CLARA Review: K. F. B. Fletcher & Osman Umurhan (eds), 2020: Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal Music.

The concepts ‘classical antiquity’ and ‘heavy metal music’ may appear to be worlds apart. Not only are they separated chronologically but each belongs to an entirely different habitus. While the classical is associated with tradition, good taste and harmony, heavy metal is, at least by some, associated with the very opposite: the breaking of tradition, bad taste and disharmony. And yet, as the present book shows, a very large number of heavy metal bands reference antiquity in various ways, including exponents of Thrash Metal, characterised by speed and aggressiveness; Death Metal, characterised by macabre subject matter and growling vocals; Black Metal with related subject matter but less polished style, and other subgenres. Bands from countries ranging from Greece and Italy to Scandinavia incorporate classical quotations in their lyrics or rewrite ancient texts and myths. Some sing in Greek or Latin, others in Italian or English. The titles of songs, such as Hymn to Apollo, Hymn to Zeus, Medusa and so on, further show the classical inspiration.

‘And Bloodshed Must Be Done’: Heavy metal and neo-Nazism in Greece

This article explores the genealogy of the relationship between the discourses promoted in the heavy metal music press and neo-Nazi publications in Greece since the 1980s. It aims to show that the proliferation of neo-Nazi ideologies and practices in Greece after 2008 was not simply a result of the – on-going – financial crisis; rather, its seeds had been planted during the 1980s and particularly in the 1990s. We shall illustrate how this connection resulted from a conscious decision taken by key neo-Nazi groups and explore how the cultivation of such relationships gradually led to the further dissemination of neo-Nazi discourse within the mainstream heavy metal music press.

Heavy metal music as communal intervention: Experiences and challenges in the context of the metal-academia dyad in Jaén, Spain

In this article we aim to address the complex interrelation between metal music and academia through a case study design and analysis. The case study examined is an academic conference held during the past seven years at the University of Jaén, located in Jaén, a province in the south of Spain. This sociocultural project, entitled the ‘Rock and Metal Encounter’ (RME), has taken place in a context of frequent out-migration, with a precarious rural economy, and poor communication networks. There a small metal scene has resisted a precarious setting characterized by restrictive public policies towards music and culture. The RME has combined two lines of action; a purely academic one, through the diffusion of studies on metal music; and a social one, in which community intervention components have been interspersed with the aim of promoting social cohesion and cultural development among Jaén’s metal scene. In light of this experience, we discuss the potential use of metal music as a form of community intervention to foster the cultural development of small music scenes in disadvantaged settings, and the university’s role in this process. We also explore resistance and tensions faced by the incursion of metal music as a community intervention practice in this particular academic setting.

Compound AABA Form and Style Distinction in Heavy Metal

This article presents a new framework for analyzing compound AABA form in heavy metal music, inspired by normative theories of form in the Formenlehre tradition. A corpus study shows that a particular riff-based version of compound AABA, with a specific style of buildup intro (Attas 2015) and other characteristic features, is normative in mainstream styles of the metal genre. Within this norm, individual artists have their own strategies (Meyer 1989) for manifesting compound AABA form. These strategies afford stylistic distinctions between bands, so that differences in form can be said to signify aesthetic posing or social positioning—a different kind of signification than the programmatic or semantic communication that has been the focus of most existing music theory research in areas like topic theory or musical semiotics. This article concludes with an exploration of how these different formal strategies embody different qualities of physical movement or feelings of motion, arguing that in making stylistic distinctions and identifying with a particular subgenre or style, we imagine that these distinct ways of moving correlate with (sub)genre rhetoric and the physical stances of imagined communities of fans (Anderson 1983, Hill 2016).

The Psychology of Metal Music, Culture, and Dis/Ability

This chapter explores the psychological functions that metal culture helps provide for community members with dis/abilities. Explanations are provided for how individuals with dis/abilities are able use metal culture as a potential source for mood and symptom maintenance, representation, social relatedness, a sense of belonging, and as an outlet for sharing their experiences. The underlining cultural and historical contextualization of dis/ability in rock, punk, and metal cultures is discussed, including depictions that could be considered exploitative, exaggerative, or inaccurate in order to understand the extent to which metal culture is inclusive towards people with dis/abilities. It is proposed that the embracing of societally taboo topics like dis/ability in heavy metal music and culture can serve a destigmatizing role towards the dis/abled, and when combined with an overlapping ‘outsider’ identity, it fosters a welcoming environment in metal culture for people with dis/abilities. This theoretical framework is applied through qualitative interviews with metal community members that have firsthand experience with dis/ability in metal.