Fear This Dying Earth: The Rise of Environmentalism in Extreme Metal

            Walking through the doors, I enter the same scene once again. It’s all there—the grizzly beards, the thick, tattooed arms, and the subtle but gradually strengthening scent of sweat mixed with cigarettes. Headlining that night is Oceano, a Chicago deathcore outfit fronted by the mighty Adam Warren. Adam is an intimidating presence onstage. He’s beefy and has a guttural roar that sends shivers down my spine. He, along with his band, are a force to be reckoned with. Extreme metal is for those with the thickest of sensibilities. This is true not just in terms of sonic brutality, but lyrically, visually, and ideologically as well. The lyrical themes of Oceano are largely centered on harsh anti-religious ideals and a bold nihilistic stance on life. Between songs, Warren stops and delivers a stern monologue to the crowd about the lies that surround us every day—lies from our preachers, from our families, from our friends, and from society. 
         As soon as I arrive I instantly notice a guy donning the infamous Cradle of Filth tee that reads “JESUS IS A CUNT.” I myself am wearing a Thy Art is Murder tee (I’ll get back to them in a bit) depicting a ghastly demon taking over the body of The Pope, ripping his face off and sprouting a collection of tentacles from his lower half. The back reads “BOW TO YOUR EMPTY GOD.” Metal band tees are, at their most iconic, utterly offensive and grotesque. Standing at the merch table in back, I spot a shirt with a message of the likes I have never seen before. It’s an Oceano tee with the artwork from their latest album, Revelation, the back reading “FEAR THIS DYING EARTH.” The more I think about it, never have I seen a metal band with a scare tactic so uniquely profound and vindicating. Satan, demons, and the dissolution of deity are all equally jarring. But the death of our planet—the giant space rock that we live on and rely upon every day—is especially unsettling. That’s because it’s happening as we speak. Environmentalist messages have become increasingly pervasive not just in Oceano’s music, but in extreme metal music as a whole. It seems that green is becoming the new black, if you will. This ideology is more alive in 2017 than ever, constantly surfacing at the forefront of the global sociopolitical discourse. It's predicated on the ultimate fear, that of a female by the name of Mother Earth. And believe me, she is truly a force to be reckoned with.  

Despite what he may say, climate change and the environment are probably the issues of least concern for Meme Supreme Donald Trump. This is all the more reason for us not to forget the man who elevated it to primary importance during this past election cycle, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. I think Sanders is pretty well-liked within the metal community. At the very least Thy Art Is Murder dig him, so much in fact, that they made a tee shirt which features his likeness urinating on a member of the KKK. But the Australian deathcore quintet and the Vermont Senator have more in common than just a goofy shirt. Thy Art Is Murder, like Sanders, have a powerful message about climate change.
          Last September, the band released the single “They Will Know Another.” The song demonstrates how the band’s sound has matured over the years and how their lyrical themes have followed. “They Will Know Another” is a grim look at how environmental degradation, rapid industrialization, and war are gradually bringing an end to humanity. The video features chilling clips of dying children, natural disasters, war-torn regions, and decaying animal carcasses. Perhaps the most spine-tingling aspect of it all is the chorus, in which vocalist CJ McMahon yells, “I’m not afraid to die/ I’m afraid I’ll survive and have to watch you suffer.” A breakdown following the refrain twists the knife on a purely sonic level, allowing those words to really sink in and shift a dark perspective into focus. What does all this destruction mean for future generations? These people are our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren. As of now, temperatures are only going to get hotter, which means fertile land is only going to get scarcer, which means people are only going to get hungrier. Realistically, the Earth will be around for many generations to come, but we will be forced to adapt to significant changes in factors such as coastal livability and land aridity. Sadly, humankind is at a point on the great ecological clock where mass tragedy will likely have to be endured in order to yield further awareness.

         The climate-induced suffering and death that we will experience within this century is unparalleled. Even as our collective consciousness and government policies progress, they are far outpaced by the level of environmental degradation we facilitate each day. This past year, it was discovered that the global level of airborne CO₂ surpassed 400 parts per million (a number that continues to rise). According to former NASA climatologist James Hansen, that figure will have to be reduced to 350 parts per million “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.” It is only when the wings of death gently wrap themselves around our planet, that the veil of ignorance will be lifted from our faces. “You lack all compassion/ You have no concern/ With your own planet/ Are you prepared to burn?” This is the grave question that Adam Warren and Oceano pose on the track “Path to Extinction” from their album Revelation, which saw a release in May. “You must struggle to learn,” he proclaims. This struggle to learn and to adapt to climate change is already a reality to many people. Residents of arctic towns like Shishmaref, AK, for example, are bracing for relocation due to encroaching water levels. It’s easy not to bat an eye for isolated settlements like these, but these are far from isolated incidents. It will be a far different story when that small Arctic town is a Miami or a New York, but by that point it will be too late for far too many people.

