Mastodon at the Music Hall of Williamsburg

Has it occurred to anyone recently how progressive metal has finally gotten cool? It took some doing, of course: a lot of the flash that prog metal drew from prog rock had to be stripped away, the music had to acquire some more brutality, and having all of the major players look like members of hipster nation certainly did its part to garner some acceptance among the more br00tal-loving indie kids, but having musicians with big beards playing eight-minute songs with heavy riffs in unusual time signatures is as much a driving force in metal right now as bleak black metal soundscapes or crushing groove riffs.

Leading the pack, of course, is Mastodon, the beast that launched a thousand supporting acts, including tourmates Intronaut and Kylesa, and a band of such stature that they could use the idea of playing the entirety of their new album Crack the Skye as a selling point for attending the show. Perhaps we really do live in the new no bullshit era, because a premise that would seem overhyped and overblown on the surface (Really? The whole album? Isn't that a bit, well, pretentious?) was merely the first act of a performance that flowed seamlessly through an additional forty or so minutes of material from Blood Mountain, Leviathan, and Remission without straining the listener's attention span. Seriously, these guys are really that good.

Hanging over a railing on side platform that runs along the stage left side of the Music Hall of Williamsburg's wonderful space, I watched the crowd - many of whom had been rocking out for hours - throw themselves into a frenzy during cuts like "Megalodon" with the same wild abandon that they had shown all night, tapping into what seemed a limitless supply of energy. I watched the band move from the translation their current melodic tale of mysticism and magic to the far more brutal blasts of songs like "Bladecatcher" and "Crystal Skull" with intense, overwhelming authority, making everything look so very easy to accomplish. I saw them bask in the audience's glow without saying a word while still making us feel like we were all part of the same metal brother-and-sisterhood. Let's not put too fine of a point on it: I was fucking blown away.

Jeff Wagner Plans Book Release, Solves a Life Mystery

I saw this headline and I did a little dance of glee: "Former METAL MANIACS Editor JEFF WAGNER To Author History Of Progressive Metal." See, I'm not just a metal nerd who loves himself some Opeth and Dream Theater: I actually have a history with the non-existent history of progressive metal.

Back in 2002/2003, I was a senior in college. I was a music major - no surprise there - and because my aptitude was in analysis (and because I thought I was going to go to study ethnomusicology) I decided to spend the year writing a lengthy senior thesis in music. On Dream Theater, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory, and the history of progressive metal. Like I said, huge metal nerd. Or maybe just nerd in general.

I wrote the history part first, as part of another paper I had to write for a colloquium class I took in the fall (doubling up was the way they kept thesis writers from going insane and strangely enough, it worked). As it turns out, there are no good histories of progressive metal out there. In fact, from what I remember, my options came down to the short blurb in the All Music Guide, whatever was up on anus.com, and the BNR metal pages, none of which actually answered the fundamental question: what exactly prompted all of these bands to mix progressive elements into their music? Lacking access to any of the artists in question, I did the next best thing: took a history of progressive rock, a history of metal, and came to my own conclusions. The result was, well, it's probably wildly inaccurate, but I look pretty smart doing it, and I get to say I wrote a 120+ page page while in college. The ladies were impressed, believe you me.

Reading all of that history should give you an understanding of why I'm excited to read this book once it comes out next year: if Jeff Wagner really did his homework, he might just come up with a common root for all of the experimentation done by bands as diverse as Dream Theater, Celtic Frost, and Voivod and answer the question I failed to answer five years ago. And you know what? I'd really appreciate that.

Metal: Why I Listen

I am what some people might call an intellectual, which means - in this case - that I enjoy contemplating ideas and experiences. I also happen to enjoy writing about those contemplations, which is why this blog - and another on a different topic - exist, albeit within the confines of their respective topical spheres. One of the things I think about on a regular basis is why I listen to metal, a line of thinking that I like to think has more in common with "is there a God?" than "am I a meat head for listening to this type of music?" In other words, my motivation stems from natural curiosity about the depths of self than from lack of confidence about my perceptions in the eyes of others.

A couple of weeks ago, when looking for a picture to anoint one particular post, I came across an article entitled "The Philosophy of Heavy Metal," published by the American Nihilist Underground Society. I read the article with interest and do intend to write a response to its ideas at some point in the near future, but today when clicking around the site I came across a passage that struck me. From "History of Heavy Metal Music and the Heavy Metal Subculture":

Its primary distinguishing characteristic is that metal embraces structure more than any other form of popular music; while rock is notorious for its verse-chorus-verse structure and jazz emphasizes a looser version of the same allowing unfetter improvisation, metal emphasizes a motivic, melodic narrative structure in the same way that classical and baroque music do. Each piece may utilize other techniques, but what holds it together is a melodic progression between ideas that do not fit into simple verse-chorus descriptors. Even in 1960s proto-heavy metal, use of motives not repeated as part of the verse-chorus cycle and transitional riffing suggested a poetic form of music in which song structure was derived from what needed to be communicated.

The writing is a little obtuse and the tone more than a little arrogant, but the idea of metal being pop music's answer to classical music jumped out at me and made me wonder if the above paragraph contained the underpinnings of my metalheadom.

It's something I've explored a bit in the past: a love of music is one of the fundamental binders of my mother's family and my parents did their best to inculcate me with the value of classical music from a very young age. Perhaps in response, I did my best to tie my respect for classic music and my love for popular music together into my college thesis (further demonstration of how much time I've spent thinking about these ideas), where I tried to parse the history of progressive metal; i.e., metal in the form where it most apes classical music. Whether or not I succeeded is a question for another time, but looking back I can see the appeal: classical music had practically become part of my genetic material, but all the same, it did not appeal to me on the fundamental, motivational level I craved. Rock music created that motivational drive, but could not answer my need for narrative flow. At its best, metal fulfills both needs and thus I listen.