Moving to Reddit

Since almost all the stuff on here is now being reposted from /r/RABM/ (except for the last few entries), and I seem to be the only active contributor by now, I've decided to move there. This blog will remain as an archive and won't be deleted, but new music submissions should be made to /r/RABM/ (requires a Reddit account, but it can be created in few minutes if you don't have one).

/r/RABM/ is a big and fairly active community, and I think of it as a worthy successor to this blog. Note also that the /r/RABM/ moderators aren't contributors on here.

2016

Hello everyone, and sorry for not updating the blog during the first week of the new year. I've received lots of new music, but I already have explained why I lack the motivation for doing anything on here, and my co-editors have various problems too (including problems with law enforcement).

I'll try to give at least a brief review to these demos in the next few days. And right now let's remember all the good musicians and other DIY scene folks that passed away in 2015, because there were far too many of them...

12 December 2015: RABM festivals in US & UK

First off: thanks to everyone who decided to join this blog as a contributor after Hayduke has left. Looks like I shouldn't be afraid for the future of the blog any more... although let's wait until the end of the year and then see.

Second: the Haglaz Fest III has just ended, but it isn't the only RABM-friendly fest to be held in 2015. On 12th of December, the Black Metal Alliance plans to release the 3rd compilation in the Crushing Intolerance series of anti-NSBM samplers. The release party is planned to be held in the Borg Ward (Milwakee, WI). The lineup consists of bands that I never heard of before, but that's what is good about the BMA - their compilations help to discover a lot of obscure new acts:

Falter MKE - (WI)
Hardcore/Grindcore
http://falterhc.bandcamp.com/

Ashbringer - (MN)
Atmospheric black metal
https://ashbringermusic.bandcamp.com/

Winterbourne WI - (WI)
Atmospheric black metal
http://winterbourne1.bandcamp.com/releases

No Heroes - (MN)
Crust/Grindcore
http://noheroesmn.bandcamp.com/releases

Shadow Lake - (OH)
Black Metal
http://shadowlake.bandcamp.com/releases

Bib - (NE) Members of Bent Life/Powerslop
Punk/Hardcore
https://bibhc.bandcamp.com/releases

facebook

On the same day, a similar fest is to be held in The Lughole (Sheffied, UK). It's called Ruins Fest and organized by Enfer du Nord and The Black Metal Alliance. Participants:


HERETOIR (Augsburg, DE)
Post-black metal. Melancholy, nostalgia, isolation and introspection.
https://heretoir.bandcamp.com/

THRÄNENKIND (Munich, DE)
Green anarchist, civilization-critical post-metal.
https://thraenenkind.bandcamp.com/

MOUNTAINS CRAVE (Leeds)
Intense atmospheric black metal.
http://mountainscrave.bandcamp.com/

MAR (Newcastle)
Bleak misery.
http://maruk.bandcamp.com/

DAWN RAY’D (Liverpool)
Black metal. Ex We Came Out Like Tigers.
http://dawnrayd.bandcamp.com/

NARAYANA (Leeds)
Negative grinding black metal
https://www.facebook.com/narayanaleeds


facebook

P.S. And finally, check out this t-shirt design from Huldrekall / Einsamkeit Tapes:

2009-2015

So, today is the 6th anniversary of this blog. I started it on 29 September 2009, initially as an offshoot of the "Anarchist Black Metal" last.fm group which I created several months earlier that year. Back then I couldn't have hoped for it to gain the levels of popularity it enjoys by now, but it happened, thanks for all of those who were with me during these years.

The idea of starting something like this blog came to me even earlier, circa 2007, when I was looking for a thing that's nowadays called the "RABM scene" and realized that there wasn't anything like that back then. After a lot of research, the only thing I could find was the "Black Metal Anarchists" group on Myspace, which had surprisingly many members but not a lot of content. This made me believe there was at least some demand for anarcho-BM, while there was almost no supply at all back then (yes, I knew about Iskra and a handful of early blackened crust bands, but that was all).

After I started this blog, it was amazing for me to find out how many people interested in RABM there actually are. I was receiving band/album suggestions on almost daily basis, and pretty quickly it came to the point when I barely could find some free time to review all of them. While only a minority of these bands were "RABM" in strict sense, it was great to see how many black metal fans and artists are trying to challenge the genre's "fascist" reputation. Nowadays, I think "RABM" is already a pretty widely accepted genre definition which is used in a lot of places other than this blog (only 5 years ago, it was used almost exclusively on here), and it even has Wikipedia articles in 4 languages. Probably not the most reliable indication of success, but it still makes me proud of what I've done over these 6 years.

