An Overview of Post-Rock and Avant-Garde

For decades there have existed certain genres of music that were dedicated to counteracting the tendencies of popular music. Whether it be their opposition to popular song structure, chord changes, song lengths or typical time signatures and phrasing, many bands have become successful simply from becoming a stark contrast to their more trendy brethren. Seven years have passed into our new millennium, and musicians are currently racking their brains on how to come up with something new and fresh. Instead of continually plodding through the avant-garde however, many bands have decided to take their art full circle by reverting back to their musical roots and simplifying their songwriting process. With so many modern bands attempting to fill up their songs with superfluous passages and cram as many ideas as possible into one 4 minute song, the progression towards a more simple approach to songwriting seems like a logical step forward in many regards.

As mid-80s hardcore punk bands began drawing heavy influences from metal, the lines blurred and a hybrid genre, simply called "hardcore", emerged. This brief exploration was almost immediately spearheaded by the same political meandering that originally led to the downfall of punk music, but a handful of great experiments made it through – one of them being a band called Isis, a pioneer at the forefront of the “simplification” movement. From this movement spawned a new genre, which is now referred to as post-rock – the “post” referring to a reinvention of an established concept, as in postmodernism or post-structuralism. Along with the creation of this genre came an entirely new mentality where bands attempted to make their music come across as a work of art, rather than just a few songs to bob your head to. There is a definite attitude amongst these bands that art and music are interchangeable, and Aaron Turner, the front man for post-rockers Isis, feels that "the songwriting and the artwork come from the same place. This logic relates to visual and aural aspects as well as overt intellectualization, through both literary references and driving philosophies.” In addition, books such as Don Quixote, House of Leaves, Labyrinths and the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham all play a role in shaping the themes of Isis' releases.

Being one of my favorite bands in recent memory, the artistic aspirations of Isis is a very admirable trait – one that would be refreshing to see more mainstream bands take a hold of as opposed to only the underground “artists.” When you listen to an Isis album, it is more than just a listening experience. The texture of the musical pieces come alive and captivates you in their own environment, similar to the way films pull you into the lives of the main characters and compels you to invest emotion into their lives and experiences. There is an overt intention of progressing heavy music present in Isis' output; a desire to further the intellectual cause that pushes them forward. This is evident within the clear progression of their sound from release to release, their influence on heavy music, and their acceptance in art circles where other metal and rock bands are not so readily embraced. Their stated goal is to not break away from the scene that they came from, but rather to expand upon it. Publications such as Terrorizer attest to how Aaron Turner has completed his goal, "Turner has loosened hardcore from its geographical roots, and in the process created an intimate, yet immeasurable vision all of his own". Turner has complained that "metal in general has long been unjustly maligned as solely the province of knuckle-dragging meatheads. That said, there's never been a group of musicians like there is now, who are helping to advance the form."


While hoping that more popular bands may also see the light at the end of the proverbial artistic tunnel may not be entirely hopeless, it would seemingly go against the other half of what post rock stands for. In addition to simplifying the songwriting formula, post rock is also defined by its unique structure: songs tend to evolve to a crescendo or climax (or multiple ones within a song), building upon a repeated theme or chord shift, whereas more mainstream and popular music, however, often adheres to verse-chorus-verse conventions of song structure. As Aaron Turner of Isis states, "the standard song format of verse-chorus-verse-chorus is something that has been done and redone, and it seems pointless to adhere to that structure when there are so many other avenues to explore". The result of this is often long songs, commonly in the range of six to eleven minutes. Therefore a typical post rock track is not generally suitable for radio play, nor is it commercially viable. Similarly, albums are often created as quasi-conceptual, creating the greatest impact when listened to as a whole rather than picking out one or two favorite songs for listening.

