Heavy metal brutality is only a stereotype, a new rock group says. They call themselves the “Informant,” and claim they offer intellectual and sophisticated elements to Heavy Metal music.
Heavy metal is often criticized for being “just noise” or that it does not have any characteristics of musical value.
“Some people are just generally too close minded to give the good stuff a listen,” said Informant drummer Luke Dumke, “The style of metal we play is on the same intellectual and sophistication level as a well composed piece of jazz, but you have to be on a similar mental or musical level to enjoy it in that way”.
Dean White, the band’s guitarist said that in addition to classical and jazz influences, their music offers messages of hope.
The band said they classify their music within heavy metal’s subcategory- mathcore. Originating in the late 1980’s, mathcore is often characterized with a high level of technicality, unpredictability, and complex time signatures.
Heavy metal is frequently criticized by both critics and parents, often calling it anywhere from anti-intellectual to offensive. “Most heavy metal songs are indeed about suffering, limitation, vanity, mortality, and other tragic aspects of the human condition,” Jonathon S. Epstein wrote in his book, Youth Culture.
High school students who identified themselves as heavy metal fans had less reasons for living and more thoughts of suicide, says a study by K.R. School. According to the study, suicide rates shot up 300 percent over the past decade among young people. This has caused many parents to point fingers at the music industry in blame.
While members of the Informant claim they are simply nerds having fun, lead singer Lucas Moskun said he believes they are brutal. “Sometimes we drive through snowstorms, go hiking, ride bikes,” Moskun said. “It’s all pretty brutal stuff”.
The validity behind these instances of brutality can only be left to discretion.
Metal’s strive for change has not gone undetected. Author, Robert Walser proposes a welcoming to metal’s revitalizations in his book, Running with the Devil, claiming that metal’s new mode of theory, pedagogy, and conceptualization affects classical music’s reception and performance.
“Metal has always been closely related to jazz and classical music, we just take it a step further than most because we are huge fans of jazz and classical music on their own,” White said. “For the most part, our fans have similar musical tastes, spanning into jazz and classical and are able to appreciate what we do.”
Rewriting metal is, “awesome” Dumke said, “it gives us the opportunity to brand ourselves.”
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