In a previous blog, I mentioned that there are some musical genres that are inherently geeky. The undoubted king of these is heavy metal. It’s got the two required characteristics that keep it firmly planted in the nerd domain. Firstly, it is considered by mild-mannered society to be profoundly uncool. It’s perceived as unthinking, flat-footed nonsense that trades intelligence for volume. In short, it’s the Biff Tannen of the music world.

Secondly, amongst fans it inspires near-feral devotion. For most disciples, listening to metal isn’t just something you dip into when you feel like spazzing out in your bedroom for a while. It is, in the most horribly clichéd sense of the world, a lifestyle. For some, it’s a lifestyle inherited from their parents’ love of first-generation metal (whether it be the slightly riffier 70s stuff or the unspeakably uncool metal of the 80s – a moment of silence for Motley Crue, please). For others, it’s a way of escaping the mainstream’s celebration of bland, middle-of-the-road musical offal. After all, no matter what you think of heavy metal, it’s got to be better than that prick Dido. She’s about as edgy and uncompromising as Tesco.

I like heavy metal. It even constituted the majority of what listened to between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. But I was one of the few metal fans who still had a penchant for corduroy trousers and plimsolls. I never connected with the culture that went with metal music. I like heavy metal’s inherent ludicrousness on record and on the stage, but on street level it’s a bit cringeworthy, isn’t it? If you want to scare your parents, invest in a heavy drug-habit or join a troupe of travelling sword swallowers. Wearing a black trenchcoat and some eyeliner you bought from Accessorize might have been shocking back when Enoch Powell was still making speeches, but it’s the 21^st century, man. You’re gonna have to come to terms with the fact that your parents probably don’t give a shit what you wear.

While I appreciate the bands that stick to the good ol’ fashioned metal blueprint (God bless you, Slayer), it’s the bands who sneak around the shackles of genre convention that really get me excited about the world of heavy music. Distortion has the power to convey so much, it seems a shame that so many metal bands seem content to just express anger.

Asva’s What You Don’t Know Is Frontier, a drone metal album I picked up a couple of months ago, is a great example of what can be accomplished by distortion. It’s a four-track masterpiece, swelling songs into fifteen-minute pilgrimages into texture and atmosphere. It uses distortion to paint huge landscapes and bring them vividly to life. It’s certainly not Sunday morning driving music, but if you’ve got a good set of headphones and an open mind, I’d heartily recommend it. As suggested by its enigmatic title, it’s a true exploration of sonic frontiers.

This week’s Top 5 – Metal albums that are definitely not uncool

1. The Melvins, Houdini
2. Mastodon, Leviathan
3. Kyuss, Blues For The Red Sun
4. Tomahawk, Tomahawk
5. The Blood Brothers, Burn, Piano Island, Burn