Heavy metal reached a commercial apex with the hair-metal bands of the '80s, but those spandex-and-lipstick connoisseurs were often looked down upon within the greater heavy metal scene. Metal, many argued, should be punishing and morbid, not garish. So while the flashy acts caught on in the pop arena, the metal mainstream focused on technique and form, honing a high degree of technical complexity. By the early '90s, eccentrics like the Melvins and the Flying Luttenbachers were acting on the belief that heavy music was compatible with an avant-garde sensibility. Albert Mudrian, editor of the year-old metal magazine Decible asks: "Is art conscious or unconscious? Up until now, there was art in metal, but there wasn't for the most part a self-awareness about it. Now, these new artists have that, and they want to be painted as such." Some fear that the self-conscious positioning of art-rock and art-metal bands has done a disservice to worthy acts who stick closer to tradition, and who are often ignored, if not outright scorned, by outsiders. John Darnielle, the singer-songwriter who performs as The Mountain Goats and writes frequently about metal, said, "People want to listen to harder stuff, but they don't want to venture far beyond their own backyard."

There is a reason why radio stations and channels like MTV continue to churn out formulas of the same bands and artists, rehashed and unchanged in auditory qualities. "I think a lot of bands underestimate the intelligence of their audience, as well as people’s willingness to experience different things,” Turner claims. Mainstream listeners are often either too afraid to exit their listening comfort zone to experience new music, or simply do not care enough to dig deep and search for more interesting bands that they could enjoy on a greater level. As Turner’s band slowly grew in popularity in the underground rock and metal scene, they were invited to open for the wildly popular hard rock band, Tool. Isis’ front man Aaron Turner isn't stupid - he knew that his band was certain to get booed by Tool fans when Isis would head out on the road with Tool’s collection of avant-metal cohorts, but that did not stop him from trying to open up a few minds. Prior to going on stage, Turner realistically predicted the near future, “You're bound to have a larger meathead contingency in your audience when you open for a band as big as Tool, and we're very aware of the fact that a good portion of the people at these shows will be bored to tears or perhaps even angry while we're playing. In one way, we're really excited about it, but in another way, we're realistic about it too.” When fans become dedicated to such a formulaic approach to music, it is difficult to introduce new ideas and concepts into their listening equation.

While bands like Isis are attempting to reinvent a somewhat classical songwriting formula, there exists a small group of unique bands who are attempting to scrap everything that human beings have conceived as music and gone back to a more “primal” methodology. The most popular band in this group goes by the title Sunn 0))), named after an amplifier company that produces ultra-low frequencies. The genre of music that Sunn 0))) plays under is identified as “drone”, mainly because this style consists of droning notes that last for long periods of time. Melody, vocals or any sense of rhythm are usually absent from these types of songs, and instead focus on extremely distorted guitars. Quite probably some of the most atmospheric soundscapes in music today, the key to creating successful drone ambience is through minimalistic riffs and sounds to paint a picture in your mind. The lyrics, if present, deal with abstract concepts, but are usually melancholy as a whole. Music that contains drone style instrumentation can also be found in many parts of the world, including the Japanese gagaku classical tradition, Scottish pibroch piping, didgeridoo music in Australia, Hindustani classical music, and pre-polyphonic organum vocal music of late medieval Europe . However, concept of motionlessness and long tones occurring in classical compositions during adagio movements, as well as in Northern European folk music in the form of "slow airs" has recently descended into modern popular and electronic music. The modern genre of drone music is most often applied to artists who have allied themselves closely with underground music and the post-rock or experimental music genres. While the hallmarks of drone music are easy to recognize, the backgrounds and goals of the artists vary greatly.

Now that music has seemingly come full circle in a structural sense, you may be asking yourself why there have not been very many fresh ideas in the music industry for the past couple of decades. Has music taken a step beyond the limits of our current technological limitations? Have we succeeded in creating every type of music that is enjoyable to the human ears? Are the instruments we have been playing for hundreds of years too simple to allow for any advancement in musical discovery? To answer these questions, one must first observe the concept of music in and of itself.

