For metal fans using Spotify, the Century Media pull-out is a BIG DEAL. Hundreds of records have disappeared from the service overnight, leaving a gaping hole in its hitherto impressive metal catalogue.  In terms of significance, it’s akin to a hip hop collection without any Def Jam albums or an indie anthology sans Rough Trade. So why would a well-respected independent label like Century decide to pull the plug on the increased visibility and revenue stream that Spotify offers niche artists?

Context

Spotify: ripping off artists?

In an official statement released on Monday, Century Media claimed that the decision to withdraw was taken to protect the interests of its artists.

“While everyone at the label group believes in the ever changing possibilities of new technology and new ways of bringing music to the fans, Century Media is also of the opinion that Spotify in its present shape and form isn’t the way forward…”

“At the same time Century Media also believes that Spotify is a great tool to discover new music and is in the process of reintroducing their bands to Spotify by way of putting up samplers of the artists. This way, fans can still discover the great music released by the label.”

“Physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active. Artists are depending on their income from selling music and it is our job to support them to do so. Since the artists need to sell their music to continue their creativity, Spotify is a problem for them. This is about survival, nothing less and it is time that fans and consumers realize that for artists it is essential to sell music to keep their heads above water”.

While I’m aware that the relatively low royalty rate Spotify passes to independent labels is something of a sore point within the music industry, I find Century Media’s statement thoroughly objectionable. As one of the aforementioned fans and consumers, and an avid Spotify user, its naivety and myopia is nothing short of astonishing. There’s a real sense that Century is still clinging bravely to the shattered ruin that is the music industry’s traditional business model, despite the fact that the rise of the internet has allowed extreme metal to thrive in a way that was never possible before. Let’s take a more detailed look at some of the myths the Century Media statement attempts to perpetuate.

#1 – Spotify is causing physical album sales to fall

Nobody is going to dispute that CD sales are in steep decline. As the graph below reveals, since hitting a peak in the late 90s, album sales have fallen year on year. It’s also true that revenue from digital downloads has not even come close to making up the difference. Everybody is acutely aware that the traditional model of selling music is all but redundant.

That said, attempting to pin the blame on Spotify is simply ludicrous.  Spotify has been active since late 2008; the seemingly terminal decline in album sales started well over a decade ago. While there does appear to be some correlation between an especially pronounced fall in sales volume in the last three years and the launch of Spotify, let’s remember two important details. Firstly, this period dovetails neatly with the bottom falling out of the world economy. People simply don’t have the same amount of disposable income to blow on records as they did five, eight, ten years ago.

Secondly, while Spotify has been operating for a little under three years, it hasn’t had a simultaneous roll-out in all territories. This is important. It finally arrived in the USA in July after a couple of years of music industry cockblocking but is still unavailable in most European countries. Live in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium or pretty much anywhere in Southern and Eastern Europe and want to use Spotify? Unless you’re savvy enough to run it through a proxy and avoid detection, forget it.

Trying to find any pattern in sales figures from countries where Spotify is available versus those where it isn’t is a futile effort. While German album sales have fallen more slowly than those in the UK, Ireland has seen one of the sharpest declines in Europe; only 2% of all the albums released each year sell over 5,000 copies. If any pattern emerges across the continent, it’s that fewer records are sold in countries that are experiencing severe economic difficulties; less money in pockets equals fewer sales at record store tills. Local market conditions clearly have far more of an impact on sales figures than the presence or absence of Spotify does.

#2 – Spotify is preventing metal musicians from making a living

Like punk rock, metal isn’t a genre where you play for the money. Unless you’re in the top tier of bands with enough crossover appeal to bring in mainstream audiences or one of a very, very lucky few, you aren’t going to be able to make a living from playing extreme metal. This has always been the case; even at its commercial peak in the mid-1990s, the vast majority of performers in the Norwegian black metal scene held down a day job – assuming they weren’t dead or in prison – to make ends meet. Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone was, and still is, a primary school teacher, while Emperor’s Ihsahn kept himself afloat as a music tutor.

