Black Metal, Trauma, Subjectivity and Sound: Screaming the Abyss

by Jasmine Hazel Shadrack

Black Metal, Trauma, Subjectivity and Screaming the Abyss weaves together trauma, black metal performance and disability into a story of both pain and freedom. Drawing on her years as a black metal guitarist, Jasmine Hazel Shadrack uses autoethnography to explore her own experiences of gender-based violence, misogyny, and the healing power of performance.This profoundly personal book offers a detailed explanation of autoethnography, followed by a careful exposition of the relationship between metal and gender, considering - among other things - how women are engaged with by metal music culture. After examining the various waves of black metal and how this has impacted black metal theory, the book moves on to consider female performers and performance as catharsis, including a discussion of the author's work as guitarist and vocalist with the black metal band Denigrata and her alter-ego, the 'antlered priestess' Denigrata Herself. The book concludes with some thoughts on acquired disability, freedom and peace.The book includes a foreword from eminent gender researcher Rosemary Lucy Hill, a guest section from metal scholar Amanda DiGioia, an epilogue from Rebecca Lamont-Jiggens (a legal pracademic specialising in disability), suggestions of sources of help for those in abusive relationships and further reading for those wishing to learn more about black metal theory.

Genres: Music

252 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 18, 2020

Reviews

[Brandon Woodward · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique perspective on black metal viewed both through a theoretical lens and from the lived experience of a female musician (the author). Gives an interesting analysis of how the bands, fans, music, and culture combine to form the individual character that defines each of the three waves of black metal. The differing foundations of masculinity and power within the waves are used to explain who is accepted within the subculture and how they experience it as a member. The author's personal vignettes give a unique insight into what it feels like to be a woman in black metal spaces.

If you enjoyed reading the divisive "Transcendental Black Metal" manifesto by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix (Liturgy), then you will love this. If you are turned off by pretentious theorizing with excessively academic language to overanalyze an already niche subculture, then you will hate this.