HERMAPHROCHRIST

Black metal can be really good fun. At its epic best, it’s like an experiment in taking all the most baroque elements of neo-classicism that were injected into heavy metal in the 1980s and dialling them up to one-hundred-and-eleven, to the beat of a quadruple-speed double-kick. There’s a lot to unpack, and when it’s good it’s really good. So when my chum Sanchez pitched the idea to me of forming a conceptual two-piece black metal outfit (ie. daubing on monochrome makeup and making a carefully constructed racket), of course I accepted the challenge.

I call it ‘conceptual,’ because more time was spent making art and dressing up than actually playing music. We couldn’t even have performed our material if we’d wanted to – Sanchez screamed in a mic and I laid down the guitar parts, but the other instruments were heavily layered, with sequenced drumbeats at speeds of up to 800 bpm. It wasn’t human music.

It was good fun though, and here are a couple of aptly-titled tracks we made. There were other, less family-friendly ones too, best not mentioned in polite company.

The Holiest of Holes

Father, Son & Holy Goat

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