#but there is an innate theatricality in metal music that a lot of people want to deny for some reason

[optiwashere]

8 for the music challenge, if done already, any question you want to answer but havent already :)

Oh, well this is going to be a strange, very difficult one for me tbh.

8. Is there an artist or song that you like, despite being of a genre you don't usually like?

I hate to be that person, but I really do listen to a lot of different stuff. It just depends on my mood, honestly. There are days where old protest country music is all I want to listen to, or some jazz fusion, or just plain old metal, pop, etc. Give me that really grimy industrial, gimme some gothy trance. I want it all! I guess if I had to pick a genre that I don't enjoy at all, it really only leaves, like, contemporary religious soft "rock" music. I hate that shit and I've never heard anything worthwhile in that sphere. OH! I don't really like djent or thall, but I'm fond of a handful of Meshuggah albums. ObZen and the remaster of Nothing mostly, but the music video of "New Millennium Cyanide Christ" is an actual stone-cold classic and a good reminder that metal is inherently at least a little bit silly.

[cchellacat]

You Had Me At Hello

Bucky / Darcy (hinting at Bucky/Nat/Darcy future).

Follow up to No Good at Goodbye

Pre Wintershockish

Bucky stubbed our the cigarette, eyes fixed on the brunette woman leaning over the harbour wall. For a civilian she’d been harder to track down than he’d have expected. He’d been following her for a few days now, careful to ensure she didn’t spot him and to assure himself there was no other surveillance on her.

He’d had most of his memories back for a few months now. His mind now truly his own since the deprogramming had been successful. When they had brought him in he’d fought against them hard. He’d still been unsure of who he was, who he could trust. Since he’d been let out of the hospital he’d slowly begun to piece a life back together for himself. It hadn’t been easy, especially trying to rebuild relationships he’d barely remembered.

Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets. It’s freezing out here. He wonders briefly why she spends so much time standing in the cold wind, seemingly mesmerised by the waves. It can’t be comfortable for her, she’s normal, just a girl who got dragged into the world of superhero’s by accident. She must be frozen. She’s a strange puzzle.

It’s not that he can’t understand her attraction. She’s a pretty little thing, all soft curves and big blue eyes. But the notable dismay Natasha had been left in when she’d realised the girl had gone made him curious. What sort of person could get so far under the Russian assassins skin that even months later had her flinching the tiniest bit whenever anyone mentions her name. Darcy. Darcy Lewis, his mission and a mystery he wanted to solve.

He’d moved in with Natasha a few month before. Both of them trying to figure out where they stood with the other, if they could still be them even after all the blood and tears and betrayal. He’s fairly sure what they felt for one another hasn’t changed, he still loves her fiercely and he knows she loves him just the same. But Nat is soft in places she hadn’t been before. Freer in a way that made him feel less burdened. He tried figure out what changed her, what experience shaped her to find humour in pop tarts and band t-shirts. What made her dance to pop music in the kitchen at 5am when she made overly sweet and flavoured coffee with froth and whipped cream?

He’d been lying in bed with Nat when he remembered, the hazy form of a young woman in the hospital room, holding Nats hand as she slept the day he’d woken up in the infirmary. He’d asked her who she was and Nat has stiffened almost imperceptibly before answering in an offhand manner. Something had warned him off asking her any more, but he had a name.

It didn’t take long to find out who she was and that she’d left the day after they brought him in. It took about five minutes in Jane Fosters company before he had the whole story. How Nat and Darcy had been... dating as far as Jane was concerned. What else should she have thought, Jane demanded bitterly. They spent all their time together and Natasha had practically lived in Darcy’s apartment for two months before she’d slowly froze Darcy out of her life.

He’s smart enough to figure out that finding out he was still live is the reason Nat had pushed Darcy away. He’s also smart enough to see that Natasha had trusted Darcy, loved her, but ultimately let her go in the uncertainty of the situation, perhaps thinking she owed him to try again. So he feels guilty that Darcy got hurt in all this and faintly miffed that Natasha hadn’t told him about her, hadn’t been honest. He also knows Nat well enough to realise she hid how she felt about the brunette to protect her and him both. She’d made a choice for all of them without discussing it with either of them.

He nears Darcy, pace slowing as he comes to a stop along side her, mirroring the way she leans against the stone, gazing out into the water.

