. An auspicious start to my experiment!

2. Middle click, listen, take your guess then read below.

Hmm... I'd say America. Obvious Iron Maiden heritage. The singer doesn't sound American, though. "Hell is for Heroes"? Probable song title? This is some obvious US Metal staple that I should be really embarrassed for not - oh, "Reach for the Stars" is the obvious song title, nice corona on the chorus. Is this Cloven Hoof? If so, shame on me for not realizing straight away. This can't be off of "A Sultan's Ransom" at least, I know that record inside out. *Checks* Yes, this is Cloven Hoof, off of Dominator. "Reach for the sky". I should really listen to that record properly. But this song isn't very good. I'll make the hard choice afterwards.

3.

Oh no, dreaded post-metal, it all sounds alike! At least this is an easy one for me because I simply don't have a lot of post-metal on my archive. Obviously Isis. Off of Celestial. Is this "Collapse and Crush"? If not, it should be. *checks* Buh, Swarm Reigns Down. At least I got the correct record. Man, Isis sounded really different here as opposed to "Oceanic". The no distortion middle part here is really dry and kind of awkwardly played, they would go on to perfect that aspect of their sound later on. There's even some half-a-tone secondary voice in the bass range in here that's awfully off harmony, I guess they thought that was forward thinking at the time. Welcome to ten years of only dissonant post-metal riffing after this, thanks Isis!

4.

No idea. This sounds so completely singular (in terms of bad production), it should be impossible to not remember it though. So I simply have not listened to it enough. If this is US Power metal again I swear, I'll delete it. Waiting for the chorus to see if any of my neurons decide to weakly flicker.

This singer is not a good singer. This post-chorus boogie is awful. I think I'm desecrating some US Metal holy cow here. *Checks* Blackkout - Electric Soldiers. Well, it's US power metal alright. I think this Blackkout has ties to the infinitely more interesting "The Last Things" and which is why I even downloaded this. I think I've listened it to it once. I will review the rest of the record thrice and if the songwriting is as uninspiring as this and the singing as awkward throughout, I am deleting. Here's my first mark of shame on this playlist.

5.

Easy one. Took me two seconds. God, how I hate the voice of Haskell. The main riff of the song and how it alternates with the acoustic guitar parts is very interesting, though. Easily one of the better songs off of the gigantic irritation of a record that is "Lizard". King Crimson would never again scratch that particular faux neo-classical/jazz sore.

6. (not on youtube)

Took me until the vocals came in. Cirith Ungol, off of third third record "One Foot In Hell". At first I thought "Join the Legion" (which is the opener for their fourth and last "Paradise Lost") but it's not it. It's a testament to how generic the '80s period of Cirith Ungol sounds that one song could be on a different record and it'd fit right in. Whereas there's no possibility of mistaking any song off of their first two records as anything else at all. Still, mr. Baker is unmistakable, his voice is that of a terrible beast, one of the best there have ever been. The theme of too much US Metal continues.

7.

Thousands of years before the dawn of history, huh? Fates Warning - 'Damnation', off of their original release, "Night on Brocken". Unmistakable perfection. Also US Metal, but at least, some of *the* best US Metal. People into Jazz should have some Fates Warning on their collection. People into horrorcore should. Everyone. I headbanged.

(An interesting aside, the verse melody that Mr. Arch is employing here has been 'lifted' by Tom Phillips of While Heaven Wept, I'm pretty certain.)

8.

Oh no! Low end! Please don't let this be death metal!... *sigh*, that it is. At least it's moving very slow so I might eventually realize which doom/death band I'm listening to. Oh no, it picked up. The vocalist is positively guttural. Is this Finnish? Is this Krypt of Cerberos, perhaps? This riff sounds like Demilich, but Demilich I would never confuse with their lessers. Let me check. Yes! Crypt of Kerberos (and not the other way around). This goes on the delete pile even if I got a pretty good long shot guess out of it.

9.

Messhugah? These ambient washes in the beginning sound familiar. Is this the intro to "Contradictions Collapse"? Ah, this is certainly Messhugah. Which song however. This is going to give me trouble. At least it's *good* Messhugah. By that I mean, here they still ultimately play thrash riffs that evolve and mutate, not just 'rhythms' that evolve and mutate. There's no way I'm going to identify which song this is, Contradictions Collapse (and "None" for that matter) are so uniform, I can only tell which songs 'Gods of Rapture' and 'Cadaverous Mastication' are. *checks* Oh! Terminal Illusions off of Destroy Erase Improve. A whole record off, huh? Delete.

10.