At its core, music is an art form consisting of sound and silence expressed through time. Elements of sound used in music are pitch, rhythm, structure, and sonic qualities of timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture. The human ear can only pick up a certain number of frequencies, and while the globally used concept of a chromatic scale only has twelve notes, this number can be multiplied depending on the octave capability of a particular instrument. At a maximum, one instrument is only capable of producing 48 different sounding notes. Even with the rare tendencies of some experimental artists incorporating quarter-step intervals into musical scales, this leaves us with a total combination of 144 musical notes. While chords may incorporate multiple notes and may sound different than playing a single note, a chord always reverts back to its root, which may be any of the 12 notes in the chromatic scale. Throw in diminished, augmented and minor chords to the equation and you may be increasing musical variety by a slight margin, but nothing drastic when considering how musical chords are designed. While all this technical talk may be just crunching numbers, try applying to it music in a more practical sense. A common, three to four minute song usually only encompasses between four and six different types of chords, which is then only a handful of different notes. Out of all of the millions of songs that have been created over the past few hundred years, only recently have we been seeing similarities in melody and structure. There have even been a few lawsuits between bands because one inadvertently created a song that sounded almost identical to an older song (Red Hot Chili Peppers versus Tom Petty, for instance).

With such a limited amount of melodic possibilities, it would be safe to say that our musical system has worked very well, given the duration of its usage. But, since more and more modern musical artists have been cutting it close between the fine line of copyright infringement and original material, what can we possibly change or create to add even more variety to this seemingly stale form of entertainment? Bands like Isis and Sunn 0))) took an interesting step both backwards and forwards by delving in the post-rock/post-metal and reinventing an existing concept with a new spin, but you can only go so far with something that has been done before. Since there is no definite or clear cut solution to this dilemma, the only thing we can do at this point is to voice our own personal opinions. I feel that there needs to be a collective effort within society to do just that – have everyone voice what they feel needs to be done to give music another push forward. Maybe listeners could propose sounds that they would enjoy embracing through their ear drums in ways they never have; want to get rid of musical structure completely? Try creating a genre that is wholly dedicated to improvisation, as well as experimental by incorporating instrumentalists that are unfamiliar with each other or by involving unfamiliar instruments to particular virtuosos. It may seem difficult to add experimentation and variety to something that has outwardly remained unchanged for so many years, but the possibilities are right under our noses (or ears, as it were).

The Psychology of Aggressive Music

The culture surrounding metal music has been rejected by mainstream society for over twenty years. Metal is perceived by the masses as masculine, assertive, and warlike. Metal does not use an accepted structure for controllable mainstream music, and control is often how money is made in the music industry. There is a quality inherent to metal which makes it fundamentally alien to the “mainstream” paradigm, and this is in fact a positive quality that is nourished and valued by the metal community.

There have been many debates with regard to the topic of whether or not music can create violent thoughts in the mind of listeners, but most of them boil down to determining if the listener possessed any prior mental issues. Being a heavy listener to the likes of all sorts of metal, I can easily vouch for myself in saying that many songs can raise my personal aggression level, which is part of the reason I listen to the music in the first place. I often use music to change or elevate my current state of emotion – if I’m pissed off at something I can just throw on some Necrophagist or Cryptopsy and channel that aggression. I’m not necessarily saying I’m going to go out and hurt someone, but other people with less self-control can listen to more and angrier music to further fuel their violent tendencies.

Recent studies from the APA (American Psychological Association) show that songs with violent lyrics increase aggression related thoughts and emotions and that this effect is directly related to the violence in the lyrics. The findings, appearing in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, contradict popular notions of positive catharsis or venting effects of listening to angry, violent music on violent thoughts and feelings. While I agree with the general findings from these surveys and studies, I feel as though there is a particular venting effect that can often go hand-in-hand with angry or violent music. You wouldn’t listen to the music if you felt that it brought a negative catharsis upon yourself, and this idea can be fleshed out by Plato’s philosophic concept that you will never willingly do anything to yourself that is of a negative nature.

