Black metal and Communism aren’t usually spoken of in the same breath. For those who know anything about black metal, it’s probably the violence and the anti-Christian themes that stand out the most. The average person likely doesn’t have much familiarity with blast beats, raspy vocals, and tremolo picking. Just the same, what people (at least in the U.S.) might know about Communism is limited to caricatures of the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam, or North Korea.
Peel’s book might seem at first glance to be about a counternarrative for black metal. Those who know a little more of the genre are aware that some of its most influential groups have connections to right-wing or openly fascist politics. They are known as National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) for short. Peel addresses this aspect of the scene early on in the text, explaining the Asgardsrei festival in Ukraine as an annual meeting of current black metal bands with explicit white supremacist messages (p. 3). Shortly thereafter, he clarifies that this book is not meant to be a catalog of bands that are socialist, feminist, antiracist, or otherwise inclusive of gender and sexual identities and orientation. That’s because a book about the “Red and Anarchist Black Metal (RABM)” scene “would be a very short book” (p. 8). Even though the anarchists might be outnumber the Nazis, there’s still not enough of them to document in a book-length rundown. (For the record, some of the RABM bands Peel cites are TRESPASSER, ISKRA, and SKAGOS.)
Instead, Peel focuses on the elements of black metal as a genre that might provide affordances for socialists to consider including in their worldview. The five chapters cover the ideas of distortion, decay, secrecy, coldness, and heresy. Each includes an explanation of the term as it relates to black metal, certain bands or songs or movements in the genre that exemplify the term, and discussion of ways socialists might interpret these same ideas for their own ends. In a sense, a reader does not need to have any familiarity with the music of the scenes Peel covers. A more engaged stance on this book would leave a reader with ideas of how to rethink their engagement with socialist politics. If you wanted to learn more about RABM bands, you’ll be let down; however, you might learn a little more about Deleuze & Guattari, Nietzsche, and Marx as you read.
The chapter on decay was interesting in that it reframed the usual way that black metal bands look at decay. They see it as a form of death or a long for a return to a “supposedly ancient, traditional moment” (p. 69). In this way, the yearning for decay is a desire for the world as it is to be undone. To accelerate the downfall of society so that we can live more simply once more. You know, RETVRN type shit. That’s gross (culturally). What’s also gross (well, also, culturally, but in a different sense) is that decaying fungi can be a source of new life, mutation (p. 64). The idea of flourishing. The possibility of life’s construction.
Intriguing ideas abound in the chapter on coldness. A cursory thought about this topic as it relates to black metal might call to mind the wintry climate of Norway, or Scandinavia in general. It might also call to mind the idea of growing “cold inside” or dead to the world in some way. To Peel’s credit, he expands his analysis beyond such simplicity. Because this is a book ostensibly about Communism, the importance of heat power to the Industrial Revolution comprises a great deal of this chapter. In his retelling, the success of coal-derived power was not due to its superior output. Rather, the old-fashioned water mills were more than capable of producing the power needed for most uses. The catch is that its hard to monetize the water flowing in a river because it is part of the commons. The “sluice gates and reservoirs” that could be built to manage that flow did not turn into profitable ventures because it was too difficult to determine whether it was better to spend money on setting up the gate or operating it (p. 97). So, coal power won the day because it reflected the individualist ethos necessary for capital accumulation. Dig the coal out of the ground and it's yours. Power your own steam engine with the coal and you can do what you want with the profits and the products.
What does that mean for black metal, though?
The coldness of the genre is reflected in the inability to do work or the disinterest in the world at large. Rather that combusting with kinetic energy like thrash metal or speed metal, black metal makes a point of displaying its power, its “puissance,” through inaction or stillness or coldness (p. 123). If still waters run deep, then imagine the everflowing stream frozen. There is a lot of power there (as distinct from energy) but it lies still. Black metal band members are “dominating capitalism by freezing its flows. They work by remaining useless, non-productive, insufficiently profitable. We should ask ourselves what has been gained through our supposedly productive activism, and if we shouldn’t join black metal instead, by turning towards non-productivity” (p. 123). Allowing ourselves to lay fallow and become useless might lead to new growth in our decay that helps to bring a new world into being.
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