Thoughts on Fascist Black Metal

1.
In lieu of a movie review, the subject scrutinized is the Fascist variant of Black Metal: National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM). This article was first thought of as a polemic against Geimhre but I decided against it.

2.
Why? NSBM is an interesting symptom of Capitalist alienation as well as being an insult to the black metal genre and an insult to the intelligence of music afficiandos over the world. Yes, the subgenre is really small but fascism is looking popular again -- a common result of recession, -- too common to adhere to the elitist image all black metal bands paint on themselves -- and thus the subculture needs both an analysis and it needs mocking for its absurdity -- a section of the population turning a serious weighted concept like National Socialism into something neutralized, theatrical, or an attempt at theatre ruined by an inability to entertain or enact creative flourishes within the genre -- not that I intend to review any of their music -- I am here to mock and dissect: like a doctor laughing at penis size during an autopsy. Is this tend a redundant exercise when we consider their existence to be one of constant self-mockery and emotional decline? Yes. It is. And I do not care.

3.
I confess to enjoying black metal. Its distortion and ambience are soothing -- (I cannot recommend with greater appreciation Wolves in the Throne Room and I apologize to them for their inclusion in this article: they are anarchists who produce some of the most beautiful metal I've ever heard). The genre reflects certain negative feelings and, like Greek tragedy, is a font of catharsis for me -- and as I know nothing about 'music' or musical form, so my judgments and attacks come from sentiment latched to a desire for a negative critique in the Marxist sense: a social phenomena undone by itself (as Leninist groups should've done after their ideas created a century of state capitalism), which, for them, means 'Jewish slander' and that is somewhat true -- all the best social criticism comes from the dispossessed, the margins...and considering the theory has it that all the other non-caucasian racial groups are included in the Jewish influential sphere, they too (and criticism they produce) is part of that conspiratorial fabric. So -- to the criticism!

4.
NSBM is a form of underground metal whose primary lyrical subject matter is the espousal or promotion of varied aspects of the contemporary type of National Socialism to a mixed audience of those in both the black metal subculture and its neo-Nazi counterpart -- the music can be enjoyed by non-racists, as the music is identical to 'mainstream' black metal and the lyrics are obscured by the singing style. The subcultural aspect is important since most neo-Nazism is subcultural, and to quote Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: "The skinhead movement, carried by its concerts, recordings and zines, has proved a hugely effecting ideological asset for the international Nazi underground. Nietzschean Ant-Christianity, Social Darwinism, racial intolerance and white supremacy are now the common passwords in a right-wing youth culture" (Black Sun, 212). Subcultures are a byproduct of the myriad alienating, degrading, impoverishing contradictions of Capitalism. The fascist content ensures the worst aspects of subcultural life are extended to the extreme: paranoid groupthought and social conformity, and the intense bonding over superficial similarities of idea or consumer taste -- and yes, fascist ideology is both a commodity and a product of economic division: their emulation of fascism is the emulation of vicious petty-bourgeois attitudes but all subcultures are too fluid to assert any degree of social influence or control. The failed promise of control over one's life is dropped for control over identity and identity politics.

5.
Black Metal in its original form is defiant and anti-authoritarian in clear opposition to National Socialist ideals. It is also, as all metal is, the descendent of blues music, also a reaction to poverty, inequality and oppression. Black Metal's nihilism is also violently opposed to the glorified racial optimism promoted by NSBM bands. Its elitism contrasts with the implicit populism inherent in NSBM, though its absorption is twisted into the claim that their fans are some racial elite -- from attitude to origin. Lastly, the iconclastic stance of much Black Metal contests the attitude towards the creation or validation of Fascist icons NSBM bands share.

6.
Ideological National Socialism would be hostile to Black Metal, both for its black lineage and its underground mysticism -- National Socialism was, relatively, a pragmatic state-capitalist venture.

7.
Black Metal is about rage, and rage, if carried for too long, tends to reduce the enraged into caricatures, and here the 'Aryan Man' fulfills the same function for NSBM as the 'Satanist' does for the mainstream variety: roles to lend the music an image and personas for the musicians to embody. National Socialism is caricatured enough in our society to be impotent but as fringe as the other ideologies floating around the scene. National Socialism also has its hidden nihilism: suicide worship, the meaninglessness of existence outside the racial elite and the hollowness of identity. NSBM creates Black Metal Nazis, and Black Metal Nazis are the political equivalent of...real Nazis: they are following an act driven by concepts without substance for an audience (themselves) as entertainment (subcultures are a product of boredom).

8.
Violent subcultures need violent modes of expression, and being as opportunistic as they are, co-option of all popular creative outlets is a common tactic whose effects are neutralized by their lack of creativity even within the limited bounds of the genre. I suppose as a political tool it fits -- the drama and theatrics and music are well within the traditions of National Socialism but, again counter to the populist pretensions of Hitler and crew, their limited listenership and inability to book live shows hinders their reach. Canada's most famous NSBM band Geimhre has only played one show backing American band Grand Belial's Key. On Geimhre's debut album, the singer thanked his grandfather's generation for 'fighting for our right to free speech' with no irony intended...that seems to be a sign that the ideology is thoroughly negated.