And now here comes the sad part. As you probably have noticed, there isn't as much activity on thing blog as it was before. There are many reasons for that, but it's mostly because I have less and less faith in the "red" and "anarchist" side of things as days pass by. Those who followed my blog during the last couple of years probably remember my observations on how the positions of many self-proclaimed "red"/"anarchist" organizations have changed to something I don't support at all, including stuff which made me feel like like this poster on Revleft who has quit his organization after they took a position of support for Taliban. I also have noticed that even the "radical" leftist positions nowadays seem to be limited to the support for identity politics and some weak form of social democracy, and that many self-proclaimed "anarchists" or "socialists" are essentially indistinguishable from the mainstream US-style liberals. Sorry, but that's something I didn't sign up for at all. Additionally, there's increasingly toxic atmosphere in the Western anarchist scene, more or less accurately described in an anonymous article titled "Things That Anarchists Say to Me in Private But Never Repeat Publicly". If that's really what anarchism is nowadays, then I don't think I want to be a part of it anymore, nor I feel welcome in such a movement anymore.

Of course, I don't regret anything I've done for the RABM scene, and I still think it's important to help its further development, but I no longer want to be someone that does it, for the reasons I've partially described above. Fortunately I've found people who agreed to continue my job with the "Anarchist Black Metal" VK group, and while I have some problems with doing the same for this blog, I think it's safe to assume that my personal mission with RABM is close to being complete. I probably still would post on here in the future, but only on special occasions, leaving most of the job of reviewing new RABM releases to someone else. As for the broken download links in my posts, most of them have been fixed by now (except maybe in the entries about some obscure releases that aren't that essential to the RABM scene). And finally, thanks again for everyone who supported what I was doing over these years, and stay tuned!

Some updates

This logo is definitely one of the best RABM logos I've seen so far. I found it here, it was made around two years ago and licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 - therefore anyone should be free to use it wherever they want, although I don't think the license allows to alter the logo. Anyway, a great find!

More improvements to the blog hopefully are coming soon, although I still don't have much time for it. I hope to resurrect some dead links and update the FAQ in the next few days, but I haven't checked out most of the demos in my inbox yet. However, I have made a couple of interesting discoveries during this week, and I hope to review them tomorrow.

Now we also have a reddit sub! Keep in mind, though, that it was not "mine" (just like the RABM pages on facebook), therefore I'm not responsible for its content. We also have a new attempt of writing a wikipedia article on RABM, although it still lacks reliable sources. Of course I'll try to find time for improving it as well. Unfortunately blogs aren't accepted as reliable sources there (even my blog), but I have some hopes it could pass either as a notable blog directly connected to the subject, or as a self-published source under the terms of WP:ANCITE. Wouldn't count on it too much, though.

And finally, even more good news: I found out that my article about Isabel Magkoeva was approved into the wiki mainspace an year ago. I wrote this article with a lot of help from one of my readers (an English language teacher in South Korea) a couple of years ago, but it was initially rejected by some WP administrator without providing any good reason, so I lost any interest for it. Looks like another admin was reviewing the rejected submissions, and noticed that the reason for rejecting my article was invalid. Anyway, I'm happy it turned out well in the end; moreover, I made no mistake writing an article about someone whose position didn't disappoint me during the last year (unlike so many others...)

2015

It's the final hours of 2014, an year that was pretty rich in various happenings. After summing it up, I'm sorry to say that I've lost my faith in many sections of what constitutes the modern "left". Be it "anarchists" which voluntarily joined the openly neo-nazi battalion (now a regiment) "Azov", or the trotskyists which "critically support" ISIS against the Kurds in Syria (if you're interested, there are two lengthy threads about it on Revleft: 1, 2), it doesn't look like something I want to be a part of. There actually are much more examples like that, but these two are just the most illustrative.

I simply don't feel like writing about it any more, because I don't want to start any political discussions right now. All I wanted to say is while I still support the core left-wing values and realise that there were (and still are) some great people on this side of things, now I started to seriously doubt if I really doing something worthwhile by continuing this blog... or not? That's the main reason for my depressive mood during the last few months, as well as for my desire to find people that will continue to run this blog if I decide to abandon it. Now I have some free time until 10th of January, and about a dozen of albums to review, bit I'm not sure if I'll continue posting here after I'm finished with that.

On a bottom note, 2014 might be bad politically, but when it comes to music, it actually wasn't that bad, and I hope 2015 won't be either. Stay tuned!

PunkWay #3 RABM article: finally translated to English!

As you already know, our comrade RaunijaR from Belarus wrote an article about RABM, which was published in the 3rd issue of the Russian-language zine "PunkWay". Now I translated it to English. Hope it will be useful for you (even though my translation is probably poor, and the article is intended mainly for the audience from ex-USSR):

"Many of us just don't think about the importance of subcultures based on ideas of social change. But these subcultures give youth an opportunity to see the another side of the society, and the alternative world view; to communicate with people who see the world from the alternative point of view, and to join their subculture, accepting its ideas.

