The Meads of Asphodel - Damascus Steel
What do you get when you combine Biblical apocrypha, militant secular humanism, medieval English armor, and a hefty dose of misanthropy? Mix them together and you find yourself with one of England’s best-kept secrets: The Meads of Asphodel. Surfacing from the depths in 1998, they are anything but standard fare in the world of metal. They bill themselves as “English Fucking Black Metal”, and never fail to live up to and surpass the standards set out by a country from which emerged so many great bands in the past.
Like many of the better contemporary black metal bands, the Meads occupy the niche of ’experimental’ music. They can play more traditional, ’grim and frostbitten’ black - their 2000 debut The Excommunication of Christ was based largely around this style - but even then it was evident that the Meads were something different. Metatron’s voice is dry and raspy but he doesn’t growl or scream, making for some unique vocals which have been likened to “someone with throat cancer who really would like to sing, but coughs up intestines every time he tries“#. Don’t worry, his voice isn’t as ugly as that might lead you to believe, but it is unique. While The Excommunication… featured the more stripped-down instrumental section of traditional ‘cold‘ black metal, by the following album Exhuming the Grave of Yeshua guitarist and the drummer at the time Jaldaboath had begun flexing his muscles. And lest your preconceptions about black metal get the best of you, know that Metatron and company have produced a techno song - the remake of the demo “Book of Dreams” on Exhuming… - and covered Louis Armstrong’s “Wonderful World” (the latter, of course, with their signature sense of cynical humor).
It is this sense of cynicism, along with a good degree of humor, which pervades this music. For example, a verse from their Armstrong cover states: “I see ethnic cleansing / pain beyond belief / whole nations murdered / sorrow and grief / and I think to myself…”. Their latest EP, In the Name of God Welcome to Planet Genocide, contains songs such as “My Beautiful Genocide” and “A Baptism in the Warm Piss of Slaughtered Children”. They also have a taste for impressively long song titles on their tracks over 10 minutes, naming the last track on 2005’s Damascus Steel “Behold The Kindred Battle Carcasses Strewn Across The Bloodied Dunes Of Gilgamesh Mute In The Frenzied Clamour Of Death's Rolling Tongue And Ravenous Bursting Steel”. Life’s a joke, and it’s deadly serious.
If there is an issue with the Meads, it is their perceived anti-religion and especially anti-Islamic stance. The latter has gained them an unfortunate following among racists, xenophobes, and Muslim haters of all stripes in their native England as well as here. And indeed, a shallow reading of the band’s songs can lead to the conclusion that the Meads do indeed hate Islam. Their split with Mayhem, entitled Jihad, has songs entitled “Jihad - the Gristly Din of Killing Steel” and “Assassins of Allah”. At the beginning of “Behold the Bloodied Dunes…” on Damascus Steel, the muezzin’s call to prayer precedes the crash of thunder. Christianity too comes under fire, as there is a general tendency in their music (especially their earlier work) to criticize the divinity of Jesus as well as the Church of Rome. Yet if one simply examines their website, one will find the motto "The Meads of Asphodel believe in all peoples' right to live in peace, free from the shackles of inflicted dogma and servitude". What the Meads are critiquing, it appears, is not any specific religion so much as fundamentalist interpretations of such which lead to violent conflict and the deaths of innocents.
So, if you can appreciate excellent music and insightful social commentary conveyed through a mushroom-induced haze by men in medieval English armor, this band’s for you!
