The French Wigger Stands Alone...

Or: How Peste Noire Has Come To Define Great Modern Black Metal

Following the 2024 Olympic opening ceremonies featuring the extremely popular French progressive metal band Gojira, discourse exploded across “metal Twitter” (whatever that means). I have nothing against Gojira or their music beyond simply not liking it. To my credit, I even have several friends that enjoy their stuff… That being said, the reaction to the performance on social media was quite cringe inducing. So-called “metalheads” have this way of speaking and reacting, especially when a band they are interested in breaks into the mainstream consciousness. The overly-grandiose, flowery language and emotional gushing over their favorite heavy metal band playing live… beamed directly to millions of confused commie apartments in China. They speak like they are part of an oppressed minority, and this public performance by Gojira is their edict of Milan. I am heavily biased, obviously, but it seems like this is the point a metal band dies. Undoubtedly, Gojira’s goals as a band are totally different from most of the projects I hold in high regard. I have nothing against them, I think it is strange when fans of more-mainstream metal pine for acknowledgement and legitimacy within the wider music world.  

Reacting to this explosion of discourse was a small core of contrarians and dedicated extreme-metal aficionados (you know who you are). They began making posts about how the superior choice of metal band to play the opening ceremonies would have been Peste Noire. Afterall, there are few acts that seemingly capture France better than Famine’s infamous Black Metal band. Even those unfamiliar with extreme music can immediately identify Famine’s band as hailing from France. The natural antithesis of a band like Gojira, Peste Noire (KPN) has quietly introduced millions of people to radically French music while maintaining an entirely underground presence. Famine heads one of the most well-known French metal bands in the world. This is despite his reluctance to use the internet, in addition to the active attempts at suppressing the proliferation of his music online. Famine does not advertise his band online outside guerrilla marketing methods and the occasional teaser video posted to YouTube. Despite his radical politics and personal associations, he managed to create a label to publish his own albums without any fear of censorship or compromise. What began as a dumb thought experiment spiraled into the realization that KPN (abbreviation of Kommando Peste Noire) is representative of everything going right with Black Metal in the current age. Famine’s project endures because it embraces the characteristics of Black Metal that make it highly resistant to the consumerist cultural rot that’s eaten away at extreme music since the 90’s.

The term “outsider artist” goes through cycles of overuse thanks to our modern culture dominated by therapy-speak. More often than not, the term is used to describe someone that demonstrates a modicum of creative capacity in between psychotic breaks, drug binges, or psychotic drug binges. “Outsider art” is something sold to the middle class as a novel experience and alternative to charity. They have no ability to articulate vision or communicate anything besides novelty. Contrary to most contemporary usage of the term, Black Metal is outsider art. The greatest contributions to extreme metal have all been made by untrained artists pulling from a zeitgeist completely outside any mainstream art scene. Over the decades, bands have demonstrated Black Metal’s ability to communicate higher concepts in a thoroughly anti-pretentious package. In my opinion, the artform is primed for it. Burzum’s Filosofem transcends the underground domain of Black Metal, penetrating the public consciousness because it communicates something that speaks to people and inspires emotion twenty-eight years later. Especially in our thoroughly modern world devoid of high-art, I find these outsider art pieces are the quickest inroad to meaning and transcendence. Filosofem being a key example, where Varg experiments with liminality in a way that was ahead of its time. In a similar vein, Peste Noire is on the cutting-edge of art communicated through extreme music. I would consider myself a fan of avant-garde and experimental music, and it is not a stretch to say that Famine demonstrates an artistic acumen through KPN that rivals any artist with institutional support. “Modern art sucks” is a painfully surface-level thing to say, but it is true. Modern “high” art fails in most capacities to communicate anything particularly meaningful or significant outside demonstration of technical skill, megalomania, or attention to detail. I acknowledge that art is principally about the process now, that is where the overarching “meaning” is derived. But, most art I am shown by normie and progressive friends simply glorifies mass immigration or some extreme ideology regarding gender. The people that brush off KPN as right-wing propaganda, disregarding any meaning the music might have are completely misguided. I believe Famine when he asserts the music and aesthetic of Peste Noire are completely apolitical. The image of the band may have extreme trappings, but this is Black Metal. Nothing should be off-limits. I have no doubts about Famine’s personal politics of… “anarcho-fascism” or whatever he identifies as… But boiling down his discography to anything other than an insightful dissection of French culture and meaning is doing his decades of work a massive disservice. Like Varg, Famine transcends his medium in ways that makes him deserving of the title “outsider artist.”

