From the unreadable logos, to the unposted addresses and locations of shows, to the indecipherable lyrics, to the incredibly lo-fi production, the world of extreme metal and hardcore punk evades all accessibility. The music made by this community stays within the community, but membership remains open to anyone dedicated enough to decode the hidden messages. Outsiders who wander into such a space find themselves greeted with walls of noise, splatters of black paint, and tiny cardboard signs that say “use back door for show.” However, a deeper dive reveals a subculture that consistently produces brilliant art and provides substantial benefit to local communities.
Taking up this exclusive ethos, the self-titled record from UK-based black metal band Ilat Mahru contains many overlapping layers of sound. A first listen yields the classic buzz of a lo-fi heavy rock recording, but parsing apart the individual instruments reveals a band that absolutely knows what the fuck it’s doing. This band riffs like Liturgy, orchestrates like Deafheaven, and sounds like it was recorded on your grandma’s phonograph. Dramatic dynamic swells off the backs of brilliantly complex chord structures lend a deep sadness and desperation to this record, all of which builds up into breakdowns that kick ass every single time. At the same time, however, all of this complexity still hides behind a wall of compressed and distorted production, leaving the buried treasure available only to insiders.
Though most of the DIY scene operates in a similar tradition of secrecy and exclusivity, the extreme fringes of black metal such as Ilat Mahru mark a peak in inaccessibility. This in-group out-group organization structure helps the scene to continue its remarkably long-lived existence, as new joiners must modify their own lives and attitudes in order to participate. Thus, by having a cultural cover charge of more than just “tip the touring band,” the scene functions quasi-religiously in some extremely interesting ways, and, like all religions, some serious beauty lies deep in there for those willing to learn the liturgical language.