"Dig Me", by King Crimson, off of the album "Three of a Perfect Pair". King Crimson save my ass twice in one playlist. It's impossible to mistake this song as anything else if you've ever heard it once, as it actually sounds like malfunctioning machinery. The clearly audible lyrics go on about just that. Dig me, don't bury me.


So, recapping, 9 out of 10 including guesses. But that's weak, so let's not include guesses. As per the rules, Artist - Record should count as at least partial recognition. With that criteria, 6 out of 10, which is pretty dire in itself. My pose has been exposed! How fare YOU, sir?

Riffs Are Not Enough

As it's often said (and I endorse): If you don't have riffs, you can't play Heavy Metal.

Let us add to this the less stated "...but riffs are not enough to achieve greatness, either" to that.

I'll try to get to this in a lucid manner but I'm not making any promises, it's all pretty roundabout as usual.

So in idle discussion over metal music, I asked my close friend and house mate, Miltiadis, what his favorite riff in the whole wide Heavy Metal world was. He struggled to answer. I'm not sure if he even came back with a final suggestion, actually. What I do remember is my uneasy feeling in realizing that I too, do not have a specific Riff of Riffs in mind. What have I been doing all these years if I can't answer this basic question?

The riff that comes to mind initially when I think of metal music is one off of Death's "Symbolic" (the intro to "Crystal Mountain", in fact). But I do not consider that riff to be the best ever, just very infectious rhythmically. The safe choice would be to go with the intro riff to "Black Sabbath", but there's such dynamic tension between it and when it calms down in its ABAB-C structure that it's not fair to choose it on its own. It has historical merit to do so, but that'd be hypocritical to be the deciding factor.

So I mulled over it for some time more. Candlemass' "Demon's Gate"? Too dependent on its release with the bridge/verse part as well, I couldn't listen to the riff of Demon's Gate forever on repeat after all. Every time the riff exits for the song to go to the verse, it feels the correct time to do so. So it can't be the best riff ever. Perhaps something by Fates Warning?

That's when it hit me. The best riff ever is not by Fates Warning, but its archetypal form was suggested by Fates Warning. Let's listen to Cauldron Born's "Crusader", now.



The very first riff, yes. Listen to this finely crafted sculpture. Listen to it again and again. When it goes away, it's too soon. When it returns (at the very end of the song) the tension explodes in such a way that you might feel "surely the composer could have shoehorned that at least somewhere in the middle to ride it a few more times!". But Cauldron Born are too classy for that.

Let's look at the parts of the riff. There's three microhooks to this long-form riff. The first bit, in glorious impromptu guitar tablature is the following (excuse errors, I haven't extensively played along, this is what it sounds like to me and it gets the point across):

A semitone down from standard tuning

-------------------------------
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
-----9----7----9-------------9-
-----7----5----7-------------7-
0-0--7----5----7-----7-8-7-5-7-

This Phrygian opening (let's call it part A) is a strong enough riff in itself that lesser power metal bands would have repeated it ad infinitum by adding some insignificant coda at its second repetition to even it out, and called it a day. But the composer had something loftier in mind, and for his second variation (let's call it part B) he adds a triplet note run that sounds something like this, but I could - again - be wrong:

----------------- ---------------------------------
----------------- ---------------------------------
----------------- ---------------------------------
-----9----7----9- ---------------------------------
-----7----5----7- -8-7-5---------------------------
0-0--7----5----7- ---------8-7-5----4-5-7----5-4-1-

Which gives it a neoclassical feel similar to what Malmsteen would constantly do. It puts the riff off balance only to revitalize it by the return of the strong and dominant part A. Then for the end of the riff he offers:

----------------- --------
----------------- --------
----------------- --------
-----9----7----9- -10---5-
-----7----5----7- -8----3-
0-0--7----5----7- ------3-

Which makes sense well enough.

(I use a lot of inverted powerchord-fourth chords in my own music so I might be imagining them here and Cauldron Born could be playing straight-up two note power chords, it's hard to say with the sound and/or my ears. This is how it sounds most robust to me at least.)

So this riff, for me is an example of the perfectly sculpted riff. It's the sort of thing that in pop music, only Heavy Metal attempts to do, to get to the perfect logical and aesthetic end of the process of playing a short repeated pattern. It's a very revealing artifact of metalhead psyche, the 'perfect riff'. It reveals not only aspiration (towards something perfect, therefore, ageless, beyond death) but also more candidly, process. This is not the sort of riff someone jams out at practice with friends. This is the sort of riff someone sits in their lonely bedroom trying to get to, hours on hours putting it together and taking it apart in different ways before they're satisfied with its final form. Spending an age to become ageless. Inside riffs like this one can find Heavy Metal itself.

