We live in a time of afterworlds. History speaks of postcolonialism and economics of late-stage capitalism. Academia has post-structuralism and postmodernism, while the world of music has post-punk and post-disco. These enterprises are defined by their temporality, the niche they occupy along the timeline of ideas, each one founded in reaction to whatever came before. In these contexts, the prefix post simply means “after” or “later.” Not so for post-metal.
History
Encompassing a vast range of bands and unique sounds, “post-metal” emerged in the 90’s as a term to describe artists who were going beyond the confines of conventional heavy metal. These avant-garde artists blurred the boundaries between extreme metal’s subgenres like black, death, and doom, while also incorporating elements from outside the metal community, namely psychedelia, shoegaze, and grunge. During the “alternative music” boom of the 90’s, artists like Neurosis, Godflesh, and The Melvins stayed true to metal’s melancholia while synthesizing its harsh textures with new sounds. As music journalist Simon Reynolds noted:
“Post-rock doesn't have the same temporal aspect that post-disco or post-punk have; it's not about the ripples set in motion by a galvanizing "event." Rather, it evokes a sense of "going beyond" the structures of a genre of music without completely abandoning its legacy of attitudes and assumptions. For similar reasons, the term post-metal seems increasingly useful to describe the vast and variegated swath of genres (the thousand flavors of doom/black/death/grind/drone/sludge/etc., ad infinitum) that emerged from the early '90s onward.” (Reynolds)
Broadly speaking, post-metal can be split into two camps. The first is simply a heavier version of post-rock, the instrumental “cathartic mini-symphonies” (Holmes) first pioneered by artists like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and later perfected by Explosions in the Sky. Much like its lighter little brother, post-metal prioritizes atmosphere and emotionality, washing listeners with alternating waves of darkness and light. Nearly always instrumental, this mature and weighty sound is best embodied today by bands like Pelican, Russian Circles, and Year of No Light.
On the other hand, we can also use post-metal to refer to the many fusion genres that have emerged from artists synthesizing various flavors of metal and non-metal genres. For example, post-metal can refer to blackgaze artists like Alcest and Deafheaven who fuse black metal’s depressive sonic assault with shoegaze’s lush walls of sound. Oftentimes, incredibly slow drone metal artists like Earth and Sunn O))) are also labeled as post-metal, for pushing beyond the sluggish bounds of doom metal into strange and spacious terrain. Experimental Japanese bands like Mono and Boris are also at home here, drawing upon everything from classical to drone to noise to create music which transcends genre distinctions entirely (Wiederhorn).
Pisces
In their desire to create truly transcendent music that encapsulates both bitterness and bliss, this effusive and expansive range of bands is best identified with the zodiac sign of Pisces, the last sign of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. If we take 0° of Aries as the beginning of the zodiac, then Pisces is the last sign, the final destination on a long circular journey.
When the Sun passes through Pisces each year (Feb 20 - March 20), we can see it manifest in soggy spring rains, snowmelt running down river valleys, and the sea to which it all flows. Although the darkness is still dominant, its reign is nearly at an end. During these lightening days, we look with hope toward the vernal equinox and the rebirth of spring. Underneath it all runs a current of redemption. We can feel the light restlessly wriggling out of the dark and the coming unification of the two.
“The One gives birth to the two”
Tao Te Ching, Chp. 42
Symbolized by a pair of fish, Pisces contains the paradoxes and tensions of duality. One fish ascends to the realm of spirit; the other descends to material reality. This the interplay between imagination and incarnation, the ideal and the real, the infinite and the immanent. Pisces is intimately aware of the fact that we are all One, and yet we are simultaneously quite separate. Although we may all be the Universe experiencing itself, we must do so subjectively; our life is lived from our own limited viewpoint. As such, Pisces often desperately desires to transcend material existence entirely and ascend back to the Source of all things. Pisces is the pilgrim on a sojourn in a foreign land, singing “This world is not my home; I’m just a-passing through.”
In the Tarot, the Moon card has long been associated with Pisces. Visually, the Rider-Waite-Smith version and its variants demonstrates this sense of walking a narrow path to reach a promised land. Picking a path between darkness and light, Pisces treads the razor’s edge.
The Moon XVIII as illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith
Seeking divine union, but forced to undergo the vexations of earthly existence, Pisces can hold an air of discontent, at times plunging into despair. Spiritual sensitivity can easily give way to disappointment when hopes are dashed upon the hard rocks of reality. Therefore Pisces can manifest as the soul who drowns their sorrows as well as the saint. Unable to reconcile spirit and matter, there is a temptation to escape and lose oneself, not in spiritual practice, but in substance. Here, spiritual visions become delusion. Mired in Māyā, one cannot see beyond the veil, remaining chained to cyclic existence.
