Dystopia & Eckhart Tolle

Some years ago I was really into metal. I wrote a fanzine about it, put on bands I liked and travelled around the country screaming into a microphone for two bands. Metal was pretty much all I ever thought about. If someone didn't like metal then they were a dickhead. Other music was generally shit to me - monotonous bullshit played by passionless twats who just wanted to make money. In my mind, metal was a pure form – played from the heart without concern for profit and fame.

Besides this skewered view, my general outlook was bleak – everything was slowly getting worse. Humanity was destined to destroy itself and the planet would have been better off if we’d never existed. The overall soundtrack to my life was screamed vocals, down-tuned guitars, bowl-loosening bass and drumming played either as fast as humanly possible or as slow as humanly possible. The lyrics I wrote and shouted into microphones in the grindcore and sludge bands I fronted were embittered and misanthropic. I thought I‘d developed all these pessimistic feelings throughout my life and venting them onstage was a catharsis.

Using my unwavering passion for metal, I created Load of Noise fanzine so that I could use it to further a fledgling career in music journalism. A perk of this was receiving free music and gig tickets. A friend had introduced me to Dystopia a few years earlier and their track ‘Stress Builds Character’, particularly struck a chord with me…the first line of the song is: ‘Life is swell, now I want to die’. Now that could easily be seen as some teen angst type of lyric but if you hear it, you know he’s not fucking around. My actual life was more or less fine but I felt emotionally numb and my mind had become a very dark place. Seeing only the negative in everything can gradually imprison a person in their own psyche.Then something really important happened. I was sent a copy of Dystopia’s new album to review in the zine. I placed it in the CD player and the first track ‘Now and Forever’ began. The band had decided to use a sample throughout the first three minutes of the song. 

The sample was taken from the audiobook of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. I had never heard of the man before, but the words he was speaking immediately grabbed my attention: ‘So anyone who is identified with their mind and therefore disconnected from their true power, their deeper self rooted in being, will have fear as their constant companion…Are you always trying to get somewhere other than were you are? Is most of your doing a means to an end? Is fulfilment always just around the corner or confined to short lived pleasures?...Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear, are caused by too much future and not enough present – guilt, regret, resentment, sadness, bitterness and forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough present.’ Needless to say, I was quite familiar with all of those feelings.

Something about Tolle’s voice and the fact that I’d never heard anyone talk about feelings being directly related to time perception in such a way really got through to me. Various aspects also appealed to the misanthrope in me: ‘You may win ten-million dollars, but that kind of change is only skin-deep, you would simply continue to act out the same conditioned patterns in more luxurious surroundings. Humans have learned to split the atom – instead of killing ten or twenty people with a wooden club, one person can now kill a million just by pushing a button – is that real change?’

I searched the sentences online and downloaded the audiobook of The Power of Now. Soon after doing this, my life changed. All the pessimism and misanthropy that’d been sapping my energy just fell away – a near-tangible psychological weight just dissipated. Incredible. I understood how my mind had been working against me for all the years before. I was excited, rejuvenated. The by-product of this was unfortunate in terms of my previous goals. I no longer felt such a strong identification with metal. I still loved the music but I no longer defined myself by it. Whereas before I saw being onstage as a catharsis – I now felt as though getting onstage and screaming misanthropic lyrics was actually making my feel worse by reliving the state of mind of the lyrics.

Other areas of my life improved dramatically and I found myself listening to many other music genres and getting a lot out of them. Just to clarify, I have not become some spiritualist metal-hater – I don’t accept everything in The Power of Now as fact – it was just a massive help at a time when I needed a different perspective.

Wall of Sleep Album Trilogy Part 3 of 3

Guest writer: Ben Shaw (he Shaw loves riffs)

Sometimes when a band undergoes an explosion of creativity over the course of a number of years, usually under five, the last album they produce in that period is remarkable. Much like Vol.4 by Black Sabbath was a creative apex for the Brum doom-lords, as is ..And Hell Followed with Him by Wall of Sleep.