If anything, Spotify has actually opened an additional revenue stream for metal bands. While the genre has suffered at retail as much as the rest of the industry, there remains a very loyal, extremely devoted base of hardcore fans who continue to support their favourite bands by buying physical albums, attending live shows and purchasing merchandise. Many of those fans, including myself, also use Spotify. In June I bought Devin Townsend‘s Deconstruction and Ghost records on CD but also listened to them extensively on Spotify at work and through the Spotify app on my iPad. Thanks to Spotify, Devin – one of my favourite artists – has been paid twice over.

Then there’s piracy. Spotify has actually allowed artists to make some money (albeit on a very small scale) in a situation where sales were never likely going to happen in the first place. Century Media have fallen into same the trap as everyone from movie studios to video game publishers by assuming that a pirated copy of an album/movie/game is equivalent to a lost sale and that its associated monetary value represents lost revenue. This is preposterous; the overwhelming majority of pirates were never going to buy the record in the first place. Instead, Spotify offers users a legitimate way of listening to music for free (ad-supported) or for a relatively small fee (a Spotify Premium subscription) with royalties trickling down to bands on independent labels. However meager the sums of money involved, it’s a damn sight more than the artists see from outright piracy.

#3 – The internet has damaged independent record labels and niche artists

I don’t think anybody is going to deny that the internet has completely cannibalised the financial base of the majors but I’d argue that it has opened up opportunities for independent labels and niche artists that simply never existed until the dawn of the online age. Metal in particular has enjoyed an explosion in popularity and while it’s still very much a specialist interest, the internet has allowed thousands, if not millions, of new fans to discover groundbreaking artists that would have otherwise slipped under the radar. The never-ending stream of new bands, the rise of new sub-genres like Djent and the continued growth of the live scene owes much and more to the emergence of the online space.

Extreme metal has always suffered from a visibility problem but the internet has allowed the genre to grow, even while it has been increasingly marginalized at retail. As record stores – including large chains - have struggled to stay afloat, they’ve reduced the back catalogue stock they carry and gradually squeezed out niche artists, replacing them on shelves with cut-price DVDs, t-shirts and perma-discounted albums from artists on the majors. In short, unless you live in a major city it’s virtually impossible to find metal records from labels like Peaceville, Nuclear Blast, Southern Lord, Hydrahead and, yes, Century Media on shop shelves. Yet despite this, more people than ever before seem to be listening to extreme metal.

While I don’t have the figures to back it up, I’d argue that the revenue pie  has grown in recent years from a combination of records sales, merch and gigs. If Century feels that individual bands are finding it harder to make ends meet, that’s most likely down to the fact that more artists than ever before are competing for their piece of that pie, which can only be for the greater good, on a creative level at least.

Century are quite right to say that Spotify is a great tool to discover new artists but taking their back catalogue away and replacing it with a piecemeal selection of “sample tracks” isn’t the way forward either. Give people the ability to play their favourite tracks, recommend them to friends and share them in playlists so that extreme metal artists will continue to benefit from the increased exposure that only online word-of-mouth can bring.

Final Thoughts

Spotify’s response to Century Media has been interesting, as has that of the metal community (I’m planning to put together a Storify piece on this that I may retroactively embed in this post). The statement released by Spotify correctly points out that the service has helped to monetise an audience who were previously pirating music wholesale and that countries where Spotify is available saw an average 43% growth in digital sales versus 9.3% in neighbouring countries without Spotify. According to Billboard, Spotify is now the second largest single digital revenue source for European record labels, of which Century is one. This suggests that even if Spotify does result in an acceleration in the decline of physical sales, it’s offset by growth in the digital downloads sector.

As far as the blogger reaction goes, I’m very much with Vince Neilstein of Metalsucks on this one. I think Century Media have made a poor judgement call on this and are clinging to the shell of the music industry as it was. But those days are over. Rather than burying their head in the sand, Century should be looking at ways to open new revenue streams online and Spotify is just one of a variety of ways to do that. Withdrawing from Spotify only serves to push potential customers back towards piracy and make it less likely that they will buy physical CDs from Century Media, or indeed anybody else.

