And now for something completely necro...

(play in HQ to get some sense of how this actually sounds)

Why is it that soaring chanted lyrics rising out of the electric mud frenzy of British grinding black/death hybrid metal make me feel so good?

Or for that matter, first wave Norwegian black metal. This is Armageddon...




Or the contemporary Finnish hypnotic cloud of bees underlying groove known as the "werewolf cult" of Horna...



This is anti-dysphoria. Required prep listening for my response to Dominic, an initial gesture toward thinking that sometimes what we gain from the dark and nasty is not necessarily the withdrawal of gothic dejection but rather a historically mediated, shared euphoric, that sort of collective nod, the slight unfolding of solidarity, with others. All feeling like Satanic hawks carrying toxic bone spears forged from a lost past when we knew how to be together and fight for something we loved enough to mourn its loss with yells and noise and rasps, not the soft mewing whimper of the retreat to the darkened room.

And all while having a damn good time doing it.