I’m 73. Heavy Metal Just Changed My Life

In November, just after the election from hell, I became a metalhead. It was an accident, but it’s too late to reverse course now. Before saying more about that, I want to step back in time. By about 60 years.

During most of those years, I was good at keeping up with the currency of popular music. Come the early 1970s, keeping current with the currency would become my vocation, when I took up music journalism.

That, too, was an accident. I never took any journalism courses. Instead, I took music courses — music was my major at Portland State University. I didn’t get that much from all that study. Earlier in the 1960s, radio was the primary educational medium for me. I’d come home from school, tune the channel to KISN, which was around 91 on the AM dial, and I’d lay there for a good hour, just waiting to hear what would pour into the air. Every day, there was something new. Of course, there was some music you didn’t have to seek out on the airwaves. There was plenty of music that simply owned the air. The sounds of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, and James Brown, among others, were everywhere you turned in the early 1960s.

The ideals and events of the decade informed the music, as its moods grew both more joyful and darker. In the middle of 1967 — the same season that bred what became known as the Summer of Love in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, and the same period when the Beatles summarized and apotheosized psychedelia with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — I came across an album I really loved (still perhaps my favorite of all time): The Velvet Underground and Nico. It was a record full of lines about bad losses, cold hearts, hard narcotics, and rough sex. I took to it like a dog to water (or whatever dogs take to). It was the first subject — in a long list — of arguments that I would enter into with friends about rock & roll.

In five decades of writing for Rolling Stone, I found that the magazine increasingly gave me assignments that examined historical figures and times in rock. Before long, that was my beat: writing about dead people and departed events. Except none of that history was really dead, even if some of its artists were. The past simply became more or less my new currency, and I was always finding unanticipated things to understand about it. As Willam Faulkner wrote in the part-novel, part-play Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

But this pursuit is what also inadvertently brought me head-to-head with metal music in ways I never expected — ways that are still reverberating for me.

In October, I was listening to a wonderful and eye-opening 19-volume (to date) series, Brown Acid, on RidingEasy Records. I was drawn to it because of the word “acid” in the albums’ titles. But I quickly heard that this wasn’t psychedelic music; rather, Brown Acid’s albums are comprised of the sounds that evolved from that music. “Heavy Rock from the American Comedown Era,” as RidingEasy describes it. In purely musical terms, these bands were more spare-sounding — mostly guitars, bass, drums, and vocals — and none of them were playing high-flown sounds. That’s to say, the Brown Acid albums are sets of hard rock as it was rising from out of psychedelic music (but might not have evolved had psychedelic not made intense electrical explorations possible). These collections were post-garage proto-metal, and more often than not, the music knocked me out. These too were largely overlooked, even barely known bands, and judging by the songs RidingEasy selected from these artists, that’s a damn shame. (A somewhat equally wonderful — and certainly more diverse — collection can be found in the 13-volume Mindrocker series, which emerged in print from 1981 through 1986. It’s no longer in print but can be heard at Spotify.)

When I was done with the Brown Acid series, I had to wonder: What had heavy metal been up to after a certain point? I admit — and I’m embarrassed to say so — but I largely ignored metal music in all the years that I was heeding the currency. It simply didn’t much appeal to me, due to a bias against its flamboyance and its too-frequent misogynistic and misanthropic themes, and what I regarded as similar obsessions of much of metal’s devoted audiences. There were exceptions that found their way into my work: Two of the bands I most enjoyed writing about for Rolling Stone were Van Halen and Led Zeppelin. Though the latter was incredibly important to the rise of metal, I wouldn’t describe Zeppelin as metal per se, though they could turn the metal on incomparably. Another favorite piece I wrote for Rolling Stone was about the 1991 U.S. leg of the Clash of the Titans tour that featured Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. One reason I liked that story was because I liked all the members of the various bands and was moved by their reflections on struggle, hate, love, hope, musical philosophy, politics, as well as their relationship with and debts toward their audiences.

So one day in early November, I set off for an afternoon’s attempt to come to a better understanding of metal’s course since not just the Titans tour, but since the days of Black Sabbath (a band I did always like, and clearly an incredibly important one — more pivotal than Led Zeppelin to metal’s evolution).

What did I find? A change in my life. That exploration still hasn’t stopped, and I doubt it ever will. You could’ve knocked me over with a mallet.

