Reviews of a couple of 2020 albums

I wrote these reviews for the site rateyourmusic.  Reviewing contemporary albums is a much more difficult task for me than writing about old weird records is.  There's no benefit of hindsight there.  I don't know anything more than what these artists know, can't draw on decades of critical discourse, can't place it in its proper historical context, all of these little tricks I use to distance myself from the music.

Because otherwise it becomes a big fight.  Regardless of what Red Crayola has to say about the revolutionary potential of culture, it's something I genuinely believe in.  What are my other options, you know?  Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun?  That's not my way.

Rateyourmusic is a fight, the Internet is a fight, and I am done being drawn into fights.  The politics of music are even more fraught than the politics of food, and the politics of food are a fucking mess.  All the arguments over Clams Casino (the musician, not the food) and "I'm God", whether it even _deserves to be evaluated as music_, it's so fascinating and, you know, absurd, the gatekeeping on that.  The desire to be "accurate", to be "fair"...

But it has its purpose, you know?  RYM has this continual pipeline of 4chan refugees, of edgelords, of, you know, men, and what I can say there publicly, what I can "publish", has to meet certain standards.  And these reviews, I'm proud of them, they're honest and worth sharing, and they don't meet those standards.  If they didn't have the standards, I'd probably feel even less comfortable there, feel less welcome, than I already feel.

So I guess I'll put them here, even though they're technically out of the purview of this blog, just so they're not gated.  Even if nobody but my friends will read this, it's important that people who aren't my friends are _able_ to read these words.  Because all of us women need to be able to have somewhere to speak for ourselves, to tell our own stories.  Because Sewerslvt's story isn't mine, because Feminazgul's story isn't mine.

Sewerslvt - Draining Love Story:

Transition was a difficult and drawn-out process for me.  One of the more difficult aspects was that the spaces I socialized in were spaces that, in practice, excluded cis women.  This made it easy for me to think of women as unattainable, alien, Other.

I don't spent a lot of time ruminating on what I would have done differently, because I have so many other things to ruminate on, because the nineties were a different time, but I do allow myself some regrets.  One of those is that I wish I had spent more time listening to women.  Once I started listening to women, really listening, it became possible for me to understand that they and I were not quite so different than I had assumed.

I feel this is perhaps not an uncommon experience among trans women, that it is perhaps an artifact of being raised male.  A certain popular interpretation of (cishet) masculinity teaches men to avoid women for anything other than sexual encounters.  This practice is damaging to both men and women, cis and trans.

If the only encounter one has with the feminine is anime, well, it's not a surprise that this is how trans women frame their goals.  And when your goal is unattainable, misery results.

It makes me sad to see this misery perpetuated, to see it celebrated.  Everybody has their own ways of dealing with their pain, and if a record like this helps people live with themselves, helps them accept themselves, well, then there's value in that.  And there's value in Sewerslvt having expressed herself, having spoken her truth as a trans woman.

I will say that my experience as a trans woman is not like Sewerslvt's.  That I am happier than I have ever been.  Everyone I know loves me, accepts me, and values me.  I am at ease in my own skin.  None of this is a question of being passing or being beautiful or anything like that.

I wish I could say this publicly, to everyone here who feels hopeless like I used to feel hopeless.  But I am of course not talking about the music at all here, can't say this in a way that will meet this site's published review standards.  It's a message I will continue to try and speak, though, as often and as loudly as I can, because this is my truth.

Feminazgul - No Dawn For Men:

I don't follow metal terribly closely.  I like a lot of it, but there's a lot of it and the combination of the quantity and the intense devotion it inspires can be overwhelming.

That said, I have been keeping half an eye on Feminazgul since the release of their debut EP in 2018.  I am therefore quite happy to hear of the release of their full-length, and happier still to hear that it delivers on the promise of their fascinating debut.

I am not surprised that this record is not thought of highly in certain corners.  It's not just that the record is "political", or even that it is avowedly feminist and antifascist.  Feminazgul are, to be blunt, misandrist.

I make no apologies for this because Feminazgul need no apologies.  I do not forgive them for this because, as they say on track five, "Forgiver, I am not yours".  Black metal is, at its core, intense and extreme music, music of hatred, and Feminazgul, as a project, are committed wholeheartedly to that hatred.

What this means is that if you are a man, Feminazgul hate you for who you are.  You do not deserve this.  I don't mean to say that you don't deserve to be hated - I surely am not in a position to make comment either way on the larger issue - but only that _nobody deserves to be hated for who they are_.

Which is why I, personally, am not misandrist, why I do affirm the positive value of masculinity.  And also why, having extensively had the experience of being hated for who I am, I affirm the music of Feminazgul as being... instructive.  It would be a fine thing, a good thing, if nobody were to be hated for who they are, but I can't see how we can get to that without knowledge, without a world full of people - full of men - who know the pain of being hated unjustly, being hated simply for how they were born.

Feminazgul's music is inseparable from their politics, and their politics are inseparable from their identity.  Which is to say an essential part of their music is that it is black metal made by women, for women.  This is, I recognize, not the sort of "identity politics" one usually encounters in black metal.

In this case, though, their politics are unusually powerful.  Again, to be blunt, black metal is not a genre of music that is particularly welcoming to women.  One can speak of, perhaps, Myrkur, who gets her own variety of shit, and in contrast to Feminazgul she is not even antifascist (is in fact, I have heard, fascist).  Feminazgul is so impressively powerful to me not just because, as a woman, I have had the experience of being excluded, marginalized, hated, but because of the subversion of their work, the glorious power inherent in using the weapons of the oppressor against them.

I don't believe hatred is worthy as an end in and of itself.  I don't celebrate hatred, choose not to carry my hatred.  I acknowledge it, though.  I acknowledge hatred as part of who I am, the inevitable result of what I have experienced, and I revel in music, powerful, feminine music (a lot of what I have seen as dismissals of their work on aesthetic grounds I do see as a positive good, a divergence from the accepted masculine cultural norms of black metal) that speaks to these experiences, and these feelings.  Because until I acknowledge them, I don't have the choice of whether or not to lay the burden down, for the burden is buried deep inside me.  What "No Dawn For Men" does for me is to exhume corpses long-buried, to bring that pain to the surface, make it comprehensible, and yes beautiful too, but beautiful in the way of intense tears, not beautiful as a lie.