Today, history is institutionalised as an academic discipline in its own right.¹ Mainly starting from universities in Germany and Europe, the institutionalisation and professionalisation of the discipline encompass a history of more than two hundred years. Throughout this history, there has been a key question: can we learn from the past through professional historical research? To this day, this is a key question in historical theory and the philosophy of history.² Many answers to the question have been presented, but there is no consensus until today. Perhaps it is logical that no agreement exists yet because the discourse surrounding this question remains unfinished. History is itself an open-ended process of culture. Repeatedly, arduously and in small steps, our shared knowledge of the past must be linked to our changing vantage points in the present. As time moves on, the past moves on as well.

These brief remarks on historical theory were intentionally placed at the beginning of this chapter on the metal sub-discourse of ‘Mesopotamian metal’, which includes bands like Absu, Agga, Arallu, Bohema, Decimation, Melechesh, Svartsyn and Tiamat.³ Mesopotamian metal is a sub-discourse and substyle of metal music, specifically extreme metal music, which deals with the history of ancient Mesopotamia mainly thematically. Sometimes labels like ‘Sumerian metal’ are also used. Crucial here is the reference to ancient times in this region of the Middle East. There is no strict separation from other substyles of Middle Eastern-themed metal music by bands like Orphaned Land, Myrath, Salem, Distorted and Nile.⁴ Rather, this is a network of thematically closely linked discourses in which Mesopotamian metal is embedded. This chapter focuses on Mesopotamian metal because it is a lucid example for studying the role of history in metal. The question of learning from the past is at its centre.

Thematically, this metal sub-discourse is about the politics of history, of which value-oriented historical storytelling is a fundamental part. Trying to learn lessons from the culture of ancient Babylonia, this sub-style of metal proposes solutions to current conflicts, such as the conflicts in Israel or Syria. For instance, Melechesh, as a paradigmatic band in the field, discuss the past and glean insights into present conflicts in Israel.

The first section of this chapter introduces the concept of Mesopotamian metal. The most relevant bands are discussed, with Melechesh serving as our paradigmatic example, as well as their views on their focal lyrical topics and musical styles. The next part focuses on the role of history, analysing how the construction of history is undertaken in Mesopotamian metal. It is shown that this discourse promotes a certain brand of historical politics to help solve problems in the present, most of all in the conflict-rich region of the Middle East. The third part of this chapter deals with the regional and global contextual linkages of Mesopotamian metal. Connecting the linkages to two other discourses on history in metal (‘Oriental metal’ and ‘Viking metal’) adds clarity to the general role of history in metal. In summing up this argumentation, the conclusion argues that we can possibly learn from the past through metal music.

The Concept of Mesopotamian Metal

The quote was part of an interview conducted with Murat ‘Ashmedi’ Cenan in 2001 and explains the concept behind Mesopotamian metal from an artist’s point of view. Cenan is the singer and guitar player for Melechesh, a black metal band formed in Jerusalem in 1993. He is the band’s lead protagonist and songwriter, the most prominent Mesopotamian metal band. Melechesh’s concept is paradigmatic of this discourse. Musically, a ‘Mesopotamian metal sound’ is a defining marker of this metal subgenre.⁶ According to an interview with Cenan, his aim is to create such a sound by integrating ‘Phrygian scales, which are pretty much Middle-Eastern sounding’ into his songwriting.⁷ However, a thorough musical analysis of the sound of Mesopotamian metal, in general and of Melechesh in particular, is missing in research. It is important to note that Mesopotamian metal not only has its own sound, but it also has its own semiotic sphere of distinct images and textual elements. This semiotic reference to ancient Mesopotamia is defining of the subgenre. Mesopotamian metal is a subcultural discourse in which a unique paradigm is constructed, including a distinct concept of how to compose, write, perform and narrate metal music.

To give an impression of how relevant this concept is on a global scale, searching for relevant lyrical themes on the Encyclopaedia Metallum, the biggest online database of metal bands, provides a heuristic indication. Advanced searches for relevant bands worldwide in this encyclopaedia resulted in 63 band entries for the keywords ‘Sumerian’ (as in Sumerian mythology), ten for ‘Babylonian’ (as in Babylonian mythology) and nine for ‘Mesopotamia’ (as the region to which the concept refers). Hence, it is a globally relevant discourse in metal. As already stated, there is a fluidity of boundaries between Mesopotamian metal and other discourses in which historical topics are equally relevant. The concept of Mesopotamian metal is not fully fixed yet, but it has reached a general level of stability. It has cemented its distinct inventory of sounds, narratives and images of ‘Mesopotamian-ness’.

Originally hailing from Jerusalem, the extreme metal band Melechesh combine black metal, death metal and thrash metal with the mentioned Mesopotamian sounds, which in fact are sounds from Near Eastern music.⁸ Once more, one must note that a thorough analysis of this strand of metal music still represents a gap in research. Still, when listening to their tracks, a sensation and aural impression of Mesopotamian-ness is produced.⁹ This impression mainly comes from the use of folkloristic instruments. So far, Melechesh have released six full-length albums: As Jerusalem Burns … Al’Intisar (1996), Djinn (2001), Sphynx (2003), Emissaries (2006), The Epigenesis (2010) and Enki (2015). In particular, the releases in the new millennium and touring activities made the band the paradigmatic artist of Mesopotamian metal. Keith Kahn-Harris labelled the band an ‘exception’ in the Israeli extreme metal scene of the 1990s because its ‘members were of Syrian, Armenian and Palestinian Christian origin’, in contrast to the majority of this regional scene, which predominantly consisted of ‘secular Israelis of Jewish origin’.¹⁰

For Melechesh, the Near Eastern region and its history are the central topics the band addresses. Their music is a discussion of the region’s conflict-rich past and present.¹¹ Even the band’s name integrates two words of Hebrew and Aramaic origins: melech can be translated into English as ‘king’; esh means ‘fire’ – thus, the band’s name means ‘king of fire’. Cenan comes from Syrian and Armenian ethnic backgrounds. So, as is the case with many artists from the regions, multiculturalism and migration experiences are parts of his biography.¹² Although the band left Jerusalem for Western Europe in 1998, the city, the wider region and its history are still the main sources of inspiration for their metal music.

