Doom Metal and the Philosophy of Cosmic Pessimism [Article]
Doom
noun
- death, destruction, or some other terrible fate.
verb
- condemn to certain death or destruction.
Into The Void
When we look at all different genres and styles of doom metal which originated in the late 60-s and early seventies after the decline of the «summer of love» and it’s optimistic ideas, we can point out one major theme which unites the doom metal genre — it is a theme of pessimism. This idea has many forms and is presented differently by the bands within the doom-metal style. But starting with Black Sabbath the feeling of dread and despair always has been a major part of this music.
In order to understand pessimistic thought we can take for the guidelines of our journey a system and the worldview as described by American
philosopher Eugene Thacker in his book In the Dust of This Planet (Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1).
Wikipedia:
«Thacker’s most widely read book is In the Dust of This Planet, part of his Horror of Philosophy trilogy. In it, Thacker explores the idea of the “unthinkable world” as represented in the horror fiction genre, in philosophies of pessimism and nihilism, and in the philosophies of apophatic (“darkness”) mysticism. In the first volume, In the Dust of This Planet, Thacker calls the horror of philosophy “the isolation of those moments in which philosophy reveals its own limitations and constraints, moments in which thinking enigmatically confronts the horizon of its own possibility.” Thacker distinguishes the “world-for-us” (the human-centric view of the world), and the “world-in-itself” (the world as it exists objectively), from what he calls the “world-without-us”: “the world-without-us lies somewhere in between, in a nebulous zone that is at once impersonal and horrific.”»
So basically we have three views of the world — the illusionary world-for-us is what humans limited by the language, organs of perception and culture perceive the world as. It is the common view which is natural for anthropomorphic culture and equally as illusionary. The World-in-itself is an attempt to think about the world without the anthropocentric optimistic illusions, yet due to the nature of human thought this view slips into the human-centric view of the world-for-us. Thacker offers a third view of the world as a World-without-us. This third view is cosmic and centers not on the human but on the greater perspective. What we are left with is infinite space which is sometimes hostile to humankind but usually it is just indifferent to the insignificant scale of mankind and its history. To quote a UK psychedelic band Hawkwind’s lyrics from a composition titled “Black Corridor” (Hawkwind influenced the doom-metal especially the stoner and heavy-psych branches of doom music):
Space is infinite, it is dark
Space is neutral, it is cold
Stars occupy minute areas of space
They are clustered a few billion here
And a few billion there
As if seeking consolation in numbers
Space does not care, space does not threaten
Space does not comfort
It does not speak, it does not wake
It does not dream
It does not know, it does not fear
It does not love, it does not hate
It does not encourage any of these qualities
Space cannot be measured, it cannot be angered,
It cannot be placated
It cannot be summed up, space is there
Space is not large and it is not small
It does not live and it does not die
It does not offer truth and neither does it lie
Space is a remorseless, senseless, impersonal fact
Space is the absence of time and of matter
Timothy Morton an English ecological philosopher has a somewhat less bleak and a more calm view of the world which is yet also not anthropocentric. He views the world just like Thacker as incomprehensible by the limitations of human thought, and sees it as a place of hyper-objects too large to be localized in time and space.
Thacker in his work chooses black-metal as an illustration of cultural movement towards the view of the world-without-us. Yet I would argue that at the core of black-metal is rather Friedrich Nietzsche’s view of the world. Nietzsche, while being nihilistic, strayed far from the purely pessimistic school of thought which was started by Schopenhauer and which Thacker and Howard Lovecraft are part of. The aesthetics of black-metal are dark yet militant and they lack the calmness and dark dirge of the doom-metal for the most part, excluding such genres like depressive black and dark metal which are greatly influenced by doom-metal.
Doom originated from the style of psychedelic rock music and was greatly influenced by three sources: the slow mournful electric blues, the dark harmonies of European classical music and the sad melodies of folk songs and ballads. In a way the slowness of doom makes aesthetically gloomier in average than a fast blasting war-like black metal song. There are exceptions on both sides. Yet black is music of occult warfare and Luciferian Rebellion and Doom is a soundtrack for funerals. Schopenhauer greatly valued music in general and especially the music of dark and mournful variety which he even called the true representation of the Will.
Now that we have talked about aesthetics we will take a look at the themes which the Doom-Metal bands talk about in the lyrics.
There are Christian and some pagan themed doom metal bands. Some bands like Trouble, The Skull, Place of Skulls, Pylon, ЕККЛЕСИАСТ, Новый Завет, Virgin Black are the examples of the Christian worldview. Amber Tears, Dissolving of Prodigy, Gods Tower are some of the pagan themed bands.
