Page 38 - FMH7

Liturgy, and
reconciling
being a QPOC
who Loves
Black Metal
A lot has been said about this band, and they garnered a pretty huge negative reaction simply based on the fact that they’re from Brooklyn and that the frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix wrote an EX- TREMELY pretentious essay that got published in an academic anthology about black metal, detailing why his take on the genre is better than the Scandinavian one (transcendental vs Hyperborean or whatever - A lot of Jargon is introduced and then thrown around casually). Additionally, typical of the metal scene, many of the critiques are based in homophobic at- titudes toward the frontman (whose sexuality is not on the record as far as I know), either thinly veiled or not at all concealed.
What makes Liturgy important to me is trying to sidestep the traditions of black metal. Don’t get me wrong, I love the genre, but it is inherently problemat- ic, and its scene frequently hostile towards queer folks AND people of color (of which I am both). Thanks
to sites like Metal Archives I can do a decent job of checking out lyrics and political affiliations of bands and avoid those bands with overt white supremacist content or documented connections through their membership. Sometimes this has had to run counter to some of my musical instincts - one of the most interesting black metal bands to my ears when I was discovering the genre, I have since had to stop listen- ing to. The band, Drudkh, while claiming to not
hold any particular National Socialist leanings (they identify as Ukrainian nationalists and their art and lyr- ics have several references to Ukrainian struggles for independence), has several members in common with the actively NSBM band Hate Forest, and has a T-shirt which reads “Drudkh - Art for the White Intellectual Elite.”
As far as I can tell, much of the musical and philosophi- cal impetus for black metal comes from this notion of social individuality, of being apart from the mainstream
- never mind that the metal scene is among the most homogenized scenes in terms of “acceptable ap- pearance” and that the brand of anti-consumerism espoused by many die-hard metalheads has become an industry all its own. My interest in black metal has been largely musical - to my ears, it is more successful than most genres at conveying a certain corner of the emotional spectrum (aggression, grief, depression, iso- lation, and occasionally acknowledging the possibility that there might be something beyond those feelings). The stereotypical musings on anti-religion, isolation, nature and the occasional fantasy world were excellent fodder for my imagination in High School, but with few exceptions it is rare that I pay attention to the lyrical con- tent of black metal. But as someone who wants to take responsibility for the bands I support financially (and recommend to others), it is impossible to completely avoid engaging with the scene, full as it is of adoles- cent opinions about sexuality, gender and race.