In post black metal, we saw riffs being declared null and void in favor of atmosphere. Gone were the melodic harmonies of Iron Maiden and Dissection, the savage atonal decimation of Morbid Angel and Blasphemy, and the memorable rhythm and lead guitarwork of Slayer and Death. All this came in favor of completely forgettable riffs and songs in favor of an overall spacey “transcendental” experience. Aesthetically, post metal was the reflection of progressive societal values of the 2010s- the emassculation of men (all musicians were Nu Males), artwork made by douche bag art degree scumbags that live in ghettos, and tame, timid, “spiritual but not religious” lyrics that had not a shred of aggression or danger.

It didn’t have to be like this. There could have been ways for bands to experiment with post rock/shoegaze elements and still maintain the foundation of a metal presentation, maintain metal aesthetics, and have attitude or edge. But not a single band- NOT A SINGLE ONE- was capable of doing so, proving that the accusations of these bands/musicians not being metal were to be fully valid and accurate.

This is the absolute end of post black metal before it circles the drain of a shit-stained toilet and is flushed to the bowels of irrelevancy. A finally eulogy to a genre that never should have happened. The musicians will bleed out their parents money and then become homeless, get aids from a bad batch of heroin, and die a miserable death in an alleyway gutter where they should have been left to rot at birth.



Caina – Temporary Antennae

Much like Altar of Plagues, Caina’s albums feature little to no metal and instead are an ambient shoegaze band. But again like Altar of Plagues, they prove that Metal Archives is a failed metal encyclopedia source and that people need to start using DMU and the Dark Legions Archives exclusively. Caina is the work of an over-educated crust punk failure who scams people into thinking he plays “innovative metal” by creating albums with one or two metal songs and 6-10 post rock songs. Caina is also one of the bands who caused the sad downfall of Krieg, as their split was a major stepping stone in Neil Jameson’s journey from “Might is Right” philosophy to shilling for fat tattooed mentally ill cat ladies through Decibel Magazine’s editorials. But truly, nothing can give you a better sense of Caina’s failings than watching the band perform live- in the form of it’s overweight member screaming to an Ipod. I kid you not, this is actually what we saw in this genre’s last days.

On Temporary Antennae, Caina have an industrial metal piece, an almost-metal song, and then a bunch of dicking around with delay petals. On top of this nonsense is this painful groaning that’s the kind of shit you hear as the voice of a cartoon character on Nickelodeon’s Ahhhh Real Monsters! or any of the subsequent adult swim ripoffs. There’s not much more to say- happy, major scale melodies played by guitars and keyboards with the feedback maxed out.

Krallice – Years Past Matter

Well hey, at least we know. Thanks to Krallice, we all know how far music degrees and rich parents will get you in the metal scene (not far). Formed by a bunch of anal retentive gear geeks, Krallice plays a technical variant of the first wave of (bad) screamo bands ala Thrice, Glassjaw, and Thursday. The music has no feeling and is just a bunch of random scales and modes played in no particular order and the titles just feature the letter “I” typed a random number of times. For awhile, the band had a big following in Brooklyn as the rent of the drummer and bassist were being paid by their rich Upper West Side parents. But eventually their parents cut them off and they ended up working shit jobs while the guitarist pursued a successful career as a studio owner and audio engineer. Krallice will still play shows in their hometown once in awhile, but the title of Years Past Matter was a dark description of Krallice’s career- for the band was formed years past the period where this kind of music mattered to anyone.

Agalloch – The Mantle

Famed for having shows that are more populated by “women” than “men,” Agalloch play gentle metallic rock for the sensitive spirit. Completely devoid of anger, power, or masculinity, Agalloch are the very elk that is featured on the cover of their 2002 album The Mantle… tame, endangered, and hunted by men. Fortunately Agalloch finally broke up as the band’s aging singer is showing some signs of Alzheimer. Rest in the piss of your entire career, sweet gentle man.

Alcest – Les voyages de l’âme

FAIRY MUSIC FOR FAIRY PEOPLE

Deafheaven – Sunbather

I saved the most popular band of this terrible wave of music for last, as they have caused the world the most grief yet will probably be the only ones to survive after this trend. Formed by two failed metalcore musicians, the pair took the path of all “core” scene kids and became hipsters. While consuming a heavy diet of post rock, shoe gaze, and hallucinogenic experimental research chemicals like 2-CI and 2-CE, Deafheaven stumbled upon Burzum’s Filosofem album and were instantly inspired to become a metal band. The band however ended up playing up every indie rock subshoot instead and simply added the vocal style of The Black Dahlia Murder. This was enough to convince a number of gullible young retards into thinking this was the “next big movement in metal.”

Great critical praise was heaped on Deafheaven for the Sunbather album by the indie rock press and the failed metal journalists that tried to stay relevant by emulating them. But truthfully, the music was- no joke here- straight pop punk played in the tremolo shoegaze style. Seriously, if you swap out the vocals with Tom DeLounge’s you would instantly think it’s a new Blink-182 album. It’s the same riffs, the same scales, and just some spacier Shoegazey guitars. None of the Aesthetics of the band members or the logo/artwork is even remotely metal. The lyrics have something to do with driving around rich neighborhoods and creepily looking at roasties with binoculars knowing they’ll never be able to make enough money or produce enough testosterone to land a woman like that (seriously, read the title track lyrics, I’m not even making this up).

Deafheaven may be the most popular post black metal band, and are the only one that will be able to continue touring, but great misfortune has sealed Deafheaven’s fate. For unlike other bands that capitalized on flavor-of-the-week metal trends, Deafheaven represented the fiscally poorest era of metal. While they have snazzy Instagram accounts and take pictures with other pseudo celebrities, the music industry was so broke by the time they came around that they will be guaranteed to be living with roommates for the rest of their lives. It sucks so bad for Deafheaven, because not only is the industry broker than ever- the women that go to these shows are the ugliest women that have ever went to metal shows. Since Deafheaven existed entirely in the age of feminism and progressive liberal degeneracy most females at their shows don’t wear makeup, destroy their faces and ears with hideous piercings, and are grossly overweight. Worst of all, many now have penises, but they probably won’t tell you that until it’s too late.

Many were furious at how grotesquely the band bastardized the black metal genre, but we can all find solace in the fact that Deafheaven will die poor, die having fucked the ugliest metal girls in history, and die having failed to achieve their dream of making a living off their music.

The Last Rites of Post Black Metal

And so we close the book on the worst chapter in metal history. For post black metal was worse than nu-metal, worse than metalcore, and worse than hair metal. The members of these bands will never achieve success, will die with a low number of Facebook likes, and will be buried by an era where nostalgia was more interesting to the world than what they had to offer. Most of the musicians will eventually descend into hell and be losers in death the way they were losers in life. As the corpse of post metal is incinerated into ashes, and those ashes are buried under a generation of waste and excrement, the world will just remember post black metal as a small nugget of shit that stained a generation of confusion and failure.

Tags: Agalloch, Alcest, Blink-182, Caina, deafheaven, failed careers, failure, hipsters, Krallice, krieg, metal-archives, nu males, pop punk, post-black metal, sadistic metal reviews, screamo, smr, soy metal, soyboys, terrible music