I first paid attention to two of metal’s better-known and fundamental subgenres, black metal and death metal — and holy fuck, that made for epiphanies of all sorts, about the history, themes, and the lands and cultures (and subcultures) that the music came from, because metal music of all sorts stopped being primarily American or British concerns decades ago. Though death metal had American origins — particularly in Florida — it took on new depths and obsessions in Norway and Sweden and spread worldwide in the years since. Black metal had early foundations in England, Switzerland, and Scandinavia but similarly spread beyond. If death metal is more fatalistic, more depressive — though not necessarily nihilistic — black metal, at least early on, was more interested in examining evil and proclaiming the nullity of certain values, including musical values. Death metal, by contrast, put more emphasis on recording technique and musical prowess, whereas black metal disavowed that sort of refinement — it was initially far more invested in low-fi than low-fi was — just as it also disavowed belief in anything god-fearing. Black metal was in a sense theological, but much of it was closer to the theology of H.P. Lovecraft: The real gods will kill everybody, including those who love and follow those gods. In this way black metal has been at times closer to the anti-natalist philosophy of Emil Cioran and the pessimism or Eugene Thacker — writers who essentially extrapolated H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional mythos into full-fledged philosophy.

Between death metal and black metal, the latter is more complex and has, no question about it, proved more worrisome. As it found new roots and adherents in Nordic countries — where the music fit the weather — black metal asserted a particularly troubling manifestation in Norway, where one of the music’s prime respected practitioners committed the notorious murder of another musician in the scene (he went to prison for 16 years, still managed to make some music while there, and returned to his career after release). Others from the movement preached virulent racism, identified with a renewal of fascist values, and committed a wave of church burnings. Much of black metal has typically maligned Christianity and other institutional religions, and some practitioners took parts in Norwegian church burnings in the 1990s. Even so, the music continued to spread worldwide and in years since many who make black metal have now staked out the music as a resistance music that stands in opposition to fascism and nihilism. It’s still a pretty bleak world they pay witness to, but making music and interacting with the community of their audiences provides them with affirmation. They aren’t about to kill anybody or burn anything down. Black metal is a sound that its devotees value immensely and they are ready to argue for its meanings. On one hand, you can still find bands who preach and attract ugliness, but at the other extreme there is Brooklyn band Liturgy. Its leader, Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix, makes what she describes as “transcendental black metal” — and they aim to invoke heaven in their sound. It’s a complex and brilliant aural vision of heaven, and one that that accommodates the influence of Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, and La Monte Young, among others.

This has made for a lot of convolution but also for a lot of great music that can still be black without disavowing life’s fundamental worth. There are some fascinating and heartening black-metal websites that are anti-fascist, anti-racist, sexually tolerant while still being wholehearted adherents of the black metal aesthetic. In particular, journalist Kim Kelly has done far-reaching and valuable work at ferreting out and exposing the hate bands. What this means is that black metal’s sonic possibilities matter much more than its wrong-headed early politics, and bands fight the battle for that transfiguration every day — even now few Satan-heads are not fascist in their beliefs. Which means that black metal is presently where some of the most interesting rock & rock-derived music is being made, and it’s been that way for years and years. 

Indeed, part of what has made black metal so notable is the ongoing arguments at the center of its art, culture and being. The other element of black metal that makes it well worth abiding is the quality of the music it has been producing for decades now, with no decline in sight. It is a genre that is core to metal — and much of it is flat-out brilliant. I doubt a day goes by that doesn’t see a new black-metal release, and though it always pays to tread carefully in the music’s realm — to be mindful of its worst contents and content-makers (though they get less traction these days) — it’s hard to ignore its importance and frequent genius.

Like death metal, black metal has spread worldwide, with artists and advocates outside of the U.S. and beyond the Nordic lands, in such places as France, Italy, Brazil, Israel, Egypt, Japan, and China. Indeed, the more I’ve been listening to these forms, the more I find that many of its best exponents come from cultures where English is not a primary language, and those cultures also bring new aspects to the music. I have been floored time and again, daily, by the quality of these permutations.

That is part of what I’ve found so notable about metal music: It is everywhere, and it is vast. In fact, it makes for oceans. In all my years of listening to music, I’ve never encountered a genre and its subgenres — except jazz — that is so massively populated and creative. For all that we properly revere about alternative and indie-music scenes, it’s important to note that there are none more alternative or indie than metal’s scenes. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of metal bands the world over, though few get enough music press attention and none of them get much — actually, any — airplay. (The online metal press falls largely into two areas: encyclopedic documentation that is immeasurable, and review sites that are smart as they are passionate and good-humored. One such site I now visit daily is Angry Metal Guy.) You can stream much of the music at Qobuz, Apple, Spotify, and Tidal, but the best source for this stuff is the online provider Bandcamp (easily the best music store on Earth). You can preview entire works there, and any titles you might choose to purchase are reasonably priced. Indeed, some of the most ingenious and most irresistible metal albums I’ve come across on Bandcamp go $1 each. In fact, I bought a label’s 140-disc discography the other night for 50 cents. What this means isn’t that this music is cheap or worthless. What it means is that the music is a work of love, a way of life. 

These artists and labels are not in the metal business for the money, or even primarily as a business. They are in it for the unique music they create, and the unique meanings and purposes of that music. Metal — and its diverse manifestations — makes for the best and most fascinating music scene I’ve ever encountered. Everything I said above about the currency of popular music? There is no currency more far-reaching than metal, and yet the alternative and mainstream music media rarely recognize that currency.

