The Riffs Are Too Damn Fast!!

A Measured Response To Tetragrammacide.

Black metal is unique among music genres. It has, over the past forty years, demonstrated an unusual ability to remain at the front of counter-culture. There is a quote attributed to Maniac (Sven Erik) comparing black metal with opera; citing the similarities between the two artforms. Black metal, like opera, is more than just a style of music. It is an artform that one must accept all or none of. In order to enjoy black metal, one must acknowledge this reality. Related to this, Werwolf (owner of Werewolf records) points out that in recent years, there has been a “conspiracy” growing within the wider scene. Bands delude themselves into thinking black metal is just about the music. The philosophy of the music falls away, all the foundational principals thrown away as bands like Ghost Bath and Deafheaven proliferate. That being said, the genre was constructed around clear guidelines to drive the creative process.

The legendary black metal made in the early years followed a set of principals laid out by the innovators of the second-wave scene. On the aural front, it centered around anti-musical songwriting and production. One must never forget black metal was a reactionary movement against the perceived popularization and commercialization of death metal. Darkthrone made a deliberate step away from the highly-polished sound of the Swedish death metal scene, moving towards ten-minute long repetitive songs featuring incredibly abrasive and inaccessible production. Mayhem’s first demo, “Pure Fucking Armageddon,” states on the cassette’s j-card that it features “the worst possible sound quality.” Mayhem’s demo is an extreme example, but it is an important time capsule that demonstrates the deepest creative roots of second-wave black metal. The double-tap of incredibly rough “corpse” production and stripped-down songwriting comes across strongest in tapes like “Pure Fucking Armageddon.” Styles change in the black metal that would arrive in the nineties. However, this focus on simple repetitive songs with harsh production would lead bands to create the best and most iconic records of the era. It’s a deceptively simple formula that when implemented correctly, forms the rails that great black metal follows. Especially as someone that plays guitar and has made efforts to play through most of the genre’s quintessential early moments, the music is fundamentally simple. That simplicity masks the reality that this is difficult music to write. It takes an understanding of the extreme music that preceded, and a hyper-focus on the artistic goals of early black metal to create music that has such a clear sonic vision.

Now… on to Tetragrammacide… They are the band that made me want to write this. While I had heard of this band in previous years, I admit… I have only listened to their latest album “Typho-Tantric Aphorisms from the Arachneophidian Qur'an” in its entirety… That being said, I do not get it. Immediately, that style of fast technical riff completely turned me off. I tried. I listened to over half of the record (twenty-seven minutes) before cutting it off. This is what sparked this article, sitting through over half of the album and processing the experience as it unfolded…

In black metal, less is more. There is no debating this. No one complains about Panzerfaust (from Darkthrone, obviously) for “not giving enough” as a record. Additionally, no one complains about Panzerfaust lacking uniqueness. There is nothing about Tetragrammacide’s latest album that strikes me as unique. It’s an ambiguous swamp of indistinguishable riffs and songs that leaves no room to understand what the album is trying to do. The production on the album is horrible. All of the sounds on the record have been crushed and hyper-compressed in the vein of most modern mainstream metal. The flat production is necessary, otherwise the complex instrumentation would be reduced to little more than white noise having gone and listened to Tetragrammacide’s earlier albums and EPs, the experience of listening to their new album became retroactively worse. The album covers, song titles, and overall aesthetic came across as a unique spin on the classic war metal formula. Was this latest albums the attempt by the band to break into the mainstream? Similar styles of breakneck metal riddled with dissonant guitars, over-the-top delivery, pretentious song titles, and gratuitous blast-beats are all the rage right now. Early second wave black metal is great because it does not try to show off or follow trends. Transylvanian Hunger is one of the greatest black metal albums of all time because it presents us with a laser-focused artistic vision unconcerned with garnering popularity. People believe black metal to be pretentious when the opposite is true. Records like Transylvanian Hunger demonstrate that black metal is entirely genuine, rejecting all the notions of what a metal band should be in order to create art that will inevitably resonate with the intended audience.

What Tetragrammacide does is worthy of respect obviously, regardless of whether or not I think it’s good black metal. This is a style of “l'horreur du vide” extreme metal that is afraid to allow simple riffs and silence speak power. It’s music that mindlessly pushes against mundane boundaries. It does not give listeners the time or space to process the experience, obfuscating any serious depth of experience for the listener. Worst of all, arguably, is something that is not Tetragrammacide’s fault…

Reddit and mainstream metal journalism are a hotbed of modern orientalism. This form of journalistic orientalism is not the imitation of Eastern traditional artforms, but the fascination and elevation of non-western artists. The fact that Tetragrammacide is a band from Calcutta, India makes the experience more novel for Reddit users and shitlib journalists. Again, it is not the band’s fault journalists intentionally elevate the work of non-white artists in an attempt to downplay the allegations that black metal is a genre for “nazis.” Black metal easily incorporates national and ethnic identities into the music, but motifs of patriotism and positions associated with the political right-wing are discouraged when it comes from white Western artists. It is an annoying biproduct of our political moment that detracts from the art of black metal. This neo-orientalism practiced by the media ecosystem to strike at the heart of black metal as an artform and transform it into another political tool of progressivism. To be clear, the band and Iron Bonehead Productions do not deserve criticism for the political obsessions of metal journalists. Iron Bonehead in particular is a great label I have tremendous respect for. I mostly raise this point to demonstrate another area where this kind of progressive black metal is manipulated by outside forces to generate buzz that dilutes the art and weakens it as a counter-cultural force.

“Typho-Tantric Aphorisms from the Arachneophidian Qur'an” is the imitation of artistic depth. It betrays the creative framework and origins of the genre in the process. Black metal has such an ominous reputation because it, in part, allows the music and performance to manifest and speak for itself. Pieces like Hvis Lyset Tar Oss (from Burzum obviously) are so legendary because they embraced the artistic framework of black metal, allowing the innovations to manifest through the artistic process. Black metal is not just music for entertainment or a product for sale. Many forget this. Black metal is a blade made to cut through the bullshit of the modern world, and we must not forget it. We look back at the early scene with such respect and high-regard because they did something incredibly unique. A group of unlikely individuals created an artistic movement that has been a constant in counter-cultural circles since its inception. Tetragrammacide, as a band, can do whatever they want. However, I want to get back to the roots of black metal and witness bands create genre-defining music again. This goal is entirely within our grasp. We can create a living sub-culture of underground bands again. There are (stylistically) progressive black metal bands I have immense respect for (AVOWD out of Chicago is a fantastic example)… But the direction bands like Tetragrammacide are taking is not the way forward for us.

Hail the underground…