Melechesh are a fitting example to study the concept behind Mesopotamian metal because all the characteristic elements of the concept appear in their music. The concept consists of the classical sounds of extreme metal, the particular sounds of Mesopotamian-ness as described by Cenan, as well as distinct images and text elements supporting the feeling of Mesopotamian-ness. Blending different languages, the lyrics to the song ‘Sacred Geometry’ (2010) illustrate the paradigmatic semiotics of ‘Mesopotamian-ness’:

The track’s historical protagonist is ‘Enlil’, who was the chief deity of ancient Sumer, and who became a major influence on the whole region’s religious discourses.¹³ The images in these intentionally fully quoted lyrics are those of mysterious ancient gods and their will for the people of the Earth. In combination with the sounds described by Cenan, this makes the concept of Mesopotamian metal complete. It is constructed as a ‘bricolage’ concept that includes an inventory of images, tales, narratives and sounds referring to ancient Sumer.¹⁴ It is held together by the mental associations between the various elements. Melechesh being only the best-known example, bands such as Absu (the United States), Agga (the United States), Arallu (Israel), Bohema (Georgia), Decimation (Turkey), Svartsyn (Sweden) or Tiamat (Sweden) are also major contributors to the subgenre. It is worth listening to some of their music to fully grasp the concept. There is a certain variety in the approaches to the topic of ancient Sumer, but as a rule, the politics of history and learning from the past form the framework of the subgenre.

The Construction of the Past and the Politics of History in Mesopotamian Metal

So far, we have considered what Mesopotamian metal is as a set of conceptual ideas. For this concept, the distant past of ancient Sumer as a supposed cradle of civilisation between 6,000 BC and 2,000 BC provides the defining theme.¹⁵ It is not possible to give a broader picture of the respective history in this chapter, but the notion of ‘Mesopotamian’ is a marker for a time more than four thousand years ago. In the subgenre, historical storytelling is the core mechanism. This means that Mesopotamian metal, or Sumerian metal, is a discourse in which the very distant past is constructed in a specific way in the present. The past becomes part of the present. Historical storytelling in metal is always ‘presentist’ in this way. Through this construction process, it is connected to the values and perspectives of the modern world we live in. Similarly, Mesopotamian metal also encompasses the politics of history.¹⁶ The history of ancient Sumer is told under the auspices of an ethos that is promoted through it. On the one hand, this is the classical ethos of metal. On the other, these are liberal social values, which promote the peaceful coexistence of different ethnic groups in the Near East in particular and in the whole world in general. This brand of the politics of history comes with the specific methods of historical construction in Sumerian metal, analysable in the case of Melechesh.

The construction of the past takes the form of a culturally ‘hybrid’ method of historical storytelling. ‘Hybridity’ is a key concept of recent cultural history and postcolonial studies.¹⁷ Research in these fields has shown that any forms of identities, including the Mesopotamian-ness identity in Mesopotamian metal, are constructed from different sources. They are always hybrid combinations of cultural facets from various sources, and hence they are not natural. They change over time. Being aware of this fact, Cenan uses and combines different narratives of Middle Eastern history to create and construct a distinctive version of history. Hailing from the conflict-rich cultural landscape of Israel and Jerusalem, his specific construction of the past and his politics of history reflect these conflicts. In all of this, Cenan’s main strategy is to put the local elements into the framework of ‘Western’ extreme metal music. How exactly does this happen in Mesopotamian metal?

Mesopotamian metal employs the imagination of historical distance to create a new cultural sphere. In the concept of Sumerian metal, sounds, images, texts and practices from ‘Western’ and Near Eastern sources are combined to build up such a hybrid construction. This only works because these fragments are being presented as historical – they refer to the long-ago past of Sumer. This is what the Mesopotamian-ness is all about. The construction of the past in this metal subgenre is the imagination of a distant past, and this enables the construction of the promoted kind of politics of history – a suggested peaceful coexistence of ‘multiple truths’, as in a Melechesh song with the eponymous title ‘Multiple Truths’ (2015):

In these lyrics, we see the full scope of the semiotics of Mesopotamian-ness. The crucial lines for the imagination of historical distance are: ‘Shipwrecked in the sea, Of confusion, Abstract of religion, It’s all lies, Multiple truths’. Melechesh use the setting of ancient Sumer in a critique of the religious sphere as experienced in Israel and Jerusalem. According to Melechesh, the tolerance inherent in the acceptance that there are generally always multiple truths perfectly encapsulates their brand of politics of history. They promote liberal social values in metal music. This type of politics of history and its relevance in metal music can be evaluated better if we compare them to other discourses on history in metal.

The Bigger Picture: Related Discourses on History in Metal

Mesopotamian metal is not the only discourse in metal grounded in history. On the contrary, since the first days of metal, historical topics have been popular with fans and musicians alike.¹⁸ Several classic metal songs from the 1980s like Iron Maiden’s ‘Alexander the Great’ (1986) (about the historical figure) and ‘Invaders’ (1982) (dealing with the Nordic invasion of Britain in the Middle Ages), or even earlier from the 1970s, such as Judas Priest’s ‘The Ripper’ (1976) (about ‘Jack the Ripper’), are meant to transport their listeners into the past. History and the construction of the past are a staple of metal culture, and in many cases, also the politics of history. Yet, a more comprehensive perspective on the role of history is a desideratum in metal studies. The articles on history in this Companion illustrate the need for further research. For the consideration of the role of history in metal, the interdisciplinary engagement in metal music studies with specific research by historians trained on metal is needed.¹⁹ Such forms of academic dialogue must be encouraged.