Then there are bands that tackle the romantic and/or existential themes in their music. Some of examples of this would be My Dying Bride, Celestial Season, Autumn, Люди Осени.
This is just an example of the themes that are addressed by the lyrics in Doom Metal.
Then there is a tendency towards the occult and abstract psychedelic approach in the stoner doom scene. This is to show the diversity of doom and it’s themes before we go on.
For the sake of our Philosophical Investigation we will take a journey on the downward spiral of the more extreme and distinct lyrics of the doom bands. And we will try to interpret what they have to say in the context of cosmic pessimism.
We will start with a genre classic «Mirror of Sorrow» by Solitude Aeturnus:
“As black sky faded to blue
And again the Earth felt the sunrise
A silver mirror stood before me
Bequeath of the silent rainbow
A beautiful mirror of radiant splendor
As ominous as the autumn moon
It brought upon me endless wonder
Yet spoke of some unknown doom
As I reflect back on this day
No words could ever tell…
I saw my world
But could not see myself”
This perfectly captures what is important for us. The gaze in the mirror is an attempt to see yourself in the world. So the protagonist of the song does just that, but he does not see his own reflection. On a personal level he was embraced by the emptiness touched by the void. The realization of an absent self. This is an entering point for our spiral descent.
We move further, we will take a look at a song by a funeral doom project Mizmor titled «Desert of Absurdity»:
“This terrain, neither hell nor mirage
Repels fiction with its polarity
Existence undressed
Reality laid bare
A seething, wild force, pure and raw
I traced logic, drew all conclusions
And came to the crossroads of thought
The desert of absurdity, its brilliance revolting
Compels me to accept my lot
Ceaseless mining — we scour for meaning
A world devoid of purpose and truth
Thus awakes the absurd, its dissonance engulfs me”
The absurd is a term that was used by a French existential philosopher Albert Camus to define the lack of meaning in the human existence in the universe, yet humans seek meaning. They hide from the absurd reality in religious, social and other illusions. Camus called such illusions a philosophical suicide. One commits an act of killing his own thought through hiding in the shadow of optimistic lies, religious dogma. These illusions help people cope with existential dread but unfortunately also often cause extreme meaningless violence, like religious wars and other ideological conflicts.
The Absurd man according to Camus is a human who refuses to kill his reason and goes on excepting the world as a place of absurdity and indifference. Russian novelist and thinker Leonid Maximovich Leonov in his novel ‘’The Pyramid’’ paints a similar concept of an idea of mankind’s trauma from the bleak realization of its real place in the universe. Leonov argues that society and state forcefully cuts down human intellectualism to give humans illusionary meaning, in order to control them with these basic illusions. Leonov’s novel has a few chapters describing the downfall of mankind in the far post-apocalyptic future. It is set in a vast empty desert where mankind is reduced to anthropological degradation before going extinct. The symbolic desert of the inner search for God which ends in emptiness, the desert of the future where mankind meets its end in Leonov’s novel. And the real historic desert where Gnostic ideas have been born, where search for God ended in discovering the evil Demiurge.
We venture forth.
We will take a look on a Russian doom-death band Neuropolis with their composition “Null” from the “Golem” album released in 2020.
“In the desert of crowds of men
It weakened day after day
A spirit, teased by thirst,
was begging the skies for rain
And tamed by the spirit’s will,
The oasis of hope had dried
the fruit of his earthy life had been
swallowed by scorching sand
Go live your own lifetime
within all that madness of days
You’re learning the art of
a victim who lets slap their face
You let people step on you,
It’s violence you must overcome
you’ve got to be stronger,
be strong, be done!
He swallowed the grief of roads
He walked someone else’s way
the wanderer tried to find home
A fuss was imposing its play.
He couldn’t recall his past,
afraid of what he’d become
the blind wind was howling and laughing when
the wandered fell down
Go live getting used to
Illusions you worship and praise.
Created your living,
Time will just make it make sense,
Ice water will fill in your mouth,
Your body will come tumbling down,
you’ve got to be stronger,
be strong, be done!”
We talked with the vocalist and leader of the band Vladimir Alekseev about the meaning behind Null. He describes the song as a metaphor of human life. Which is a bridge between two abysses: the abyss before we came into the world and the abyss after we are gone. The ironic shout “you’ve got to be stronger” is ironic for how do you reason with nothingness? This view is in line with Schopenhauer’s view of existence as a bridge between two nothings.
