New Book Black Metal Rainbows Will “Uncover Black Metal as a Genre of Openness and Inclusivity”
Everyone in black metal is concerned about being tr00 kvlt, but they should be concerned about being tr00 kvnts: for whatever reason, that subgenre of metal invites more assholes than any other subgenre, save maybe for nu-metal. Maybe.
This being the case, the just-announced book Black Metal Rainbows feels much-needed, even as it promises to be divisive.
The “400-page, full-color anthology of radical, queer, and leftist writings and artworks that uncover black metal as a genre of openness and inclusivity” will be “a unique collection of stunning artworks and thought-provoking writings by a wide range of 80+ writers, artists, activists and visionaries.”
And already, like, half of you are tearing your hair out and foaming at the mouth about wokeness. I’d sympathize but my IQ has more than one digit.
Participants in Black Metal Rainbows include:
- Drew Daniel of Matmos/The Soft Pink Truth
- Kim Kelly
- Hunter Hunt-Hendrix of Liturgy
- Margaret Killjoy of Feminazgul
- Laina Dawes of What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal
- Espi Kvlt
- Charles Forsman of The End of the Fucking World
- Eugene S. Robinson of Oxbow
- Svein Egil Hatlevik of Fleurety and Zweizz
The book also features an oral history of Dødheimsgard‘s album 666 International, a Tridroid Records label profile, and more.
Additionally, it arrives with endorsements from Cynic’s Paul Masvidal…
“Black Metal Rainbows? But of course! Behold a treatise of the unholiest order. These pages unravel the densely layered alchemy that is black metal, and its undeniable relationship to the rebellious queer spirit we as a community so desperately need to resurrect. Rainbow hails to all involved for digging deep and unearthing a fabulous piece of faggot witchery. May the seance begin!”
…and Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway…
“Despite being there in the moment during the ascent of the Venoms, the Bathorys, and the Hellhammers, I’ve tended to fidget warily from afar since black metal partly curdled into a mess of homogenized inhumanity. So, I welcome this collective liberating howl beyond the stereotypes of icy forests and puerile hatred. Bravo!”
…and Jucifer’s Gazelle Amber Valentine:
“Groups that prize authority and enforce homogeneity are inherently vulnerable to dull extremism; a fascistic, fetishistic process as easily observed in such factions of black metal as in any church a banal black metal might burn. Of course the idea that art should belong only to one privileged class of people is as plunged in hubris as the idea of owning god. In shattering the flatly ludicrous and ludicrously flat illusion of black metal as some immutable orthodox mirror for white/western/cis/hetero/abled/male supremacists, Black Metal Rainbows is a milestone that we, as participants in disturbing said illusion and enthusiasts of punching upward in all its forms, can only celebrate.”
Black Metal Rainbows is currently being funded via Kickstarter — contribute backing here. You can check out some photos of/from the book and a video trailer below.
