born cold

a c o l l e c t i o n. especially in the more traditional metal realms, veganism and the fight for animal rights are still often ridiculed and looked down upon. i assembled this little list of songs a few years back for a german magazine, to show that you don’t have to be a small vegan straight-edge hardcore band or a ‘hipster metal band’ to address these issues and stand up for your beliefs. this list contains songs by mainstream artists from metal & core genres, some of them even with a more conservative fan base. in my opinion, this just proves once more that treating the life around you with respect and kindness is not a matter of political views but of basic human decency. which songs would you add? . . . #veganstraightedge #hardcore #metalcore #grindcore #deathmetal #doommetal #thrashmetal #animalliberation #heavenshallburn #earthcrisis #napalmdeath #archenemy #megadeth #cattledecapitation

a c o l l e c t i o n. the personal is political. art is political. music is political. yes, even black metal is political – and we have to stop pretending it’s not. for far too long now, people have been able to celebrate and spread fascist ideas through black metal, often disguising their bs as ‘apolitical’. it’s sad that whenever i talk to people outside this scene, they automatically associate black metal with racism, homophobia and violence. it’s sad that i have to research every new band i discover to see if they’re sketchy. as far as i can see, there’s two options: surrender the scene to right-wing scum – or fight back. here’s a short list of artists who chose to do the latter and who you should support if you want to do the same. disclaimer: i feel there’s a difference between a band made up of left-wing people and a band that has an explicitly left-wing message. that’s why you can’t find for example wolves in the throne room or various bands signed to vendetta records on this list – i just never perceived them as political bands, though i love them and i’m sure they personally believe in the same values as i do. . . . #blackmetal #fucknsbm #rabm #anarchism #antifascist #communism #anticapitalism #cascadianblackmetal #crustpunk #warmetal

a c o n v e r s a t i o n. when talking about @dehnsora , it’s quite hard not to go into raptures. to put it bluntly: i think he’s the closest you can get to being a genius without becoming pretentious. you might have seen his work on the album covers of trailblazers like blut aus nord, in the woods… or code. you might know him as a member of the church of ra. you might have experienced the beautifully nightmarish dark ambient soundscapes of his project treha sektori. with his new throane ep ‘une balle dans le pied‘ – a single-track exorcism through doom, industrial and black metal – and the first album ‘fields of fire’ of his post-metal band @ovtrenoir coming up, it seemed like a good time to ask this prolific artist some questions – and as usual, he answered with a level of humbleness and thoughtfulness you can only achieve through a lifetime of fighting your way through a never-ending sea of self-doubt. swipe through the gallery to read. . . . #dehnsora #churchofra #trehasektori #throane #ovtrenoir #borncoldmag #interview #darkambient #blackmetal #industrialmusic #doom #doommetal #noisemusic #frenchblackmetal

a g u i d e l i n e. black metal and me, we have a complicated relationship. it’s draining to love a genre that you constantly have to be wary of. coming from a punkrock and hardcore background, it continues to shock me how much tolerance big parts of this scene offer to racist and fascist mindsets. and it doesn’t make sense to me. you can read why in the slides above. i just want to add: racism, nationalism and fascism don’t belong in any kind of music, anywhere. but since people like to tell you that black metal is in its nature right-wing (just like they like to tell you that all hiphop music has to be homophobic and misogynistic), i just wanted to point this out. don’t let anybody tell you that hateful and discriminating ideologies are or should be at the core of any genre of music. it is not true and it is our duty to fight this shit in art and culture just as much as anywhere else in society. . . . #metal #blackmetal #fucknsbm #rabm #endracism #equality #antifa #antifascist

a g u i d e l i n e. in the last few weeks, i had more discussions than ever with my cis-male friends and colleagues about the state of the metal and hardcore scenes when it comes to discrimination. some seem to be really surprised about the fact metal and especially hardcore are not as open-minded as they thought. those of you i ask to take a look around at shows: how many women, people of color or members of the lgbt+ community do you see on and off stage? not many. and do you think this very small number is an accident? no. there is structural racism, sexism, homo- and transphobia in metal and hardcore – and it needs to change. many times, my cis-male friends and colleagues then ask me what we can do to eliminate e.g. sexism in the scenes, with a mixture of helplessness and ignorance. as if this problem is completely invisible to them, as if it is not theirs but mine to take care of. because i feel this topic gets not addressed nearly as much as it should, i wrote down some basic ideas that i think might be a good start. there’s a lot more to do and i sincerely hope that there will be more actions from the people involved in these scenes. (side note: i do believe that many of these issues and potential solutions apply to other genres/society at large but metal & hardcore are the two microcosms i’m most familiar with.) . . . #metal #hardcore #feminism #sexism #racism #homophobia #transphobia #blacklivesmatter #believesurvivors #endracism #equality

a c o n v e r s a t i o n. black metal is, at its core, rebellion. it’s breaking the rules. it’s challenging the status quo. nevertheless, somewhere along the way, the genre turned into this weird paradox where some of the most provocative things you could do are being female, of color, queer or left-wing. so, what’s more rebellious and therefore black metal than being a feminist, anarchist, queer band in this environment? @feminazgultheband are all that, and more: they combine an atmospheric, nature-worshipping brand of us black metal à la @thetruepanopticon with the political ambition of rabm poster boys @dawn_rayd and a level of right-wing trve elite trolling that acts like @neckbearddeathcamp_official and gaylord have established. (plus also, obviously some tolkienism – which traditionally is black metal as fuck.) if you know me, you probably have heard me rave about feminazgûl and their incredibly empowering message more than once ever since i first discovered their debut ep ‘the age of men is over’ in 2018. a few months ago, they released their first album ‘no dawn for men’ and i’m thrilled that i finally had the chance to ask vocalist @lavra.beach and mistressmind & multi-instrumentalist @margaretkilljoy some questions. swipe through the gallery above to read their thoughts. . . . #feminazgul #blackmetal #rabm #redanarchistblackmetal #interview #borncoldmag #anarchism #feminism #usbm