Among a series of five experiments involving 500 college students, researchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human Services examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and eight nonviolent songs by seven other artists. The students listened to the songs and were given various psychological tasks to measure aggressive thoughts and feelings. One task involved participants classifying words that can have both aggressive and non aggressive meanings, such as “rock” and “stick”. Results of the five experiments show that violent songs led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words, increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive vs. non aggressive words, and increased the proportion of word fragments (such as h_t) that were filled in to make aggressive words (such as hit). The violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat according to the authors, and this effect was not the result of differences in musical style, specific performing artist or arousal properties of the songs. Even the humorous violent songs increased aggressive thoughts.

I have witnessed broken bones and other bodily damage at certain concerts from metal bands, but most results from studies have shown that the music most often only causes mental aggression, not aggressive behavior. Metal concerts and other venues simply provide the opportunity to release the aggression in an open environment. Music is an art, and arguably the most important art to most teenagers nowadays. If music contains violence, it is metaphorical and has artistic merit in expressing a particular emotion. A lot of the more popular music might not have much merit, but music alone still shouldn't be causing such big problems. There is something else going on if a teenager listens to a song about murder, and then goes out and murders someone. It seems as though in modern times, parents simply don't pay enough attention to their kids. The only reason I'm the way I am today is because I led myself here. I surround myself with books, music, and people that inspire me, and challenge me to be who I want to be. Everyone should learn to do that, but not everyone does. It really isn't fair that adults are blaming the youth of America for their own mistakes. Even if music is a significant problem in our society, whose generation produces that, again?

Mastodon - Blood Mountain

Mastodon proves once again to be the kings of modern progressive metal.

1. The Wolf Is Loose
2. Crystal Skull
3. Sleeping Giant
4. Capilliaran Crest
5. Circle Cysquatch
6. Bladecatcher
7. Colony of Birchmen
8. Hunters of the Sky
9. Hand of Stone
10. This Mortal Soil
11. Siberian Divide
12. Pendulous Skin


Within the grand scheme of the musical world, amongst the thousands upon hundreds of thousands of bands, ensembles and solo artists, it is rare that we witness such a wonder in the rock genre as a musical group with lasting power that could span years and decades, if not centuries altogether. Such bands that have achieved this status obviously include The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rush, and in more modern times one might even go so far as to say Radiohead. The fact that all four of these groups wrote powerful and moving pieces consistently for many years is undoubtedly a shared characteristic, but this feat would most likely not ordinarily excel a band into “legendary” status. Were it not for their tendencies to constantly push the boundaries of their genre and evolve until the end of their discographies, would we see them as anything more than simply the authors of singles and victors of the Billboard charts?

Speaking primarily of The Beatles who have shaped and molded the rock genre many time over, nearly every one of their albums saw some form of evolution or progression between one another, not only in musicality but also in the sense of the genre as a whole; the step from Revolver to Abbey Road was a more comprehensive progression than most bands experience within their entire careers. It is these artists, whether it be The Beatles, Zeppelin or modern rockers like Radiohead, the musicians constantly changing their form and uprooting our expectations and cognition of the genre are the ones that truly go down in history as legends.

Atlanta rockers Mastodon may have a long way to go to reach this highly acclaimed legendary status, but I'll be damned if they're not on the right path. 2002 saw the release of the band's debut LP, Remission, a raw non-stop assault of a complex, southern hardcore/metal amalgamation. Leviathan was released two years later, proving the first time of Mastodon's capabilities when it comes to ameliorating their flaws. Improving on the production of their debut album, Leviathan found a focused median between raw aggression and the clean production needed to propel the complexity and duality of percussion versus melody and harmony. Where Mastodon lost many listeners from the harshness of bassist Troy Sanders' vocals on Remission is vastly improved in Leviathan , not only by providing a more melodic singing but also by allowing lead guitarist Brent Hinds an equal amount of vocal limelight.