In the immediate wake of Century Media pulling out of Spotify, I toyed with the idea of cancelling my Premium subscription, which I’ve been happily paying for the better part of a year. After a little reflection and putting my thoughts in order when writing this post, I’ve decided to keep giving Spotify my £10 a month. Why? Several reasons. Firstly, Spotify helps provide niche artists with an alternative revenue stream to the decaying physical sales business model. Secondly, it allows me to share my favourite artists with both friends and strangers through public and playlists. Finally, Spotify is simply a fantastic service that is incredibly cheap considering how much it offers in return for your monthly subscription fee.

Ultimately, I’m not going to let Century Media or anybody else bully me about the way I listen to my music.

Right, let me quickly qualify that lest I fritter away the remaining shreds of my credibility. The T in the Park 2010 line-up isn’t actually all that bad for an enormous corporate event whose primary goals are:

1. to pack 80,000 plus revellers into a couple of fields and sell them copious amounts of alcohol for three straight days.
2. to promote the event as an all-inclusive celebration of summer, music, Scottish-ness and, um, drinking copious amounts of alcohol for three straight days. Note the ‘all-inclusive’ here.
3. to make sure every festival-goer leaves with the sickly taste of Tennants in their mouths and a giant red ‘T’ seared permanently on their retinas.
4. to provide a nice free day out for dozens of  sheltered Sunday newspaper journalists convinced that Coldplay and U2 are about as good as music gets in return for page after page of breathless coverage.
5. to make large sums of money by selling off the TV broadcasting rights to the highest bidder.

With all that in mind, well, it could have been a whole lot worse, really, couldn’t it? Let’s quickly remind ourselves of what’s on offer at Balado this year. More acts to be announced, list not final, etcetra.

30 Seconds To Mars
Black Eyed Peas
Biffy Clyro
Black Mountain
Broken Social Scene
Calvin Harris
Carl Cox
David Guetta
Dirty Projectors
Dizzee Rascal
Ellie Goulding
Empire of the Sun
Erol Alkan
Faithless
Fake Blood
Florence And The Machine
Four Tet
Goldfrapp
Gossip
Jay-Z
John Mayer
Kasabian
La Roux
Mayer Hawthorne and The County
Newton Faulkner
Paolo Nutini
Plastikman
Rise Against
Skunk Anansie
Slam
Stereophonics
The Cribs
The Coral
The Courteeners
The Proclaimers
The Prodigy
The Stranglers
The Temper Trap
The View
Two Door Cinema Club
Vampire Weekend
Wolfmother

I’ll lay my cards on the table right away and admit that the only band on that list I would actually pay good money to go and and see on their own is Black Mountain. Muse, the Stranglers, Broken Social Scene… I’d probably go if you had a spare ticket. The Prodigy, Faithless and the Proclaimers are all good festival bands with tunes pretty much anyone can sing along to (or, well, one song in the case of the Proclaimers). Biffy Clyro I don’t much care for but don’t actively dislike and there’s a scattering of acts I might pop along to out of morbid curiosity – Goldfrapp, Skunk Anansie (yes, I was surprised to find that they were still around) Wolfmother. But really that’s it, as far as I’m concerned. The headliners, Muse aside, are a bizarre choice. The pub rock titans of Kasabian and Stereophonics are simply dull and uninspiring while Eminem and Jay-Z are the sanitised face of hip-hop, just about edgy enough to get people talking but not actually, you know, controversial or even interesting.

But none of that really matters, does it? T in the Park isn’t a festival for me, and, if you’re reading this, probably not for you either. In fact, for someone with such a relatively niche taste in music, I’m actually spectacularly well-served by any number of festivals in Europe: Wacken, Bloodstock, Graspop, Hellfest, Metal Camp, Download, Sonisphere, ATP, Electric Picnic… If T in the Park’s line-up was chosen based on people like you and me (and yes, I’m aware we have wildly varying music tastes but bear with me), nobody else would go. Anyone who was part of the pitifully small crowd for Nine Inch Nails last year will be only too aware that there are bands that simply just don’t work at Balado. Unfortunately, most of the artists I enjoy probably fall into that category.

