Metal vanguardista

El metal vanguardista o metal experimental es un subgénero del heavy metal caracterizado por elementos vanguardistas, experimentación y el uso de sonidos, estructuras e instrumentos poco comunes.

Características

El metal vanguardista engloba a las bandas y músicos que "incorporan innovadores elementos en el heavy metal, que rompen las convenciones, derriban muros y cruzan fronteras". Este género ha sido descrito como "el arte de crear profundas y extrañas atmósferas mediante la experimentación con nuevos instrumentos y sonidos, voces extrañas, estructuras no convencionales, ritmos y armonías, letras inusuales y diseños poco comunes" o, alternativamente, "interpretaciones progresivas, sicodélicas, surrealistas, fantasmagóricas, expresionistas, disonantes o extravagantes del heavy metal".

Michael Haas, miembro de la banda austriaca Angizia, denota que la música vanguardista es "un distanciamiento consciente de la escucha tradicional y de los hábitos de composición", mientras que Svein Egil Hatlevik, de Fleurety, identifica al metal vanguardista como "una ideología estética" para "hacer música que es más que metal promedio". También piensa que el heavy metal es "un campo en el que tiene sentido ser vanguardista" porque "es uno de los campos artísticos más conservadores del mundo". Sin embargo, no todo el mundo está de acuerdo en emplear este término para definir un subgénero del heavy metal. Jeff Arwadi, de la banda Kekal, avisa que "cuando un subgénero se establece no hace más que crear límites, y no creo que sea sabio intentar establecer un subgénero que límite la creatividad y la expresión". Chlordane de The Amenta discrepa con la tendencia de considerar vanguardista a "cualquiera que haga algo ligeramente raro", arguyendo que el término sólo debería emplearse cuando una banda está "empujando la música hacia adelante", insinuando que el mero hecho de incluir música clásica en el heavy metal no es vanguardista puesto que "ya se ha hecho", "no es nuevo" y "no ofrece nada".

Diferencias con el metal progresivo

Aunque tanto el metal progresivo como el metal vanguardista están a favor de la experimentación y de las ideas peculiares, hay diferencias bastante reconocibles entre ambos géneros. La experimentación en el metal progresivo se basa mayormente en tocar ritmos y estructuras complejas con instrumentos tradicionales. Para el metal vanguardista, la experimentación se basa en el uso de instrumentos y sonidos poco comunes. Asimismo, el metal progresivo pone más énfasis en la interpretación y el virtuosismo, mientras que el metal vanguardista es menos ortodoxo y tiende a cuestionar muchos de los estándares de la música. Varias bandas de metal vanguardista son minimalistas, algo que entra en contraposición con la filosofía del metal progresivo.

Historia

Según Ian Christe, el metal vanguardista emergió del death metal cuando varios músicos "abandonaron la rígida estructura de la música y experimentaron con abstracciones de sus elementos base". Los pioneros del género incluyen a Celtic Frost, Voivod, Sunn O))), Fleurety, Ved Buens Ende y Maudlin of the Well. La mayoría de estos grupos formaban parte del metal progresivo o del black metal o de ambos. Dos sellos discográficos que promueven el metal vanguardista son Holy Records y The End Records. Escene regionales prominentes incluyen Estados Unidos, con grupos como Agalloch, Maudlin of the Well, Naked City y Psyopus, y  Noruega, con grupos como Age of Silence, Arcturus, Ram-Zet, Ulver y Ved Buens Ende. También, en Estados Unidos, un escena de metal vanguardista local ha emergido en el Área de la Bahía de San Francisco con grupos como Giant Squid, Grayceon y Ludicra.