In order to broaden the perspective, it is instructive to place Mesopotamian metal in the context of other discourses dealing with history in metal. In the following, two other relevant discourses that relate to Mesopotamian metal, the roles of history, the construction of the past and the politics of history in them, will thus be considered.

The first discourse is ‘Oriental metal’. It comprises bands and music that deal with the Middle East. In academia, the debates on the term ‘Orient’ and whether this notion is a purely ‘Western’ construction coming from racism and colonialism are still ongoing.²⁰ There is an academic discourse on Oriental metal and on metal music in the Near East from a broader perspective, but there is still no consensus. Most of all, the works by Keith Kahn-Harris, Pierre Hecker and Mark LeVine are noteworthy.²¹ In these works, ‘Oriental metal’ is interpreted in relation to the dynamics of ‘localising metal’ in the Near East.²² Today, it is clear that very much like the Mesopotamian-ness in Sumerian metal, the ‘Middle Eastern-ness’ in the music of bands such as Amaseffer (Israel), Distorted (Israel), Myrath (Tunisia), Nile (the United States), Orphaned Land (Israel) and Salem (Israel) is also a discursive construction. Musically and semiotically, the label ‘Oriental metal’ describes an even more diverse and broader spectrum of bands than Sumerian metal. Basically, it means any kind of metal music in which a hybridisation of ‘Western’ and Middle Eastern sounds, folklore or topics is palpable. Once more, we see how important it is to be aware of the generally heterogeneous and constructed character of metal identities. If one looks at the function of history in ‘Oriental metal’, one discovers a rather broad spectrum of approaches. Some of the bands like Nile, or even Iron Maiden in some of their classic songs, use history as a sort of escapism. Historical settings like Sumer, Egypt or others are presented as entertaining landscapes for metal lyrics. But in some cases, such as in the case of Orphaned Land, the band exploit history in exactly the same way as Melechesh. History is used to promote a rather liberal politics of history. Not all bands’ values and perspectives are in this vein, but as a general trend, the plea for an inclusive resolution of current conflicts is dominant. History here seems to be a way to learn from the past.

Another discourse related to Mesopotamian metal is ‘Viking metal’. As the title of the subgenre indicates, the past of the Scandinavian Viking era in the Middle Ages is the central theme. Viking metal has gained broader attention in academic research.²³ Not all studies explicitly label the subfield Viking metal. Sometimes it is treated under the auspices of an analysis of folk metal and pagan metal, which blends various styles of folk music and heathen ideologies with metal, or the study of ‘Northern-ness’ in metal culture.²⁴ In this, history has quite a broad range of functions and purposes. As a source of inspiration for groups as diverse as Manowar (the United States), and to some extent Iron Maiden (UK), Enslaved (Norway) or Amon Amarth (Sweden), the Viking period is a semiotic source for identities of adventurism, escapism, heathenism, naturalism and, in some cases, also of hetero-normativism and nationalism.²⁵ The decisive point is that also in Viking metal, the construction of the past is connected to the present in terms of values and thus becomes the source of a range of politics of history. In Viking metal, the association with progressive values is not as clear as in Mesopotamian metal and Oriental metal. Often, rather conservative or even nationalist values are promoted.

If we consider the bigger picture of these three interconnected discourses on history in metal, the general function of history in metal becomes clearer. As a rule, history is constructed in the present and linked to current sets of social and political values. In Mesopotamian and Oriental metal, a distant past has the role of serving as a historical utopia or a social role model for the resolution of current problems. Also, it is often a source of escapism or, simply, entertainment. The deep connection between Oriental and Mesopotamian metal comes from their alliance in terms of the promotion of liberal social values. Finally, the question of whether we can learn from history through such constructions of an idealised past today is connected to this realm of morality and values.

Conclusion

This chapter on Mesopotamian metal explored whether we could learn from the past through listening to metal music in general and this brand of metal in particular. We now have the necessary elements at hand to give an answer to the question, though perhaps not a fully satisfying one.

Considering Mesopotamian metal (or Sumerian metal) as a unique artistic paradigm within the global network of metal cultures and scenes, as a first point, it was concluded that this concept is a set of unique sounds and semiotic sources (pictures, texts, narratives) of how metal should be. The concept is stabilised but open to adaption. At its heart are sense-making resources of references to the remote past of ancient Mesopotamia. Thus, as a second point, how the construction of this past happens in this subfield of metal was analysed. As a core mechanism, this construction happens via the imagination of historical distance. Ancient Sumer is a temporally distant place. The remoteness of this culture enables bands like Melechesh to present it as a historical utopia of peace and tolerance. Such a kind of liberal politics of history is at the concept’s centre. As a third aspect, we reflected on discourses on history in metal, which are closely interrelated with Sumerian metal. In this, ‘Oriental metal’, which in many cases strongly overlaps with Mesopotamian metal, was a logically related discourse. In it, the construction of the past and the politics of history have analogous qualities. Also in Viking metal, the imagination of historical distance is crucial. But here, the role of the construction of the past and the politics of history are less homogenous. In several cases, conservative or even intolerant views are promoted. What all three concepts have in common is a shared discursive logic in their approaches to history. The construction of the past in the present has the function of taking an ethical standpoint in the current world of metal, and sometimes even providing answers to crucial problems in this world.

