The Reliable Surprise

It seems that no matter what tangent I go off on, I always come right back to metal. It's not that I ever enjoy it less or get bored by it, but occasionally other styles drag me away. Recently I realised I had an awful lot of Radiohead to catch up with. A while ago I became enamoured with Comets On Fire, Guapo, Black Mountain, and other superficially 'retro' but ultimately quite contemporary stuff. And last year I realised The Flaming Lips are one of the finest American bands of all time.

Last night, though, was all about metal. I went to the Scala in Kings Cross to catch the ever-evolving Enslaved for the first time since the 'Below The Lights' tour in 2003. They've got bigger in every way since then - bigger stage, bigger crowd, bigger sound. It was a great performance at the beginning of a tour supporting a justifiably widely acclaimed album ('Vertebrae'). What is really remarkable is that they are one of the few remaining original Black Metal bands and their momentum is still gathering after fifteen years. Every one of their ten albums seems to have been a destination, from which they would then start again. They have a rich sound and their genuine progressiveness never reaches a point where it no longer Rocks Very Hard (alternatively, they are never form over function). The international metal scene is lucky to have them.

Most of the set was from the opposite ends of their career - 'Vertebrae' was, naturally, represented heavily alongside a couple from 'Ruun' (including the pit-opening "Fusion of Sense and Earth"). But they also played "Eld" and a track from 1992 (does that make it from the "Yggdrasil" demo tape??), and ended with what may have been "Slaget I Skogen Bortenfor" (my Old Norse is a little rusty) from 'Hordanes Land'. The unity between old and new was as palpable as the difference, but all the thematic speculation was swept aside by massive blastbeats. Righteous!

So metal raised my eyebrows and called me back in again, as has become the reliable norm.

The only sour point was a very tall man who stood in the centre of the crowd and Zieg Heiled his way through the first three songs. Thankfully he was ejected by security. He looked unsurprised, and made almost no attempt to fight back for the Fatherland. Sadly there are still some grown adults that feel the need to make their small, hateful point from within a scene that has far outgrown such insularities. If he wished to live out in the woods listening to puerile NSBM and avoiding racially impure citizens, then why not do it? Because he must live in the real world to pay his bills and buy his pagan jewellery, and the real world does not accommodate him. Thus, he sulks. And when he goes to the black metal show and feels his "sincerity" rebuffed by every other attendee, who is to blame? Unfortunately, if he's already stupid enough to earnestly Zieg Heil in public, the logical truth - that he is to blame - will not register in his mind.



On a Lighter Dark note, the lineup of the new band Shrinebuilder has given me something to look forward to: Scott Kelly, Al Cisneros, Wino and Dale Crover.

Read that again. They have the potential to be the best band in the entire universe.