From the corner of his eye he spots the instant she recognises him. The way her shoulders rise and her plush lips press together in dismay.

“What do you want?”

He’s surprised at the frank question and turns to face her, carefully staying relaxed and trying to look as non threatening as possible. It’s not easy with his height and build to accomplish and he sees the momentary amusement in her blue eyes at the attempt. Like she knows what he’s doing and only finds it funny.

“Wanted to know who you were, find the person who could make assassins fall in love with her.”

Surprise flickers across her face before she snorts derisively.

“I think you got the wrong end of the stick there Red October, it was definitely the other way around. So what, here to take out the competition? Cause I have to tell you, you had nothing to worry about.”

“Not here to hurt you, doll.”

She looks skeptical, one eyebrow arched critically.

“Then why the hell are you here?”

Bucky looks out at the waves again, watching the white lines of surf crash back and forth, a sort of grim understanding as the forceful nature of the water over sharp rocks suddenly solves part of a mystery for him.

“I’m here to bring you home.”

He looks back at her as she stares at him, mouth open soundlessly in shock.

“You love her?”

He asks it kindly, but there’s a certain challenge in his tone that he sees makes her stiffen angrily.

“Yes I do.” She lifts her chin and glares and Bucky grins in response to her stubborn statement.

“Good. Let’s go then.”

He places his metal hand at the small of her back and urges her to start walking.

Darcy wants to slow the fuck down. She has no idea what’s going on, but the moment he smiles at her and his hand touches her she finds herself suddenly longing to do exactly what he wants, to go home to the tower. Back to the family she made there, to her friends, to Natasha. Her heart clenches at the thought of her. It had been eight months and she still felt the sharp sting of grief and loneliness every day. She still loved Nat, adored her with ever atom of her existence. The thought of going back is both tempting and terrifying. She wants to go home but she also fears seeing the rejection in Nat’s eyes if she does. She can’t for the life of her figure why he’s come, why he’s so intent in bringing her back. Except, he wouldn’t be here, saying those things if he didn’t think she should be there. If he didn’t think that her being there would help Nat in some way, that seemed clear enough.

She has so many questions right now but before she can voice them he pulls her closer, tucking her into his side like she belonged there and began chatting about Tony and Jane and Bruce like they’d known each other forever.

She studies him carefully as he talks, he’s handsome there’s no denying it, good looking in a way that she thinks most woman would find difficult to ignore. She flushes a little guiltily as she stares at his lips and the way his tongue darts out periodically. She may be crazy about Natasha still, but she’s not blind and he smells good too. It’s easy to see what Nat sees in him, why she fell for him all those years ago. Underneath all the scruff and scary muscle and the murder arm he’s got a sort of innate kindness that makes you want to trust him.

She briefly considers just walking away: telling him she doesn’t want to go back and to leave her here alone but something stops her. A crazy thought that enters her mind, one she discards as quickly as it forms. But then he looks down at her and calls her doll again, tells her they should pick up some coffee for the drive back and she realises he’s planning to spend the next three days with her in a car, alone.

Bucky winks at her as he flirts a little, testing waters he wasn’t sure he’d find welcome in but the rosy blush he coaxed from her makes him think his slightly crazy plan might not be so crazy at all.

“Are you for real?”

“Only one way to find out.”

He tells her, holding open the door of the SUV, locking her eyes with his.

“She know you’re here?”

“I figured better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

Darcy’s eyes narrow.

“I can’t figure out if you’re brave, stupid or both.”

Bucky shrugs a little.

“Maybe I like to live dangerously.”

Darcy looks between him and the car, some internal debate waging inside her.

“You think this will work?”

“You happy with how things are right now?”

She shakes her head reluctantly, of course not, she’s miserable without Nat, without her life in New York. Bucky offers her a grimace if understanding. He gets it she thinks, understands what she’s not saying. Darcy gets in the car. She’s got three days to get to know the man the woman she loves is in love with. Three days to see if they can be something to each other.

Bucky settles in the drivers seat, starting the car.

“She’s missed you too you know.”

“You’re not mad?”

“How can I be mad that someone else makes her happy? That she’s loved? That she loved you back? That she still does?”

“ I don’t get it!” She chokes out in a rush of air, gesturing with her hands in the air theatrically.

