Watain: Swedish Black Metal as Ritual Theatre

Sat, 27 Apr 2024 09:00:00 +0000

You smell a Watain show before you see it. The band are famous for dousing their stage and sometimes their gear in rotting animal blood, and the stench travels — through the barrier, into the pit, up into the balcony. It is deliberate, it is disgusting, and it is the single most honest piece of stagecraft in extreme metal, because it forces the audience to physically share the thing the music is about: death, decay, ritual, the deliberate breaking of the comfortable. Whatever you think of Watain, and there is a great deal to think, they mean it.

Swedish Black Metal on vo.rs

Watain: Swedish Black Metal as Ritual Theatre