An increasingly predominant movement in
modern metal comes in the form of death metal that very closely
resembles canonical groups such as Incantation, Asphyx, Entombed, and
the like in both sound and essence. I've noted that as the number of
such bands that bear the dubious descriptor "new old-school
death metal" has risen over the past few years, so has the
number of detractors that decry the movement as nothing more than a
futile retreading of worn musical ground. As an ardent fan of many
bands that are routinely dismissed amidst a sea of insubstantial
mimes, I feel it necessary to discuss why a great deal of the
aforementioned detractors' arguments against the movement rest on
precarious footing; and this may be succinctly demonstrated by means
of three main points, each of which will be briefly expounded below:
i.) The importance of sonic tradition
and reverence for previous masters of the style has always been of
eminent significance in the metal craft, and failure to comprehend
the stylistically conservative bent that is embedded in metal's
history leads to inherently warped views of the bands in question.
ii.) Many bands with rich, fertile
musical offerings are summarily and inaccurately assessed as "clones"
for reasons that I feel may mostly be attributed to a combination of
latent bias against the movement coupled with lazy listening habits.
iii.) Very similar to i.): The
artificial construction of an "old-school" epoch in
contrast with a post-golden era epoch is a categorical fiction that
sits on shaky ground. The development of death metal must be looked
at as a continuous, ever-changing lineal process as opposed to the
common discrete demarcation of "old-school" and
"new-school".
Though it can be said of a number of
styles of music, metal is especially notorious for producing bands
that morph a general fanbase into a divisive fervor; one is
hard-pressed to rattle off a litany of groups that have procured
nigh-universal praise. However, such groups do exist,
and these classic acts have formed the basis of much subsequent metal
on the obvious sonic level; but they have also played an integral
role in establishing the extra-musical notions of "poseurdom"
that is so omnipresent in the subculture. In a process very similar
yet paradoxically antithetical to monotheistic traditions, certain
artistic entities such as Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom, Slayer, and
in a more universal sense, Black Sabbath, are sacrosanct; and failure
to adhere to their doctrines has traditionally resulted in being cast
aside as a "poseur" without exception (the metal equivalent
of a heretic/apostate). For me, the sheer sight of the word "Bathory"
invokes a visceral yet immensely intricate physiological reaction
that encapsulates everything I love about this style of music, and I
know I'm far from the only one who feels this way.
What
this demonstrates is that the unquestionable reverence for such
canonical acts has played a significant role in the development of
metal thus far. To rebuke bands like Dead Congregation purely
for their use of the same general musical palette as Incantation and
Immolation is to commit an act of complete absurdity. The truth is
that stylistic development is a perpetual process in any style of any
given medium of art; and given the quasi-divine status of the
preeminent bands listed above, it's only sensible that we get the
movement of death metal that exists in the state it does today.
Failure to
acknowledge the content above most certainly plays a role in
engendering the sort of attitude that fuels my second point of
contention. The criticism of bands I have in mind comes in the
general form "Newer Band X sounds like Older Band Y, rendering
Newer Band X insignificant", and the problem with this is
twofold. On one hand, it's a reinforcement of the dreadful evaluative
process adopted by many that simply consists of a binary comparison
from one band to another based on surfaces aesthetics, which is
intimately related to the second problem wherein the aforementioned
assessments are often found to be fatally hasty and inaccurate. Take
the case of Vasaeleth, a band I've seen dismissed as a vapid
Incantation clone by a number of people. This diagnosis is inaccurate
for a number of reasons, two of which deal with the band's approach
to song structure and lyrical composition. A structural triumph that
is on display a number of times on their debut album, Crypt Born
and Tethered to Ruin, is the form that songs like "Wrathful
Deities", "Figures of Chained Spirits", and the
colossal "Gateways to the Cemetery of Being" utilize
wherein an introductory section is succeeded by a section that acts
as the classical "theme" of each song as it is reintroduced
and manipulated in various contexts throughout the duration of each
respective track. This structural convention logically endows the
lyrics with a sense of ebb and flow, which is best portrayed in the
aforementioned "Gateways to the Cemetery of Being": A song
that embodies the chaotic essence of a sacrificial ritual with its
abrupt musical changes and staccato-esque libretto.
Qualities such as
those explicated above are essential in making Vasaeleth's debut the
great work that it really is, and they simply cannot be gleaned from
a cursory listen or two that allows the listener to absorb little
beyond surface aesthetics. Vasaeleth is only one such case; I could
offer equally valid cases for other bands like Grave Miasma and their
fittingly miasmic approach to composition that often hints at
Demoncy, Dead Congregation's unique mastery of the relationship
between music and lyric to, Impetuous Ritual's uncanny ability to
create an organic, seamlessly flowing work of art that very much is a
ritual unto itself, and many others.
A rather nebulous
tendency when looking at the history of metal from its origins to the
present day is to bifurcate the developmental process of death metal
into two eras of pre-1994/5 and post-1994/5, which is surely where
this notion of an "old school" comes from. Now, I can
sympathize with this tendency, as I will acknowledge a sort of
"golden era" that ended around the release of Morbid
Angel's Domination: A work that can retrospectively be seen as
a sort of death knell for a once fertile musical style. However, the
said bifurcation comes with its dangers; dangers that motivate this
entire post. The fact of the matter is that death metal continued to
flourish, albeit perhaps with longer intervals of silence, with
classic, and most importantly, innovative, works by
Immolation, Gorguts, The Chasm, Deeds of Flesh, and many others
sporadically appearing from 1996 up until the middle of the new
millennium; around the time this modern "old school" death
metal movement began to take off with the release of Repugnant's
Epitome of Darkness in 2006 (this seems as good an album as
any to mark as the arbitrary beginning of this arbitrary "movement").
The corollary of this is self-evident and evinces the central claim
of iii.).
Don't get me
wrong, there certainly are a number of disposable clones in the
modern death metal sphere. However, many groups such as those
mentioned above are unfairly lumped in with the dime-a-dozen bands
that are rightfully ignored. I only ask that the reader reflect upon
what I have written above and consider such points when approaching
post-9/11 death metal offerings.
"Blood on stone and shell. Fragments of dead flesh lay torn in corresponding pattern in parallel to demonic being. Plagues cast on life forms. Fumes of putrid spirit
To bless what comes with the horizon with devotion to the coming death. Wretched curses on dead flesh. The cleansing of stone and shell."
