There is nothing safe about black metal. It is easily the most extreme form of music ever. It's history is shot through with suicides, murders, satanism and other extremist ideologies from both the left and right. The only other genre with this much controversy and blood on its hands, ironically enough, is hip hop. The difference is that hip hop is a mainstream musical commodity that has made its biggest players, and the record companies behind them, rich and famous. Not so with black metal. Black metal remained underground for so long because the music was just as extreme as the musicians. Incomprehensible shrieked vocals, blast beats and blizzards of buzzing guitars coated in a lo-fi grim insured that either only the most adventurous, or mentally disturbed, would find solace in the bosom of the black metal beast.Over the last few years, though, a very odd and unexpected thing has happened - black metal has gone overground. Initially this appeared to have little to do with any change in the artists' approach. Instead, it was more of a product of safer experimental artists finding inspiration in the extreme musical form and incorporating elements of it into their own music, while singing its praises in interviews. Arguably the watershed moment came with Sunn 0)))'s "Black One," which combined black metal with Sunn 0)))'s signature earth cracking doom. To illustrate how far that album brought black metal to the indie masses, consider that it ended up at number 28 on Pitchfork's year end list for 2005. Since then, black metal has increasingly enjoyed acceptance in indie culture. Sites like Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and even Pitchfork regularly highlight black metal artists. Inevitably "boutique", or hipster, black metal bands like Malkuth, Krallice and Liturgy sprang up in Brooklyn playing extreme music, but with personal backgrounds that had very little to do with black metal culture. As a result, these bands became the closest thing the genre has ever had to "safe." Nachtmystium is not one of those bands. Nachtmystium is, in fact, one of the least safe bands in American black metal, or USBM.
Founded by sole constant Blake Judd, initially the band played in the style of classic Norwegian black metal defined by bands like Burzum and Darkthrone. After a couple of grim black metal albums Judd began to expand the band's sound with "Instinct: Decay," which mixed psychedelia into the band's traditional approach. The band went further with the groundbreaking "Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1." The album kind of sounded like what would happen if Pink Floyd made a black metal record. It was undeniably excellent, and made Nachtmystium one of the genre's brightest rising stars, even if purists argued that the band was no longer black metal (not that Judd would have disagreed or cared). Unfortunately the band's background was very much indeed still black metal, and a past association with a NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) label who had distributed the band's debut album back in 2002 caught up with them causing them to be kicked off of the bill of the much hailed Scion Rock Festival in 2008, just as the band was growing in popularity. Judd fought back releasing a statement that the band was not a nazi band or racist (and certainly nothing in the band's music indicates such beliefs, and Judd's own association with musicians of different ethnic and racial backgrounds would indicate that white power is not something he has any interest in).
The controversy surrounding Nachtmystium was inevitable. As the form of music they played became more popular, and their approach to it became more accessible, a bigger and brighter spotlight was going to shine on what was once a deeply underground movement and band. To Judd's credit he offers no apologies from where the band came from and where they are now. His interview with Pitchfork recently offered insight into the man, who is clearly self-aware, and the extreme background that many black metal bands are born of. Nachtmystium's history, and the controversy surrounding them, is one example, among many, of why black metal cannot be sanitized, and its history cannot be revised, unlike, say, hip hop. Ultimately when you are dealing with an extreme music whose raison d'être is to explore, revel in and (hopefully for the healthier fans among us) purge an individual's darkest emotions, particularly hatred, you are going to bump up against the darkest corners of humanity, and often the darkest corners of your own consciousness. What lies there may not be pretty, but it is real. That is, for better or worse, what gives black metal so much of its power and to pretend otherwise is a lie. This is still an unsafe music, and Nachtmystium are still an unsafe band.
Today, though, the band's danger derives not from their association with the uglier corners of the black metal underground, but from their ability to challenge listeners' prejudices and preconceptions as to what black metal is, or, better yet, what heavy metal itself is. Their danger also lies in their ability to craft harrowing visions of reality and life lived in the margins, rather than the tales of mythical realms - whether it be Valhalla or Hell - peddled by so many of their black metal brethren. That danger is no more palpable than on the band's superb new album "Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. II."
