Chthonics: Travelling Through Death on Black Metal's Wings

The second section addresses three engagements with music and death through the alternative popular music subgenre of black metal. The voices included here offer chthonic journeys into the black of black metal and the abyss of being; screams from the other side that embody death, dying and liberation are illustrated by the sonic representations of those mystical deaths. Black metal is the sound of the void and when one undertakes not only an aural odyssey into its gloomy depths but also experiences a subjective transformation by and through the music, the truths that reveal themselves are nothing short of revelations.

The three contributors offer intersectional responses to the ways in which death and dying are represented through black metal's unflinching engagement with the existential nature of death. Each voice stands head-on at the altar of black metal and offers interdisciplinary analyses and experiences of music and death.