Pisces is a complicated sign, one with many layers of meaning. To best assess how post-metal expresses Piscean energy, we must think topographically. If we view the signs as places instead of personalities, Pisces is an ocean. Let us consider how four planets each affect and are affected by this seascape.
Jupiter
Pisces is the nocturnal domicile of Jupiter. It is his seaside home, where he demonstrates his receptive side, his ability to yield, and to feel great currents of emotion. Above all, Jupiter desires to unify and expand. Like oceans enfolding continents, he is big enough to contain and cohere all things. While Mercury analyzes, Jupiter synthesizes, stitching strands of thought together in lush tapestries of meaning. Naturally, he governs philosophy, religion, and law - systems of belief that bring things together in a satisfying whole.
Similarly, post-metal is unparalleled in its depth and breadth, painting with the pull palette of emotions, including depression, aggression, joy, and ecstasy. Like weather at sea, songs can shift violently, swelling with torrents of passion that give way to passages of exceeding spiritual sublimity. Like many tributaries leading to the sea, post-metal artists display multiplicity in their influences too, citing everything from jazz to classical to ambient.
Although awash in brooding melancholy, the genre carries a sense that things will get better; brighter days lie on the other side of storms. This theme is most apparent in blackgaze, which infuses black metal melancholy with major chords and sparkling guitar effects. For instance, much of Alcest’s catalog recognizes darkness and depression, while also saying: things will get better.
Here we encounter Jupiter as the sage and his corresponding virtues of gratitude and optimism. One thinks of his buoyancy, the way faith or meaning can keep one afloat during tough times. Often strikingly cinematic in tone, many of the most gripping post-metal tracks build in crescendos that crash down with the force of divine revelation - equal parts epiphany and ecstasy.
Venus
In post-metal’s ecstatic crescendos and shimmering leads, we find Venus, planet of love, luxury, and deep, abiding beauty. Venus is exalted in the sign of Pisces. Here the Lady of Heaven is lifted high, elevated to a throne of seafoam and cerulean, cowries and anemones, pearls and periwinkle. With both Venus and Jupiter empowered her, Pisces is a thoroughly benefic sign. Much of the metal’s malevolence and general harshness is tempered in post-metal. Artists instead opt for dense arrangements in lush, buttery tones. Something satisfying, and downright hedonic often swims beneath the surface of these songs of these repetitive rhythms. It glitters and it glows, like bioluminescent waves lapping the shoreline.
Neptune
Many modern astrologers assign Neptune to Pisces as its sign ruler. Although this is a break from tradition, it's not wholly inappropriate. Recently, I learned from an episode of the fabulous Luminaries In and Out of Sect Podcast that the ancient astrologer Manilius associated Pisces with the Roman God Neptune. Podcast guest and astrologer Cameron Cassidy made reference to this passage in Manilius. Naturally, out of curiosity, I tracked it down myself afterward. In this didactic poem called the Astronomica, Manilius makes the comparison while relating several Roman deities to the zodiacal signs. He states:
“Neptune acknowledges the Fishes [Pisces] as his own for all that they are in heaven." (Anthony).
Let us consider this sympathy further. Following their defeat of the Titans, Zeus/Jupiter and his Olympian brothers drew lots to decide who would rule the different domains of the world. To Jupiter was given the skies, to Pluto the underworld, and to Poseidon/Neptune the sea. However, Zeus/Jupiter was often used in a titular fashion, to indicate right rulership. As a figure of authority, we might think of the god Neptune as Jupiter of the oceans, not as “Sky-Father” but “Sea-Father.” Just like his brother, Neptune ruled abundance and bounty, but that of the oceans. He was also famously unfaithful to his wife, fathering many children with sea nymph paramours. This mythological tale and Manilius offers Neptune a doorway into Piscean affinity, without granting him full-blown rulership.
Image of Deep Blue Neptune by NASA
In planetary meanings, we might draw some distinctions, however. Whereas Jupiter expands, unifies, and affirms, the planet of Neptune weaves stories, seeds dreams, and dissolves boundaries. Water is the universal solvent. Given enough time, it can erode anything, take any substance into itself. Neptune has this kind of effect, ebbing away sharp edges. Likened to liquids like mists, fog, rain, and oceans, Neptune governs the symbolic and spiritual. Why? Because like water, the Imaginal will always remain somewhat intangible. Try to grasp water and it slips between your fingers in the same manner that consciously focusing upon a dream robs it of its symbolic potency. Similarly, psychedelic experiences can be incredibly profound, eroding our lonely egos, and greatly expanding our perspective. Yet they often resist our abilities to wrap them in rational language. They defy our comprehension. Whether it be a dream, psychedelic trip, or spiritual vision, describing a peak experience can be maddeningly difficult. One often feels like a man attempting to describe the ocean to someone who has never seen it before. With your small mouth noises, you point to glasses of water, puddles, and pools, but the point will never be fully understood.