Bucky takes in her beauty, but it’s her easy going nature and sassy sweetness that’s got him chuckling quietly as she scrunches her nose and looks at him like he might be a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

“Buckle up, doll, I can’t promise this won’t be bumpy drive... but I think we’re both heading in the right direction.”

Darcy’s laugh, Bucky thinks as he pulls out of the parking lot, sounds like bells. He’s feeling confident that by the time they reach New York, he’ll be almost as enamoured with the fiery pin up as Natasha is. He thinks he sees now, what makes her special. Darcy has courage and charm and not once in the time since he approached her had she actually seemed afraid of the predator she knew he was. She hadn’t flinched, stood her ground and didn’t seem to give a fuck that he knew 47 ways to kill her with his bare hands. She met his eyes with hers and didn’t waver. It’s the sort of acceptance that’s rare to find in people, especially in his line of work. She reaches over and jams the radio on, changing to a station she seemed to approve of. He quirked a brow and she lifts that stubborn little chin again ready to get her own way.

“I think we’re gonna get along just fine”.

He says with a wink, his metal hand reaching over, turning the sound up.

A car barrels down the highway, AC/DC blaring from the open windows, heading north. The faint whisper of voices, bickering at times, manages to rise over the music.

[tisthenightofthewitch]

Until recently – and, as most great metal controversies are, at the hands of some deliciously messy legal troubles – the identity of Ghost’s polarising, larger-than-life frontman remained the foundation-caked fever dream of conspiracy theorists everywhere. There were rumours that Tobias Forge (of Subvision and MagnaCarta Cartel fame) was behind the robe, but anonymity was sacred within the band, and they’d stop at nothing to protect theirs. But alas, March 2017 saw his former bandmates declare a mutiny, and Forge was unearthed as the puppet-master behind the garish and ghastly Papa Emeritus (in all his increasingly more sinister incarnations).

Not before Ghost had established themselves as the most important narrative-driven metal titans on the planet, however.

Some decried them as an industry plant – though Forge had been toying with the project since ’06, their 2010 breakthrough was sudden and substantial, racking up festival slots like skittles and more five-star reviews than you could shake a crucifix at. For a band so unremittingly enshrined in secrecy, there’s no way that could’ve been natural… Right?

Maybe. Except unlike most bands shot to stardom on the mighty heels of a major label’s budget, Ghost had the skills, work ethic and, perhaps most importantly, songs to do it on their own. Critics were floored by the thick and fiery rock’n’roll grit of the independently released Opus Eponymous. That their backstory was virtually nonexistent forced listeners to establish their own narratives (and they did, so often with grandiose character arcs that outweighed the context on which they were based). And their live shows – buoyant, brash, and marked by towering sets and lavish costumes – were instant sell-outs from the onset. Without so much as a name to their talents, Ghost had the metal scene en masse completely and utterly whipped.

Which brings us to the question many have tried (and failed) to answer: how the hell did they do it!?

Well… They didn’t.

You did.

We did.

Allow us to explain. Bands like KISS, Slipknot and Gwar have always turned heads on aesthetic alone. Anything that takes the listener out of their real world and drops them into an alternate one where mysticism and opulence are the norm is something that crowds will naturally gravitate towards. Because let’s face it, the world is fucked right now – we’ll take anything that can help us ignore it for a while.

But where Ghost set themselves apart is in that other world. It’s a twisted and twitch-inducing mass for the malevolent, led by a skull-faced pope in blood red papal mitre and a troupe of nameless, faceless deviants known only as the Nameless Ghouls (fun fact: Dave Grohl has been one). Each album era would see a new manifestation of Papa Emeritus emerge; on 2018’s Prequelle – their first since Forge’s identity leaked – the character was nixed, only to be replaced by the far more corrupt, far less merciful Cardinal Copia. By consistently evolving what little architecture Ghost had pieced together for their narrative, they’re able to keep the story feeling fresh. Nobody can get sick of the shtick when it’s flipped on its head every two years.

And though authentic to a tee (not once have their ritualistic live shows seen them break character), Ghost have never taken themselves all that seriously. They’ve covered songs by The Beatles and ABBA. There are glittering glam-rock synths all over Prequelle. Hell, they have a record named Popestar, for Satan’s sake! The niche is at once unnervingly harrowing and charmingly vaudevillian. Speaking exclusively to Download, Forge describes his character as “a little bit of Fred Astaire mixed with Jacques Clouseau.”