The album begins with the doom-ridden lead-in "Cry For Help," which quickly gives way to the in the red "High On Hate." "High on Hate" is one of the album's most interesting songs. Close to being a traditional black metal throwback the piece begins as a manifesto of black metal's allegiance to hate as a driving force. Judd describes the intoxicating power of the emotion as well as the inherent divisiveness of any movement based on it. "We are not your leaders, we are not your friends," he screams, echoing a sentiment expressed time and again by black metal musicians who care little about how anybody perceives or accepts them or their music. This is a form of art that seemingly could care less if anyone was listening. It is, in some ways, the purest form of self expression. Yet, that ever so pure form of insularity is undercut by the song's final words "still in control, down in this hole." It's one example, among many, in Judd's work and life where he simply calls bullshit. Ultimately the hate that fuels black metal exists because of fear - fear of death, fear of the other, fear of a world completely fucked by greed, war and environmental catastrophe. A lone individual can't control these things, and when you fear what you can't control you draw a circle tighter and tighter around yourself, fearing and despising everything outside of it. Inside of that circle you can fashion and escape into your own little world with your own little rules and reign over it like a king. Such is the reality of the underunderground of black metal. It's a reality that Judd knows all too well, being called every name in the book since he took Nachtmystium overground by those who dwell down in the hole of pure "kvlt" black metal. "High on Hate," is in many ways, Judd calling bullshit on the scene. And if they don't get the message, he spends the whole rest of the album ensuring that they do, eschewing blast beats for 4/4 straight forward rhythms and buzzing blizzards of guitars for chords and melodic solos. Even the vocals are subverted. Sure they sound harsh and processed, but it's clear Judd wants you to hear every word he is screaming, since he enunciates like a student in a public speaking class. His vocals bring to mind Wax Trax luminaries Skinny Puppy and Ministry more than they do Varg Vikernes.
Along with guitarist Jeff Wilson, Judd enlists the aid of Wolves in the Throne Room's Will Lindsay on bass, Minsk's Sanford Parker on synthesizers and USBM legend Jeff "Wrest" Whitehead, a/k/a Leviathan, on drums. Following "High on Hate," the band immediately finds their groove with "Nightfall," an industrial goth-metal banger. The song calls to mind Sisters of Mercy or Fields of the Nephilim in a good way. Next up is the dizzyingly awesome "No Funeral." Driven by a Parker's dark wave keyboard arpeggios the song couldn't be less black metal. Hell, it's an inch away from being a dance track sounding more like Cold Cave than Mayhem. By now it is clear Judd is poking his finger straight into the eye of black metal, even more so than he did with "Assassins." While that move in and of itself might be worth something, what truly elevates the album is not just the experimentation, but how goddamn good these songs really are. Once you get over the shock of Nachtmystium's new new direction, you will find that you are gifting your ears with 10 of the best songs, heavy or not, of the year.
Things turn darker with the behemoth sounding "Then Fires," which musically wouldn't have been out of place on the latest Twilight album, an album that shares the talents of Whitehead, Judd and Parker. The track also sets into full gear the album's thematic narrative surrounding addiction. Lyrically Judd spends the rest of the album painting a harrowing picture of addiction without moralizing. "Then Fires" explores the lose of anything resembling a normal day to day existence as a result of drug use. The song describes a reality where junkies burn through the night, scalding their skin, loving their stench and destroying their days. "Another night inside, another day denied," Judd screams with the voice of a man who knows what it is like to lose entire days because of abuse. The gambit of drugs and their toll are addressed - from heroin ("The End is Eternal" and "Blood Trance Fusion") to crack ("Then Fires") to alcohol ("Ever Last Drop") each, in the end, leading that much closer to Death, who on "Addicts," Judd describes as walking in his shadow drawing closer. If it is not Death that awaits the addict, then it is, for sure, destroyed relationships, as the one described on "Ruined Life Continuum."
Certainly the narrative Judd crafts on "Addicts" is not a pleasing one. There is nothing romantic about the grim descriptions of an addict attempting to escape his demons with various legal and illegal substances. At the same time there is no salvation, no sobriety in sight, only more decay and destruction. That is, in part, the album's power. It's a cautionary tale, yet one that dares not to preach, only describe. It never says 'don't do this,' rather instead it offers the bleak reality that anyone faces when travelling the path of abuse, one that all of us, conscious addicts included, know you would have to be mad to choose. Mad, or, as more likely the case, in search of self annihilation.
Judd's no bullshit approach to addiction gives the album a weight that other albums dealing with the same subject matter simply lack. "Master of Puppets" is camp compared to "Addicts." It's a serious subject dealt with in a serious manner by a man clearly familiar with the issue, but who refuses to draw any resolution. Instead, Judd focuses on the reasons why anyone would turn to drug abuse in the first place and the inevitable outcome of that addiction. That coupled with the power of "Addicts" incredible boundary-pushing music makes this not only one of the best albums of this year, but also one of the most unique. It has something to say and says it in a straightforward manner while at the same time once again breaking new ground musically. Nothing sounds like Nachtmystium, and even though you can trace influences from Killing Joke to Pink Floyd throughout "Addicts," neither descriptor approximates the wholly unique creation that Judd has crafted. Judd is redefining heavy and challenging fans at every turn, and that, along with his narrative of real life hell, still makes Nachtmystium one of the most dangerous bands in America.
"High On Hate" live
"No Funeral"
"Then Fires"
"Every Last Drop"
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