The fact that the construction of the past in the present has the purpose of enabling us to reflect on the present, and sometimes even address current problems, is the central finding. For the question of learning from the past in metal music through dealing with history, this is essential. In Mesopotamian metal, the attempt to learn from the past is clear now. This attempt happens through presenting the past of ancient Sumer as the significant Other, a world of tolerance and self-reflection. This is the good side. To be sure, the attempt to promote tolerance and peace in this way can have positive effects on listeners. However, we clearly note that this has a constructed and imagined character, of which metal listeners are usually aware. The same holds true for the other discourses on history, such as Oriental and Viking metal and the role of historical topics in metal in general. In a nutshell, Mesopotamian metal creates a cultural sphere in which possible answers to current problems are constructed. These are imagined suggestions. Thus, metal fans can potentially learn from the past via critically reflecting upon these suggestions.

The act of listening to metal music itself would also need more scholarly attention. There is some phenomenological and other research on it, but it is not fully clear how metal music is taken in by listeners.²⁶ So, also from this point of view, it is important to take the ‘potentially’ seriously in the answer. In metal music studies as a growing academic field, more interdisciplinary engagement with the specific expertise of historians promises new insights. History as an established academic discipline has at its disposal the methodological and theoretical tools to understand the function of history in metal discourse. Integrating this expertise into research on how the act of listening actually occurs seems to be the next step forward.

1986 was a watershed for metal’s reception of ancient history. While the French bands Sortilège and ADX had released the songs ‘Gladiateur’ and ‘Caligula’ in 1983 and 1984, respectively, it was Iron Maiden’s ‘Alexander the Great’ (1986) that demonstrated and popularised the congeniality of antiquity to metal.¹ Alexander has since become a prolific figure therein, an archetypal ‘metal king’ and talisman of power, masculinity and tradition for artists throughout Greece and the European diaspora.² His reception was also examined by the first scholarly analyses of the appropriation of ancient Mediterranean history and culture by hundreds of metal bands across the globe.³

1986 also saw the release of the song ‘Gladiator’ by the US-American band Sound Barrier, and with it the inception of another popular ancient topic in metal, the Greek city-state of Sparta. As one of the first metal bands to consist of all Black musicians, Sound Barrier sought to disrupt the white hegemony of the genre. In ‘Gladiator’, they trace their spiritual ancestry to Spartacus, the archetypal rebel slave who challenged Rome. Ancient sources identify Spartacus as Thracian, but Sound Barrier derive his name from Sparta. Such an ethnic origin, the song suggests, explains not only Spartacus’ status as a consummate warrior but also his drive to liberate those like him from imperial oppression.

Metal’s reception of Sparta is overwhelmingly inspired by and filtered through the products of Laconophilia – the admiration of Sparta – in popular media and culture. Sparta’s symbolism of strength and defiance appeals to the traditional ethos of metal and its (counter-)culture. While many bands appropriate Sparta to celebrate their Greek or European heritage – some harnessing it for political agendas – the majority arguably see in Spartan warrior-citizens a reflection of the metal scene: the few united against the many, fighting for liberty and tradition against the forces of modernity. Spartan metal is an instructive representative of the genre’s reception of antiquity at large.

Laconophilia from Antiquity to the Metal Ages

Laconophilia in metal is but a recent example of ‘love of the Laconian’, specifically Sparta, the militarist city-state that dominated much of southern Greece from the seventh to fourth century BCE.⁴ It was during the decline and fall of Spartan supremacy that Laconophilia entered Greek intellectual thought when the Athenian Xenophon authored the earliest extant account of Spartan society at home, of not only its political constitution but also its rigorous state-run education system that forged all males who survived the eugenic scrutiny of their infancy into a citizen class of professional soldiers.⁵ Plato, who, like Xenophon, had no love for Athenian democracy, took inspiration from Sparta’s authoritarian society in his political philosophy.⁶ Four centuries later, Plutarch indulged a nostalgia for Greek glory under the Roman Empire with works on Spartan society such as the Life of Lycurgus and Sayings of Spartan Women.⁷ Laconophilia was at its origin a reaction to these authors’ respective political establishments. Such agendas should provoke scepticism of how real the Sparta of these non-Spartan admirers was, separated by space and at least a century’s time from the men who fell at Thermopylae, and there is tantalisingly little written or archaeological evidence from the Spartans themselves to paint a more accurate picture.⁸

These ancient accounts from non-Spartans form the basis of what moderns call the ‘Spartan mirage’, which spellbound philosophers, statesmen and artists throughout modern history, including Niccolò Machiavelli, Jacque-Louis David and Adolf Hitler.⁹ Most beloved by modern Laconophiliacs is the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, as recounted by Herodotus, another non-Spartan. This was an infantry engagement with the massive taskforce of Xerxes, king of the vast, multinational Persian Empire.¹⁰ In the face of his impending conquest of Greece, all but 31 city-states pre-emptively capitulated. Sparta took command of this Hellenic alliance, which designated the pass of Thermopylae as the most suitable choke-point to halt the Persian army from advancing into central Greece. Exaggerating numbers to enhance the Greek achievement, Herodotus counts Xerxes’ infantry at 1.7 million, though modern historians reduce it to around 200,000.¹¹ The Hellenic alliance sent to Thermopylae a force of 7,000. Leonidas, one of Sparta’s two kings, was constrained by religious reasons to take only his royal bodyguard of 300 Spartiates, though he also brought 1,000 hoplites of perioikoi, that is the second-class free citizens of Laconia, plus as many helots, enslaved Greeks who were regularly humiliated and even terrorised by public decree.¹² For two days, the narrowness of the pass, combined with the determination of the more heavily armed Greeks, converted Xerxes’ numerical advantage into heavy casualties. On the third day, however, the Greeks found themselves outflanked after a local Greek traitor, Ephialtes, informed Xerxes of a path through the mountains to the Greek rear. Leonidas dismissed the majority of his forces but stayed behind with the Laconian contingent plus a few hundred Thespians and Thebans, looking out for the safety of the retreating force, but perhaps also his own glory. So, they made their last stand until all perished, taking many enemies down with them. The retreating Greek forces regrouped and, with their full complement of men and ships, dealt the Persians decisive defeats at Salamis and Plataea. Greece was liberated, and the Persians never returned.

