I’m not particularly eager to write these days, but I’ve promised myself to regularly update my blog (no, I won’t say when). If more than twenty-four hours pass, I tend to forget what I wanted to say, so I might as well post right away.
I was mentioning that it’s been a while since I went out just to enjoy a beer that wasn’t work-related, taking a break from the immense pile of troubles accumulating day by day.
Also, Nuclear Abominations has been a part of my life for almost thirty years but was never really a personal outlet. It represents, more than myself, the part of me that back in 1995 wanted to express something without writing for other publications. I loved that level of bold, unrestrained intimacy so much that I continued to consider myself an active writer, even during months when I wrote nothing. There were times, especially in the early 2000s, when I wrote daily. These days, I find it increasingly difficult to write about music as it seems everything has already been discussed somewhere on social media or a well-organized website in some remote part of social medias. I now treat music as a personal matter, something to discuss with friends or occasionally mention here in these pages. But above all, this fanzine or blogzine, whatever you prefer to call it, showcases a specific persona that isn’t always consistent with my other selves. Nuclear Abominations is the identity I adopt when discussing these topics, and I enjoy using its voice.
To be clear, sometimes, I don’t even agree with what I write.
About last night, I went out to drink some beers and see what’s happening in places where people talk about what used to be underground music—though it hasn’t been underground for at least twenty years, fairly speaking. There was this very young band of guys who are passionate about the genre I call Black Metal, which the rest of the world has perhaps mistakenly lumped in with themes of “War” or “Death” Metal. The evening was Black Metal themed, and although other bands played, I honestly forgot about them after about 60 seconds of listening.
But this band, IGNOBLETH stood out. They are genuinely talented, and my praise extends beyond just stylistic or aesthetic coherence. They show real passion and commitment to the music they create. They talk about music with enthusiasm and ignore the typical social dynamics, much like I did at their age, outliers in a world obsessed with politeness and mutual flattery.
Musically, their influences, including bands like ARCHGOAT, are evident, but they blend their music into an 80% grinding slow mid-tempo with occasional faster blasts making up the remaining 19%. Thankfully, within that last 1%, there is IT, that spark of otherowrldliness streaming from the inside, and I really enjoyed the way that kind of social unease takes the form of horns, chains and rotting corpsepaint. Sporadic incursions of Nordic harmonies sometimes poke in a controlled manner, not enough to lead us onto dangerously slippery shores. They also slow down, ut in a scary DISEMBOWELMENT way, not spleen-infused doom . I think the gem is still rather unrefined and I really hope it stays this way, in a world of controlled bonfires, be the burning nursery.