Now the year is 2006, and Mastodon are looking to stir the metal world up again. 2006's Blood Mountain is the band's first foray into major-label territory since signing with Warner Brothers' Reprise, and further represents their fascination with the rhythmic and atmospheric nature of the progressive metal genre. Notably the largest difference between Blood Mountain and Mastodon's previous two releases is the variety between songs, as the listener can easily tell from the first few songs on the album lies more varied melodies and direction than nearly all of Leviathan . Brann Dailor (arguably the star of the quartet) kick starts Blood Mountain with “The Wolf Is Loose,” unleashing a blazing four measure fill to set up guitarists Hinds and Bill Kelliher for a pick slide into a three and a half minute foray to insanity and back. Following tracks “Crystal Skull” and “Sleeping Giant” show off Mastodon's newfound liking for all things progressive, twisting and turning through various rhythmic and tempo changes while at the same time displaying some of Dailor's fastest playing yet. “Capillarian Crest,” the album's first single, defines Blood Mountain in terms of pure musicianship and emotion. Beginning with an off-centered, hesitant riff lead by Hinds, the song soon ventures abruptly into a swinging, pulsating rhythm in three that plunges into syncopated 5/8 meter before the listener is even able to catch up. Vocalist Troy Sanders rescues the group from such rhythmic disorder by bringing them all back together and hanging onto that five chord as long as he can before Dailor snatches it right back, coercing his minions to do his bidding by ending the song to the swift pounding of his double kick.

Track six of Blood Mountain, “Bladecatcher,” showcases a new concept for Mastodon; a dynamic instrumental in under four minutes, relying solely on Dailor's drums to bring the band to the conclusion of the tune. The second single off the album, “Colony of Birchmen,” features Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on back up vocals, and proves to be the standout and most varied track on the album. Consisting almost entirely of clean vocals, “Colony of Birchmen” reaches new emotional crescendos one might have never thought possible when listening to Remission or Leviathan. Having reached multiple climaxes in previous songs “Hand of Stone” and “Hunters of the Sky”, the tenth track off of Blood Mountain gives the listener a break by providing a mellow electric-acoustic guitar chord solo, barely becoming melodic before “This Mortal Soil”s signature guitar melody kicks in over a steady, mid-tempo double bass-driven groove. Relying once again on Hinds and Sanders' clean vocal talents, track ten's chorus contains entirely of such, rarely resorting to distorted growls to accompany the raw rhythm guitar. The final track of the album, “Pendulous Skin” ends Blood Mountain on a slow, acoustic note, as all Mastodon albums do, and fades out the chaos with much more ease than “Joseph Merrick” or “Elephant Man” could have ever even hoped at achieving on the previous two LP's.

Mastodon obviously wanted to attempt to create the all-around perfect metal album with Blood Mountain as opposed to simply going for raw aggression through and through as they had done on Leviathan and Remission. For the most part they succeeded, and when I say for the most part I do mean potential 2006 album of the year. If it were not for Isis' In the Absence of Truth released just weeks after Blood Mountain, I would have easily picked this album as the album of 2006, but as always Isis proves to be tough competition. With Mastodon's intention of making more than “just a metal album” is of course much appreciated, but this also comes with higher expectations. The songs are incredibly more varied than any of Mastodon's previous work, the slow songs being even more desolate and the aggressive songs being more complex and cathartic.

Where Blood Mountain falls slightly short however is (coincidentally) in the variety as well – Troy and the boys proved to us that they can nail any sort of rhythm syncopation in the books and compose a sorrowful, acoustic track back to back, but we as a listener can't help but to ask for more; more sorrow, more hate, more emotion instead of simple and blind aggression. Almost anyone could immediately hear the stark difference in dynamics from comparing Leviathan 's intro track “Blood and Thunder” to track one of Mountain, “The Wolf Is Loose.” Now that Mastodon has shown us this new, emotional and effusive dimension of metal, we can't help but want more instead of just a tease. That being said, this album is without a doubt the best metal CD to be released this year, perhaps even in the past 3 years. Don't miss it, even if you only listen to Tool.