Thermopylae was remembered by ancients and moderns alike as not only a sacrificial holding action that inspired subsequent Greek victories but also a symbolic defence of liberty against tyranny, or more accurately, of political self-determination against foreign imperialism. The Spartans’ valour was first immortalised in the epitaph attributed to the poet Simonides inscribed at the battlefield: ‘Stranger, tell the Spartans that here we lie, obeying their words’.¹³ These words have been taken to be that of their law governing conduct in battle: ‘not to retreat from the battlefield even when outnumbered, to maintain formation, and to either win or die’.¹⁴

The memorialisation of this battle brought Sparta into the popular imagination in the aftermath of the Second World War. The 1940s saw Greece suffer first a Nazi occupation and then a devastating civil war that ended in the victory of the American-backed Greek Government Army over the Soviet-backed Democratic Army of Greece. The United States helped symbolise this halting of the advance of communism by funding a memorial to Leonidas and the 300 at the site of Thermopylae in 1955. In 1962, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and erection of the Berlin Wall, the Rudolph Maté film The 300 Spartans similarly suggested an analogy of Greece and Persia to NATO and the Warsaw Pact.¹⁵

For the popularisation of Thermopylae in the twenty-first century, the groundwork was laid in 1998 by Steven Pressfield’s bestselling novel Gates of Fire and Frank Miller’s comic 300.¹⁶ The latter was adapted to the silver screen by Zack Snyder in 2006, following Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) and Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy (2004) in inaugurating a renaissance of cinematic antiquity. Like the Cold War 300 Spartans, 300 (2006) was quickly contextualised in a post-9/11 America embroiled in wars in the Middle East.¹⁷ Iranians understandably condemned its orientalising and dehumanising portrayal of their Persian ancestors.¹⁸ Globally, the film was a box-office hit grossing over 450 million dollars. Its CGI-heavy bringing-to-life of the graphic novel influenced subsequent cinematography and metal music videos, such as Firewind’s ‘Ode to Leonidas’ (2016) and Ex Deo’s ‘The Final War (Battle of Actium)’ (2010). Laconophilia in popular culture has maintained its momentum in the years since 300’s premiere, including in political discourse, with American conservatives adopting the phrase molōn labe (‘come and take them’), which Leonidas allegedly replied to Xerxes’ demand that the Spartans lay down their weapons, in defence of gun rights.¹⁹

Likewise, 300 impacted Sparta’s reception in metal both profoundly and measurably. At the time of writing, a search of the Encyclopaedia Metallum for lyrics and song titles that include the words ‘Sparta’, ‘Spartan(s)’, ‘Thermopylae’ and ‘Leonidas’ renders 143 songs. The distribution by date of release strongly correlates with 300’s premiere in 2006: 24 were recorded in the decade prior to the premiere, 70 in the decade after, 22 in 2008 and 2009 alone.²⁰ 300’s influence on metal, especially its depiction of hypermasculine warriors, is not without precedent. The 1982 film Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzenegger directly inspired the hegemonically masculine imagery and sword-and-sorcery lyrics of the American band Manowar and myriad bands that followed in their footsteps.²¹ 300’s predominant and even exclusive influence in many of these songs is evident not only in album artwork, such as Sparta’s No Retreat No Surrender (2016) and Sacred Gate’s Tides of War (2013) but even more so in direct quotations of the film and deviations from the historical record. Like Manowar, Spartan metal’s focus on hypermasculinity frequently has a hypersexual and misogynistic dimension present in either film. In contrast to Manowar’s depiction of women as sexual objects, however, Spartan women, though noted for their strength and independence in the ancient sources, are almost completely invisible in Spartan metal, re-entrenching metal’s chronic exscription of women.²²

As metal is at its core a reaction to the mainstream, its appropriation of the classical world often follows suit. In recounting how he pioneered the subgenre of ‘Viking metal’, Quorthon of the Swedish band Bathory explained his preference for popular over more historically accurate accounts of the past, adopting the imagery of

Bathory, which until 1987 had been devoted to Satanic themes, set the precedent for harnessing popular conceptions of ancient and medieval history and folklore, especially elements tied to themes of masculinity, violence, sensuality and freedom, for proud expressions of cultural and national heritage.²⁴ Bands in Greece, Italy and throughout the European diaspora have also fixated on Greco-Roman antiquity as a locus of identity and as a supposedly real world where their core values as metalheads were validated and celebrated.²⁵ Much as Viking metal exchanged Satanic for historical themes, so ‘Mediterranean Metal’ channelled antipathy to Christianity by appeal to pre-Christian roots.²⁶ As was also arguably the case with Bathory, appeals to antiquity to transgress contemporary zeitgeists can also extend from concerns for the preservation and revivification of national and European heritage in the face of immigration, multiculturalism and globalism.²⁷ Spartan metal often assimilates Spartan soldiers into the very legacy of nineteenth-century Romantic nationalism that Bathory prolonged.