#theshowmustbepaused

a l o v e l e t t e r. when we speak about the best and essential @neurosisoakland records, we usually mean the era of ‘souls at zero’ to ‘a sun that never sets’. these records would not exist without ‘the word as law’, though. released on june 1 1990 and celebrating its 30. anniversary today, the second neurosis album serves as a rough blueprint for the experimental and expansive realms the band would explore in the years that followed and shows a group of artists slowly finding their own strength. it’s a sociocritical manifest of frustration with modern life, an introspective, massive elegy about being a slave to the system. swipe through the gallery above to read about why ‘the word as law’ should not be underestimated when looking at neurosis’ oeuvre. photo: DR / CC BY-SA (/licenses/by-sa/4.0) . . . #neurosis #neurosisband #thewordaslaw #borncoldmag #postmetal #sludge #sludgemetal #hardcore #hardcorepunk #experimentalmetal #avantgardemetal #scottkelly #stevevontill

a c o l l e c t i o n. happy(?) #worldgothday! i fell in love with the goth culture rather late in my life – but all the harder. the way these artists express being alien to this world and being in love with the shadows is just pure magic. it’s a fantastic realm of sights and sounds that shaped so much of what was to come. i can still hear it everywhere, i can see versions of it in young acts like pale waves, yungblud or even billie eilish. making this list was easy and hard at the same time. because there are endless possibilities. because what is the ‘goth sound’, after all? is it the cold post-punk of joy division? the wild shrieks of nick cave, the dramatic opulence of fields of the nephilim or the ethno-wave of dead can dance? for me, as usually, the answer lies in between. i could go on and on about the importance of a variety of acts from sisters of mercy to xmal deutschland to killing joke and the cult… but instead (for now), i chose to look inwards for the records that are closest to my little black heart to create this subjective but basic little list. i surely will write more about these artists and albums at another time. what are your favorite goth records? . . . #goth #gothic #gothrock #postpunk #darkwave #newwave #80s #80smusic #joydivision #siouxsiesioux #siouxsieandthebanshees #bauhausband #bauhaus #christiandeath #rozzwilliams #thecure #cocteautwins #nickcave #nickcaveandthebadseeds #thebirthdayparty #thedamned #iancurtis #borncoldmag

a l o v e l e t t e r. very few artists have over the course of my adulthood become as important to me as @treznor . there hardly ever passes a day on which i don’t listen to at least one of his songs. i don’t like picking ‘favorite bands’ but @nineinchnails would surely be on that list. one of my friends always tells me that he prefers skinny puppy over nine inch nails because he doesn’t like trent reznor’s first-person narrative. for me, it is the magic key to it all: reznor lets you in without barriers and diversions as he conceptually reflects, dissects, rejects this world through his inside. ‘a lot of darkness i felt in my head was coming back at me through the speakers’, he said, inducting the cure into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2019 – and i couldn’t find better words to describe what nine inch nails (or the cure, for that matter) mean to me. today, on his 55. birthday, swipe through the gallery above to read my little homage to one of the greatest minds in alternative music. photos: Rik Goldman/CC BY-SA (/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), Universal Music Group, Christina Wenig . . . #trentreznor #nineinchnails #industrialrock #industrial #alternativemusic #atticusross #allblackeverything #blackandwhitephotography

a c o n v e r s a t i o n. berlin-based label @vendettarecs have introduced me to many of my favorite german black metal bands. so when they put out the debut ep ‘to abide in ancient abysses’ by a band called @naxenbm in late 2018, i obviously listened – and fell for it immediately. there is a level of despair and pain to this music walking a tightrope between extensive atmosphere and nihilistic bleakness that resonate deeply with my soul, i remember listening to these two songs for hours on repeat while travelling. naturally, i was really excited when naxen announced their first album ‘toward the tomb of times’, and quite blown away when hearing the great progress they’ve made in terms of songwriting and sound since the release of their ep. on a professional as well as personal level, it’s a wonderful experience talking to the minds behind the music you love and feel a sincere connection and mutual understanding of things, as was the case here. that’s why i’m especially happy to present this conversation with singer, songwriter and guitarist l.n. as the first born cold interview. swipe through the gallery to read. also, find naxen‘s latest song release in my playlist. link in bio. photos: @voidrevelations & @ben_zodiazepin . . . #vendettarecords #naxen #naxenbm #blackmetal #germanblackmetal #allblackeverything #borncoldmag #interview #undergroundmusic #ultha #watain #usbm #sunworship

a n i n t r o d u c t i o n. i believe in the power of stories and i believe in the truth that music is more than just sound. but working as a music journalist for different magazines, i often reach the limits of the stories i can tell and how i can tell them on various levels. this is why this channel exists. this is mine. born cold will be my outlet for writing about artists that i love. some of them will be more mainstream, some of them will be more underground. some of them will be from the metal realm, others will play hardcore or post-punk or darkwave or avantgarde. ultimately, i want this to be a place without labels and pigeon-holes. because they don’t matter. what matters is all feeling. i hope you’ll join me on this journey and find something you like along the way. stay cold, c.