Learning to Love Being Loud

There was a time in my metal life cycle, somewhere in those early years of petulant orthodoxy, when a duo like The Angelic Process would have gone straight into the trash can. Back then everything had to follow the rules. Viking metal was from Scandinavia because those dudes were totally actual vikings and not just pasty basement nerds like me. Black metal bands without corpsepaint were fucking posers who were only in it for the fame and had never actually murdered anyone.

Point is, I could find just about any reason to dismiss legitimately good music, forgetting what it was I was really after. Heavy, unrelenting, light-draining, world-obliterating noise. Ten years ago, my response to The Angelic Process (now sadly defunct following the death of K.Angylus) would have been something along the lines of, “Drum machine? Fuck that. Real metal bands use real drums. Don’t even come near me with that processed unmetal bullshit.” But age is the enemy of orthodoxy and this band destroys worlds and opens hearts.

Noise, doom, the sound of the moon crumbling into the sea. It’s kinda hard to even categorize The Angelic Process. Endless, cascading oppression? Good enough. Whatever it is, it helped me connect with what I really love about heavy music. And that's really fucking heavy.