The subjects of sleep
Their faces once awake
on sodomy and death
and smoke and laughter
their feet no longer
underground

The snow hides the traces
never set in a first place

This negative kingdom
hey horrible and white
the angels all stone
passing their years
hoping to be saved
from oblivion
not by oblivion

And the miracle is that
nothing has happened
nothing has a history
or a name

Only the voice
of falling snow


The scares we prayed for
and was given
to rape the mission
of the impaled desiples
and worship him again

We nailed the enemy
dream hopefully and fear the rest
for we look upon the toombs
and dance so they see... we woke it
sweapt in shiny sacreligious
for fading light and its Lord
wondering how the wishes spoke

Weak and wise has left
and touched the shade of my tempted ones
dance on the sheppards shadow
and the heretic eyes who saw the sun

Kept his secret, always

We believed in those of such poems
as grace has left its mark
an error on our dark illusions
we walk by them for a soul to open

Its power saw us grow
as they lay there
rotting in the hands of God

The storm has driven with fury, fall....
again and again for noble halls, screaming...
we heard and spoke to them
for no comforting words to give

We were the shields

When the ancient dwelled in us
and we killed their nextborn in the thronehall
Sons of God die with your once beauty
and feel the blood runs faster

Ages...
Brighter then they seemed
and held their withered roses
a sign of a dying God

It saw it
bells of them
POSSESS ME!!!


Red Eyes Only, The Floor Comes Closer, A Kiss That Bruises, A Skin So Frail
Iron Taste Tongue, Rage Polluted, The Veins So Furious
With A Mouth That Will Never Tell.
Scars And Stitches Battered Heart Broke Down And This Time It Will Not Heal
Rear-View Lovers, I Miss Them Dearly, Years Of Absence Has Made Them Pale.

Breathe And Soothe A Wake Mind That Cannot Sleep
So Much Hope And Now A Future That Looks So Bleak
But What If Time Is All We Have
To Make You Believe In
To Save Me From Leaving It All.

Dream Of Them Lights So Much Brighter, Voices Louder I Hear Them Sleep
Naive Prayers, Lone And Futile, Pulse’s Rising, It's Boiling Underneath
Didn't Know I Had It In Me, Didn't Know I Had It All
Fuel Them Thoughts May They
Keep You Safe From A World
That Won't Wear You Again
They Tell You It's Lonesome When Led Astray


Kaleidoscope of love.
Ophidians dance as the shifting occurs.
We are stars and electric animals.
Nurtured by the mothers of prostitutes.

Floating in a mushroom universe.
Swimming in a sea of cyclostomes.
And as we surface through the tide,
You open up and I come inside.

I must be in limbo,
'Cos purgatory's always felt like home.

And as the world spins round and round,
We fornicate upon the cotton clouds.
That rain down sulphur smiles
On the children at play in the poppy fields.

Sinking for what seems like forever.
Like Atlantis into the sea.
To forget the shore and wash away,
Wash away my memory.

I must be in limbo,
'Cos purgatory's always felt like home.

Inside the moon lives the high priest of the mushroom cult.
Upon the altar are the ashes of the Pharisees.
I sold my soul, sold my soul, sold my soul away.
I'm free of guilt, free of sin, free of everything!




Please open my eye, the third eye
Please open my eye, I shan't deny
Please open my eye, scarlet lies
Please open my eye, I shan't defy

The pseudo-deaths I've been going through
And remembrance of the past catches my soul
The truth is raped, Escape the world that I knew
And remembrance of this future catches my soul

Please open my eye, the third eye
Please open my eye, I am blind
Please open my eye, death inside
Please open my eye, it's so bright

Don't believe what you hear with your ears
Don't believe in the fate that you fear
I am blind but I know the truth is here
I am deaf but I know Revelation coming near

Chorus:
I am the Sun, I am the Moon
I'm living in the Scarlet Dream
Born in heaven and raised in hell
I'm wandering in the Scarlet Dream

(Guitar solo by Shinichi)

Please open my eye and it begins

(Minimoog solo by Mirai)

Please open my eye, the third eye
Please open my eye, I shan't deny
Please open my eye, scarlet lies
Please open my eye, I shan't defy

Soon I'll reach the sea of love behind the lies
Then I'll touch IT as the inner light guides
Don't be late, catch the words they try to hide
Don't belong to the world before your eyes