Famine is the archetypal Black Metal artist. Someone that heard the music as a teenager and, as a result, was galvanized into doing it himself. Shortly after entering the scene with the short-lived NSBM band Dor Daedeloth, he found himself alone conceptualizing Peste Noire. After his 2006 debut album, La sanie des siècles - Panégyrique de la dégénérescence, caught on with critics and hipsters, Famine sought to lash out at those he felt did not understand his music or Black Metal. This reaction is what created FolkFuck Folie, the record that I believe is the aesthetic beginning of Peste Noire. The guitar tone on the record was a result of a bet between friends to create the worst sound possible. The songwriting is deliberately chaotic and heightens the abrasiveness of the album’s production. In this deliberate attempt to revolt against popularity and the more traditional Burzum-inspired sound of his debut, Famine created a unique and quintessentially-French Black Metal album that incorporates several unique artistic influences listeners would find across the rest of KPN’s discography. With each subsequent release, Famine would demonstrate a rapidly developing ability to create ambitious albums with wide aesthetic scopes. Every KPN album is unlike the last, with Famine crafting a new sound and direction for each. Famine’s third album, Ballade cuntre lo Anemi francor, has very little in common sonically with the records that proceed and follow it in the discography. The lyrical and aesthetic motifs are similar, drawing verses from classic French poets and evoking the Medieval. But the third album, L’ordure à l'état pur, takes Peste Noire in an entirely different direction both sonically and aesthetically. The old moss-covered cathedrals and motifs of le paysage on Ballade cuntre lo anemi Francor are replaced with bleak urban asphalt, concrete, and decay. The way Famine can jump from an homage to pastoral, medieval France into a dissection of French urban decay and cultural change is quite impressive. The scale and ambition of L’ordure in particular, sets KPN apart as a shining example of what Black Metal can do under the direction of an artist with proper inspiration. Famine is an inspired artist, and he wields Black Metal as a tool of societal critique in rare fashion. This dovetails nicely into another point about Peste Noire I want to make, highlighting the “one-man Black Metal band” as a near-invincible vehicle for development of the artform and protection of identity.

There are a ton of bands that achieve a similar level of musical complexity to Peste Noire, but few manage to be the creative products of one person. Black Metal, unlike its metal predecessors, has the distinction of being a particularly lonely artform. It contrasts death metal and thrash metal’s more Dionysian soul. Black Metal is an artform steeped in isolation, appealing particularly to the introspective and rugged-individualists. The “one man music project” is something that is not unique to Black Metal, but it takes on a unique identity here. It is well known Varg Vikernes pioneered this form, believing he could create darker music on his own. The resulting Burzum demos were extreme, the bleeding edge of D.I.Y. underground music. No studio, no producer, no mastering, no session musicians… Just one artist following an intense drive to create and execute vision. Famine’s approach was a bit different with Peste Noire, recruiting session musicians to help him record his songs, but the result is still an auteur experience. Whether or not artists like Famine or Varg realized it at the time, they were ahead of their time. Opting to make music solo has become a necessity for many interested in Black Metal. This style of “one man band” is something that is even beginning to cross-contaminate into other genres of music for similar underlying reasons. Meeting people interested in music that are competent with any kind of instrument is difficult in 2024. Back in the 1980’s, there were enough record stores and physical spaces where people interested in making music could meet and exchange ideas. While I believe it was never easy, less people are picking up instruments now compared to twenty years ago, following a downward trend. I believe a lot of what drove the early Black Metal scene to innovate was a lack of extremity in the limited number of records that were available in stores. When the music was new, there was a real sense collaboration across local and regional scenes and an attempt to create something unique. However, the advent of streaming has fundamentally changed the way people interact with music. Everyone has unlimited access to an endless catalogue of whatever niche subgenre they want to listen to at any given time. This glut of choice has led to a situation where people’s music tastes are too individualized and hyper-curated. Even between Black Metal enthusiasts in the same town, there is often very little common ground. Hardly anyone listens to the same records anymore. The “classics” of most genres have largely fallen away with younger audiences. With less shared understanding and appreciation of agreed-upon “classics,” artistic collaboration becomes particularly difficult. This is where Black Metal is ahead of the curve. Even before the advent of social media superseding the public space and music streaming, Varg Vikernes was rejecting collaboration and the traditional “metal band” to pursue uncompromised extremity and expression. In my opinion, that is what makes the first few Burzum demos so important. Black Metal became a solitary artform with Varg’s early innovation. Famine’s approach to one-man Black Metal is different, but Famine has always been adamant that the musicians that play on Peste Noire’s studio albums have no impact on the band’s songwriting or creative vision. This uncompromising nature does not end at the music however. Part of what makes KPN so unique in the modern metal landscape is how Famine took this uncompromising attitude and extended it to the band’s business model.

