Nazi trash does not deserve any respect. Fuck off.

I mean we're talking here like if there was a lot of money or clout to be made playing a fringe style of music, with lyrics about fucking anarchism in a scene widely known to be more than tolerant to far right bullshit. As a scheme to get popular I agree this would be weird as fuck yeah.

They played black metal because of the fans, not the music. They literally said that. Obviously a band gets a lot bigger than a zine. They were making money off a gimmick. They wanted to quit their jobs and live their little rockstar dreams. It's not like they broke up to go home and rejoin the working class, contribute to labor, and start a self-sustaining commune. They broke up because their gimmick band ran out of money most likely.

Why would you ask a question just so you could cry about it?

Because the answer you gave makes it clear where your sympathies lie... no point in continuing to go back and forth with the debate at this point. I think it's clear where your comments were coming from.

Believe me at no point did I expect you to "debate" or contribute anything meaningful in the conversation.

It's not my fault Gelal could throw his guitar at a wall and a better riff would come out than anything Dawn Ray'd ever recorded. I didn't do that. I'm not God.

You don't know anything about this band's actual intentions and you are a nazi apologist, so I'll +1 Empyreal's sentiment - Fuck off!

Dawn Ray'd were involved in real time organizing and community with their fans and antifascists and anarchists. These are not "rockstar dreams" wtf? What a weird and rather antiquated way to dismiss a band lol. They broke up because they feel their work is done as Dawn Ray'd but their organizing efforts will continue.

They are way smarter and educated about these issues than you are so you clearly don't know what you're even arguing about. All you are is a tired old cliche of the scene edgelord that doesn't even recognize that all the bands you fellate are just as about politics and not sincere "musicians only" either.

Yes I understand Dawn Ray'd threw fundraisers. My old bands played/organized some of those too. I doubt they are going home to form a self sustaining commune. They are a bunch of college kids that went to some protests and got "radicalized". I've met thousand of these people. Their was shallow and won't sustain the test of time. They also almost DEFINITELY have reasons for breaking up that they didn't say considering they cancelled an entire tour and fucked over a bunch of other people and bands. I mean, I know people that are supposed to play with them next month and travelled from a different continent. Unless they are just shitty people that don't care about doing that.

Again, check your sources! You're twisting the facts for your own narrative. No one has criticized the band for "fucking them over". They've met with general support for these cancellations. Their actual post stated;



which indicates they are still organizing and involved in the causes they cared about to begin with.

I just don't think that's true. I think there are more than enough differences between the democrats and republicans to make the democrats vastly preferable beyond the fact that the republicans are headed by an actual fascist. The reason progress on these issues is slow or even backwards is because your country's congress is gridlocked, and the way to change that is to get more democrats elected.


Look I'm all for peope putting their money where their mouth is but to expect a couple dudes playing in a black metal band to start a self sustaining commune is just dumb.. And as Metal_On_The_Ascendant said, Dawn Ray'd were involved in real time organizing and they're donating all incoming money and merch orders to organizations they support. Unless you're gonna give us info saying they're secret millionaires they were doing more than enough.

So non-extremists using an extremist ideology as a gimmick to get popular, quit their jobs, go on tour, and live their rockstar dreams you say? They were probably contributing way more to labor before they were a band.

Ew. Why would you fellate Gelal, of all the assholes. He's a sour-looking ugly dude.

Yeah, I bet it is (obviously not in relation to people and commenting specifically and only on how lackluster they find the music; those people most probably aren't who Emp had in mind in that post I quoted).

I don't want to assume people would express pretty intense distaste re: random nobodies who made mediocre black metal, even with the silly video. That would be foolish and silly.

Spending this much time arguing against the band is just so wild to me to think it's all coming from some reasonable place. Right wing grifting is a real racket - they just keep pushing the boundaries of the discussion insidiously and without really saying their intent, trying to creep their way like maggots into acceptable discourse. Bunch of nonsense just based on vibes assuming the band's motives with no actual evidence or support - no actual debate anyway. No point in even engaging that guy anymore.

Disliking the music is obviously fine... I dunno though, I played some of the album again now and I still think it kills, some of the better metal this year. It has a real sharpness and deftness to the sound, very to-the-point. I like that all of it's so direct and in your face in this wall of sound, punk-like way, but with the atmospheric, somber bits. Quality music. I maintain it sounds good. All of it is wielded with a genuine ferocity.



It's worth a try. There's just too much corporatism and cronyism that it's all quite slow. It's not completely hopeless but I also don't think real change is going to happen at the top. I think it's important to do mutual aid and just have our own communities. Look out for shit on the smallest levels and do the work in bits and pieces.

