"Black" Metalcore Band Watain Doubles Down On LGBTQIA Hitler Hysteria
Is this band a parody? Are they intentionally trying to make black metal as cringe as possible for normal people? Who are their audience...?
There are few things I enjoy less than writing about metalcore music, and specifically Watain, a band that has done everything possible to embrace the cringe of metalcore to the utmost degree.
As many have pointed out before, black metal as a musical genre has been on a downward trajectory ever since the musicians that comprised the second wave of Norwegian black metal (Mayhem, Burzum, Neraines, Darkthrone, Immortal) have all but retired and left the genre to posers and their cohorts of other cheap imitators seeking to make a quick buck off of a dying genre.
There is no band that will accelerate this downfall any faster than the goofball circus clown act Watain, who market themselves as the evilest band in the world by LARPing as an American biker gang… a style they ruthlessly plagiarized from Jon Nödtveidt’s Dissection. By doing so, they can act as if they are more “trve” and “kvlt” than Dimmu Borgir and Dark Funeral despite being even more campy than both in both their music and aesthetics, to say nothing of their personal lives.
Watain and the Problem of "Man-Children" in Extreme Metal
If you were to point to a band that is a perfect encapsulation of every wrong with modern black metal - i.e. clowns dressed up in homo erotic makeup, pretending to partake in “devil rituals” and playing stupid mallcore music - the first band that would come to mind, immediately, is
Watain want to let you know they aren’t just fash (for fashy, or fascist… the etymology is unclear), they are also flashy (for flamboyant, as in… oh forget it. It’s bad enough that I have to write about Watain again without having to translate some of their obscure homoerotic jargon).
The Historic Precedent of Watain’s Histrionic Closet NSGBTQ+
Ironically, or not, Watain weren’t the first to marked themselves as “homo but totally for Hitler”. Gaahl, of Gorgoroth infamy, tried the same in the early 2000s. Vice Media even made an entire documentary on Gorgoroth, claimed they “invented” black metal - which is utter nonsense, as Gorgoroth were always latecomers amongst latecomers and virtually unknown to anyone in the scene - and even praised Gaahl (Kristian Espedal) as the “face of black metal”. This was before he was outed as having “fascist” tendencies, then Vice Media wanted nothing to do with him anymore.
On Infernus, Gorgoroth, "Neo-Nazism" and Homosexuality?
Is Gorgoroth a NSBM - or “Neo-Nazi White Supremacist KKK Racist” as the media gratiously labels them - band? At first I was taken aback by this question… they almost never write songs about Adolf Hitler, WWII, Germany, 1488 culture, the Third Reich, werewolves, or anything even close to what people traditionally associate with the NSBM black metal scene
So does history repeat?
In the most cowardly of moves, the band kicked out the only credible member - former Dissection guitarist Set Teitan - because of photos of him and frontman Erik Danielsson doing “Nazi salutes” in a concert in Vienna. Though Watain hides behind the lame excuse that “he left so we wouldn’t have to talk about politics,” it’s painfully clear that the move was one of desperation as Watain struggles to preserve their cash grab machine amongst the readers of Pitchfork who think Cradle of Filth and Opeth are “true black metal”.
I notice, bemused, that the band didn’t kick out Erik Danielsson… in fact the entire media is running cover for him, claiming he was “influenced” by Teitan’s extremism.
What a beta bitch this Danielsson is. Socially a loser, sexually a bottom - out of resignation - and now he did a 180° from claiming he was the most extreme and dangerous person in the world, to some NPC being “influenced” by the “extremism” of his bandmate.
The Cringe of Euronymous (Black Metal)
Much like modern black metal bands, Euronymous loved to indulge in the cringe. He famously dressed up as a “vampire” at least a full decade before the shitshow that was the Twilight movie trilogy.
Speaking of CoF.
On one hand, British flamboyant jokers Cradle of Filth are one of the most hated bands in metal, quite possibly for no good reason: they do not actively embrace the term “black metal” and are content with going in a more “goth” direction instead.
Watain and Dark Funeral on the other hand are the ones doing the most damage to the definition of what black metal is, by diluting it and making an average watered-down product, a formulaic “easy-to-replicate” empty shell of superficial aesthetics (corpsepaint) with no actual deeper meaning.
The big metal sites receive money from record companies to promote those shitty Watain / Dark Funeral / Behemoth records. Think about that for a moment. Ever saw a Burzum or Darkthrone album being hyped by Pitchfork?