Fans of a particular genre of music can be protective of their little niche on an almost cellular level. They apply scientifically formulated rules to it like theoretical physicists trying to explain how and why the universe exists. But unlike theoretical physicists, they don’t allow for multiple versions of reality in which different sets of rules might apply, nor for circumstances which might allow those realities to overlap from time to time. There can be only one, and it is theirs, and theirs alone. The most militant of this group is the black metal fan.
You can imagine the reaction of the stereotypically grim and frostbitten black metal purist, raised on a steady diet of Mayhem’s Deathcrush demo, Immortal’s Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, Emperor’s Wrath of the Tyrant EP, and, of course, Bathory’s Under the Sign of the Black Mark, when a band like San Francisco quintet Deafheaven comes along. Taking cues from bands such as Germany’s Lantlos and France’s Alcest, which opened the door for the bright notes and jangled chords of post rock to be introduced into the furious minor chord alternate picking and disharmony of black metal, Deafheaven put out a demo in 2010 that caught the ear of Jacob Bannon of Deathwish Records. Bannon put out the band’s full length debut, Roads to Judah, the following year, and Deafheaven’s cathartic mix of jagged shoegaze and windswept bleakness, lyrically a raw, poetic grimoire for the downtrodden, got the attention of the Pitchfork crowd.
Then, the band’s critically acclaimed sophomore album, Sunbather, came out last year, and all metaphorical hell broke loose. First of all, the album cover is pink. Black metal doesn’t do pink. It does black, white, and maybe a touch of gray. It does snow, ice, fire, death and mountains and forests foreboding, not vocalist George Clarke’s shrieked recants of drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, and, at times, hope. Sunbather even has a line referring to “the rebirth of mutual love.” The backlash the band received from the black metal protectionist brigade was as monumental as the praise heaped upon it by the throngs of hipsters who were previously familiar with black metal largely in the anecdotal or apocryphal sense.
Photo Courtesy of Nick DiNatal
In short, Sunbather put the spotlight on a world the black metal scene would rather have remained cloaked in darkness, open only to those who genuinely understand what it truly means. The so-called transcendental black metal of bands such as Wolves in the Throne Room and Liturgy may have opened the secret door to this world a crack. But it was Deafheaven that threw it wide open. For this Clarke makes no apologies, nor does he owe any. The band’s convergence of divergent musical styles was, as they tell it, purely organic. Deafheaven guitarist Kerry McCoy happened to like shoegaze. Clarke was into extreme metal. Eventually, the two found some common ground in black metal, and the Deafheaven sound began to germinate. This was no diabolical hipster plot to formulate the grandest volley at the music industry since Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. It’s just a band bringing new fans to a style of music that already has fans who aren’t known for playing well with others. No one is more aware of that faction of people, and its criticisms, than Clarke and his band mates.
“It’s obviously present and it’s a much talked about thing in regards to our band,” says Clarke with a hint of weariness in his tone, “but I don’t really pay much attention to it. We just do what we do. Our songs speak for themselves and our fans speak for themselves.”
Part of that criticism no doubt stems from the fact that Deafheaven breaks not only the musical taboos of black metal, but lyrical ones as well. It’s not a genre, except in its suicidal and depressive subsets, known for its earnest statement of weakness or vulnerability, something Clarke has never shied away from. In black metal, things like death, suicide and depression are sometimes celebrated, or even venerated. Death is a triumph, nihilism a virtue, and introspection something to be expressed through a vague filter of metaphor and hyper-masculine posturing. Deafheaven is a band that has more in common lyrically with The Smiths or works of literature such as Milan Kundera’s <
“I felt that there wasn’t really a reason to record an album that didn’t focus on the idea of self, and basically just giving everything that you can to the audience. And that includes writing about my relationship with my parents, or romantic relationships. It wouldn’t feel right unless I gave all that I could.”
One thing even black metal purists would begrudgingly have to acknowledge as a common tie between Deafheaven and the likes of its corpse-painted Scandinavian musical cousins is the intensity of the live performance. Whereas the musicians backing Clarke are very much from the shoegaze school of subtlety, the front man fixes the audience in an intense, unbroken stare. He is the personification of the dark, hopeful, harsh, and beautiful music that surrounds him, the kind that inspires tears and rage alike.
“It’s becoming a visual representation of what’s being played,” he says, “I think that it’s intense music and it should be delivered in an intense manner.”
Clark has been through it all to see Deafheaven succeed, even sleeping on cockroach-infested floors while basically homeless in San Francisco after getting the band started. Not even the most ardent defender of the black faith can take away what he and Deafheaven have worked for. They probably know more real-life damnation than any so-called purist does anyway. They’ve withstood the test of fire, and are ready for more, says Clarke.
“If you care about something enough, you’ll put yourself through hell to make it work.”
■ Deafheaven plays tonight at The Wall (這牆), B1, 200, Roosevelt Road Sect 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1), with support from Until Seeing Whale’s Eyes. Tickets are NT$1,100 in advance, NT$1,300 at the door. Doors open at 7:30pm, and the show gets started at 8pm.
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