Much of the character’s base also plays into a common fantasy for most average punters: power. Nobody wants to be a Nameless Ghoul, but we all want to be that imperial deity up front. Never a band to spell their lyricisms out to the listener, Ghost offers them a chance to funnel themselves into Copia through the listening experience. Forge knows and embraces that – after all, he’s in the same boat.

“I think in many ways, Cardinal Copia is a lot like what I wish I could’ve been, or wish I was. Unfortunately, there are rules and regulations in the world that stop you from being like that… But you can be that character for two hours every night, and I guess that’s enough. A lot of what I’m doing with Ghost is what I always wanted to do as a kid – I wanted to be in a theatrical, larger-than-life band with a horror image and some cool mac daddy leading the drill.”

That link to childhood is also imperative, especially when you consider the climate in which Ghost arose. For most of us, when we think about other bands in the legion of Ghost, we think of our youth. KISS were likely the first shock-rock band we were introduced to as lil’ tikes, and a Slipknot addiction was a rite of passage for edgy tweens in the mid-aughts. Ghost are the natural next step on that path: they’re comic enough for the imagery to pop, but mature enough to keep us sticking around for the music afterwards. KISS’ influence on Forge was vital in establishing the aesthetic narrative of Ghost, but sonically, it was black metal troupes like Blasphemy that roped him in. He revels in the subconscious nostalgia that’s hardwired in all of us, and not just visually – it's in Ghost’s core of mystery.

“I grew up as a black and death metal fan in a time before the internet. Back then, you had very little to go on – especially with the darker sort of bands. I’d look back at bands like Venom and Mayhem and Blasphemy – bands where you’d only seen maybe one or two pictures of them, because there wasn’t any more than that. You’d see one or two interviews in print, and maybe a video, and you had to fill in all the blanks. All you knew about them were the little quotes in magazines, and lore. There were a lot of rumours.

“Obviously, all of that changed with the internet. Now, you can just click on anything and know everything about anything you want. And I wanted Ghost to be different. I wanted Ghost to be more in line with the sort of bands that I liked before the internet, where you had to use your imagination and you had to wonder a little.”

So that’s where we come in. We can dig ourselves into a Reddit rabbithole and binge all the conspiracy theories we want, but in essence, every Ghost fan will have a different interpretation of Ghost’s lore. It’s a living, breathing Choose Your Own Adventure book for millennial metalheads. And that lack of content, paradoxically, has us starving for more. Because we’re living in a generation of addiction; instant gratification as the norm. By fervently denigrating it, Ghost feed off society’s innate desperation for #content.

“In the ABC school of rock,” Forge chuckles, “It’s part of the natural go-to for an artist to have a very active Instagram account and a very active Twitter account; you have to be super available and updating at all times about everything at all. It’s in the mental lingo of people to do that nowadays, and it’s very hard to get someone to do it less, because that means they’ll get less people interacting with them. On the contrary, I see it as though part of our success has been because we gave people less!

“Part of why we liked all the bands that we liked was because they actually had a private life, y’know? If you’re constantly doing things to interact with the outside world, you’re going to end up very, very drained after a while. That was definitely something that goes with the whole concept of Ghost, in terms of how I wanted this to be presented to the world and how we were going to communicate with the world. I mean obviously, we have an Instagram account and we do post things from time to time, but y’know, it’s not a personal thing. I won’t tell you where I’m having dinner tonight.”

All the trickery and serpentine storytelling aside, the biggest factor in Ghost’s catapult to the top of the food chain is that they’re just a great band, both to listen to on record and catch from the pit. Because at the end of the day, Forge and co. actively rebel against their very concept. Their aesthetic is strewn in eeriness, satanic imagery and crypticism, but their end goal isn’t to suck you into some hellish cult – it’s to leave you with a big ol’ smile on your dial.

“I always wish for people seeing us to experience some sort of euphoria,” Forge declares. “I always wish for people seeing us to experience some sort of euphoria. Euphoria as in the, y’know, I want them to be enlightened and pleased with what they’re seeing, and going away with a smile on their face. I guess that’s also one of the differences between us and a lot of bands that have operated in a similar framing; with a lot of horror bands and a lot of black metal bands with a similar image, the show is usually all sort of centred around the idea of very aggressive music and a negative sort of outlook. I just want people to leave the show with a smile on their face!”

DownloadFestival.au