Chaos and Dionysus, Ares and Hades

Metal does not simply recycle popular images of antiquity but repurposes and recreates antiquity in its own image and in line with its own spirituality. In religious terms, Deena Weinstein theorises metal as a virtual ditheism of Chaos and Dionysus.²⁸ Chaos is the antithesis of order, symbolising metal’s inherent opposition to systems of social, political, religious and economic conformity and control. Dionysus, in turn, is the god of spiritual liberation of the self from the control of rationality and socially prescribed behaviours and identities, and thus the freedom to gratify one’s animal instincts.²⁹

The first metal song devoted exclusively to Sparta is the American band Stormtroopers of Death’s ‘Moment Truth’, released in 1999, a year after Pressfield’s Gates of Fire and Miller’s 300 were published. The lyrics integrate metal’s chaotic and Dionysian themes into the Herodotean narrative of Thermopylae:

The song advocates dying for liberty over submitting to slavery, reflecting the Greek belief that such was the nature of Persian rule. The will to defend personal autonomy in defiance of authority channels homicidal and suicidal instincts. The Spartans transcend bodily mutilation in their resolve, while the Persians exchange their embodied humanity for exotic dress, perpetuating ancient stereotypes of eastern men draping their bodies in ‘feminine’ dress in contrast to the Greeks, who celebrated the male body in heroic nudity.³⁰ The Persians’ superficiality negates their numerical superiority of 300,000 to 300, a figure bereft of helots and Greek allies that highlights the shared identity of the Spartans as the few against the many. The exhortation ‘Fight! F**k! Kill’, finally, advocates the total release of irrational bestial and sexual passions.

Stormtroopers of Death were only the first to view Thermopylae as a context for performing masculinity and indulging violent animal instincts to disrupt the forces of control. This is frequently illustrated not merely by appeals to the ecstasy of violence and bloodlust but also by comparisons of Spartan hoplites to animal predators, especially lions. This choice of animal may draw in part from the name of Leonidas, whom various songs call ‘Son of the lion’ (Firewind, ‘Ode to Leonidas’, 2016), ‘the Lion of Sparta’ (Holy Martyr, ‘The Lion of Sparta’, 2008) and ‘the Lion King’ (Sacred Blood, ‘Gates of Fire’, 2008). Such analogies recast this historical battle in the mould of Homeric poetry: as numerous warriors in the Iliad such as Diomedes (Il. 5.134–143), Hector and Ajax (Il. 7.255–257) are likened to lions hunting their prey on the battlefield, so the Spartans in metal to ‘[w]ild lions seeking their prey’ (Axe Battler, ‘Marching Phalanxes’, 2014) and ‘300 lions’ (Arrayan Path, ‘Molon Lave’, 2010), while in Sacred Blood’s ‘Gates of Fire’ (2008), they resemble ‘raging lions’ in their zeal to recover the corpse of their fallen king, much as Aeneas in the Iliad is compared to a lion, as he guards that of Pandarus (Il. 5.297–303).

Identifying the Spartans as predators also draws from metalheads’ common equations between themselves as wolves and the mainstream as sheep.³¹ The Persians, accordingly, and matching their depiction in 300, are not only orientalised and effeminised by their attire but also dehumanised by their own animalisation.³² They are not like the sheepish Trojans slaughtered by the leonine Diomedes, however – not prey for predators, but livestock for human butchers: ‘[s]lay them like sheep and like cattle’ (Validor, ‘To the Last Man’, 2016); ‘[w]ave after wave, butchering the pigs’ (Necronomichrist, ‘Tree of Doubt’, 2009); ‘[b]utchered like cattle’ (Battlecry, ‘Hot Gates of Hell’, 2006). The Persians also become animals that threaten humans, often reduced to a singular ‘serpent’ (e.g., The Monolith Deathcult, ‘Demigod’, 2008) or ‘beast’ (e.g., Dragony, ‘Sparta (Elegy of Heroes)’, 2011).

That more than one band rhymes ‘beast’ with ‘east’ also plays into the ancient Greek othering of eastern barbarians. According to Hippocrates and Aristotle, the subjects of the Persian kings were natural slaves, who preferred their slavery, while the Greeks were natural masters.³³ Such a dichotomy between Greek, and by extension, western liberty versus eastern slavery, is evident throughout this catalogue of songs, and even whole albums. The 2010 album Obsessed by War by the Greek band Unholy Archangel uses as its cover art a classical vase painting of a long-haired Greek hoplite subduing an exotically dressed Persian soldier (Figure 8.1). The band frequently writes songs about the superiority of Greeks in war, not only of the Spartans but of those who conquered the peoples of Asia, namely Alexander and Dionysus. True to their name, Unholy Archangel also intersperse anti-Christian themes more typical of black metal, forming a thematic unity where Christianity is seen, like the Persians, as a foreign nemesis of Hellenic culture. Like Scandinavian bands nostalgic for Vikingdom, and Italian bands for Roman glory, Greek bands like Unholy Archangel often seek to recover authentic national identity from times before, and in spite of, Christianity.³⁴

Figure 8.1 Cover artwork to Unholy Archangel’s album Obsessed by War (Kill Yourself Productions, 2010), featuring an Attic red-figure kylix from c. 460 BCE (National Museum of Scotland)

(© Elias Siatounes / Unholy Archangel)

Greek patriotism, moreover, is often expressed through the unity of the Greeks, whereby the war against Persia anticipates a Greek nationhood not achieved until the nineteenth-century war of independence against the Ottomans. The 2006 song ‘Ή τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς’ by Zemial is a notable example. Its lone mention of helots fighting at Thermopylae suggests the inclusion of Greeks of all classes, while the song ends with a quotation from Aeschylus’ play Persians (472 BCE), the famous battle exhortation taken out of the context of the battle of Salamis: ‘On you now Sons of Hellas! Free your native land; free your people, the fanes of your Fathers’ Gods and the tombs of your Ancestors. Now you battle for ALL!’.³⁵ These lines are often cited as one of the earliest expressions of panhellenism and calls for Greek unification.³⁶

