Affirmation and denial: Extreme right black metal and the Holocaust. (1st September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Langebach, Martin; Schulze, Christoph
• Is Part Of: Metal music studies. Volume 6:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 375
• Page End: 393
• Publication Date: 2020-09-01
• Subjects: Heavy metal (music) -- Periodicals; Heavy metal (music) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; 781.6605
• DOI: 10.1386/mms_00024_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2052-3998

Abstract

The article examines how the Holocaust is addressed in the extreme right wing sections of the larger black metal culture. Drawing from an extensive pool of primary sources the authors analyse how the Holocaust features in song lyrics, album artworks and interviews with artists. They argue that references to the Holocaust in extreme right wing black metal follow the logic of the culture's aesthetics, which regularly employ symbols of fantastic or factual atrocities in order to express statements of misanthrophy, hatred and male strength. At the same time, the references are non-metaphorical and in that sense political. The artists often do not attempt to minimize the magnitude of the Holocaust but they celebrate the event exactly for the brutality it represents. In other instances, the idea of Holocaust is approved while its factuality is denied. Historic denialism and affirmation of the Holocaust can go hand in hand. While crass antisemitic statements can be found in other extreme right wing cultural realms, extreme right black metal might be the cultural sphere in the contemporary western world that articulates the harshest type of antisemitism.