9.
The reactions of mainstream Black Metal is mixed: some accept the subgenre for whatever reason, others oppose and other are apathetic. Malefic, of Xasthur, said in an interview that Black Metal is the music of total despair and futility, meaning any fascist elements are too affirmative, but National Socialism is as reified and as despairing as nihilism. Both strands parody themselves and each others.

10.
The anti-Christian stance of all Black Metal is conflated with anti-semitism by NSBM. So what was originally a rejection of false idols is now the return to idealist archaism. It's fetishism for an 'enemy' they need to exist to define themselves as they've no autonomous identities aside from equally-fictional pagan idols they use to lend meaning to their replacement of Christ, which despite their claims to Nietzsche's reputation, is the opposite of his Ubermensch, the opposite of what they pretend to be: their morality bears the ressentiment of slave morality.

11.
Nietzsche is still subject to much abuse. He opposed anti-semitism and would consider National Socialism the extension of racist German traditions he hated and opposed while he was living for their obvious stupidity. Sure, his ideas are aesthetically-pleasing to the young fascist when removed from context and stripped of depth -- and again against his ideas he is turned into another false idol for the shelf alongside Hitler, Evola, Serrano, Junger -- to bolster a mysticism as false as Christianity and similar to its own mystical offspring: emanations representing aspects of a higher self are all common elements, be they from Yahweh or from Odin for preserving racial purity. Miguel Serrano's Gnostic racism has its roots in the Christian tradition he rejects as a 'racial treason'. Their paganism is inspired mostly by romanticist depictions of it (not counting Greek, Roman and Norse texts) due to a lack of real architectural evidence. Their mysticism, like that of Serrano, is compiled from disparate sources, selective interpretations and conjecture -- ignoring the open affinity historical National Socialists had to the Catholic Church while the obsessive ceremonial racism of Himmler and Rosenberg was downplayed or simply ignored by Hitler.

12.
The lyrics of NSBM are uninspired and come in several flavors: romantic patriotism, odes to warfare and heroism, evocations of landscapes (like Hitler's art), of history and of the dead, Holocaust denial and outright predictions of the upcoming race wars. Their lyrics are their only distinguishing feature: a mixture of bad poetry and recycled slogans. Their ideology goes no deeper than that.

13.
Their use of the word 'Aryan' is just wrong. It means 'noble' and has an older form 'Arioi' which is just a term the Greeks used for the Persians. I assume ancient Persians were as lovely a pigment as their descendents...but here NSBM and other subcultures associate the word with an ancient honor code attached to the Spartans, or the Roman Legions or Vikings: sacrifice, courage, chivalry, loyalty, honor etc -- this then is thought to form their ethics but their actual ethics are subjectivist notions of love and hate obscured by meaningless rhetorical noise to add importance to what is simple obsession and a hatred too consuming for any rational discourse.

14.
I trust rage. Rage is symptomatic of a social ill and can lead to critical or causal examinations of inequalities. Their rage is not constructive beyond the identity they form round it like a mass of scar tissue they base their entire lives upon without learning its source -- emotional weakness. They glorify rage and link it to love for an abstraction such as blood or race -- when really it's a product of both egocentrism and self-loathing: the desire for stasis and for non-existence. The fantasy masks the inertia for a time.

15.
Identity politics simplify the world while removing the capacity to appreciate variety and multiplicity. Such things are too threatening in the vaguest sense. The genre expresses a need and desire to dominate: domination then subdivides unto itself. They want others to identify themselves as a relation to them, as they currently identify themselves as opposing 'Jewish Power'. This is their take on the common Black Metal trope of antagonism and revenge.

16.
Fascism is an aesthetic focus on some surface quality perceived to be bestowed upon the individual. Black Metal identity is all aesthetics, and while NSBM bands refer on occasion to more antique fascist aesthetics, they seem content with their corpsepaint.

17.
The Romantic movement is recuperated by them as a form of emotional manipulation set upon vulnerability and social alienation. They romanticize their every aspect, as listed in the Marxist definition: rightism, nationalism, hierarchy, anti-egalitarianism, the occasional religious extremism, Capitalism, warfare, voluntarism and anti-modernity -- all of which, in different guises, still govern the world despite the sanitized form they take in NSBM -- which claims to opposed Capitalism for its 'Jewish Materialism' and thus they reject the primary function of their ideology -- they reject their movement -- they reject the basis for their identity...

18.
An irony is the National Socialist paranoia about historical distortion: their past, or their idea of the past, is the result of generations of nothing but historical distortion -- so one supposes when the deceit is done by 'your own', all is well. This glorification of 'the blood' -- something we can associate with both family and violence: their primary fetish is that of self-annihilation. The sexual element is one of breeding, of production and is thus treated as a matter of conflict, of life and death -- they turn the most intimate moments we can have into the pursuit of a negative abstraction -- it's both asexual and anti-sexual: life is brutalized and sterilized into a form of duty, an obligation to a spectre.

19.
NSBM is the faux-politicization of music born of ennui -- one can imagine the fitting to be natural: they fulfill the same need -- the communication of rage obscured in exclusivity. NSBM is the most pathetic manifestation of a dishonest futility -- there is nothing to which they can escape.