In a world where the label “independent artist” has become a common way for labels to peddle records to hipsters, Peste Noire is a truly independent project. Even when KPN was signed to more traditional labels, Famine principally relied on guerrilla marketing and word-of-mouth promotion to sell records. Famine has also totally rejected any form of record distribution outside of physical media sales, with many compare his album and merchandise drops to brands like Supreme with how limited and sought-after they can be. As a musician, Famine is completely self-reliant. Not enough people highlight the business side of KPN and how it coincides with the creative independence of the band. Peste Noire is a completely uncompromised project. Totally rejecting the fast, engagement-bait world of music streaming principally because Famine hates the idea of people listening to Peste Noire on a computer. Famine is choosing quality and creative control over the inevitable profits Famine would reap from a larger deal with a label and distributor. In my opinion, this is the model bands should try to follow. Obviously, online distribution has its benefits. But I believe bands should aspire to focus on physical releases like KPN does.  The recent experiments with the “Livre” releases in 2023 and 2024 are an excellent example of the flexibility that independent artistry can provide. Black Metal should not necessarily seek to become “high art.” But meaningful development of the artform going forward will be done by artists that possess a similar degree of independence.

            KPN stands as a stark example of how Black Metal has positively evolved post 2010. Famine’s music is worth listening to, even for those not particularly interested in Black Metal. The integrity of the art present on albums like L'ordure à l'état pur and Le retour des pastoureaux speaks for itself. While Peste Noire is the most French band ever, translation and analysis of his lyrics over the years have made his albums more accessible to a non-French speaking audience. While his releases are limited and expensive to get shipped to the US, monitoring La Mesnie Herlequin’s website will reveal he somewhat regularly offers album reissues on CD and vinyl. They are expensive, but Famine has a reputation for putting together high-quality releases. I attribute a lot of Famine’s success and good reputation within the Black Metal scene to his dedicated solo approach. In a cultural landscape fractured by the internet and social media, “build it and they will come” is the primary option for aspiring artists. The One-Man Black Metal band is a vehicle for an aesthetic and artistic vision that circumvents the lack of shared culture and values between prospective musicians. In Peste Noire’s case, it is an opportunity for an artist to deliver an uninterrupted artistic vision spanning over twenty years. Elitist Tendency is pro-elitism, and an uncompromising publication. Therefore, I find a single artist like Famine that exacts complete artistic control while creating such wildly compelling music of great interest. It is a testament to the generative power and creativity of specific people, Black Metal strips away the traditional pretenses of what a band “should” be. Instead, Black Metal empowers the unlikely and urges them towards unapologetic and uncompromising expression. Like Peste Noire, this does not necessarily entail following a strict “formula.” Innovation in Black Metal is a tricky thing, but Famine is evidence of a much wider breadth of artistic possibility in the music. One can “be themselves” and reach a level of credibility and success within the global Black Metal scene.

Hail the Underground, and Hail Kommando Peste Noire!!