There's no openly political or socially conscious subcultures, except for skinheads, punks and HxC kids (and maybe also hippies). Well, there are some hip-hop and metal bands who're singing about major problems of society, but they all are just exceptions, and you can find some such stuff in any subculture. But I'd like to give some more attention to metal. Metalheads are one of the most massive subcultures, and it can be seen by naked eye; but nowadays' metalheads mostly lack any strong convictions or social stance. "Beer, metal and girls"? It isn't a social stance, it's for irresponsible hedonists who are wasting their lives without taking any responcibility for themselves, their vicinity and the whole planet. Speaking of the majority of metalheads from ex-USSR countries, they're mostly just spineless conformists. If these metalheads got beaten by an active group of neonazis just one or two times, then they'll accept the "brown" ideology without any significant resistance. Moreover, some subgenres of metal support not only anti-Christianity and paganism, but also anti-semitism, xenophobia and racism. I speak primarily of NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal). This subgenre quickly became widely popular, because the nazis have lost some of their positions in the skinhead subculture - due to the growth of SHARP and RASH movements, and spreading awareness of the multiracial roots of that subculture. But the influence on subcultures is important for nazis to spread their ideas among the youth, and the pagan metal scene was successfully assimilated by racists due to its traditionalist background. So only two choices were left to the metal fans: they're either narrow-minded persons interested only in alcohol and music, or fascist "neopagans". But such state of affairs could not last forever...

As early as in 1980s, Amebix have mixed crust punk with thrash metal (and some elements of proto-black metal), which was relatively popular in these times. Later in the early 2000s, a band called Iskra was formed in Canada, and they coined the term "blackened crust" (a mixture of black metal and crust punk). They played music with social-themed lyrics, heavy sound and extreme vocals. Their album "Bureval", released in 2009, was dedicated to the revolutionary events in the XX century Russia. Over time, a lot of bands playing music very close to black metal, but with some overtones of post-rock, anarcho-punk, dark ambient, etc., started to emerge in the region of Cascadia (a region near the west of USA-Canada border known for its unique nature, where Iskra came from). Their lyrical themes often included the social and political problems, vegetarianism, anarchism, anti-racism, open-minded atheism, environmentalism, and mythology.

A new subgenre was named RABM - Red & Anarchist Black Metal (compare with RASH). Generally speaking, there always were some leftist people in the BM scene; for example, Euronymous of Mayhem was a member of a radical communist party. But their lyrics didn't openly say about their beliefs. And now it took only a couple of years to get a lot of people interested in the new subgenre, who also are supporters of these political beliefs. Thanks to comrade Black Kronstadt (he's from Russia, BTW), all these people became able to unite and actively communicate. If he reads these lines, I'd like to thank him for all his work. (Yes, I read it! Thank you too, RaunijaR! - BK) Now RABM bands exist all over the world (and in Russia too), and even though only a minority of them openly sing about anarchism, it's still a new step in development of an anarchist culture. Let's hope for a big future for the RABM scene.

A list of bands:

Panopticon – one-man band. Anarcho-pagan black metal, D.I.Y.
Iskra – blackened crust (the founders of genre).
Mrakobesie – communistic raw black metal, Russia.
SorgSvart – rebellious viking metal from Norway.
Skagos – cascadian black metal.

Useful links:

http://r-a-b-m.blogspot.com — RABM blog.
http://rabm.netforums.us – an English-language forum.
http://vkontakte.ru/club12047093 - vkontakte.ru group.

RaunijaR, PunkWay zine #3."

RABM zines

By the way, the 3th issue of the Russian punk zine "PunkWay" features a short article about RABM. As far as I know, it's the first mention of RABM in printed media (if J.Davisson's paper doesn't count).

Download PDF

Yes, I know it's all in Russian, so if you aren't from ex-USSR, then this link probably won't be useful for you. But I'll post it here anyway. If you want a printable version, you can download it from here.


To all my readers: if you want to make a RABM zine (or compilation), or just an article about RABM in your zine, write me to b_k{at}hush.com, and I'll try to help you. We should use printed media to spread the knowlegde, not only internet.

P.S. There's a new blog about leftist black metal, crust, death metal/grindcore, sludge, etc. Take a look on it: http://minotaurslair.blogspot.com/ 

Some research on anti-NS, anarchist or communist/anti-capitalist BM bands

Recently S. (the guy behind Crucified Bastard) has done a big search for black metal bands who claim to be anarchist, communist/anti-capitalist, or just against NSBM. The results were posted on our forum, and here I'll try to sum them up.