This riff, the very first riff of the very first song of the very first Cauldron Born record, refers to a riff by Fates Warning, the very first one in the very first song of their record "Awaken the Guardian". Let's listen to that one:



Standard Tuning
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------9-8---------------------
---5/7-------------------7-6---8--3p5p3----3-----
---3/5-5555--6-5-3---5---------6---------6---6-5-
-------------------------------6-----------------


Different key, different tempo, but certainly rhythm and feel similarities abound. You could say the initial inspiration was to perfect this riff by Fates Warning, a band that played 'together' much less than Cauldron Born, and whose song-writing at this point was much more democratic. Which isn't to say Fates Warning 'jammed' (not to find song ideas, to my knowledge) but that for Fates Warning, the riff of "The Sorceress" was complete enough, if anything it had been simplified from past iterations to let harmonic room for singer John Arch to add a separate voice on top. The whole *song* by Fates Warning is stronger than the whole song of Cauldron Born, mainly due to the strengths of John Arch.

Cauldron Born, a latter day, much more self-aware-as-such US Power Metal band would pile on complexity on complexity because they knew that on one side their listeners were by now used to the conceits of this sort of music (whereas Fates Warning were trailblazing) and on the other side, they wanted to compete, as it were. Cauldron Born have listened to (notoriously complex Texan techno-thrash band) Watchtower, after all. In the end what makes one song better than the other is how well the parts flow and how well the individual melody lines of guitars, bass and vocals cohere as a functional harmonic statement. I'd say that "Crusader" flows very well - I especially enjoy how after The Riff we get a series of chord fills that destabilize the tonal center and then the verse of the song, even though set to a more conservative US Power rhythm, is basically a very apt variation of The Riff. However they lose me on some of their Malmsteen runs here and there, and for a guitar wizard of great repute, the Cauldron Born guitarist seems to me to have bit off more than he could chew in some of them. Fates Warning seem very at ease on their "Sorceress" instead, never overplaying or putting on much of a show. The hooks in their riffs are hidden very well, there is required diligence to unearth them from their austere rhythms and boxy chords. There really isn't anything as hard to play in "Awaken the Guardian" as there is in "Born of the Cauldron", I don't think. Perhaps some of Aresti's more flashy solos come close. As a nascent progressive metal band, Fates Warning were not at that time interested in overt showmanship though they were interested in complexity, but one that mirrored the lyrical nuance that John Arch was delivering. There is no John Arch in Cauldron Born.

The lyrical matter that informs the compositions then is the deciding factor as to which song is best. I hesitate to discuss "The Sorceress" here, as that deserves its own article, and without excuses about perfect riffs to induce it at all, but suffice to say "Crusader", with its pulpy examination of the motives of a holy warrior, does not inspire as its progenitor enduringly does.

So in this roundabout way I've realized why my mind does not keep in storage 'perfect riffs' to readily deploy. Because as riffs are beautiful, structures of many riffs, many mini-hooks within each riff are more beautiful. And songs whose meaning is reflected in the architecture of these many-hooked multi-part riffs are the best, and the form towards which for a time, Heavy Metal proudly moved. These are what my mind keeps a finite recollection of.

Essentially, then, riffs are enough to play metal. But riffs are not enough to make the best Heavy Metal there ever was. Which leads to a comment on what appears to me to be an aesthetic bankruptcy of sorts on the part of modern listeners of extreme music (metal being only one of the substrands that belong to the wider tree) that manifests as a fixation with The Riff above all else. To this I want to suggest, perhaps with a degree of unwaranted arrogance, that, people, anyone can write one or two great riffs. Even per song, some times. The history of metal music has shown this, even really bad records sometimes have a couple of choice cuts, and there is almost no well-known metal band that doesn't have at least a few great riffs to show for themselves. A lot of the new metal that I'm exposed to seems to suffer from this fixation on riffs that Heavy Metal seemed to have grown beyond (but never out~) circa 1988. I shouldn't be surprised at this regression as the cultural climate at the moment favours easily digestible bits of ear candy, and what's does that better describe than a good riff?

What's useful in going back and listening to the whole history of metal music is not that 'old music was better', but that many questions that modern types of metal music seem to be asking have, as far as I can tell, been answered in many different ways sometimes decades ago. Parts of the puzzle are missing, but they're only acutely felt as missing when one realizes that there is a puzzle to begin with, one that's been manipulated by many minds for half a century almost. We don't have to reinvent 'song structure' and 'thematic progression' and 'letimotiff' now, just because we reinvented the riff through the warped projection of extreme metal.