The Neptunian appears in post-metal in washy guitar effects - echo, reverb, delay - which warp, elongate, and mutate notes. Laying down complex and often repetitive rhythms, drummers employ a lot of ghost notes, beats which are barely heard. Like ghosts, they are so-named because they lie at the periphery of our perception. These musical techniques create surrealistic soundscapes in which listeners can lose themselves. Songs end in psychedelic shimmers, leaving one with the feeling of waking from a dream. Moreover, post-metal is notoriously difficult to describe, in part because artists blur distinctions between so many genres. Such struggles with language lead us inevitably to Mercury.
Mercury
Typically, Mercury is this planet of skilled articulation, translation, and communication. However, Mercury experiences both its detriment and fall in the sign of Pisces. Why? Theoretically, this drop in potency is owed to the fact that Pisces is opposite to Mercury’s home sign of Virgo. In dry and discreet Virgo, Mercury can neatly label and categorize. On dry land, such a task is easy, but at sea, it's impossible.
Truthfully, “post-metal” is only a clumsy term to categorize artists which are un-categorizable. A grand diversity of artists is somehow shoehorned under this term, mostly because they don’t fit anywhere else. But perhaps that’s the point! Maybe a philosophy of anti-nominalism underlies this whole endeavor. Takaakira Goto from Japanese band Mono once said,
“Music is communicating the incommunicable; that means a term like post-rock doesn't mean much to us, as the music needs to transcend genre to be meaningful" (St. John)
Secondly, Mercury’s Piscean debility appears in the de-emphasis on vocals. The majority of post-metal bands are intentionally instrumental. When vocals are utilized, they are often indistinct, fuzzed out by effects like reverb or vocoders. Bands like Neurosis and Cult of Luna featured garbled shouting. Many others like Ninth Moon Black use samples of spoken word, often clipped from films. Over a quarter of all Alcest songs are sung in glossolalia. Speech’s semantic quality is abandoned, and language instead becomes an ecstatic extension of the music itself. In general, the prominence of the human voice is reduced. To that point, Russian Circles’ bassist Brian May recently said
“So much vocal-forward music is about identifying or relating to a persona that’s being projected at you. And more and more, I find that is a handicap rather than an asset to a lot of music" (Peters).
Conclusion
Although the majority of the formative bands in the post-metal seascape got their start in the late 80’s, it is interesting to note that the term “post-metal” was first coined in 1994 when Saturn was in Pisces and these artists were hitting their stride (Wiederhorn). However, unlike my study of black metal and Aquarius, it's much harder to find a moment when the genre was concretized, perhaps sheerly due to its inherent diffuse nature.
At the very least, it's worth noting that the mid-90's marked a huge turning point for metal. In the wild heyday of “alternative music,” greater hybridity between genres became the norm. Now, it’s not uncommon for contemporary artists like Downfall of Gaia or Conjurer to amalgamate sludge, black, post-hardcore, and crustpunk. But 40 years ago, it would have been unheard of. As heavy metal continues to move in a more fluid, experimental direction, we are all indebted to the pioneers of post-metal who stretched this genre’s boundaries beyond anyone’s imaginings.
Here you can find a Spotify playlist featuring many of my favorite songs across the broad world of post-metal, including many of the artists mentioned above. There are genre staples like Pelican and Russian Circles (both from my hometown of Chicago) as well as newcomers such as Russia's Show Me A Dinosaur and Ohio's If These Trees Could Talk. Enjoy!
Bibliography
Anthony. “Manilius, Neptune, and the Fishes.” Seven Stars Astrology, Seven Stars Astrology, 7 Mar. 2018, https://sevenstarsastrology.com/manilius-neptune-and-the-fishes/.
Holmes, Pete Holmes. “You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes #360: Philip Jamieson.” The Nerdist, Apple Podcasts, 29 Mar. 2017, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/philip-jamieson/id475878118?i=1000383266505.
Peters, Austin and Tom Conway, directors. Russian Circles | Audiotree From Nothing. YouTube, Audiotree, 9 Mar. 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_oYQnv4Bsg. Accessed 20 Mar. 2023.
Reynolds, Simon. “In Praise of ‘in-between’ Periods in Pop History.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 29 May 2009, https://slate.com/culture/2009/05/in-praise-of-in-between-periods-in-pop-history.html.
St John, Colin (23 April 2009). "No bubblegum inside". Time Out. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
Wiederhorn, Jon. “A Brief History of Post-Metal.” Bandcamp Daily, Bandcamp, 19 Nov. 2019, https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/a-brief-history-of-post-metal.
