Can metal music be the soundscape of heritage?

There was an atmosphere of mysticism and mythology at the Roadburn festival two weeks ago. I noticed that most of the bands I saw portrayed various landscapes in their visual backdrops (CHVE, Buried at Sea, Jakob), along with ritual imagery and dilapidated buildings (Dark Buddha Rising, Amenra).

Photos: Tim Bugbee

What I gleaned from the musicians who were interviewed at Roadburn was the combined notion of people working together to create ‘authentic’ music and experiences that go beyond preconceived frameworks. For example, Neurosis spoke of their musical process as being a type of religious journey. Wanting to retreat into a cave to get in touch with nature and their music, Neurosis creates something shared from within, taking it out of their heads and directing it at the audience. Neurosis mentioned with all honesty that in their former years they considered the audience to be their enemy. However, now celebrating their 30th anniversary, Neurosis no longer view us as the enemy. We are now family. This could be attributed to their own exploration of themselves as individuals and being part of a band.Converge said they reach new creative territory when they collaborate, identifying themselves as artists. And as with any artistic expression, everyone is allowed to experience their art differently. Rather than vocals functioning as a focal point, it acts as a tonal and percussive instrument that allows the audience to develop an emotional understanding of Converge’s music. Anguish being one element that is clearly communicated.Furthermore, Diamanda Galás discussed her use of vocal multiphonics, clusters of scales and melodies that sound in unison to express a range of emotions. This led me to think of a soundscape, the immediate sounds in one’s own environment. Not just the biophonic sounds (industrial/non-human) or geophonic sounds (Earth/natural elements), but anthrophonic sounds (human-generated/artistic expression) specifically.While I listened and watched Amenra and Jakob I thought more about the concept of soundscapes in the form of audio and visual elements, the musical performance and artistic expression that create the sensation of experiencing a particular environment. A reimagined landscape. A representation of historical romanticism. A record of nature in its ‘purest’ form. In a conceptual framework, can the expression of metal music act as a soundscape element to a landscape biography, a conduit of human connectivity with the environment? A soundscape could be an intangible property of a landscape. Therefore, I am suggesting that disconnected relationships between humans and their environment could be bridged through soundscapes.I will borrow UNESCO’s terminology for a moment: intangible cultural heritage (ICH), defined as shared expressions (oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, events, knowledge and practices) that have been passed down for generations, evolving in response to their environments and contributing to a shared sense of identity for social cohesion. In this line of thinking, by not limiting a specific region, country or place but a globalised reimagining of heritage, the soundscape of metal music performance (which has been around for generations with its own heritage rituals) could, in fact, play a role in ICH.

The rituals of metal music culture (media: giphy) As a participant and observer of the Roadburn crowd, we all came together to celebrate a ‘shared’ sense of identity with the music. The discourse of identity, however, is much more complicated. But with representations of places and reimagined landscapes, it is nonetheless interesting to think about, especially when the crowd can actively participate in a customary way, which has also changed over time.Outside of this festival, one genre that explores identity is ‘viking metal’, through Norse mythology, paganism, and the Viking Age. Most of these bands come out of Northern Europe and can perhaps be examples of metal music influenced by environmental, historical and cultural factors. But whether the place of origin influences the musical performance or not, it is the attention to the metal music soundscape that offers a creative and unique approach to issues of sustainability that embraces social, cultural, and environmental dimensions. 

Amon Amarth performing at the Mayhem festival. Photo: Tormentra photography 2013

Perhaps the culture of metal music is what can sustain landscapes long after they disappear. By the rate at which we are unable to save and/or salvage cultural and natural heritage for future generations, the soundscape of metal music can be one way we preserve the memory of heritage and create new heritages. Visual backdrops of metal music performances could not only preserve imagery of landscapes that have been destroyed, but even without visual representations, the music itself could archive the ‘emotional resonance’ of landscapes, thus preserving them.

These concepts should be further explored.

The phenomenology of metal music performance, as a process of sustainability in heritage, can not be considered in isolation. Nor can one metal festival represent all metal music performances. It can, however, help to look beyond the festival setting to how metal music can be attributed to a new type of heritage expression between culture and nature, both real and imagined.

Then again, it might just be all about the music.