On the subject, which are some of the best riffs / series of riffs / songs (in reverse order of importance, as you see) of your choice? Is one riff per song enough to call some of them your favorite ever? Is this the age-old Judas Priest versus Iron Maiden argument in disguise? What are your favorite Heavy Metal songs in which there is nothing much of note but just ONE great riff? Are there any great Heavy Metal songs you enjoy that do not even seem to have a very memorable & repeated guitar pattern?

Deathrow - Deception Ignored

Noise Records, 1988

Milo: Vocals, Bass
Sven Flügge: Guitars
Uwe Osterlehner: Guitars
Markus Hahn: Drums



Deathrow were a German thrash metal band. Their first couple of records are exactly what those interested in thrash minutia expect from German thrash metal. While the Bay Area scene created the genre through a merging of the melodic sensibilities of the British New Wave of the early '80s with the urgency and severity of hardcore punk, German initiators seemed much more obsessed with the latter half of the equation: Speed, raging savagery, an emphasis on non-sense in song structure an atmosphere of pervading dread. From that common well (sometimes referred to as 'speed metal') there came not only Sodom and Kreator, but bands that morphed quickly to different shapes, like Running Wild and Blind Guardian. The problem with calling it speed metal is not so much that it's outmoded (so are 'atmospheric metal' and 'techno-thrash' and I endorse both) but that not a lot of people seem to agree what a speed metal record is. That's never good for a definition in aesthetics. They all agree it has to be fast, but hell, half of metal music is played super fast. I have this curious feeling that what they mean is that speed metal is metal that is *only* fast and not much else of interest or important is happening in there. Anyway, for historical reasons it's useful to remember that once, there was such a thing as speed metal even if nobody exactly agreed where the lines were drawn between it and power metal and thrash metal. If you're into history. You big nerd.

But for now let's just call that German stuff thrash. Sloppy, raging evil thrash.

Although Sodom and Kreator were sloppy (Destruction, the most American sounding of their original German thrash bands, not so much), with each record they became more strict in playing and showy in technique. This is interesting because the other rival school for savage thrash metal - that of South America - really did not follow the same path, they're still drenched in reverberated chaos over there, in fact compared to a few of the Blasphemy clones in Brazil, their grandfathers in Sarcophago were veritable virtuosos just by keeping in tempo.

I theorize that the reason German savage thrash became more and more reigned in and technical with each release by the seminal bands is that the German culture is one that rewards a sense of structure and cohesion (even in atrocity), and it discourages blatant displays of emotion in art that cannot be backed up by some aesthetic achievement.

So Deathrow on their first couple of records play really fast, relatively tight but really forgettable German thrash metal. Then they grow up. There are others who enjoy juvenile raging thrash more that consider that early material to be masterful and their latter two records (the better of which we are discussing here) to be a pose and false. I understand that point of view and agree on both counts. In fact, the band also agrees to an extent. It is both a pose and false of Deathrow to switch to techno-thrash after two Sodomite records. They never grew up at all! They're just teeeenagerrssss


So as far as I know what happened was, a new guitarist, Uwe Osterlehner, joined the band and basically took over by virtue of compositional and playing prowess. Perhaps the band trusted him because techno-thrash was on its brief heyday by 1988, what with Metallica putting out their Watchtower-inspired "And Justice for All..." a year earlier and introducing many a headbanger to rhythm syncopated, an unresolved melody and a sixtyfourth. Osterlehner's songs were more technical than Metallica's effort, the rest of the band struggled to keep up. The riffs are very strictly played, alternating between the muted-chord chug of German thrash and flowing legato melodies that come from somewhere left-field. There are a lot of interesting harmonizations offered by the guitar duo, while the rhythm section barely keeps up with the density. At their best, Deathrow sound almost symphonic. And then they return to thrash monophonic and the switch is very affecting.


The original members of the band, in interviews have explained that the situation was sour and that they prefer the earlier thrash-thrash material to the modernist convolution of "Deception Ignored" and (to a lesser extent) its follow-up, "Life Beyond". But - and I know this is perverse - I view Deathrow as a vehicle for Osterlehner first. I have no emotional ties to their earlier thrash (though I had bought their sophomore 'Raging Steel' on vinyl at the time and remember having a good time with it) and perhaps more importantly, that inner strife of the band at the time actually augments the sterility and austere feeling "Deception Ignored". The band can whine all they want that an externality pressed them to create a masterpiece, the music itself is forever.