It would appear on this album that WOS have become road-hardened and focused into a riff/groove/doom machine. The opener ‘Buried 1000 Times’ feels so familiar and true that on the first listen there’s almost a sense of symbiosis between what you want and what you hear. It’s a stunning way to open the album and has a rhythmic gallop that brings to mind warhorses and their riders plunging into forlorn charges.

There is a tangibly more positive vibe on this album - gone are the slow-churning grim festivals of ‘Slow But Not Dead’ in place of expansive and epic sounds. If the history of WOS was a Warhammer 40k battle report (stay with me!) then this album is surely the band amassing their victory points and singing hails of glorious triumph to their chosen Gods . Talking of which, there is a definite Christian vein running through this album, which in many ways adds to the mysticism. I’m not sure whether Biblical tales have just been used as a source of lyrical inspiration or are genuinely sincere, but either way it enhances the sound and never preaches, which is nice.

‘Nails for Crucifixion’ is a fine example of this. Much like Iron Maiden’s ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’, the story of Jesus is perfectly soundtracked with epic riffs that imbue the tale with a heroic majesty, which I’m sure J.C. would appreciate.

‘November’ is a groove-laden ballad-esque chug machine. It has a sequence of harmonies that are orchestral and heavy, a combination which your neck responds to instantaneously. You find yourself rocking out and thinking, ‘surely these mega-riffs must run out eventually, I mean I’ve been through three albums so far and they just keep coming!’ Your doubting mind is set at ease with the opening refrains of the outro combo of ‘Signs’ and ‘Sabbat Mater’, the latter being a slowed down doom monster that is somehow uplifting, which is confusing to say the least. ‘Signs’ was the first track I heard off this album, and to be honest, I listened to it far too much. I just couldn’t believe the intro riff; had WOS penetrated my mind and written a riff to my exact specifications?! The only conclusion I could reach was ‘Yes’. Nowadays the song doesn’t have the impact it used to, as I mentioned earlier - I killed it, but I implore you, fine reader, to give it a listen to hear the template of Riff Ascendancy.

All in all I think this is the best WOS album. It is consistently powerful and has moments of genuine genius. However, much like the song ‘Signs’, I’ve listened to it that much that it’s lost all meaning. Just like the desensitisation of watching too much internet filth. However, when I experience these alarming feelings I dig out Sun Faced Apostles or Slow But not Dead and put ‘I Sleep’ on or ‘The River’, because not only have WOS amassed an imposing back catalogue of mega-riffs, they have also developed throughout their albums which lends a variety to their material seldom seen nowadays.

As a tribute I don’t feel that these three pieces of writing do justice to the way I felt when I first heard the riffs of ‘Sun Faced Apostles’ (the song).I’ll give describing it a crack, as it’s essentially the point of me writing this and writing a conclusion that basically states my failure isn’t at all satisfying!

I’ll set the scene: I’d been given the CD by Lord of Load of Noise Dr Pete Worth, and was instantly attracted to the name. A Black Sabbath reference I thought, these guys surely cannot be ultra-mega shit-balls. When the opening refrains of ‘Sun Faced Apostles’ floated out of the speakers like a melting glacier fuelled by the purest sunlight, my eyes widened, my heart rate increased and I sat completely transfixed. Carried on the waves of riffs I was completely still, focused totally on the music I was hearing. As the outside world melted away a deep sense of joy began to fill my stomach, rising to my chest, a broad smile filing my face. I wanted to be able to play the riffs, but it was too soon. I listened to the track again, this time noticing the underlying harmonies of the opening riffs, and then the riff that accompanies the solo. The riff that accompanies the solo is beautiful. I was reeling, I had to tell people what had just happened, more pressingly I had to write a review of album, but as DR Worth well knows, this went on the back burner (Sorry!).

I don’t feel like I’ve said enough. I feel I’ve said too much. Have I set the tone right? Have I been too whimsical? So many questions, to which there is one answer in life; RIFFS! Wall of Sleep have the answer.

(Many thanks to Ben for his great work on this series)