So instead, let’s look at what the organisers have achieved, bearing in mind the objectives listed above:

1. A decent selection of major Scottish artists.  Biffy Clyro, The Proclaimers, Paolo Nutini and Calvin Harris may not be particularly to my taste but they’re enormously popular and between them cover a pretty wide span of genres and demographics.
2. A good cross-section of mainstream genres. Muse, Stereophonics and Kasabian laying on the arena rock, Eminem and Jay-Z some fairly safe hip-hop, Faithless, the Prodigy and Carl Cox providing the dance fix. Even if the inside of the Slam Tent during Carl Cox will be like a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
3. Bands so dull (Stereophonics, Kasabian, The View) that punters will be forced to down Tennants by the gallon just to get through it.
4. No repeat of last year’s Lady Gaga/Katy Perry debacle. How the Sunday newspaper gossip columnists will cope, I have no idea

Could definitely be worse.

But to return to my opening point, the bloggers seething over yet another safe and pedestrian T in the Park line-up are wasting their breath. There was never any doubt that this year’s roll call was going to continue in the same mainstream direction the festival has turned over the last few years. T in the Park isn’t an event aimed at you, and never was. But for everyone who is completely turned off by this year’s line-up, nine other people will be squealing with barely contained delight.

And that has to be some kind of an achievement.

]]> http://jodimullen.co.uk/tinthepark-2010-lineup-musings/feed/ 0 http://jodimullen.co.uk/2009-top-10-albums/ http://jodimullen.co.uk/2009-top-10-albums/#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:04:02 +0000 Jodi Mullen http://jodimullen.co.uk/?p=257 If 2008 was my Year of Prog, with Enslaved, Cynic, Ihsahn and Opeth all featuring highly, 2009 was the Year of the Instrumental. No less than our of this year’s Top Five are mostly instrumental records. Excuse the lack of blurb but the hour is getting late and I want to be rid of this list quickly, even if it is [i]very[/i]  much overdue. I’ll come back and add some more content at a later date!

5. Isis – Wavering Radiant

4. Katatonia – Night is the New Day

3. Pelican – What We All Come to Need

2. Clint Mansell – Moon OST

1. Mono – Hymn to the Immortal Wind

For all their flaws though, I find the process of drafting and redrafting annual lists utterly compelling. I’m never entirely happy with any of my lists and actually compiling them usually entails many compromises and tough decisions. This year’s were no different and I fully anticipate looking back in six and then twelve months time and grinding my face into my palm over some of my choices. But that’s what being a critic is all about, right, having to eat your own words sometimes?

Anyway, to kick off the Best of 2009 lists, here’s my Top 10 songs of the year that was. I’ve even thrown in audio for a few tracks.

10. Gorgoroth – Rebirth (from the album Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem)

Gorgoroth’s Infernus has always had a talent for writing dark, funereal dirges and this post-Gaahlgate effort is one of his best. It’s suffocatingly grim and oppressive, its unrelentingly sonic bleakness the signature of a band revitalised and even, as the title would suggest, reborn. Worth listening to for vocalist Pest’s blood-curdling scream at around the two minute, fifty second mark but definitely not one for those who veer away from the darker things in music.

9. Dinosaur Jr – Pieces (from the album Farm)

While Farm wasn’t quite the album Dinosaur Jr fans had been hoping for, it was certainly a much more rounded piece of work than 2007′s Beyond. Pieces is a classic Dinosaur Jr track, from the minor-key progressions, to the wall of guitar sound that only become apparent at higher volume levels to J Mascis’s nasal vocals. Easily up there with the best from Green Mind and Where You Been.

8. Infected Mushroom – Herbert the Pervert (from the album Legend of the Black Schwarma)

The Israeli psychedelic trance duo are their best when blurring the boundaries between genres and introducing real instruments into their electronic cauldron. While not quite as magnificent as Suliman from 2007′s Viscious Delicious, Herbert the Pervert once again showcases the mind-blowing results that can be achieved from adding rock and heavy metal instrumentation to a hard dance track. Really remarkable stuff, with a fantastic name to boot.

7. Dream Theater – The Count of Tuscany (from the album Black Clouds and Silver Linings)

At nineteen minutes and sixteen seconds, The Count of Tuscany falls four minutes short of 1995′s epic A Change of Seasons. And while it doesn’t quite match that particular classic in terms of quality either, it’s undoubtedly one of the finest pieces of work the band have released in years. Endless guitar solos, rousing choruses, acoustic interludes, all are resplendent in their prog-tastic glory. Overly self indulgent, perhaps but no less majestic for that.