Techno-thrash is very interesting because its concern is the human condition, much like with any modernist art. However actual modernists were almost always attached to a political wave, they recognized allies in the lower classes and expected well, they expected a revolution. They believed their art was a herald to it, in fact. Some urged for smaller revolutions than others, but they all were forward-looking people. Heavy Metal music dealing with modernist themes has a blatant difference at its core in that very rarely does it sincerely profess that the solution to any problem is found in the 'We'. Instead bands such as Deathrow or Sieges Even or Megace, discuss the hopelessness of the 'I', trapped in a world of modern machination. In essence, modernist Heavy Metal like techno-thrash and progressive metal is not really primarily political.


Heavy Metal bands by 1988 were not the domain of the working class. The disaffected youth that played thrash metal were middle-class and their issues are of the middle class. The disaffected youth that played techno-thrash probably went to University too. It's very clear in the lyric found herein what the level of discourse is. Let's look at the lyric of the best song here, Machinery:

I am walking through the streets
Of my old town
Looking back on the days
Of my youth
There are factories in the fields
Where we used to play
Clouds of smoke hang in the sky
And block out the sun

God bless this house, the car and the TV
Show us our idols in magazines
They build us prisons without any walls
Money rules we can't resist

Snakes of commercial TV
Decoy with their apples
False priests spit out their lies
Because God sells
If we don't pull ourselves
Out of this mud
Our children will have to pay
For our sins

We're just wheels in a great machinery

Encircled and trapped by ourselves
We're enslaved to mass productions
Self-deception from a better life
Our behavior brings corruption
We buy a pig in a poke
And we drown ourselves in the garbage

Supermarkets sell
Us their shit
We can't free ourselves
From this world of abuse

For someone to have a car and a tv and to be enraptured by money, they are being seduced by the siren song of Capitalism, they're moving upwards and outwards from their sense of self. It doesn't matter that they work in a factory or not, they do not have class identity as workers. And that's what captures my interest. The concern expressed above is one I feel completely. And I feel alone for it. I do not feel like joining the communist party. I do not feel like telling other people they should change their lives. I do not expect a revolution. I want the despair expressed, this is enough for me. That loneliness, that existential singularity is how modernist Metal is still part of the great romance of Heavy Metal itself. A revolution is an inner happening, the outside world will forever be hostile and its purpose will be to dehumanize you. That struggle of the intelligent but disconnected youth is what drives techno-thrash and also what makes this particular offering convincing. The words themselves betray a lack of political knowledge, and the pose is exposed easily if this is compared to say, a real socio-political hardcore punk record's lyric. No Marx has been read. But what is true in the core of this is what is alluring: intelligence and loneliness breed paranoia. When the most important thing you have to tell to the outside world is 'I don't trust you'. When the strength you have is yours essentially because it is not shared with others. I believe this weakness turned to strength, it is an important part of Heavy Metal. This is why whereas most of thrash is forgettable, the few techno-thrash gems I present should not be. Deathrow here, actually a little bit ahead of the curve, have created one of the best offerings in the genre and almost nobody knows of them, they hardly seem to know themselves. As apt as it is ironic.

one thirty and a twelve

Cold and tired. In some pain. Work tomorrow, uncertain of the further future. Vague entities soon to call their in their debts. Resolute choices that lead to loneliness or marginalization. Makes for a certain mindset, might as well make something of it, however brief.

So, yes. Heavy Metal. 

Since starting this blog, I have only thought about this art more, not less. I feel no closer to the identity of the allure. Oh, I think dialog has been produced. Words of varying function, certainly. But the core of it. Too deep. I'm pointing my finger in the darkness and it's getting colder.

I re-read some of the older texts on this website. I expected to feel embarrassment at how half-formed they'd be but to my surprise they stand, I'm proud of their clarity. I'm also entertained, privately, by how baffling it is for some readers to call anything written in this website clear, but so it is to me. What is bad is that my self from a year or so ago makes a convincing case for my current self. I must consider my next moves carefully. I have attempted to tackle the music by dissecting morphology, marrying the results to aesthetic theories, and from there to the inverse, turning abstract impressions into power through well, malice towards reality, really. The way is as dim as ever. It isn't a matter of being a better writer, about that I am certain. It is - I fear - a matter of having a better mind, or less distractions, less directions to be pulled towards/hoops through. Perhaps I need to be older.

I hope that the dialog - and ramblings, sure - produced here will contribute in some small way to when other people with similar interests attempt to explain them to themselves. I wonder if they'll ever find their way here or not. I found myself in many strange places on the internet, for one. 

I'll keep writing I think. But first I have to rest.

