Metal Reviews

Again, Drudkh is not much of a political band. They are a bunch of elitist nationalists who try to remain mysterious. They are not propagating messages, and anyone inspired by conservative revolutionaries is not going to be leading a massive coup to bring down a government.

I totally understand despising NSBM, but why is Drudkh the one continually getting all the attention?

They're the only one I really care about so that's why I always mention 'em.

Goat, there is no system... I'm not saying anything that unusual. When people play music, they are communicating something. Sometimes, that will just be pure sound. Sometimes, there will be some moral or social message as well that the musician tries to communicate through sound. In these cases, one can either disregard that message in which case I guess you only listen to the music in a selective, partial way, or you can accept the whole thing as a piece of art the way the musician intended. If you do the latter, it follows logically that the extent to which you can "enjoy" the message affects the extent to which you can enjoy the music. Now, I'm not saying that you have to agree with the message- just, can you involve yourself in it enough to fully appreciate the whole artistic package? In 90% of cases I can, but in other cases I can't. It's not a conscious decision ("no, you fail the listening opinions test...").

I can appreciate people not agreeing with this, but it seems logically coherent to me.

Yes, because they are actually good musically unlike so many of these far right-wing bands.

Let me preface by saying: Rio is great and I'll always like him, but I am chiefly referring to Rio's anti-Drudkh crusade.

Well, firstly, to me they are conveying a message. I'm not suggesting they are trying to propagandise and win converts to the elitist nationalist cause, but I think they may agree with me that we'd be doing them a dis-service to suggest that all they are doing is simply creating sound with no intended meaning. They are trying to say something, I think, as any musician does.

Now, I suppose this goes back to what I said to Zad. When a musician is saying something, then it follows logically that your receptiveness to what they are saying will impact on your enjoyment of the music. I really don't want this to come across as a political thing, per se. Some teen pop star is also saying something in their music. They are saying something very vacuous no doubt, but they will be communicating something, even if it's just "I like going to parties". Part of the reason I don't like that music is probably because I am a miserable arse who hates going to parties. A similar thing could be said of Ukrainian nationalism.

I didn't mean for that to be mean spirited. Just a jab. Drudkh maybe, Arghoslent not so much.

I think it has something to do with Althusser's rupture in Marx. Althusser saw the USSR as maintaining humanistic values, the primacy of man over nature, individualism etc in order to maintain a petit-bourgeoisie class. Somehow Althusser make the jump to saying that's why Stalin committed the purges.

Insert Zizek. Zizek, I think in Lost Causes, framed Stalin's humanism as an attempt to prevent the USSR from a fall into Orwellian realms by rejecting the determinism inherent in biocosmism through the show trials as a way of reaffirming human agency and guilt. The guilty willfully chose to be treasonous; they weren't cogs in a machine. I don't know if I appreciate this view but it was this weird back handed attempt for Zizek to explain Althusser in a different way because most people think Althusser was dead wrong on this aspect?

The Heidegger aspect is most interesting since he rejects humanism as a bunk idea in and of itself, surrounded and perpetuated by a metaphysics that was just wrong, with catastrophic consequences through the domination of nature. Without this quest for technological dominance, we wouldn't have had one of the most environmentally disastrous states in the history of the world.

Ahh, he's a miserable arse who hate Ukraine. Explains it all

I see Drudkh as people who convey a serene nature which I completely dig. If that nature is in Ukraine which they want to see ethnically purified or my Appalachian home ravaged by mining and commercialization is up to the listener, no?

Well, that is something we can always agree on. That and cutting defense spending

I'm really just a centrist trending slightly right historian who finds something like Ukrainian nationalism fascinating. But I also find the excellent beginning of Jarost Marksa and their Babaeuf/Bakunin/tribute to the sacred war ideas interesting too.

*facepalm*

Hence the quotation marks around 'system'.

Where you see values/views as an atmosphere you can immerse yourself in, Chuck sees them as an aspect of the music which either clicks or it doesn't.

Yeah, I get that. It's where he draws the line that I was trying to question.

You're looking at it too scientifically, this is art. There isn't a specific line I draw somewhere. You seem to be agreeing with me that some kind of idea or message behind music can add to it and give it more character. All I am really saying is that it can also have a negative effect, depending on wholly subjective factors.

And the week after Anti Semitic Soft Rock

A score of 10 from stevelovesmoonspell??

Not impressed at all; boring, insipid, sub-generic mess of confusion falling short even of mediocrity... and the idea of communist "black metal" is just ridiculous.

An evil ideology woven together with evil music; what could be more fitting? But like I said above, all politics in Black Metal misses the point.

The vocals really put me off this. Commie goblins! Music is ok but nothing that outstanding, compared to what else is out there.

Yes you have declared it so a number of times but, impudently, I beg to differ old pal.



I agree on the vokillz but re: the music? I like bands that turn black metal into chaotic, structureless blasting noise, so if you have a well of names that do so significantly better than this one, I would be very interested.

It depends how chaotic and structureless you want it. Everyone from old Marduk to Ildjarn popped into my head when I saw your post. I don't know, maybe this'll grow on me - it wasn't actually bad, just not that exciting.