Ambergris - s/t (2014)

AMBERGRIS "Ambergris"

Year: 2014

Genre: Experimental Black Metal

Country: USA

Track List:

1. Led to a Stone Chamber
2. In the Royal Cemetery

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Ambergris are a duo (guitar/drums) from San Diego, which released their first EP in late September this year. If I understood it correctly, right now the project is on hiatus, and it isn't certain if they'll release any new material in the future. Even though Ambergris isn't an explicitly political band, at least one of its members is highly sympathetic to the RABM movement, and entirely unsympathetic to the right-wing/elitist tendencies that are so pervasive in the metal culture. If there's an ideology that motivates his interest in black metal in particular, then it's what's been called "pessimistic materialism":

"...It's certainly not an eco-anarchist or "pro-nature/anti-humanity" ideology - in fact it's almost an apparent inversion (anti-nature/pro-humanity) of such an ideology. But the inversion really is only apparent, since it shares with such an ideology (at least as far as I understand it) an anti-anthropocentrism (it seems to me that eco-anarchism, with its emphasis on human beings as the source of all natural ills, is actually rather closer to anthropocentrism), and the opposition of "a good nature to a corrupt civilization."

Pessimistic materialism recognizes class society as the other principal source of human unhappiness, but stresses that, were the elimination of class society to be achieved, men would still suffer from their biological limits and the knowledge of their insignificance in the universe. Through this fusion of class politics and pessimistic materialist philosophy, such an ideology aims to bring about the creation of a pessimistic culture for all. This music, I hope, is a contribution to the creation of such a culture.

Sorry if I ragged on eco-anarchism too much, but I want to stress my support for all the forces (bands, blogs, communities) associated with RABM, whatever their politico-ideological stripe, in their opposition to the rightist forces dominating metal culture!"

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