Post Surgery

Post-rock has a few definitions. Most people consider the sound definition of 'instrumental songs played by a rock band that slowly build up to a crescendo and then do it all over again'. This is a valid definition, after all, from a point and onwards that's what most post rock bands sounded like. I see your Mono and trade you my Explosions in the Sky, zero sum.

However earlier on, post-rock seemed to be an attempt to subvert and/or invert the tropes of the rock genre while using its own means. Hence, since rock and roll is generally considered a physical sort of music, we'll write songs that are terse and lacking in groove. If rock and roll depends on charismatic frontmen, we'll have none of that. If rock and roll depends on verse/chorus/verse structure, we'll just write long suites.

Then we have post-metal. It certainly also subverts similar rock cliches, but in a very curious way, not too many metal tropes. Sure, rock music has tame structures, but there's very adventurous metal music (structurally) and there's been such for a while now. Whereas the adventurous rock music (the more outre types of progressive rock) is comparatively outside its mainstream, in metal terms, Metallica and Iron Maiden with their 12 minute songs are right there in the middle. So, for a post-metal band to write a long suite doesn't subvert anything in metal terms. Or say, repetition. The original second wave black metal bands (completely and totally the opposite of 'post-metal' anything) were droning on the same riff ten years before Pelican. 

What are the metal music tropes post-metal could really subvert? There's guitar solos, and indeed most post-metal bands do not have too many of those. But still, guitar solos are not the pure domain of metal music. There's double-bass drumming and constant palm-muting, really. That's pretty much it. Harsh vocals are also very punk-related. Curiously, post-metal bands do not shy away from double-bass, muted chords or people yelling at all. There's melodic (and usually high pitched) singing, and indeed post-metal bands do not attempt anything like that most of the time. If there's a pattern in post-metal choices, it's hard to detect.

But I do submit that there is a pattern, and it's a very schizophrenic one.

1. Post-metal bands understand - and communicate - with various types of rock music much more than they do with metal music. 

This has to do a lot with how metal music was coming out of an aesthetic depression so to speak circa the end of the '90s so nobody knew exactly what metal music was (outside of black metal which was startlingly clear to identify). Post-metal bands then are in a dialogue instead with the same old common rock and roll tropes, and some of the time punk rock tropes in particular. A heavy metal guise is a tool utilized, it's not the point. Consider arty punks that perhaps like a couple of metal bands -let's say Celtic Frost and Metallica- and they're subverting rock and punk tropes by playing with a few metal sonic identifiers like double bass and palm muting. In effect this means post-metal most of the time is post-punk or post-hardcore in most of all, post-indie. This is probably infuriating to real punks that consider their post-punk to be a historically different thing, but if they could be open-minded for a minute here...

2. Post-metal bands are not subverting metal tropes as much as they're incapable of achieving them in the first place.

To play a complicated and considered guitar solo takes a certain degree of capacity that the metal musician has to hone for a few decades. Heck, to have two guitarists playing interesting harmonies without it all coming out like mud takes a certain precision too. So, no soloist? No solos. No guitar bros for life? Single guitar. No audible bass tone? No bass. A disturbing aura of an autopsy permiates. Most post-metal bands, for all their rhythmic or compositional graces, do not seem to employ any talented lead players. There is no trope to subvert when one is incapable of scrutinizing the trope first-hand. Likewise with a talented lead singer that's willing to span a range. Not too many of those around, and those that do exist would be more interested in actually playing to the trope than to subvert it (for good or worse). 

This is revealing for post-metal, especially why long-time metal music listeners feel ill at ease with it. Post-metal is the outsiders looking inside metal music for incidental reasons, it's not forward thinking metal music made by passionate metalheads trying to come up with something new by testing limits. 

A case could be made that whatever actual post-metal experimentation occurred, it happened in the early '90s with the short rise of progressive metal instead. 

Isn't it startling how little time post-metal listeners have for progressive metal and its meandering solos, overdramatic singers and complicated song structures? It's because these post-metal listeners aren't actually interested in metal music, they're interested in the warped reflection of other rock types on the metal mirror. This also explains why although most real metal listeners were captivated for a spell by the types of Pelican or Isis, ten years down the line do not listen to that music much if at all. It's not just because they're getting older and more conservative, it's because it's exhausting to confuse the outsider perspective for the inner one. It leads to alienation from one's own core ethos.

Coroner

Let's try to do this with small words only.

Small words are lonely. The more they're made from the simplest parts, the more they're surrounded by words made up by sounds similar to them, the more lonely they get because they are lost in a semiotic sea. A word like "extravagance" shines a charismatic light amidst the puny syllables that surround it.