Because he wrote Mocking the Philanthropist and Judeobeast Assassination

You're obviously just giving the most bad faith interpretation of the situation because you just don't like them for reasons.



That's one of the most important bits imo. If you start solving problems on the ground the people around you will be more inclined and motivated to also vote. (especially on the local level)

I saw them live in a squat dump. It was all rock star shine and glitter though, a very savvy move on their part to gain popularity.

I hate the "the only reason anyone is talking about it this much because they are obviously fascist" argument. It's a cop out. You are on a metal discussion forum.

I personally did not like the video either, but certainly no more silly than some other things that we have seen. But I think the silliness is coming form a different area that makes it cringe-worthy, which is different than say, Immortal's early videos, where they kind of even knew they were taking the piss, and also with the fact that these were kids trying to look evil. I can't say the same for Dawn Ray'd.

That all being said, I liked all the music I have heard from this band, and I always took them as the left-wing answer to Pantheon (USA). Same type of riffs, just better, and not NS.

So I certainly don't have any gripes when it comes to the music. I just didn't like the video

Bruh. You're the one who called it a "gimmick" band, then proceeded to double down on it as well as simping for Gelal upon being called out, derailing this very thread in the process. Also...


As someone who likes both albums, even I can admit that there are plenty of USBM bands that are far better, including Profanatica, Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice, and Judas Iscariot to name a few.

Yikes! No accounting for taste (on both accounts).

Yeah, I also don't agree with what you are saying as what black metal's source comes from. I mean yes, sure, it can be, but this seems a little revisionist to me. Basically people trying to ascribe to it what they wish to see and what they would prefer, rather than an acknowledgement of what it is.

I mean, there is a degree of subjectivity to this as well, so i'm not claiming to be the arbiter, however, I just don't see it in the same why that you have described.

Actually I'm gonna have to agree with this vis-a-vis Summoning. I don't know a single person that stopped listening to Summoning after Protector revealed his thoughts via interview. Perhaps some super rightists may have, but that would have been on an individual basis and not anything to point towards a trend. I think the main difference, other than the obviously wide gulf in songwriting quality (and this is given that I actually like DR's music), is that Summoning didn't go out of their way to bad-mouth and throw dirt upon a scene that they are a part of. This isn't the old-school "black metal is dead" statements of like Ildjarn or people like that, and so it goes to reason that black metal fans would get annoyed about it. My personal thoughts on this matter are irrelevant, but it isn't hard to objectively see why people would reject this band, wholly unconnected to any type of crypto-fascist nostalgia

Here comes the "you criticize society yet you participate in it" meme again.

Man, how do you even take yourself seriously?

I didn't make being an anarchist my entire identity and then not attempt to live by its ideals.

Don't you think it also maybe depends on your means? If I'm a multi-millionare and my whole public persona is being an anarchist and then I don't do anything proportional like setting up a commune then yes, calling me out would be fine. A regular person with regular wealth should be beholden to the same proportional standard no?

No, because when you are a leftist and you have ideas contrary to the system you have to live 100% according to that ideology. If you are anti-capitalist you are obliged to live in the forest, sew your own clothes, make your own mobile phone and not use anything that could have been manufactured by a private company, otherwise you are a hypocrite. On the other hand, right-wing people who divorce, who have abortions, who don't go to church even though they proclaim every day how important their Judeo-Christian values are to them, are not hypocrites at all. For real stop replying to a guy who is just making shitty comments that are already 5 years out of date for the alt right itself.

So you think every anarchist community is put together by wealthy people

I'm disappointed in everybody who took that guy's bait for like three solid pages. I'm sure all the other fash-sypathetic lurkers that were starting to burrow out and proclaim gratitude for a band they never listened to breaking up are relieved that he took all the heat.

Late to this but the breakup makes me sad. Their newest album was their best work yet.

I don't understand why a lot of the "separate the art from the artist" types give Dawn Ray'd vitriolic hate. You can dislike their politics, but nothing about their actual music is offensive to black metal even if it's not your thing. And if it's not your thing, there's no point in bothering about it. Personally, I respect their politics but I don't care about their politics. I just want to hear good music, and I think they have good music.

After four pages of this thread, I came to the conclusion that I must hear this band to understand what is the fuzz about. I read the discussion, but to me at least, the band sounds like an average black metal band, with some atmospheric touches here and there and some interesting clean vocals songs more on the folk side, which I am gladly surprised to hear.