First of all, the USBM band Grinning Death's Head is claimed to have anarchist lyrics. There's very little info about the band, but they're signed to Youth Attack Records, which is a hardcore label. Although some people dislike YAR, because (according to their words) it is a commercial project which is releasing hipster garbage. Don't know if it's true, but I feel better to restrain from posting any of YA releases in my blog.

Then Reencarnación, a black/thrash metal/punk band from Colombia. Their releases got ridiculously low ratings on Metal-Archives, but honestly, their latest album "Más Hombres, Menos Estatuas" isn't THAT bad. Yes, it's just generic thrash metal, nothing special, but still listenable. As for their most well-known release, "Metal 888" (1988) - it's just VERY raw proto-black metal/punk in the vein of Venom and early Bathory. The extremely low quality of production is forgivable, I think, because it was one of the first such releases in 80's Latin America.

Other bands found by S. include Raven's Blut (for me that band look really stupid, though), Fredsdue (anarcho-black metal from Norway most likely a joke band), On Horns Impaled (typical "true" black metal at a first glance, but the members are anarchists), Euphoric Mutilation, Kata Sarka, Torment, The True Beltez, Thy Wicked, Voldsom, Knowhere (yes, they appeared on Burning Roots compilation!), AX, Fear Of Existence (anarcho-primitivist BM from Baltimore), Hagalaz, Evilords (anti-NSBM), Schwarzkristall (against NSBM too), Zextencia Interina, Dunkelheit ("NSBM, Rassisten und sonst irgendein Dreck hat hier nix zu suchen.....Fuck off an Die!!!"), Waldgeflüster ("WALDGEFLÜSTER is no part of NSBM. There is no place for leaders in free thinking!"), Vessel, Dead and Forgotten (anarcho-pagan BM from Italy), Fallen Tyrant, Gorphyryac and Ygramul. + my own discoveries: Whip (grind BM), Noia (Italian blackened crust), VÅLD (Swedish blackened crust), and Modern Dark Age. A pretty huge list of bands to check out, you see.

Additionally, the members of Russian political hardcore/screamo band Namatjira started a new black metal project called Preface To The Dead Sea. Warborn / Hospise split album is yet to be released, but the Warborn's side of the split is already available online. I also found Embers' side of their split w/ Book Of Belial, and it's just AWESOME. Excellent black/doom metal, really simular to JWP or Terzij De Horde. I still can't find the tracks by Book Of Belial, though.

That's enough for today, I think. Don't know when the next update will be - maybe in July, when several RABM bands are about to release their albums. See you, and don't forget to visit our forum!

2009: a summary

That would be my last post this year, and I want to say thanks to all of you who are reading my blog. I haven't expected there would be so many readers - now my blog gets about 450 his and 200 unique visitors every day. Most of these visitors come from the United States, but there are also many people from Russia/Ukraine, Italy, and Greece. France and Germany are also present, as well as Spanish-speaking world (especially Chile). But I expected some more visitors from Scandinavia (due to powerful crust scene in Nordic countries), China and India (due to great population of both these countries). The majority of Asian visitors of my blog come from Japan, and there aren't any visitors from Africa (except for Egypt). 

It's also good to see that many people come to my blog by typing in Google: "RABM" or "anarchist black metal" - it indicates that they're aware of the growing RABM movement. But it's surprising to see people from Japan or Israel searching for NSBM blogs, or search queries like "christian nsbm" (though I wouldn't be surprised if there are any ;))

It's most likely there wouldn't be any updates in the next 10 days - I want to have some rest, and I have some things to do beside this blog. See you next year, stay tuned!

A new RABM logo :)

Taken from the below-mentioned blog:

Looks cool, though more suitable for a communist black metal movement. I'd like to see more anarchist symbolism.

An unexpected discovery

I thought I was the first to start a blog about leftist black metal music. However, I was wrong:

http://redandanarchistblackmetal.blogspot.com/ - a Spanish-language blog with only two entries. Looks like the blog's owner doesn't update it anymore, and it's sad - I'd like to see more RABM blogs around.

P.S. Stay tuned! I have a lot of decent music for you (including anarchist viking metal and black ambient).

Introduction

Looks like the RABM (Red & Anarchist Black Metal) movement is growing rapidly. Three years ago we knew no left-wing black metal bands with only exception of Iskra, and now we have a number of blackened crust and anarchist black metal bands, and "Anarchist Black Metal" groups on myspace and last.fm. So I decided to start a blog where you'll be able to download various RABM stuff (and, of course, to read some news from the scene). Hope it wouldn't take much of my time.

"Use your head, take control!
Use your head, no gods no masters!"

(c) Amebix

P.S. And please forgive me if I'd make any mistakes in my posts. My English is far from perfect, you know. 

Let there be blog!