THINKING MAN’S METAL - The Roots and Branches of Post Metal

“There’ aint no devil, that’s just God when he’s drunk” – Tom Waits.

Roots

In the beginning there was Black Sabbath. It’s almost impossible to mention modern day heavy music without noting their influence. By the mid 1980’s Sabbath had become a shadow of their former selves, with the heavy metal scene populated by pompous hair metal bands like Poison and Wasp, relying on theatrics and extravagance to carry them through.

There was however, an unperceivable shift in the underground; kids who had grown up with Sabbath and Pink Floyd were now forming bands with an eye on artistic growth as a priority. Initially these kids had been involved in hardcore bands, but slowly they began to explore a more experimental genre-bending no man’s land.

Then there were three. Melvins, Godflesh, Neurosis. These three bands appeared as if from a different planet. They looked and sounded different, and most importantly did not want to be tied to any particular genre.

Melvins initially revelled in a sludgy Sabbath wasteland, with their releases from 1986-1993 largely going unnoticed by the general public. It wasn’t until 1993’s album Houdini received a major label release, due in no small part to Melvins friendship with Kurt Cobain who came from the same home town (Aberdeen, WA). Despite being signed to Atlantic, Melvins continued their black tar riffing only to be dropped after two more albums. Fifteen albums later, and an unwavering commitment to their craft, they are legends and one of the most influential drone/sludge/metal bands out there.

Godflesh was the brainchild of one man. Justin K Broadrick was initially a founding member of grindcore legends Napalm Death. Broadrick quickly departed after their landmark album Scum in 1987 to form Godflesh. 1989’s debut album Streetcleaner is even to this day considering a watershed across many genres. To some it may sound like the soundtrack to some futuristic Orwellian nightmare. It almost invented industrial music with Broadrick using his background to combine molasses guitar slabs with drum machine blast beats, mechanical samples and harshly treated vocals into a terrifying yet compelling masterpiece. Godflesh continued to release abums melding metal and electronics until 2001, when Broadrick called it a day only to start another project - Jesu.

Neurosis started out as a hardcore act out of Oakland, CA. Despite a straightforward hardcore debut album, Neurosis evolved into one of the most chameleonic and influential bands in heavy music. Their third album Enemy of the Sun began to encompass tribal beats, spoken word samples, varying degrees of electronic atmospherics, and on a whole a sound that more closely modelled a band like Swans than any metal band.  They have continued evolving release after release, genre hopping from doom metal, to ambient to folk music.

What do these three bands have in common? An unwavering commitment to their chosen path and a strong desire not to be shackled by genre?

Branches

The term post metal is a term that is generally not liked by bands that fall into that category. To the general non-heavy music fan, it’s all noise, populated by scary, bearded, tattoo wielding types that you wouldn’t like to see your children near. In a way this is true of certain bands, the Norwegian black metal scene is not for the faint hearted or is in any way accessible to the masses. However, the bands that came in the wake of the three afore mentioned bands have created something totally unique. It was never about who was loudest or who could play the fastest or be the most hedonistic.

They approach the music with a completely different attitude, opting to walk a higher intellectual plane both musically and lyrically.

Bands like Isis, Cult of Luna, Pelican, The Ocean and Jesu created something entirely new and something that is perceived very differently. Their music is at once more accessible and attractive to people who do not normally approach heavy music. With the sonic and aesthetic shift, these bands never wear ridiculous costumes on stage, allowing the music to be their ultimate medium.

The term post metal may be a purely journalistic intervention, but as with any musical genre, it’s necessary to allow us to compare and contrast it with different types of music.  So what exactly is it that makes these bands different from the mainstream? Well in terms of heavy music, there isn’t really much of a mainstream so to speak; the cavernous world of underground metal is so incredibly vast, with an impossible amount of genre’s and sub genres that it has become a creative oasis in certain places.

The term post metal can be used to describe anything from the dark mountainous wall of droning feedback of Sunn 0))), to the punk metal onslaught of Converge, to the melodic shoegazing of Jesu. If one was pushed to give a definition, it would be any band that despite being involved in a music scene (metal) that doesn’t exactly embrace change, have continually pushed the boundaries and dared to explore new territory.  In simpler terms, it’s a concoction of post rock and metal, including clean and distorted vocals. Guitar is now used to create atmosphere as opposed to a pummelling riff machine and in recent times there has been a blurring of the lines into shoegaze territory, with walls of feedback and a large degree of instrumentals.

To consider the cultural shift involved, in year’s gone past, metal gigs were solely the stomping ground of young, long haired adolescent males who thrived on the aggression and collective sense of being part of something.

The author recently attended an Isis concert and was surprised to see a crowd that was evenly split male/female and it was immediately obvious that this wasn’t a Slayer crowd. The audience were all immaculately dressed hipsters and bohemians who would be right at home at an Arcade Fire or My Bloody Valentine gig.

In addition, certain key members of the scene have expanded their artistic palette into painting and graphic design. Jacob Bannon of Converge, in addition to creating all the bands art work has become a respected graphic artist in his own right (http://www.jacobbannon.com/).

 . Aaron Turner of Isis has been following a similar path since their break up (http://aaronbturner.blogspot.com/), and Josh Graham of Neurosis who is responsible for their renowned live visuals is also an accomplished graphic artist (http://www.suspendedinlight.com/).

Following on from this, many of these artists have been following a DIY mentality; circumnavigating the record industry altogether, creating their own work start to finish. Aaron Turner’s Hydrahead records and Neurosis’s Neurot Recordings have been providing a stage for bands who wish to produce something a little outside the norm.

So what does this all mean? As mentioned earlier; artists who are associated with the genre try and distance themselves from it. However, it’s been somewhat of a revolution that has gone on quietly and unnoticed to the masses. Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson had this to say:

“I really lost touch with metal for about 20 years. I probably didn’t give it much credit for being musically sophisticated. Then, around the turn of the century, the turn of the millennium, in 2000, I suddenly got turned on to this whole scene of extraordinarily ambitious metal groups. It almost answered a question that I’d had, which was, where are all the interesting musicians going now. I found most of these guys were forming extreme-metal groups. It turned me back onto metal and the idea that you could have brutal music that was also complex and groovy. It wasn’t necessarily clever or flashy, it was just brutal and powerful but also had sophistication”.

A sun that never sets burns on

New light is this rivers dawn

Neurosis – A sun that never sets