Like its people, the geography of Greece is also adapted to the metal ethos. Local hot-springs gave Thermopylae its name, ‘Hot Gates’ or, more loosely, ‘Gates of Fire’, that in the Christianised paradigm within which metal traditionally operates become the gates of Hell. Indeed, the Plutarchian apophthegm ‘tonight we dine in Hades’ or, more often, ‘Hell’, is often quoted, matched in frequency to the Herodotean mention of Persian arrows blotting out the sun (both quoted in 300), thereby enshrouding the battlefield in a Stygian darkness.³⁷ Several bands play with this notion of Thermopylae as the gates to the underworld. Hollywood quotations such as ‘into Hell’s mouth we march’ communicate the Spartans’ dutiful embrace of an honourable death. In hindsight of the result of both the battle and the war, the Persians’ entry through Thermopylae symbolises both their own death and that of the Spartans guarding it. As the Greek band Macabre Omen puts it in ‘Man of 300 Voices’ (2015), ‘I shall fall into the Kingdom of Hades / And ensure I take with me, / Worthless lives of those, / Who stand in between … / The past, the present and the future’. As Thermopylae are its gates, so Greece is the underworld itself, and the Spartans are its infernal sentinels: ‘[m]any have sung / about the Gates of Fire / About the narrow way / which leads to Hell’ sings the Finnish band Lord Vicar (‘The Spartan’, 2008); ‘[n]ow they’re standing at the gates of fire, three hundred men with blood desire / Ready to die and make a stand, no one will pass through the gates of hell’ writes the Greek band Tex (‘Leonidas’, 2011). Only in death may the Persians descend to Hades, and so the Greeks symbolise death itself. The German band Sacred Gate sing, ‘[t]he Persians want to send us to Hell / But they don’t know / we are already the Styx, / a river of blood / We are Hades, / we are home now’ (‘Path to Glory’, 2013).

Contrary to realms of eternal gloom and punishment supplied by a Greek and Christian mythology, the glamorisation of Hell has been a fundamental theme in metal since the 1980s. The antithesis of chthonic and celestial gods mirrors metal’s contrariety to the social, political and religious mores of the mainstream.³⁸ In this paradigm, the Kingdom of God, with its demands of moral austerity and obedience, amounts to a system of tyranny and enslavement. The Kingdom of Satan, often syncretised with Hades, in contrast, represents the liberation from the bonds of morality and authority. It is with this mindset that several bands buy into Hollywood’s distortion, itself drawing from ancient Greek misconceptions, of Xerxes as a god-king.³⁹ In metal, Spartans are the legions of Hell fighting not merely for political liberty but also personal autonomy against the tyranny of religion. Greece as the ‘Kingdom of Satan’ thus fits into its traditional symbolism in the context of the Persian Wars as the so-called bastion of freedom.

Thermopylae is not always a conflict between atheism and theism per se, but a struggle to defend European culture from eastern gods, be they Zoroastrian or Abrahamic. In the Iliadic tradition of divine intervention on the battlefield, Zeus, Ares and Heracles are all called upon as both the allies and ancestors of the Spartan race. ‘Thunder from the sky, Gods of the Olympus / Marching by my side, Zeus Soter Nike / Ares God of War with Phobos and Deimos’ sings the Italian band Holy Martyr (‘Lakedaimon’, 2008). Like Homeric warriors in prayer, the Greek band Sacred Blood plea ‘Almighty ZEUS of eternal Olympus! / Send your thunderbolts to your sons! / Grant us with wrath to eradicate our enemies! / Crimson eyed God Ares! / Clang your sword on your shield, and let us / hear your roar!’ (‘The Defenders of Thermopylae’, 2008). The berserker Ares is elevated from the buffoonish and seldom-worshipped god of the Iliad to a patron god of metal. Such preferment signals a key conversion of the Spartans into metal warriors, with a near-total absence of the discipline, austerity and tactical cunning that was the basis of Sparta’s military success.⁴⁰ The strategy of Athena and the rationality and order of Apollo, two of Sparta’s chief gods, are exchanged for the bloodlust and madness of Ares.

Much like their counterparts who glorify the anarchic individuality of Vikings and other ‘barbarian’ warriors fighting to preserve their land and culture,⁴¹ Spartan metal songs often place Spartan strength and bloodlust in the service of something beyond the individual. The most quoted or paraphrased ancient source is the Simonidean epitaph, invariably following Cicero’s influential translation of ‘words’ (rhēmasi) as ‘laws’ (legibus).⁴² Echoing Herodotus’ words, ‘they are free but not totally free, for the law is their master’, the Spartans here place their law higher than any human authority, even that of Leonidas, who while presented as the ideal Spartan and inspiration to his men, is not the reason they chose to fight and die.⁴³ In this respect, Leonidas is different from Alexander or Caesar, who in metal songs are often the sole focus.