Coroner were a Swiss trio that came about in the mid '80s. They started out playing thrash, similar to German thrashers but perhaps with more fluid guitar bits here and there. With each record they mixed up their thrash until it sounded little like thrash at all. They followed this road to its end in the span of ten years. For a techno-thrash band, they put out a lot of records and for the purposes of this text we're going to deal more with the tra-je-cto-ry than any one record itself.

You see, Coroner have gotten back together. They've been playing around Europe and they've been clear that that's it, there won't be a new Coroner record. I saw them live in downtown Athens a week ago and a lot of big thoughts in big words I've had about them, a lot of in-tu-i-ti-ons have been jolted into place by that show, and their meaning is surprisingly simple.

The reason Coroner do not want to put out a new record is because of said career arch; They're finished and they know it. They did what they set out to do. It's not often a Heavy Metal band starts out with anything but their masterpiece. Coroner started out promising and increased expectations until their end, so it's a good idea for us to examine what it is exactly they wanted to achieve. All that I've got to say about Coroner can be gleaned in my recount of the live show.

Coroner do not move about a lot on stage. The light choices are a cold blue, a bright green and some times, an orange. The blue suits them best, though the orange is good for when they step outside of their pa-ra-di-gm. It is very telling that they brought along a keyboard player to recreate exactly the effects they put in their latter-era music. Coroner aren't half-assing their reunion shows. They want to show exactly how their music was meant to be experienced. This means Coroner are still very proud about their material. They aren't a sloppy middle-age Candlemass doing pub-rock renditions of once mighty Epic Doom Metal hymns. They're playing everything as well as they ever could. This is important.

Coroner's selection from their records is also telling. They played only two standard thrash numbers. "Masked Jackal" was part of the set, and their early opus "Reborn Through Hate" was part of the encore. These choices are apt, because not only are these two songs some of the best thrash metal ever recorded (especially the first track), they're also the only necessary demonstrations of the thrashy side of early Coroner, much to the chagrin perhaps of younger listeners in the crowd, their blood boiling in their revivalist tube jeans and cut off denim jackets. Coroner are very aware of which parts of their work are worth showcasing, and to what extent. Pride again, but also, a desire to convey a progression and an end.

Thrash bits aside, the mood of the rest of the material we saw was consistently bi-polar. This is where I describe what Coroner sound like, in small words. Heavy Metal - and especially thrash metal - has these riffs, see? Riffs are melodic phrases that are played over and over. Riffs are catchy and fun. People like riffs, and they really love thrash riffs because they're very dense in rhythm, they make the body move. By the time Coroner got to thrash, everyone was in competition about who can make the busiest riff. Coroner played this game too, early on, and their method of making riffs busy was to put between chords these beautiful neo-classical scale runs, arpeggios and other flashy guitar pyro. This was a novel idea for a thrash band, and Coroner could have tried to ride it for a longer time. But instead, by the third record, Coroner got to chopping these riffs up into little pieces. The whole of the mother riff is the same complicated, scale-heavy riff they always did. But they no longer play the whole thing in sequence. They break it up to little pieces and instead play the little pieces to death, in a circle. A, B, C, A, B, C, D, A, B, C, A, B, C. Coroner are really tiresome to listen to.

The bi-polarity comes from the solo sections in their music. While the chopped up half-thrash (and this is an important term, historically) riffs are very punishing to the senses to the point of, let's say, a boredom that is close to a trance (like some electronic music), the solo and melody breaks are very fluid and beautiful, full of color and a desire for life. Then it's back to the grind.

This is the style Coroner perfected from record three to five. The voice on top is raspy and rhythmical as well. The bass guitar is usually in lockstep groove with the guitar. The drumming started out typically thrashy, tom roll heavy and busy and by the end of their trajectory, it had become a very very simple kick - snare - crash stomp. The simplest drums you can imagine behind these chopped up riffs. Whereas a band like Pantera grooved with their half-thrash to convey exactly a 'Walk', a macho stomp, muscles taught, beer belly proudly jiggling, confused sexuality and bravado, Coroner groove in reverse, like an external machine, a body on automatic, neverending process. What is it processing? What is driving this machine, and to where? Internal conflicts.

So this is what Coroner sounds like. But what do they feel like? What did they feel like live?

There was a point of synaesthesia which prompted thoughts of this article (and more about how the article is constructed) that is worth conveying. Wait. Smaller words. There was one moment in the show where lights, sound, people around me and my own sense of my body came together and made me think. And I wanted to tell you what I thought. Yes, yes.

