Review: Reaching Into the Outer Darkness, A Closer Look at Bedeiah’s ‘Loving Conviction’
Note: If you want to get straight to the review itself, just scroll down several paragraphs.
There is no place where light cannot penetrate the darkness, no matter how deep, no matter how real, no matter how far gone. Christian faith, from its beginnings, has always had a way of taking aspects of culture and baptizing them, so to speak, transforming them. Of course, this has annoyed some to no end, the kind of persons who still cannot wrap their heads around the fact that Christians can and do play heavy metal, especially and very specifically, black metal. Ironic, considering that black metal has always made use of Christian imagery and themes, even if it mocks and inverts them.
But there is one subgenre of black metal that, one would think, would remain outside the scope of Christian artists in the black metal genre (outside of war metal, as I’ve noted). It’s the very bottom of the black metal iceberg or close to it – the style known as DSBM, or more commonly as depressive black metal. A subgenre that peels back the theatrical layers of black metal and reveals a nihilistic, misanthropic heart, DSBM is about as disturbingly realistic as it gets. Forget images of overgrown goats trampling crosses or corpse-painted hordes in the woods – DSBM’s lyrical and visual obsession is one that hones in on and exalts feelings of depression, isolation, and often enough (but not always), self-loathing and self-destruction, coating it all in horrific, raw and realistic imagery. So, you might be wondering, why on earth am I writing about it for a Christian metal magazine? As Tertullian once quipped, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”
Good question. DSBM, despite its harsh dissonance and extreme lyrical themes, visuals and even horrifying live antics, is a genre that is, tragically, much more popular than you might want to believe it is. Bands like Shining and Xasthur are almost mainstream at this point, and acts as diverse as Nortt and None, though differing in their sonic output all share common themes of existential self-loathing and misanthropic nihilism. In short, it’s out there and it’s not as underground and fringe as one would expect. But believe it or not, a few Christian artists are shining a light into this world with their take on the sound, too.
St. Sophrony of Essex, a modern saint for us Orthodox, once said, “You may be certain that as long as someone is in hell, Christ will remain there with him.” Even in the darkest depths, even at the furthest frontiers of despair, the hope and love of God are present, even if it is simply in the fact that Christ co-suffered for us. Remember, our Lord Himself said that “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38); in becoming like us in all ways but sin, He felt every last drop of sorrow we could ever feel and made it His own. As Metropolitan Kallistos Ware so wonderfully stated – “Such is the message of the Cross to each one of us. However far I have to travel through the valley of the shadow of death, I am never alone” (The Orthodox Way, ch. 4).
And so, I think in that spirit, some have taken up the mission of reaching out to those who are lost in this kind darkness in particular – bands like Morkerod, Euangelion, Within Thy Wounds and Sanctified Ethos, but most importantly, a little known black metal act from Arizona called Bedeiah. You’ll find me touching on this concept often – speaking in a language the audience will understand – and you’ll hear it again here. Yes, Christian artists playing a depressive black metal style do exist, and I’ve no doubt that their existence causes all kinds of controversy on both sides of the metal spectrum. The sound is the same, in many ways, but the message, while acknowledging the reality of loss, emptiness and despair, points to an outcome of hope in spite of it all; that there is a way out of the darkness, and that way is not self-destruction, but self-transformation and rebirth in Christ. Do I still have some reservations about the Christian take on the style, personally? Certainly – I think one should approach this kind of music with great discernment and care. Do I think it’s important to talk about it? Absolutely. If you’ve made it this far into the review, you’ve got stamina, and I appreciate it. Okay, let’s get to it.
Unless someone can prove me wrong, Bedeiah seems to be the first Christian black metal band to deliberately explore and play music in the DSBM style. Fronted by one-man, F.A. Monje, I believe he was the first to coin the term “anti-depressive-suicidal black metal.” As Monje himself wrote about his latest release, Man of Sorrows, “The objective of this release is to share the gospel and God’s love with those who are suffering from depression and might be contemplating suicide…There is more to life than what our eyes see and there is a real loving God who has a purpose for your life.” And so it is. Bedeiah has released several records over its over 20-year existence – a full-length album entitled Blood Metal, a lost demo, and three EP’s: Man of Sorrows, Crucifixion, and the one we’ll be focusing on here, Loving Conviction.
Loving Conviction, released only on cassette, sounds as distant as a lost transmission from a forgotten crypt on another planet. Lo-fi in the extreme, it begins simply with what sounds like a field recording from hell overlaid with distortion. The modus operandi is roughly the same throughout the record, despite a surprising variance in song structures – hideous raspy sneers, guitars that sound like frost accumulating on your window, and buried choral synths that tug on the heartstrings, while the drums sound like a faint pulsing in the background. This is as underground as it gets.
Despite it sounding all quite repetitive, it’s not as Transilvanian Hunger-ish as you might assume it to be. While tracks like “Damned” and “To the Unholy” sound much like you might expect – flowing, icy and continual – “Confused Anguish” kicks into a kind of blackened death/doom style. While it’s not my favourite, “Unblackend (Damned Reprise)” offers a brief, keyboard-driven respite in the record’s middle, and the beautiful “Pass Away” is a simple clean guitar riff that closes off the album. All of that said, it has to be “Remission of Blood” that remains the band’s most iconic track (perhaps, Monje agrees – it was re-recorded on the 2017 Man of Sorrows EP with the help of Thomas Eversole of Orationem and Fire of Elgibbor/Fire Throne et al.) – a stream of cobweb-thin, forlorn black metal as cold as dry ice, all driven by a melancholic synth-choir in the background. It’s unforgettable stuff.
Though Arizona’s Bedeiah would later release more material after 2006’s Loving Conviction, in my view, this remains the band’s definitive statement.Perhaps only a select few will enjoy it or find it even remotely appealing, but that’s no surprise to anyone, I’m sure. For myself, I can only applaud Monje’s pioneering work in this regard. Depressive black metal is a hard genre to approach from a Christian worldview, especially if one is maintaining the stylistic tenets of the genre, but somehow Monje and his work under the Bedeiah name managed to pull it off and bring a gospel torch into perhaps the darkest corner of the black metal world.
Though physical copies have long since vanished, you can still get a digital copy of the album from Bedeiah’s official Bandcamp page here.
For Fans Of: Xasthur, Abdijah, Leviathan (early), Vomoth, Duister Maanlicht, Herfstdood
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