2 weeks ago
15
I’m an avid listener of heavy music, including the many subgenres of black metal. Ana Schnabl’s reflections on her adolescent draw towards black metal’s atmosphere and bleakness, and subsequent horror at the revelation of the politics and motivations of many of the musicians, resonated with me (Angst-filled black metal music became my identity, 25 August).
Although metal may reflect and intensify the antagonisms of society more generally (fascism, racism, misogyny and so on), the scene has been and is being reclaimed by the oddballs and outcasts for whom heavy music is not just a sanctuary, but a place to envision a fairer and kinder world.
UK black metal bands such as Dawn Ray’d and Underdark sing (or scream) about Marxism and class solidarity. Backxwash and Uboa (Xandra Metcalfe) blend hip-hop and noise, respectively, to craft dissonant anthems of queer and trans experience. Ragana, Divide and Dissolve, and Panopticon howl against Black enslavement and ecological destruction.
The spring of radical leftwing black metal bubbles strongly, and it’s well worth drinking deeply.
Dr Jac Common
East Leake, Nottinghamshire
What a shame Ana Schnabl deserted black metal, a vast genre made up of bands from Azerbaijan to Kenya to Iceland to Peru, with hundreds in the UK alone. I’m not going to deny there is a notable presence of far-right projects within black metal. Thankfully (for me at least), there’s a very vibrant anti-fascist black metal scene too, putting out excellent music and channelling the genre’s intense emotional power into extremely justified anger at the state of the world. Avoiding the sketchy acts takes a bit of due diligence, but it’s more than worth it.
Jo Palmer
Chelmsford
As a fan of some black metal, I read Ana Schnabl’s article with interest. The fascist sympathies of some of the genre’s creators are well documented, but the modern black metal world is diverse. The feminist black metal band Witch Club Satan play the Supersonic festival this year, and Agriculture play “ecstatic” black metal with a queer aesthetic. Don’t write off the whole genre any more than you would dismiss all punk because some punks had Nazi sympathies.
When we’re young and naive, we may well pledge our allegiance foolishly, be that to black metal or the Bay City Rollers. As we get older, we hopefully get better at separating the wheat from the chaff.
Iain Forsyth
London
