Metal Will Save the World.

The other night, I was catching up with a long lost friend. As we were threading together the spaces in between our friendship, I was struck by the different tone of her voice. Memories of her fluid alto speaking voice quickly dissolved as she told me about the trials and tribulations that she experienced after we lost touch. She and her voice were subjected to years rife with abuse and heartbreak. Through the years, the side effects of fear and self-loathing pressed down upon her vocal cords, deepening her timbre. With every word she spoke, the weight of her world sagged further through the audio speakers. At one point, I wondered if the quiet that surrounded her was of solace or something more imprisoning. This space between us had an almost solemn, ceremonial air but to what ends, and toward what power?

As our late night conversation continued, we managed to stumble upon our mutual love for the written word— the cadence, the resonance and the personality each had seeping through characters and syllables. Our professed love for words spiraled into devotion to poetry and artistic expression, and then, …head first into metal music.

For a split second, her voice and the surface of my mind echoed the same sentiment:

“Wait…what?!!”

How did this conversation with this particular long lost friend lead a pathway to one of the most intense and polarizing musical expressions in the modern world? At this point, my friend’s stream-of-consciousness, verbal pacing abruptly shifted into a jagged response:

“Uh-uh Ohh-kay…”

I sensed her bewildered facial expression making an entrance into our conversation and immediately (and humbly) acknowledged the unfair “bait-and-switch” that I easily injected into our conversation. Her response was gracious.

“Yeah, I don’t get that music. But, you know, if you like it…”

I knew that her musical palette wasn’t keen to the taste of heavy, alkaline sounds of metal and aggressive music.

That was then followed by my attempt to justify my inclusion of such a volatile, and sometimes reviled form of musical expression. I wasn’t trying to convert her. In fact, I knew that she wouldn’t take. At best, all I could do is what I always do when I talk about music; gush and gush, like raging waters.

For me, any type of aggressive music is pretty much what I’d imagine as equal to being struck by lighting while absorbing the thunder rumbling into my pores. It’s the pure energy, unadulterated in its original raw material and velocity. Of course, there are many musical styles that have their own momentum--many that I have yet to discover. But even as I stumble upon new forms of musical adrenaline, the energy of metal always fascinates me. It’s a distinctive charge is a nuance that cannot be replicated. It’s an alignment of striking the guitar strings is a certain way, elevating (or deepening) the vocals, and melding it all with the elephantine push and shove of the rhythm section. The Sturm und Drang of it all is simultaneously foreboding and life-affirming. I’ve often felt that the sound of metal is seismic, maybe even planetary. If metal music were a planet, it would have to be Jupiter—a planet so massive that its “small” stormy spot would swallow more than a couple doses of our beloved Planet Earth.

The magnitude of such a sound is mind-boggling and yet, it fuels every molecule in my system.

“Metal will Save the World.”

This phrase often enters my mind for various reasons. It also entered my mind while I was speaking with my friend in her moment of disapproval. It seems like a big, somewhat dubious statement mainly because of how polarizing the music still seems to be to this day. However, I’ve seen people who “don’t normally listen to this music” react immediately, and viscerally once the music blares from a speaker or amplifier. Perhaps they realize how difficult it is to deny the impact and power that rushes from the sound like a tidal wave. A very immediate and powerful entity that is all-consuming. Whether positive or negative, their response is always a full reaction. The music is borne from the same primal energies that we all wrestle with on a regular basis: anger, hurt, isolation, frustration, courage, determination, perseverance. Perhaps I mentioned metal to my friend as a suggestion to her to try a different kind of survival kit. The things that she tried didn’t seem to reach her anymore. Maybe they couldn’t relate, or puncture the shell that was swallowing her. Many of her thoughts expressed that night have been echoed by countless voices wailing over cresting waves of amplification, speed and heavy sonic weight.

I’ve heard many people focus on the seemingly “negative aspects” of the music. They feel that the volume and “mood” of metal is a turn-off, offensive, and sometimes downright dangerous. Many styles of music, and art, have carried the torch of holding the social mirror to the ills, injustices, and the overall darker side of humanity. The status quo’s critical eye and wagging finger always seem to try to push metal’s ascendancy back down. The irony is, metal’s mirror to society is still one of the most visceral and unflinching perspectives in our modern world.

As for my friend, by the end of our conversation she still wasn’t convinced. For now...