We might be living in the post-post-metal era and not even know it, or be able to admit it to ourselves just yet. Heavy metal has fulfilled its potential a long time ago. The crates are all filled up, the awards are on the wall, and even your grandma throws up the devil horns just so that she can get a chuckle out of you.
Artists like Ded En see an alternative to all of that. But, for a while, they’ll still need to do the work of convincing metalheads obsessed with the classics of travelling down this fresh road with them. While metal festivals, meetups and merchandising are still at an all-time high, the music’s simply not scary anymore. Unless a band convinces an ever-changing roster of lead singers to light themselves on fire on stage or chop themselves up with a chainsaw, the shock factor is gone. What’s left?
The pure, beautiful heaviness of it all. That guitar sound that seems to fall out of the heavens, squishing the world on which it lands. What’s left is an almost meditative kind of guitar rumble. That’s what Ded En searches for and finds, on the inspired EP “The Gala.”
Who knew that doom, stoner, and black metal ideas would ever end up at the forefront of innovative, avant-garde contemporary music? But that’s just what happens here. Listen to the opening track, “March,” with sparse guitar lines that are punishing, overpowering, and perfectly pieced together.
Heavy metal fans and musicians are among the few to truly understand the subtle beauty of a heavily distorted guitar signal feeding back through its amplifier. Ded En tries to translate that affection into a language that can be understood by those less familiar with this side of pop music. “Firecracker” features drone-like vocals that are placed in such a way as to produce an almost pop music effect.
Next, “Cousin” elaborates on those ideas and tries to answer the age-old question: “What would a My Bloody Valentine shoegaze record sound like had Tony Iommi played guitar on it?”
There’s some warmth behind the gloom on “Voice Back,” a track that sounds like a communique from outer space, like a rescue request left unanswered and floating through the ether for eternity.
Where does this all leave us? The closing track, “The Gala,” is a celebration of the heavily distorted electric guitar as an instrument outside of music. Its minimalist, efficient approach makes this sound like the direct descendant of Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock.
Heavy metal is nearly all out of shock. The devil might still be lurking. But the future of this type of music lies in its details and the fans’ capacity to meditate on them and breathe new life into the style.
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