'[…] tentacular invisible mother divine!': (The) Weird (in) Metal as convergence of sonic extremities and literary margins. (1st June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Norman, Joseph
• Is Part Of: Metal music studies. Volume 5:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 225
• Page End: 242
• Publication Date: 2019-06-01
• Subjects: Heavy metal (music) -- Periodicals; Heavy metal (music) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; 781.6605
• DOI: 10.1386/mms.5.2.225_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2052-3998

Abstract

Weird Fiction is often understood as an unclassifiable fusion of horror, science fiction (SF) and fantasy, and therefore a kind of generically hybridized writing. Here I discuss various parallels between Weird Fiction and music marketed and recognized as 'extreme metal', an umbrella term for bands playing in the core styles of black, death and doom metal, and their various offshoots like grindcore and sludge. Analysis of all Weird Metal is beyond the scope of this article, so I focus on artists who achieve Weirdness through the presence and interrelationship of hybridity, numinosity (an overwhelming feeling of majesty) and alterity (radical difference), especially: Wolves in the Throne Room, Howls of Ebb, Portal, A Forest of Stars, Voices and (The Unsearchable Riches of) Void. I also consider how metal relates to the 'New Weird', radical developments in traditions of the form, concluding with thoughts on the wider theorization of The Weird.