It’s not really much of a wrap of anything as I don’t have any tales to really tell this time around. But I did hint at “all good things come to an end” in the last piece, so I am honor bound for consistency lest I be shamed on the internet.
This summer I quit my job of three and a half years, took some time off, and started a new job focused in the nonprofit sector, managing a crew of twenty that (mostly) have “barriers to employment” which means I have to really watch how I communicate, which I suppose is a good soft skill to develop at the young age of 46. I’ve also had to fucking fire more people in under a month than I have in the last ten years. It’s a give and take situation, I guess.
The time I took off was supposed to help me reflect on the constant emotional nightmare that is my life but my therapist booted me for not having insurance (even though I could cover the cost, American healthcare I guess) and I spent a lot of it not sleeping because my child is an asshole who has slept maybe forty or so nights through since she was born. She’s three and a half now. But I did come up with a few ideas, one of which I’ll talk about towards the end of this thing, and it’s actually something I’m somewhat excited about. But first, let’s talk about music since that’s what this site is still about, right?
In the Krieg group chat it was asked which Gehenna was playing Metal Threat next year, which spiraled into talking about the three that I’m aware of, which also marks the only time where there are multiple bands with the same (phonetic) name that, while all entirely different, I really dig. I can’t really say the same about many others, Judas Iscariot for example. At least those are two entirely different genres. All three Gehennas occupy different subgenres as well, which makes it easier to differentiate. I feel like I may have just dumbed that down a lot further than usual; I’ll make it up in a future academic lecture I promise.
Before I dive into this I did want to get on my soapbox for a moment: if you’re starting (or have started) a band now or in the last, I dunno, ten (or so) years and you give the project the same name as an already existing, established band, you either don’t have access to the internet to do a quick search to see, or you’re an asshole. The third option is you’re dumb as a bag of shit covered hammers, but that could easily fit into that second option. A few years back some dickhead in England started a project he called “Krieg.” Now I’m not necessarily egotistical enough to think that everyone into black metal knows me or my project, but this fucking dunce also used my logo. It took a lot of internet bullying but he finally fucked off, hopefully in front of an oncoming double decker. Get it? It’s an English joke.
Cutting my teeth into the deeper underground black metal scene was mostly aided in the mid 90’s for myself and (I assume) many others through patronage of the distro Dark Symphonies. Ordering was done mostly through the phone, which is a concept that’s horrifying to me now since I despise talking on the phone (or in person, or anywhere, really) but the owner, Ted Tringo (of Autumn Tears and later owner of The Crypt) made the experience not only enjoyable but also really fucking informative. He was able to figure out from what bands he knew you were into others that you would dig. Nine out of ten times he was right. That tenth time? I don’t remember, but I’m sure he had to have missed once. Anyway, one of those times he connected the dots beautifully was when Gehenna(Nor) released Seen Through the Veils of Darkness (The Second Spell) which I purchased solely on his recommendation.
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Around this time Ulver’s Bergtatt was an obsession, so having Garm on guest vocals drew me in but honestly every song on the album is killer. I hadn’t heard a lot of bands that did the symphonic thing while keeping a caustic guitar driven sound and it wouldn’t be for another year or so before that went from being an exciting thing to an overly bombastic bore, probably in part because people started listening to Emperor because of the SPIN article. I could be wrong, wouldn’t be the first time.
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Darkness Shall Rise is reissuing the first three Gehenna records this October, which I’ve probably missed the preorder for. After Second Spell I kind of lost interest, mostly because I thought the followup, Malice, didn’t have the strength in songwriting and sound. Your mileage may vary.
The next iteration of this band name I ran into was Gehennah, this time with an H and from Sweden, who were a part of the whole Headbangers Against Disco thing, meaning the explosion of retro-thrash bands, which I largely ignored because I’m very much against heavy metal and fun and especially the meeting of the two. And yet, a few short years later, I was heavily immersed in thrash (German and Canadian especially) and thusly dipped into some of the retro bands, only to find the Swedish Gehennah was anything but a retro band but rather the genuine fucking article. Again, I’ve been wrong many times before.
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This is just fucking filthy metal, a drunken backseat fuck between Venom and Motorhead, more than likely without a rubber and definitely without a shower. Hardrocker manages to straddle the line between the aforementioned Venom-esque first wave black metal and the Scandinavian jawbreaking of AntiCimex. The same year they puked out Hardrocker they also released an EP that’s become a holiday tradition in the Jameson household, No Fucking Christmas. I prefer this to the King Diamond song that’s become metal’s version of Mariah Carey, sitting right around the corner of Halloween with a damp hardon.
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Gehennah – No Fucking Christmas (YouTube) [age-restricted]
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I’d given up on my thrash obsession towards the end of 1998 and so I haven’t really listened to any later Gehennah, which I probably should get around to, like apologizing to any woman I’ve ever spoken to or mowing the lawn. I’d gotten out of thrash a bit before the whole pizza genre nonsense was spawned by fun seekers who love the Bay Area but would never drive through it without their doors locked. But eventually I would find a new obsession, this time with punk and hardcore, leading us to…
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I found The Infamous Gehenna through working at a record shop, seeing the connection to Integrity’s fanbase and eventually finding a few of their records in a bin at the wonderful Sit and Spin Records in Philadelphia.
This is some severely depraved and negative music, even by the standards of someone immersed in the inky blackest of the black for decades. I know that they fall into the hardcore genre, in fact pioneering the whole “negative hardcore” subset, but I find it super difficult to drop them into any category. Powerviolence? Black metal? Doomy hardcore? Drug music? Other examples? Yeah, they all fit.
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2022 was the year that the long awaited Negative Hardcore album was released and it was worth every moment of the wait for it. Absolute sonic violence. The Infamous Gehenna has a pretty large discography and unlike the other two in this piece I’ve gone through every second of it multiple times. There really isn’t a bad one in the batch but besides the two I’ve got linked here I’d also recommend finding the split with (the also excellent) Bleach Everything for a quick synopsis of what the band is about. Now I guess we’ll wait another seven or eight years for a follow up.
So that’s three distinct bands that basically share a name who people get confused by almost every time I post them on my timeline, mostly because reading comprehension is difficult (and time consuming!). And, since said skill is in short supply and I like to torture myself I’m glad to announce that I will be starting a Substack, which I’ve delightfully titled Fuck Music but have yet to write anything for. This is a project I’ve had brewing for some time, my own corner of the internet to write about whatever floats my fucking boat, only with poor grammar and errors because I’ll be my own editor. I’ve considered growing it to a website but the url costs thousands and I’ve considered doing a podcast but I’ve got a shitty schedule and a toddler who doesn’t understand personal boundaries, so for right now it’ll just be this. I want to have the first piece up within a week or so, so you can either subscribe or watch my socials. It’ll be a hoot.
Finally this week I wanted to bring attention to a new hardcore band featuring my friend and lawyer, Danny Katz, called Unhealed. Danny is the reason I’ve checked out a lot of hardcore this year that I missed over time and I’ve found his taste to be immaculate (save Knocked Loose, but you can’t win ’em all) and the gentlemen assembled in this band all share that taste. So if you’re into heavy and nasty throat punching music then here’s your new favorite band.
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See you in a few weeks when it’ll be autumn and you’ll be tempted to spam your timeline with Misfits and Type O Negative all while thinking you’re the most clever bird ever for thinking of it.