With so much going on and too little being done, it can be very frustrating for people to cope with a fate so seemingly hopeless. Heavy metal though, has always proved to be a coping mechanism for uncomfortable ideas and the reality that sets in following the acceptance of them. When the issue of our dying planet pops up in Oceano’s lyrics, it's often accompanied by science fiction narratives that give way to fatalistic metaphors about our future state of existence. On the track “Dead Planet” off their 2015 LP Ascendants, a group of pseudo-divine beings watch over the Earth in disdain. “Malevolent are the architects who have changed their ways/ Glaring down at us, overwhelmed with disgust!” rasps Adam over a fat, sinister wall of guitar and a pelting blast beat. Both the music and lyrics of Oceano’s songs are ominous and doom-laden. The guitar and bass from Scott Smith and Chris Wagner form a thundercloud of chaotic and distorted melodies. Sprinkle on some bone-chilling piano keys, and you can’t help but feel like all hell is about to rain down from the sky.

        We have always viewed ourselves as the masters of the physical world we in habit, but in the grand scheme of things that is far from the truth. While the half-baked hippie ramblings about loving our Mother Earth may lack a westernized sense of conviction, the brutal and frightening sounds of deathcore serve as a forceful connection to a harsh reality. The band may even go so far as to reference pop culture bits, such as the song “The World Engine” (Ascendants), which takes inspiration from the Kryptonian terraforming machine (Man of Steel reference FYI).

 “A wave of destruction crosses all over, and that is what the World Engine is; multiple of these things that are brought here to destroy life and turn the world into something that is more useful for them than it was for us because we squandered it and destroyed it for so long. And I think that’s what we’re going towards,” Adam explains.

Terraforming is the process of transforming an uninhabitable planet into a habitable one. With exception to this fictional reference, the term is most commonly used when discussing the prospect of humans inhabiting Mars. It’s a prospect that will likely become a reality within many of our lifetimes, but the real question is: How soon will it become a necessity?

While Wells-esque visions serve as ghastly allegories of our current state of environmental affairs, some bands choose to take a more detailed look into the politics and science behind them. If you paid attention to the news at all over the past year, you were probably made aware of the tension in North Dakota between the local Native American tribes and the government over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. At the height of the controversy, protesters from near and far clashed with riot police on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The animosity towards the pipeline stemmed not only from tribal land ownership, but from environmental concerns. Ahh, oil-based greed and mistreatment of Native peoples, they go together like hot dogs at a baseball game. And what more perfect way to commemorate such a great American tradition than to make a song about it? New Jersey’s Fit for an Autopsy did just that with their single “Black Mammoth” off their 2017 record The Great Collapse. The album touches heavily on the issue of climate change, and the extinct mammal in question represents the precious liquid being transported through the extensive pipeline. The music video for the track encapsulates the events and sentiments surrounding the protests, including complications with other North Dakota pipelines as well. It’s almost as if the track itself serves as an audio companion to a compelling montage of pollution and political unrest.

“Black Mammoth” however, explores a concept far deeper than just the rock from which it comes. When Europeans first settled the new world, the natives were quickly dismissed as “savages” due to their relatively “undeveloped” culture. Traditionally having had malicious and racially charged connotations, the word’s perception has since shifted. Alas, it is the conqueror whose moral compass has been misaligned time and time again throughout history. FFAA seek to highlight this on the The Great Collapse's lead single: “Tread on sacred terrain, envenomed and ravaged/ The peace upon the plains, seized by the savage/ Primitive practices, uproot and vanish/ Modern barbarians, new rite of passage,” screams front man Joe Badolato over a frantic death metal rhythm. Social justice is a slippery slope to traverse in heavy metal, as fans typically don’t want their privileges checked. FFAA fearlessly and poetically rewrite the history textbooks to put Western identity under a microscope, one using an uncomfortably human lens. What is revealed is the true implication and historical context of our nation’s role in disturbing the environment. The resources that make America so prosperous have been procured through little more than genocide and slavery. By way of rabid covetousness, America was built upon dead bodies and dead cultures.

What I admire about FFAA most is that their message runs deep and they don’t try to convolute it. “The one thing we’ve always done is approaching our lyrics based more on the real-world setting compared to the shock-value or fantasy lyrics in metal. This time we were getting frustrated watching how apathetic things are in the world,” states guitarist Will Putney about their latest album. And what they can’t exactly put into lyrics, they give to celebrity environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, as they did for the intro of “When the Bulbs Burn Out.” But in all seriousness, metal and social justice SHOULD go hand in hand. It’s harder to sound corny as a musician when you’re actually talented, and extreme metal is just as musically complicated as the real-world issues embedded within it.

             
            It’s fun to entertain the belief that most grindcore musicians got straight A’s in biology class. With lyrics splattered with unnecessarily graphic anatomical references, it’s the kind of music that’s disturbingly but also comically obsessive. San Diego’s Cattle Decapitation have long been purveyors of the putrid. With an eight-album discography that boasts song titles like “Chunk Blower” and “Open Human Head Experiments with Bleach Laquer and Epoxy,” it’s easy to see how one of the keys to success in this subgenre is leveraging as much shock value as possible. However, Cattle Decapitation stand for more than just senseless gore. They have in some capacity always injected their music with environmentally conscious messages. Originally consisting of all vegetarians, they place animals above humans in the most violent and horrific ways possible. Their goal in doing so is to show just how careless humans can be with other living things. Perhaps their most ambitious and sophisticated project in this regard and overall as a band was their latest studio album The Anthropocene Extinction, released in 2015. The album is named for what scientists speculate to be Earth’s next mass extinction, one which is appearing to take hold right now.

