Edge Lords of Chaos
Black Metal and the Far Right
On the first weekend of October in the sunny city of Los Angeles, Nazis from around the world gathered in a private venue in East LA to listen to National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) Bands perform during the “Rise of the Black Sun” festival. Posts to social media showed the type of attendance you might expect at an event such as this, NSBM being a niche within a genre that already has limited appeal to listeners before you factor in the hateful politics:
Among the bands performing were the anti-Semitic group Blood Division from Arizona, occult national socialist band Nokturne, and the Blue Eyed Devils, a former member of which shot up a Sikh Temple in Milwaukee in 2012. The festival drew condemnation online and according to L.A Taco someone set fire to a van belonging to one of the bands performing at the festival.
Rise of the Black Sun is only the most recent event in the US that caters to the NSBM crowd. While it is a small music scene globally, it often serves to radicalize disaffected men looking for a sense of community. Its function is not unlike the Nazi Punk scene of the 80s and 90s; however instead of recruiting Punks and demanding that they shave their heads and listen to Skrewdriver, they recruit metal heads and demand they grow their hair out and listen to Peste Noire while painting their faces to look spooky. While it is definitely easy to make fun of a bunch of guys in face paint and medieval inspired garb screaming into microphones about elves and dragons, the scene is nonetheless dangerous and helps to fund far right actions around the world.
BACKGROUND
Black Metal has its roots in the 80s but reached global infamy through the Norwegian black metal scene of the 90’s. The genre utilized tremolo picked guitars, blast beats, and high pitched shrieking vocals. The lyrical content, when deciphered, was often focused on the darker elements of life such as suicide, death, and Satanism. At the center of the scene was the “Black Circle,” which included Mayhem founder Oystein “Euronymous” Aarseth and Burzum founder Kristian “Varg” Vikernes. Members of the Black Circle were involved in a number of church burnings and murders throughout the early 90’s, ultimately resulting in Vikernes killing Aarseth. Vikernes was convicted on three counts of arson and the murder of Aarseth and sentenced to 21 years in prison. He was later released in 2009.
Importantly during this period there was an undercurrent of hardcore anti-social views behind the music and the scene that created it. Satanism as a means of attacking Christianity was embraced, as were other anti-social philosophies such as Nazism. Vikernes himself once claimed the title of Neo Nazi, although he later renounced it despite continuing to publish overly philosophical and self important posts and articles about how Jews and Muslims are evil, even facing charges in France for it in 2014 .
After the story of the Black Circle and the events surrounding them came out it was the stuff of legend within the Metal community. Stories of murder, madness, and church burnings attracted edgy teens across the globe to try and prove how “evil” they were by shrieking about how their parents made them go to church over poorly recorded guitars and drums. Bands such as Germany’s ABSURD and France’s Peste Noire also glommed on to the Black Circles racism and nationalism and made it an integral part of their lyrical content.
NSBM TODAY AND ITS CONNECTION TO THE FAR RIGHT
Today a multitude of NSBM bands tour regularly including ABSURD, Goatmoon, M8L8TH, and AKVLT. Themes within the lyrics of these bands range from the occult to outright praise for Hitler. Prior to the war in Ukraine, the Asgardsrei festival in Kyiv was one of the largest and most militant NSBM festivals in the world. Founded by Alexey Levkin in Russia in 2012, the festival later moved to Ukraine in 2014 where it became connected to the now infamous Azov movement. The festival grew into a major networking event for far right extremists throughout the world. Investigative reporters at Bellingcat have offered extensive evidence of the festivals support of white nationalism, despite Levkin allegedly claiming that swastikas and other open support for Nazism are “banned.”
One of the groups present at this festival that is a crucial connection to the global far right movement is Wotanjugend; a Russian language platform/group that promotes neo-Nazism both online and off. The group is named after a M8L8TH album by the same name and has sold the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter who murdered 51 people while attacking two mosques in New Zealand in 2019.
Levkin is closely tied Wotanjugend as well, at times claiming to be an “inspiration” to the work that they conduct. Levkin himself was arrested for a double murder in 2006, but the charges were later dropped. Including many other dubious connections to neo-Nazi organizations and gangs throughout his life he also stated in an interview with Golden Dawn “To sing about war, one has to fight. To sing about murder, one has to kill.”
ANTI-FASCIST RESPONSES WITHIN BLACK METAL
Many bands within the broader genre of Black Metal do not claim ideological allegiance to Nazism or nationalism, but also do not offer an out right refutation of these politics. Sometimes these same bands even play alongside acts that proudly declare themselves National Socialists. More recently though a growing number of bands have emerged within the genre that offer a full throated refutation of the politics of hate both on and off the stage.
Bands such as Panopticon in the US fuse the sound of Black Metal with American folk music and lyrics that touch on topics like struggles with mental health and the Coal Wars within the Appalachian Region. In the UK the band Dawn Ray’d offers haunting violin interludes over blast beats and grinding guitar riffs, along with lyrics that tell stories of migrant workers and historical marches against fascism. Meanwhile Feminazgul creates avant-garde and Tolkien inspired black metal with music that sounds, much like the name implies, a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings screeching at the top of its lungs as it sores through the air into battle.
Shops such as Branca Studios have done amazing work compiling and releasing multiple volumes of anti-fascist Black Metal “tapes” over Spotify, compiling both big names and up and comers in the genre. Journalists such as Kim Kelly have organized festivals that celebrate antifascist voices in metal. One of the more popular bands within this space has been the satirical band Neckbeard Deathcamp, which released its first album “White Nationalism is for Basement Dwelling Losers” in 2018, co-opting and satirizing NSBM and Alt-Right imagery, much to the chagrin of both communities.
CONCLUSION
NSBM is a problem, although not necessarily a new one. Just as various nazi-Skinhead record companies, bands, and promoters used their hateful music to recruit vulnerable young men in the 80s and 90s, the same can be said of the NSBM scene today. It is admittedly more niche, but the threat that it poses is strengthened by its interconnectedness thanks in part to the internet. The use of shows and festivals as a means of networking and offering financial support to extremists around the world is concerning and should be confronted both through activism and through stronger policy stances by local governments.
As with many hateful movements within underground music in the past, this movement too faces opposition from the larger Metal community. The bands, promoters, and journalists working to carve out a space within the Metal scene that is inclusive have faced harassment but are nonetheless pushing forward and creating more space for more voices within the community at large.
Awesome story Pete!