Pagan Metal vs Apocalyptic Folk

Interesting, I just downloaded my first "Summoning" track : "Minas Morgus" and, apart from the vocal, it reminds me strongly of Clan of Xymox!

I wasn't expecting that. But I guess you can't be a medaevalist guitar band without also crossing into goth territroy.

Just so you know, it's Gorguts- and you can find it very easily on Audiogalaxy. Burzum too, I'd imagine.

I should add that Gorguts isn't pagan metal at all, they're a very fucked-up (not being a musician and knowing next to nothing about music, that's the best I can come up with, sorry) sounding death metal band. Try "Obscura" from their '98 album of the same name- they streamlined a bit on the next one (not that I consider that a bad thing).

And where is "Siegbran Hatteson's brilliant intro to the Metal world"? I'm assuming it's on this site- being somewhat new in this territory myself, it sounds like it'd be worth a read.

Siegbran Hetteson's brilliant intro to the Metal world in this thread

i'm not siegbran, but i'd say it doesn't really compare with coil/c93/death in june, etc, most of the time. there are some rare exceptions where the much ballyhooed 'folk melodies' are actually played in a recognizable 'folk style,' (ulver's "kveldssanger" springs immediately to mind), but generally it's played out as metal with keyboards overlaid...

the one exception i can think of is the quite amazing (and unfortunately, inexplicably NS [national socialist]) band nokturnal mortum, whose "nechrist" incorporates ukrainian folk and 'country' music played on actual, acoustic instruments. "the funeral wind born in oriana" is the track to look for - complete with "wahooo" and other country-music style yelps, and some kick-ass fiddle. one of the rare cases of an NSBM band doing something interesting...

the american band wind of the black mountains have some atmospheric elements (and occasional acoustic guitar) that may appeal to fans of the c93/dij/coil axis. check "advasary" (cough) and "force fed into blasphemy".

Steve Von Till from Neurosis did a pagan folk album a couple years back, As The Crow Flies. And of course Neurosis are apocalyptic pagan metal... I understand they just did a sound & installation piece called "Cairn" based on monoliths from ancient Hibernia. All the metal dudes are hippie-pagans now, and the Nordic ones won't even bother to worship Satan anymore: "He is nothing but a Jewish construct, bah!" Guitars are out, too, because they're "negro instruments." (I am not at all referring to Neurosis here, I'm talking about the friend-killing black metal dudes from Dark Scandinavia).

checkout a band called Tenhi - their album Kauan is absolutely top qulaity finnish folk with tinges of black metal - absolutely essential.

Ex-black metla band Ulver did an acoustic pagan folk album. I haven't heard it.

There's definitely a connection. The Current 93/Death In June/Boyd Rice type of thing certainly had influence, I think that primarily the dark and repetitive nature of this kind of music proved a surprisingly good match with metal. A lot of metal musicians have folk-based side projects. Even Ritchie fucking Blackmore...

Personally I don't think the way most metal bands incorporate folk is that interesting, most just play folk interludes between more standard metal music, whereas the most interesting development was the use of folk melodies within the metal itself (like Graveland or Nokturnal Mortem do). And the far-right affiliations of many bands (though not all!) in the folk/metal scene might put more than a few people off (although equally intolerant and wacky views are held by Public Enemy, and few listeners seem to let that cloud their enjoyment of the music).

Considering the whole pagan vs satan thing: I never felt the division to be that strict. Arguably the essence of metal is the rejection of Judeo-Christian morality, the whole compassion/tolerance/turning the other cheek/glorification of weakness and suffering/demonification of lust/the "shepherd and his herd" metaphor - basically Nietzsches points in "Der Antichrist" (A highly recommended book by the way, short, very readable, and filled with "hey the guy's got a point" moments). Metal somehow tries to embody everything non-Judeo- Christian, which either means siding with the "anti" figure within Judeo-Christianity (ie, the devil, Satan, and all the occult rites that were ascribed to this figure), or siding with other religions whose values also embody the antithesis of Judeo-Christianity (ie, Celtic, Nordic, Germanic, Slavic, Greco-Roman - in other words, pagan). Somewhere along the lines, this was a more suitable metaphor than "the devil" - his very essence is defined by Judeo-Christianity. If you want to get rid of J-C altogether, accepting it by using its anti-figure makes no sense...

Much of this is much akin to 19th century romanticism a la Wagner, the whole glorification of "the noble pagan", the concept of a "spiritual suppression" of the European people by this alien middle eastern morality, etc. Great topics for lyrics at least...

But in the end, satanism and paganism seem to exist side by side. Loads of bands have lyrics dealing with both. And lots of bands just criticise Judeo-Christianity and do not use pagan or satanic metaphors.

But aside from all the philosophizing and ideologies, I don't think metal really has lost *that* much its "drink beer and bang your head for Satan" attitude. Somehow I think metal will always swing between the desire to be Wagner, Tolkien or Milton, and the urge to drink beer, shout blasphemy and show the middle finger.