6. Butterfly Explosion – Comfort of the Dark (from the EP Vision)

Up and coming Irish shoegaze group Butterfly Explosion may well be the Next Big Thing once they finally release their long-awaited debut album in 2010 but for now they are simply floating in a sea of potential. Though the band usually sound like an Explosions in the Sky/My Bloody Valentine hybrid, this track actually bears more resemblance to something by the Smashing Pumpkins, before Billy Corgan disappeared up his own back passage. The slow build to the song’s glorious crescendo is undoubtedly its highlight.

5. Katatonia – Idle Blood (from the album Night is the New Day)

Sounding like a lost cut from Opeth’s Damnation, Idle Blood is one the highlights of an album hardly short of choice cuts. Internet speculation on whether Opeth’s Mikael Akerfeldt was involved continues unabated but regardless, Idle Blood is a remarkably beautiful and haunting track that sees Katatonia incorporate layered vocal harmonies and acoustic instrumentation in a way they have never before attempted on this scale.

4. Sonic Youth – Anti-Orgasm (from the album The Eternal)

Sonic Youth were never a band to waver in the face of commercial pressure, let alone do what anyone expected of them so it’s see something of a surprise to hear the fifty-something New Yorkers revive the accessibility and sexual politics of their early-nineties major label peak. Anti-Orgasm is a grungy, lo-fi track that’s worlds away from more contemplative recent releases but shows that despite their age, Sonic Youth still have a thing or two to show the kids about how to write abrasive rock classics.

3. Pelican – Ephemeral (from the album What We All Come to Need)

A tighter and much more focused reworking of an EP track from earlier this year, Ephemeral bears the mark of a resurgent Pelican, confident in fusing their newly discovered sense of melody with the riff-laden legacy of their earlier work. Somewhat reminiscent of the monolithic Drought from Australasia, this track gradually evolves from a simple bass riff to a writhing, complex monstrosity as layers of instrumentation are added, then taken away again before crashing back in once more with double the force. A real lesson in post-metal songwriting.

2. And So I Watch You From Afar – Set Guitars to Kill (from the album And So I Watch You From Afar)

As well as being an absolutely blistering slab of instrumental rock, this track undoubtedly walks away with the award for Best Song Name of the Year. Probably the best thing to come out of Northern Ireland since George Best, And So I Watch You From Afar somehow create catchy, danceable songs without resorting to verses, choruses or anything else that remotely resembles a traditional song structure. The sheer energy and euphoric joy expressed by the album version of Set Guitars to Kill is surpassed only by the utterly remarkable live performance.

1. Devin Townsend Project – Addicted! (from the album Addicted)

With a towering Wall of Sound that would make Phil Spector cry with envy, Devin Townsend must surely rank as one of the world’s premier producers. When he turns his hands to his own work, the results are usually remarkable and Addicted! is no exception. The title track of Addicted, the former Strapping Young Lad mastermind’s tongue-in-cheek attempt at creating an MOR rock album in the style of Nickelback, the song stays close to Townsend’s metal roots but adds layers of sound quite unlike anything seen in his previous work. From female vocals to soaring choruses, Addicted! is perhaps one of the most uncharacteristic tracks Townsend has ever released yet is all the more remarkable for that. It’s a sonic wonderland, the sound of an artist both exploring and pushing his limits and a genuine joy to listen to.

And that’s it for now. Check back over the next week or so when I’ll be listing my favourite albums, movies and games of the year, plus perhaps a look at some of 2009′s prize turkeys.