I also want to mention — because this too is part of what I’ve found wondrous these past few months — that death and black metal have spawned numerous subgenres of their own. Atmospheric black metal, atmospheric post-black metal, transcendental black metal, black death metal, progressive black metal, blackgaze and deathgaze (the metal equivalents of shoegaze, and among my favored subgenres), symphonic black metal, death doom metal, technical death metal, deathcore, even Christian death metal … these are but a few subgenres among those larger subgenres. I admit it isn’t easy to tell all the differentiations and nuances apart sonically — my ears just haven’t become that adept yet, and this isn’t quite like telling post-bop apart from bebop — but it’s enthralling to try. In truth, metal can seen more of an umbrella than a genre. All the international permutations have their own takes on subgenres. There’s even Mormon metal. (My home team is trying nonetheless.)

There are, though, I admit, a couple of problems I have with much metal, apart from some of the bands’ wretched politics (though this is still a concern, it has become less a factor). One such problem is a too-common vocal style that is expressed in guttural growls, making lyrics difficult to decipher — at least for me. This trend has gone on and on for years now and remains fairly pervasive, and though some bands have tried to move past it, not enough for my taste. This is, to me, a fairly big turnoff — meaning, I turn off some albums when I get weary of the Death Growl, unless I hear it as just another discordant instrument. (Which it really isn’t. To be fair, a lot of work and craft go into Death Growl vocalizing, and some of it is at times as practiced as Mongolian or Thuvan throat singing.) Fortunately — at least for my tastes — there are more and more bands that are primarily instrumental, and the best of these groups are utterly mesmerizing. My other frequent problem with metal — and it’s not exactly unconnected to the vocalism I just mentioned — is the quality of the music’s lyrics. Because of the pervasive influence of death and black metal’s dependence on themes of depression, pessimism, and negativity, and dime-store Satanism — some lyrics can seem pro forma. Though there are good reasons for that — especially in these depressing days — it can sometimes seem a bit one-trick pony (“woe is me; woe is the world; woe are the fates; the dark and the cold hold me” can become pretty trite after decades) rather than expressive of new depths. Even the best metal bands of today, such as Opeth (a Stockholm progressive death-metal band, formed in 1990, that plays songs of death, love, heartbreak, and sorrow with extraordinary grandeur, and is beloved of critics and invaluable sites like Metal Archive); Amiensus (a progressive black-metal group that emerged from Minnesota in 2010, and perform songs of philosophy, theology, psychology, and mythology, and whose 2024 two-album set, Reclamation Part 1 and Reclamation Part 2, stands as a singular landmark epic in metal music), Neptunian Maximalism (a metal-meets-Mingus near-orchestra, whose avant jazz metal three-disc, two-hour-plus 2020 Éon is a sprawling tour de force ), Blood Incantation (the rarity: a death-metal band — this one from Denver — that makes music about enlightenment, humanity, metaphysics, and mysticism and has won favor in the pop mainstream) — as wonderful as these bands are they don’t quite always transcend the lyrical challenge. Which is to say, if metal has a Bob Dylan — that is, a poet expressing hard truths and telling revealing stories in a language as unparalleled as the music that’s being summoned — I haven’t found that lyricist yet. At the same time, Bob Dylan doesn’t have the instrumental craft of these bands — nobody, except jazz musicians, do — and an essential part of metal’s meanings is its sound. For me, the more cacophonous and dissonant those sounds, the more consoling they feel.

This has made for one of the most surprising and rewarding musical treasure hunts of my life — something I certainly didn’t expect at this stage. Because I started the adventure at age 73, I’m undertaking it with some repentance: I wish I’d ignored my short-sighted biases and paid better attention at least 20 years ago. There is so much to hear, so much to learn, and I barely have a toe in the black-death waters. Since November, I have cataloged over 7,300 albums from over 4,000 bands (metal is overwhelmingly a medium for bands; solo artists don’t turn up that much on Best Metal lists, unless they call themselves bands or projects), and in the evenings, after playing psychedelia in the afternoon, metal is the music I’ve been listening to. When my earphones accidentally slip off, my wife growls at me and turns up the volume on the TV. I’ve told her about this music, but I haven’t played her any of it. “Symphonic metal? Cowboy metal? Mormon metal? Who are you kidding?”

Why, in my 70s, did I suddenly (it happened in less than an hour) form an appetite — indeed an obsession — for metal music? Did the November election have anything to do with it? Maybe. This is certainly a time for more brutal sounds and sentiments. Or is it my naturally sunny disposition that has turned me metalward? Depressive waters seek their own level. I shouldn’t rule out that possibility either.

But I’m now in metal land, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I spend much of my remaining days there.