Coroner prefaced "Semtex Revolution" with their awkward English "this is a song about feeling paranoid, about terrorists, about looking at the word strangely". Blue lights washed over the stage and people started doing their half-thrash dances (which is really something to enjoy, if you ever find yourself in a techno-thrash concert. The riff meters don't line up, spines are strained!) and words were said over music and it hit me then: this is remarkably lonely. The music is very lonely. People are having some strange type of fun below and they're all together in this room, but in reality what this music is communicating is solitude. Everyone's on their own. We might enjoy the same thing right now, but not all in the same way. This is not a Manowar concert, there are no metal brothers in arms here. This is more modern, actually. Even the people on stage are not playing as one. They're playing the same thing, in lockstep, actually, but they're not becoming one.

Coroner had gone to great lengths to have a very clear live sound. Four people on stage and you could hear exactly what every one was playing. This is important (and rare, oh boy is it rare). It isn't because they play as a unit so much as it is because everyone is playing alone. The lyrics of Coroner songs are also telling.

Let's look at Internal Conflicts, sans the usual italics. These lyrics do not need italics:

"I will crush my skull when I feel like doing it
I will break my bones when I feel like doing it
I will cut my veins when I feel like doing it
I will shred my skin when I feel like doing it

Self destruct

I will smash my teeth when I feel like doing it
I will slash my face when I feel like doing it

Self destruct

But I never will touch you"

People were singing along and headbanging below to this, it was surreal. I was singing along and headbanging to this, seems so strange now. But I was completely alone. I wasn't thinking about whomever it was that drummer and aesthetic leader of the band, Marquis Marky, would never touch. I was thinking of those I will never touch. Diagnosis: Modernity. Solution: Self destruct. Status: Body Destroyed, Brain Intact. Process: Still Thinking.

Then and there, the a-e-sthe-tic choices of Coroner finally clicked for me. Of course the riffs are chopped up and repeated to the point of exhaustion/ecstasy. Have you seen a lonely person move around in their room? A time-lapse of loneliness, perhaps? Of course the lyrics are mantric chants where most of the words are simple and interchangeable. Have you seen an autistic child move back and forth? Of course the solo sections jump out with lust and desire, because in spite of themselves, the autopsy is inconclusive. The corpse still longs to live. Hence, Coroner reunited and toured the world, twenty years late from a ten year career to tell this story again. And why? It's because the follies of modernity have not been assuaged. They never will be. Coroner (the entity, the spectral wisdom behind Heavy Metal), face unknowable, masked with duct-tape and gliding backward towards you in a concrete parking lot, manifested in that live show. There was no dark wisdom passed, there was no ritual blood spilled, there was curiously nothing at all to mark its passing, but at that moment where light and crowd and lyric and rhythm collided, I felt like the teenager Helm again, alienated from a world I thought I understood too well and which misunderstood me totally. I felt as if looking outside a window to a world without a future. I felt as if an atomic bomb might fall and devastate Europe because of a geopolitical sequence inconsequential...

There I go again with the big words.

I wear the cat skin gloves

Dark sorcery against death eternal. I shall not rot in the sun, yet my invert method will never be communicated. I stand in solitude because to co-exist requires alligiance to one side and hate for the another. I do not want to spend myself in hatred of anything, nor do I want to love. I would have it so that the Other did not exist, were not a concern. Darkness swells in and makes the bravest fires suppress into tiny points of light swimming in a mute ocean. Surely if other travellers exist, their faces cannot be seen anyway, just shapes and vague, spectral movement. What use are reminders of distance anyway? Just as well, I know it inside my heart that I am above them, I have no desire to present an argument for it, thus it is self-evident. All that is true is self-evident in solitude.

Heavy Metal starts and ends with an ambiguous scream, every listener interprets it in the range from triumph to anguish according to their idiom. It does not matter what the interpretation is as long as the source of it is clear. Many times the sentiment in Heavy Metal lyric has been expressed "if you don't feel it, you won't understand". A dividing line has been drawn, perhaps the line, on the trajectory of the globe's tall curve becomes a circle, and inside the circle stand some men and the occassional brave woman. These individuals, in an uneasy alliance, inspect each other and wait. In certainty they know that one of them will soon step over the line and be ostracized for it. At the end only the self remains in the circle, but the circle is not small, it spans the whole of creation. No one else in sight. There's power there. I'm sure you know what else is there. The more I contemplate the killing art of romance the more I realize that in lieu of the high toll that the mistress calls for (go on, guess what she wants from you) the listener attempts to assuage her with the more bearable currency of solitude. "Already dead, see? Alive forever!". For the sorcerer, exhaustion is ecstasy.

Trapped alone in an empty world, taken by the love of death, only esteemed faculty being that of the imagination, it turns to dreams of immortality. What a combination.