THE NY TIMES IS IMMORTAL

Even though metal seems to have (re?)infiltrated the mainstream as of late, I’m still always surprised when I open my NY Times in the morning and see a feature on a metal band. When that feature includes a half a page above-the-fold photo of Immortal, I am outright shocked.

But there they, the chosen visual representation for an article on black metal and, in particular, the black metal symposium that took place at Public Assembly in Brooklyn this past weekend.

Now, unless your interested in having a nice chuckle at the manner in which the author, Ben Ratliff, tries to explain to the squares what all that racket is (My favorite gem: “Black refers to a bleak outlook on life.”), you don’t really need to read this article. Mostly it makes me hope that some of the lectures from this past weekend’s symposium end up published somewhere, or at least posted online, as they sound pretty interesting, if potentially chock-full of naval gazing.

But our friends at Decibel get a shout-out, as do a lot of great bands, including Nachtmystium and Krallice, and, hey, there’s even some quotes from Liturgy’s Hunter Hunt-Hendrix. So you can go ahead and read the entire piece here.

On a semi-related note, I’d like to say that the best part of reading all these year-end lists is checking out releases that either never came across your radar or, for whatever reason, you never got around to checking out. Even though Vince said it’s awesome some time ago, I only just got around to listening to Immortal’s All Shall Fall last night and was, by sheer coincidence, cranking it this morning when I sat down to read the times and saw the band’s photo. It’s an awesome record, and I’m glad I finally got around to listening to it!

-AR