So our life is a fever dream between to non-existences, all we can achieve or own cannot be ours for it will be taken away. The individual does not choose to be here but is rather as Heidegger says is “thrown” into being. The same can be said about mankind. Humanity as any species will become extinct. Human intellect gives mankind the ability to understand that, unlike other living creatures known to modern science. We are a kind who knows of our demise both personal and the demise of humanity, So humanity was also “thrown” into the cosmos without any clear purpose. We were thrown in by indifferent Will of the universe which manifested in evolution which led to us achieving sentience and intelligence. In a way we are no more than marionettes of the cosmos just as Thomas Ligotti states in his horror fiction and philosophical works.
Ernest Becker a psychologist and thinker from the US has stated that “The real world is simply too terrible to admit.
it tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will someday decay and die.
Culture changes all of this,makes man seem important,vital to the universe.
immortal in some ways”.
The Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe also talked about hiding behind the optimistic lie to protect ourselves from the bitter truth. Yet sometimes reality pours in breaking down the paper walls.
Continuing with Russian Doom-Death we come to the song “Alien Monolith God” by Mare Infinitum. Lets take a look:
“There is no prayer to the god made of stone,
No sacrifice to the alien monolith;
Fragile cities will fall swept away
By the relentless fist of doom;
Tremendous waves of inhuman wrath
Will rush round and round the globe
To make it lifeless, to make it clear
Just as the desert of outer space.
Once the Judgement Day is gonna be the last,
A great collision erasing the future and the past
Will put an end to vanity and desperation,
Will only leave a landscape of devastation.”
We have finally arrived in the heart of Lovecraftian Horror. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, master of weird horror, has been known for making human insignificance as his method of invoking the feeling of terror and atmosphere of dread. Alien forms which inhabit the dark corners of space in Lovecraft’s work cannot be fully comprehended by the limited senses of the human mind. The Horla, or Modern Ghosts came first. Guy De Maupassant wrote the first cosmic horror story, but Lovecraft took this formula and truly mastered it. Through the alien landscapes and ancient ruins we approach and glimpse the world-without-us.
Another step downwards
More Russian Doom-Death/Dark Metal from the band Psilocybe Larvae with a song “Non-existent World “
Non-existent world we’re gone… long gone
Nothing left to lose nothing left to find
Someone’s has torn our page
From the book of life
We walk this way on a sorrow drive
There is no place left to go
The thread will be torn
Non-existent world is coming from beyond
How can one embrace non-existence from which he came and to which he will go? Our mind cannot comprehend this just like it cannot fully comprehend the monsters of the The Cthulhu Mythos, like we cannot fully understand Hyper-objects. But we can glimpse, we can cast away the lies and illusion and bravely embrace what is real. Try to embrace it with our limited field of view.
We need to take one last step. Let’s meditate on a song appropriately titled Nothing by the Finnish Funeral Doom band Skepticism:
“Slowly
Came to stand still
Journey
Reached the end
Here
Is Nothing
To be found
Came all the way
To Find
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing…”
Our journey has ended. We arrived here in Nowhere and all we see around ourselves is Nothing. Have we ever existed? And does it matter on a grand scale of things?
Why did this tragedy unfold? Why were we thrown into the World full of pain and suffering only to arrive here in the heart of nothing and get dissolved like we have never existed? Why has the bloodbath of a human history pushed forward through smoke screens, torture dungeons and the piles of corpses of the endless wars?
We can answer with a quote from Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, from his short story The Death of Ivan Ilyich:
“Another fortnight passed. Ivan Ilych now no longer left his sofa. He would not lie in bed but lay on the sofa, facing the wall nearly all the time. He suffered ever the same unceasing agonies and in his loneliness pondered always on the same insoluble question: “What is this? Can it be that it is Death?” And the inner voice answered: “Yes, it is Death.”
“Why these sufferings?” And the voice answered, “For no reason — they just are so.” Beyond and besides this there was nothing.”
We have taken a look into some of the more pessimistic concepts which doom metal touches. This Essay does not have the benefit to talk about doom-metal as a whole but has been for the most part concerned with the representation of pessimism and especially cosmic pessimism within the doom-metal scene. Furthermore, it is impossible to look at all the pessimist thinkers and philosophers in such a limited format as this text. We have established a clear connection between philosophical pessimism and doom metal. There are a great deal of doom bands which lyrically deal with themes of cosmic pessimism which we didn’t talk about in detail: Bell Witch, Loss, Thergothon, Dolorian, Catacombs, Eyes of Ligeia, Город Дит to name just a few.
Further exploration of the genre through this lens or other points of view (for you cannot limit any style of music to just one ideology) can be of interest and importance in the field of the studies of modern culture, music and thought. Also as I hope, I was able to show how illustrative doom-metal lyrics are when it comes to philosophical concepts.
by Anton “Vargtimmen” Bryukov
