Easy Targets

"I feel
I'm seeing so clear."

Since a commenter alleged that the last post was taking on an 'easy target,' we figured that we should follow by posting about the band Anathema. We hope they will appreciate this daring form of reader interaction.

The cover features a masked figure, and the album involves many atmospheric and 'distorted' sounds. Like the later 'alternative' genre, it takes the stirring riffs of rock and such, but twists these in a darker direction. Hence, it hangs suspended in an 'inter mundia' both familiar and unfamiliar. It can seem both present and not present - like a hidden truant. In this kind of suspension, figures like the cover's eerie masked one can become effective.

Across the record, various themes are explored, and some will be more amenable to the overall atmosphere. This song is perhaps not the clearest example of this atmosphere, but its wanton and seemingly uncertain imagery of harm, being stabbed in the gut, etc., can accentuate this. It may be compared humorously to taking a pop song, altering the lyrics slightly to be about the singer harming themselves, and then forming this into an aesthetic. Songs like 'Empty' and 'Fragile Dreams,' are more fundamental to this, while songs like this serve to aid them and create a favourable atmosphere. Nonetheless, what hence occurs is akin to a musical 'third way,' an unfamiliar use of familiar themes which can hence be difficult to categorise or portray. 'Fragile Dreams' clearly portrays this with its almost light riffs accompanying depressing themes, to the point that they no longer seem to convey what is expected. Nonetheless, while eerie, this can still be limited: although it alters them, it still opts to contain elements which are more basic. It can hence be 'appreciated' for these, although it misconstrues the record completely. It might seem like a diluted form of despair, closer to the images of contentment which are expected in more popular media: hence, as assimilating and diluting these themes of heavy metal and such genres. It might even seem like dark music accompanied with more calming music as a 'safety net' to prevent the audience from going too far - which is partially accurate, and means that it 'samples' a given pathos without necessarily taking it to the extreme but uncomfortable extents that other music might. Karl Marx can also seem familiar in some ways, with their focus on the economic and association with liberal themes, but nonetheless takes this in a peculiar and unexpected direction. This still leaves plenty of lee-way for more conventional readings.

We will touch on this slightly more elsewhere, but let us attempt to clarify matters slightly. Marx is careful to construe capital as concerned primarily with economic gain, nonetheless when people mention a 'mechanical' focus on the economy they usually mean Marxism. This helps Marxism, however, which people must treat as somewhat respectable because it can seem to resemble capital. It usually only derives its revolutionary tendencies after portraying capital and making this a focus. However, this is not dramatic enough in the modern age, where people want drama from voluntarism and fighting obstacles, and the working out of the central contradictions of a system is far less dramatic and indeed leaves the author little space for anything other than a 'dry' or undramatic account. Nonetheless, a communist author who continually talks about capital instead might seem in many ways tamer. This is possibly not the intent. However,  it also means that parts of its doctrine that might get in people's way or be disruptive to a given system are often obscured, and hence it can seem overly respectable. Its 'dryness' is often the only reminder that most readers will get of these elements, otherwise it keeps itself to itself. To engage with prolonged meditations on capital can be depressing, but Marx often goes on without any 'interest' in relenting. They often tend to prolonged discussion of the economic categories. This is especially grinding due to the promise - even in the author's name - of a more celebratory mention of 'communism.' Hence, the contrast of 'celebratory' sounding rock and depressive or dark themes is quite similar to the portrayal by Marx. Nonetheless, this also leads to a limiting tendency. To celebrate the soldier's gun being aimed at you, and also the struggle against this, is to get precisely nowhere - Marx does not do this, but later 'Marxism' has often sought to make peace with an invasive system that seeks to break it down.

Anathema's album has an eerie cover and slightly mechanical, unexplained name, and its music can often be described in 'eerie' in its superimposing of dark themes over more stirring music. Something might seem 'off' about this combination, or the distortion of one form of music into something quite different, nonetheless it remains in this condition. Hence, it all adds up into a potentially haunting piece of work, at least in its better moments. While it could be developed further, it already has a certain edge to it. Marx, likewise, wrote the book known as 'Das Kapital' named after the highest aspiration of the economic system - by contrast to which it must seem 'tiring' to many readers. It even has the temerity to criticise this. It's often dismissed by now, from 'left' to 'right.' Yet due to more offensive tendencies arising later this 'offensive' nature of the book is obscured - it is treated as simply a 'dead' thing, while of course it freely takes the society's objects of aspiration and rails at them. The fears of the West tend to concern precisely that kind of thing, from 'dystopian' literature to 'Islamophobia' and the attack on Islamic nations. Hence, Marx already contains an offensive tendency, which will be developed by later movements. 'Anathema' are also capable of taking quite celebratory music and distorting it, in a quite serious manner ultimately. I trust that our commenters will complain, 'Well, yes, but look at Anathema's hurt feelings! Being Anathema must make them fragile, but now their feelings are hurt! This is an outrage and we should rise against this kind of thing.' Well, fie on you, disheartened commenters. Fie!