WWACTN sees the return of the dense, heavy riffing that characterised the Chicago four-piece’s early releases, blended seamlessly with the more melodic leanings of recent efforts. Delicate piano parts have been torn out and replaced with chugging, leaden bass lines and tortured lead guitars to create a record that is darker and more sombre than its predecessor. But for all that, WWACTN is perhaps one of the band’s more accessible albums, with their recent focus on song-writing and composition finally starting to pay dividends in the complex melodies that seamlessly link riff after heavy riff. Guitar duties are split between Trevor De Brauw and Laurent Schroeder-Lebec as usual, with Aaron Turner of Isis adding a third guitar on the title track and Sunn O)))’s Glen Anderson filling the same role on “Creeper”. Bryan Herveg excels on bass throughout, though Ben Verellen of Harkonen is drafted in to help out on “Glimmer”, while brother Larry Herveg’s performance on drums is vastly improved from City of Echoes, greatly assisted by a much more flattering mixdown.

The album opens with “Glimmer”, its lazy, ponderous intro quickly giving way to a crashing rhythm onslaught and soaring guitar melodies. “The Creeper” sees a return to Pelican’s sludgy roots, though with a generous helping of bass groove stirred into the mix. “Ephemeral”, meanwhile, is a re-working of the title track from the EP of the same name, released earlier this year. The WWACTN version is a much tighter and more focused affair, its gradually evolving riff structures highly reminiscent of “Drought” from Australasia and an undoubted highlight of the album. The contrast between the melodic and the menacing that underpins this record is perhaps most pronounced on the dreamy, spaced out “Specks of Light” and the brooding “Strung Up From The Sky”, the latter showcasing one of WWACTN‘s most memorable riffs and frankly mind-blowing bass chops from Bryan Herveg. Closer “Final Breath” sees Pelican enter entirely new territory with the addition of vocals, anathema to most instrumental bands of their ilk. It’s a brave move but one that ultimately fails to pay off, with the dirgey track feeling out of place against choice cuts elsewhere on the album.

Closing song aside, WWACTN is a resounding triumph for Pelican and real return to form for a band that many felt had left their roots behind for good. Production is exemplary throughout, adding a tangible depth and presence to each track and really allowing the breathtaking rhythm section to shine. Though all the songs come in under the eight-minute mark, there’s a focus here that earlier albums lack and a real sense that this is a band finally hitting their stride after a string of inconsistent efforts. It’s a record that should calm long-term fans, anxious that Pelican had strayed too far from their core musical values, while offering an ideal entry point for newcomers. If What We All Come to Need is in any way an indication of the band’s future direction, Pelican fans should be very excited indeed.

Sucioperro
T Break Stage, Saturday 11 July, 2:30pm

Having secured a timeslot clashing with Lady Gaga on the main stage, Sucioperro were always going to prove a draw for punters hungry for substance over spectacle but the Ayrshire alt rock outfit surpassed all expectations by packing the T Break tent to capacity on Saturday afternoon. The band’s enthusiasm was somehow surpassed by the crowd’s, with a circle pit forming within seconds of the first chord of opener ‘Tem V Com’ ringing out, in spite of the baking heat. Though somewhat hampered by muddy sound, Sucioperro’s eight song set delivered choice cuts from new album recent album Pain Agency as well as a sprinkling of older material, with penultimate song ‘The Final Confessions of Mabel Stark’ a particular highlight.

Bronto Skylift
T Break Stage, Saturday 11 July, 8.20pm

Confounding all logic, Glasgow two-piece noise rockers Bronto Skylift somehow managed to be the loudest band to grace the T Break tent all weekend. On stage, the secrets behind Bronto’s massive wall of sound were revealed quickly enough, with frontman Niall Strachan jacking into no less than four amps at the same time and wielding an impressive array of pedals. It was all too much for some people to take, with a few casualties staggering out clutching their ears, as Iain Stewart’s snare drum hits reached ear-splitting levels. Those who did stay, however, were rewarded with a breathtaking set and an impromptu jam session with the band, as Strachan took his guitar into the crowd to close the show, paying no heed to minor details like instrument cables and panicking stewards.