I am listening to their first album The Unlawful Assembly (2017), and it sounds good. I already said it in the unpopular opinions thread, but I have to say it again I am not the biggest black metal fan, all the bands sound really similar to each other that's a problem of this genre. But man the only different thing between this band and the other black metal bands is that if you read the lyrics, and I say read because all the shrieks and screams really don't let you understand what the singer is saying, you will read a lot of left-wing ideas, which are pretty uncommon on the black metal genre because most bands lyrics are pretty satanic and antichristian or right-wing pagan racism and such.

But besides that, it's just another black metal band, I don't think it deserves 4 pages of a thread, but I understand that the discussion went more on the political side of things rather than the music, which is pretty average, to be honest, nothing too groundbreaking or different than others black metal bands. But black metal is kind of like that, I will never understand why you guys like hundreds of bands that sound the same. We fans of death metal really don't have that issue.

Saying that the melodic folk parts of the album, are pretty cool, that's the best thing that this band has and the one thing that differentiates it from the rest. Black metal is at it's best when is melodic and can transmit emotion, sadness, and anger and is a vehicle for expression.

Wait... what?

Hahaha It was a kind of joke line, but I stand my humble ground with that statement.

Good to see you're liking their debut. If you have the chance, I'd also recommend checking out their third and final album "To Know the Light", as it's basically become my personal favorite from these guys and easily their best musical-wise.

To Know The Light is so good. One of the best black metal albums released this year. Seconding that recommendation.

I love both death and black metal, but am leaning a bit more on the death metal side, and I think that this idea that black metal all sounds the same but death metal doesn't is quite peculiar. I always thought of death and black metal as brother subgenres, equally versatile, and leavin a lot of room for expansion, genre mixing and exploration. Both have progressive, experimental, melodic, symphonic, industrial, technical (although more common in death metal) and avant-garde (although more common in black metal).

I don't think either of these genres have bands that "all sound the same". Death and black metal are genres that both produce quality music with great consistency.

I have to listen to more black metal. Back in the day, I loved stuff like Impaled Nazarene, Watain, and Gorgoroth. But I don't know, after a while all the bands that played that style started to sound pretty similar to each other at least for my ears. With death metal that never happened to me, always is a genre that kept expanding and reaching new territories, that would explain why is still one of the most popular genres today.

Batushka and Deafheaven were the last black metal bands that made say oh this is a little bit different from the rest.

I think there is some sense of samey-ness for some black metal bands, but I could say the same about a bunch of death metal bands. And it's not necessarily always a bad thing - I think Tomb Mold is good but Tomb Mold just sounds like standard death metal done well to me.

But there's a lot of experimentation and different kind of stuff within black metal, especially over the past 20 years or so. My favorite modern acts are things like Panopticon (Americana-folk inspired black metal), Saidan (Japanese-horror inspired melodic black), and Sadness (black metal meets synth midwest emo). There's tons of variation. Dawn Ray'd isn't the absolute most unique band of the modern era, but it still gives its own flavor along with its unique thematics. Also plenty of bands doing more progressive, technical, or avant-garde things (i.e. Ashenspire) that's not my personal thing but gives the genre lots more variation.

Ashenspire's Hostile Architecture was my album of the year. Like Dawn Ray'd they are strongly anti-imperialist and also from the UK. Their style of black metal blew me away because while it was progressive and avant-garde in ways that wouldn't be so unfamiliar if you'd listened to bands like Akercocke, A Forest of Stars, Arcturus and Ebonylake, they still managed to sound like nothing else I'd heard that came out that year. My point being, there really are so many cool things happening in black metal; musically with bands such as these and thematically with others like Dawn Ray'd that are pushing the envelope with what topics they choose to incorporate.

Panopticon and Wolves In The Throne Room remain vital forces in the scene as well, all these years later. Nothing quite typical about their approach.

Looking at my top ten albums from last year;

1. Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture
2. Malthusian & Suffering Hour - Time's Withering Shadow
3. Negative Plane - The Pact...
4. Messa - Close
5. Pyrithe - Monuments To Impermanence
6. Cult of Luna - The Long Road Home
7. Wake - Thought Form Descent
8. Cavernlight – As I Cast Ruin Upon the Lens That Reveals My Every Flaw
9. Immolation - Acts of God
10. Father Befouled - Crowned in Veneficum

I'd say none of 'em are quite standard death or black metal, with the exception of Father Befouled (who, now that I'm thinking about it, I probably included cause they're hometown heroes of mine lol) but that Incantation-style of death metal has never been accessible and typical as far as I'm concerned.