            Throughout the history of life on Earth, five mass extinctions have occurred due to various natural causes. But scientists warn that the looming Anthropocene extinction (also referred to as the Holocene extinction) is approaching at an increasingly alarming rate. This acceleration is undeniably being caused by humans. A 2015 study estimates that species are becoming extinct at a rate of about 100 times faster than the normal rate between extinctions. To give a little perspective, the last mass extinction took place 66 million years ago and caused the dinosaurs to die out. The study's lead author Gerardo Ceballos stated that in the event of this extinction, “...life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on.” Deforestation, habitat loss, unsustainable farming, direct pollution, and carbon emissions are all underlying causes that are uniquely human. Through its 12 pace-pushing, The Anthropocene Extinction paints a complete picture of this manmade destruction. In Cattle Decapitation’s view, everyone bears the burden of a collective poisoning; No one is safe from the errors of humanity. In fact, the band goes so far as to proclaim that this path of self-destruction is inherent. “Dominion over leaving beings, degradation behind the scenes/ Maliciousness within our genes,” snarls vocalist Travis Ryan on the track “Circo Inhumanitas.”

What the band has created on The Anthropocene Extinction is their most balanced project yet. Musically and thematically, the natural and unnatural create a dichotomy that is both challenging and invigorating to the listener. Drummer Dave McGraw’s rhythms provide the basis for this idea musically. One second he’ll be playing a swirling fill or a manic blast beat, the next he’ll be orchestrating a swaying breakdown or chorus. Through the coupling of superior playability and a mimicry of natural human movement, the listener is made to feel both technically astounded and viscerally moved. The band manages to explore the various subgenres of death metal while maintaining their trademark sound. It’s a sample platter of sorts, and each flavor perfectly compliments the others.

Thematically, The Anthropocene extinction serves up science in a poetically captivating manner. The track “Pacific Grim,” for example, touches on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The “patch” is a large accumulation of trash floating in the North Pacific Ocean. It becomes transported and trapped there by way of two ocean gyres meeting, and is comprised of mostly plastic pieces. “Pelagic thievery” by way of “discarded secondary bycatch” is how Cattle Decapitation put it. It just goes to show that if you really try, you can make pretty much any topic sound super metal. Most people would probably not consider a bunch of floating soda bottles and children’s toys a very metal topic, much less consider it at all. But the patch is just one example of a slew of manmade environmental issues that deserve more attention.

        Attention is merely the hook, however. The line (pun intended, I’ll admit) is the implication. If you manage to take an ignorant person out of their bubble and put them in an influenceable mental state, it’s crucial to be unforgivingly straightforward. Cattle Decapitation do this through a sort of reverse personification. This tactic can be summed up by the album artwork for The Anthropocene Extinction. It features a pair of cadavers on a trash-covered beach, rotting away to reveal heaps of plastic pieces inside. It’s a dreadful image, sure, but it’s even more alarming considering that nearly the same image can be spotted on beaches all over the world. Sea turtles, birds, fish, and other marine animals lay lifeless, suffocated from the inside out with manmade debris. “The image on the cover is basically referring to what’s going on in the Pacific Ocean with the Laysan Albatrosses,” explains Ryan. The human element is an important factor when discussing rather abstract environmental issues like these. Many people either underestimate them or altogether deny the linkage between human activity and climate change. The reality is that there aren’t any plastic-filled cadavers washing up on beaches. But that post-apocalyptic imagery can have a mirror like effect on the viewer. If one can visualize themselves in a given situation, then the more likely they are to understand its overall significance, as well as its significance in their own lives. Perhaps over-exaggeration is key to placing people in the right state of mind to think about these issues. 

For decades, heavy metal has found a way to wedge its way into popular culture in the most unorthodox of ways. It has shocked, disgusted, and excited fans and non-fans alike. That old saying “any publicity is good publicity,” well heavy metal has embraced it from day one. The same can be said for climate change. In the current age of this issue’s understanding, the opinions are familiar, but the facts are still furiously debated. That in itself can be quite problematic, but getting everyone talking about it is the first step in addressing it. 
If there’s one subset of musicians who are advocating for social and political change on a global level, it’s those in extreme metal. Environmentally conscious extreme metal is what everyone needs to hear but no one wants to. People don’t like thunderous, unorthodox tunings and gutturals akin to enraged warthogs. People don’t like the idea of famine, of displacement, and of death. People don’t like hearing that their way of life will be threatened by, well…their way of life itself. As Al Gore stated, these are inconvenient truths. Truths like these can be painful and hard to grapple with, but these truths shape the world we live in. Just as extreme metal is a brazen assault on all that’s considered musical normalcy, we as a human race must collectively shift our normal way of life on this planet that's growing stale. Climate change is no longer part of the underground. It’s a sound that we are all being exposed to every day.