Barn Owl
T Break Stage, Sunday 12 July, 12:50pm

Barn Owl’s shimmering, melancholic indie rock is the perfect accompaniment to a dreary and hungover Sunday afternoon at T in the Park. That said, with the heavens pouring down outside, it’s not entirely clear which is the bigger draw: the band themselves or the sheltered confines of the T Break Tent. Either way, Barn Owl take it in their stride, delivering a dreamy and gentle set to a chilled out crowd.  Occasionally, the Glasgow five-piece meander into a soaring chorus, slightly reminiscent of later-day Idlewild, but calm is soon restored and we return to emotive minor chord progressions, accompanied by rich and resonant percussion. Indeed, Barn Owl’s elaborate percussion ensemble is one the more intriguing aspects of the performance, a collection of bells, chimes and xylophones adding a wistful, ethereal dimension to their sound. As the set draws to a close, the clouds outside finally break, revealing a thin crack of blue sky. But, even as the sun makes a fleeting appearance, still the punters try to push their way inside the packed tent.

It seems Barn Owl don’t need the Scottish weather’s help to fill the canvas arena after all.

And in the underground, metal has remained one of the most creative and inventive forms of modern music, propelled by cultural and ideological movements over the last twenty five years. Musicians have pushed themselves, their instruments and even conventional definitions of what counts as music in an effort to push back sonic boundaries and explore the furthest depths of extremity. The genre has even expanded to take in influences from classical music, folk and jazz. Under the radar of the mainstream music press, a global metal underground has spawned, reaching from Scandinavia to South America and Tokyo to Tayside.

Few will deny that trying to pin down exactly what metal is and define precise relationships between its countless sub-genres is a difficult task at best and downright impossible at worst. Similarly, it’s difficult to speak of a metal scene in Scotland at all without taking into account the almost mind-boggling degree of fragmentation and cross-pollination of sub-genres that makes extreme metal so dynamic and yet so confusing at the same time. Even within individual Scottish cities, the metal community can be split in ways that reflect historic ideological and stylistic differences between sub-genres, with some sub-communities almost totally estranged from others.

Naturally this fragmentation of audiences and performers alike causes headaches for promoters. While some sub-genres may be collectively interpreted as a continuum of extremity – most notably the progression from thrash to death metal to grindcore – and lend themselves to broadly similar audiences, other acts are so isolated from the rest of the scene, both musically and ideologically, that attempting to fit them together on the same bill tends to be a risky and haphazard affair. Though many progressive and post-metal acts can happily slot into a standard rock running order as an exotic curiosity, the sonic and philosophical nihilism of black metal and the full-body assault on the senses that is drone are are so alienated from accepted musical aesthetics as to make them seemingly impossible to fit onto a bill.

Unlike parts of mainland Europe where metal is firmly entrenched in popular culture and is a regular presence both in the charts and on mainstream radio – particularly in Scandinavia, Germany and Greece – the British and Scottish public have long remained uneasy about the genre as a whole, particularly in a live context. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to acceptance is the sheer extremity of the music itself. Even for many of Scotland’s most adventurous and enlightened gig-goers, the fact remains that a steady diet of blast beats, guttural howls and downtuned guitars does not a good Friday night make.

Metal also has something of an image problem and though personal experience would suggest that this is, for the most part, an unjustified and puerile stereotype perpetuated by an unsympathetic media, the antiquated notion of grimy bars populated by leather-clad men with a penchant for long hair, beards and casual violence remains. The upshot is that many of Scotland’s most popular smaller venues are off limits to all but the most prestigious of unsigned metal acts, making it more difficult for bands to gain exposure and offset the numerous negative connotations the genre has managed to pick up over the years, deservedly or otherwise.

Press coverage of metal tends to be erratic, at best. Mainstream publications occasionally adopt poster boys for the inventiveness of genre as a whole, Mastodon, Isis and Sunn O))) being the most recent examples of this particular phenomenon. Much of the rest of the time, however, music journalists prefer to give metal a wide berth, only occasionally descending from their ivory towers to pass judgement on the latest release from Metaliica, Iron Maiden, Slayer or some other behemoth of yesteryear and roll out the same tired old cliches about men in their forties trying to recapture teenage glories.

In Scotland, metal coverage in the likes of The List and The Skinny has begun to gradually improve over the last year or so but all too often exciting and innovative bands go uncovered, even when on the verge of reaching critical mass internationally. Perth ‘pirate metal’ pioneers Alestorm (see below) have been a regular fixture in the likes of Terrorizer and Zero Tolerance, Britain’s two most respected specialist extreme metal magazines, for well over two years and appeared at some of Europe’s most prestigious metal festivals last summer yet only recently received their first feature piece in The List.

Here at Under the Radar, however we aim to showcase the best of Scotland’s underground metal talent over the coming months, taking in everything from black metal to grindcore in our quest to discover why this most-maligned of genres is at the forefront of musical innovation north of the border.

Somehow, in spite of all the apathy and adversity, metal in Scotland has not only survived  and endured, it has thrived. Each of our major cities has a rich and vibrant metal underground, focused around a handful of venues and extremely dedicated fan communities. Glasgow is the undisputed jewel in Scottish metal’s spiked crown, being the home of perhaps our most successful metal act, Man Must Die (see below) and a regular stop-over for the metal world’s biggest touring acts. The city is also home to bands that span the full spectrum of subgenres; death metallers Madman is Absolute, folk/battle metal outfit Alba Gu Brath and black metal titans Daemonolith are just a few acts out of dozens.

As well as a plethora of rock and metal bars, Glasgow plays host to a number of small to medium-sized venues that specialise in the most extreme forms of music. Ivory Blacks, The Cathouse, Captain’s Rest and Maggie May’s form the background of the city’s gigging circuit for metal bands, though many more venues feature prominently too. The metal scene in Edinburgh perhaps isn’t quite as vibrant, particularly with the announcement last month that popular rock and metal club Studio 24 was set to lose its license. Bannerman’s remains a favourite for extreme acts and regularly hosts shows with some of the most interesting and varied lineups around. While the Capital might not have quite the same number of metal bands as Glasgow, it is home to aome of the more eclectic bands in the Scottish underground, including drone/doom instrumental act Jackal-Headed Guard of the Dead.

Proving perhaps that there is something about the frozen north that brings out the metal spirit, Aberdeen has one of Scotland’s longest established metal scenes, with venues like The Moorings becoming institutions in their own right alongside the likes of Moshulu and The Tunnels. Local favourites Black Atom seem to have been on the verge of becoming the next big thing for well over half a decade while death metal outfit Bonesaw are one of the country’s most brutal acts. Meanwhile, Ascension, one of Scotland’s finest power metal acts split their time between Aberdeen and Glasgow. Outside the big three cities, smaller scenes exist in Dundee, home to traditional metallers Swordmaster, Perth and Inverness with various other acts coming from small towns all over the country, including What The Blood Revealed, a post-metal act who call Irvine, Ayrshire their home.

Over the next few months, Under the Radar will be examining Scotland’s emerging metal scene in detail, starting out with a look at the country’s ferocious death metal community next month. In the meantime though, we’re going to introduce two of the very best homegrown acts who are currently flying the flag for Scottish metal around Europe.

Alestorm

With the release of their second album, Black Sails at Midnight, Perth’s Alestorm look set to become the latest Scottish act to make it big on the international metal scene. Branding themselves “True Scottish Pirate Metal”, the four-piece play upbeat, traditional heavy metal with strong influences from the worlds of power metal and folk music. Alestorm revel in their ludicrously over-the-top buccaneer image; band members take to the stage dressed as pirates and song titles like ‘Wenches and Mead’ and ‘Keelhauled’ are the order of the day, though a reworking of ‘Flower of Scotland’ has been known to creep onto live setlists every now and then. Signed to Austrian independent metal label Napalm Records, Alestorm will join legendary Finnish folk-metallers Korpiklaani on the Paganfest tour of Europe this autumn.

Man Must Die

Four young men from Glasgow with a penchant for loud noise and violence? Who ever would have thought it. Man Must Die’s star has been in the ascendance for several years now, during which time the band has landed much coveted support slots with the likes of Kataklysm and Aborted but forthcoming album No Tolerance For Imperfection will hopefully see them becoming one of death metal’s leading lights in their own right. Driven by crushing riffs, Man Must Die’s brand of death metal is unrelentingly brutal and aggressive and frequently delves into the kind of grisly lyrical subject matter for which the genre has become infamous. Matters of taste aside though, one can’t help but admire some of the virtuoso musicianship on display as the band push their instruments and themselves to new heights of extremity.

Originally published at Under The Radar in two parts on 23 June 2009 and 25 June 2009.