The epitaph, delivered in the first-person plural, plays into another prevalent theme: the achievement of kleos aphthiton, of ‘undying fame’, by being sung about first by poets and now by metal bands.⁴⁴ ‘Then and again sing of 300 men’ runs the chorus to the Swedish band Sabaton’s 2016 song ‘Sparta’. From the very first song about Spartans by Stormtroopers of Death, these warriors followed Achilles in his choice of a short life with glory over a long life in obscurity, yet through its glamorisation of Hell, they reject Achilles’ later regret that it was better to be a serf on earth than a lord in Hades.⁴⁵

Spartan Metal and the Political Right

Umberto Eco wrote that ‘the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life’.⁴⁶ Metal originated as a white, working-class phenomenon and built its identity by an antipathy to mainstream establishments. Since the mainstream is now perceived by many as globalism and multiculturalism, Laconophilia in metal may express the desire to defend a sense of heritage from these forces as an extension of an artist’s right-wing politics. One such artist is the guitarist of the American band Iced Earth, Jon Schaffer, who participated in the 2021 attack on the US Capitol. A decade prior, his side project Sons of Liberty recorded ‘Molon Labe’ (2011), which narrates Thermopylae as a thinly veiled manifesto against big government and restrictions on firearms. The Belgian band Ancient Rites provide a more subtle example. Their lead songwriter, Gunther Theys, has expressed Eurocentric views and plays in right-wing nationalist bands.⁴⁷ Ancient Rites’ song ‘Thermopylae’ is part of their 2006 album Rvbicon, whose songs combine the Spartans with the Crusaders, Julius Caesar and Arminius as touchstones of European heritage and defiance. Similarly, the German-Swiss-Austrian band Warkings embody this pan-European collective in their stage dress, under the pseudonyms Viking, Crusader, Spartan and Tribune, the latter two resembling 300’s Leonidas and Gladiator’s Maximus, respectively.

Bands with formal and sympathetic ties to the resurgence of fascism in the twenty-first century have followed the Third Reich in emulating Sparta as an ancestral and model society.⁴⁸ Two such bands, Naer Mataron and Der Stürmer, are members of the Greek far-right party Golden Dawn, which gathers annually at Thermopylae, welding torches and renewing their anti-immigrant resolve. Naer Mataron express such sentiments in their 2000 song ‘Wolf of Ions’: ‘I hold the heart and soul of an Ancient Spartan! Destroy now, the Plague from the east … I hear the voice of Leonidas, standing in the Thermopylae’. Der Stürmer reference Sparta in several songs and use a photograph of the statue of Leonidas in modern Sparta as the artwork for their 2002 EP Iron Will & Discipline. Beyond Greece, the Polish band Kataxu parallel the 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom of Kristallnacht with the Spartans’ alleged practice hurling criminals and disabled infants off of Mt. Taygetus in ‘The Manifesto of the Unity’ (2005), while the British band Spearhead promote their social Darwinist worldview by embodying the Spartans’ ritual murder of helots in ‘Wolves of the Krypteia, We’ (2018).⁴⁹ Far-right bands’ appropriation of Sparta, along with Alexander and the Roman Empire, situate metal’s congeniality to a romanticised antiquity within the wider ecosystem of right-wing groups throughout the world who remake classical civilisation in their own image.

Conclusion

Sparta in metal music, as in its reception throughout history, persists and thrives because of its adaptability. While historically rooted in Greece and adopting a peculiar system of laws, education and economics, the Spartans, and especially their last stand at Thermopylae, have a significance that, while often tied to ideology and claims of heritage, easily transcends those things and resonates with the core of metal. Though centred on musical performance, the metal scene treats feelings of social alienation and disempowerment by instilling a sense of belonging. That sense of power inspired by the music can take the form of a heroic individual or a group of heroes who overcome challenges and define their very identity as the adversary of the dominant society. With their long hair, defiant spirit and quest for immortal fame, the Spartans live on as metal heroes.

Viking metal is one of the few varieties of metal music defined by the songs’ contents and visual elements rather than sonic aspects. While a band’s music can be affiliated with folk metal, death metal or black metal, the lyrics and visual elements are clearly centred around the Viking Age, Old Norse mythology and the portrayal of Nordic nature. Time is an important feature in Viking metal lyrics and imagery and appears in the shape of a ‘past’ that can be identified as the Viking Age (793–1066 AD) or as a past that lacks a time stamp. Often without a specific description of the underlying idea, the past is frequently attributed with wisdom and continuity. It appears in song lyrics and is depicted in various scenes from a seeming past or with direct reference to the Viking Age in the cover artwork of Viking metal bands. Why is the past such an important feature of Viking metal? What other aspects are deemed important? What ideological aspects do the references to the past entail? To answer these questions, I will identify defining features of Viking metal to then analyse the connotations of ‘the past’ in Viking metal.

Features of Viking Metal

Viking metal became popular during the 1990s. Instead of dealing with Satan and the occult in their lyrics and cover artwork, numerous bands turned their focus to Norse or Nordic topics and made this idea popular. Many of the early bands were of Scandinavian origin, including the Swedish band Bathory, who, as early as 1988, released their album Blood Fire Death, which is regarded today as one of the most influential Viking metal albums and the precursor to Viking metal.¹ The album cover, lyrics and music combined Romantic nationalism with the Viking Age in the form of metal music by showing the painting Asgardsreien (1872) by the Norwegian painter Nicolai Peter Arbo, which was a novelty. Emerging from or strongly influenced by black metal,² other bands chose the same lyrical focus, which was displayed in the cover artwork of their albums and sometimes in their clothing as well: the Norwegian band Enslaved released their EP Hordanes Land (1993) and their debut album Vikingligr Veldi (1994), and were joined by other Norwegian bands such as Einherjer³ and Helheim.⁴ Swedish Unleashed⁵ and Amon Amarth⁶ added to Viking metal’s sonic dimension by introducing death metal with a focus on Viking motifs. Even though the term was not widely used during the 1990s, Enslaved labelled their music ‘Viking metal’ in the sleeve notes of their album Frost (1994).

Well before the Scandinavian extreme metal Vikings, others matched rock and metal music with lyrics on Vikings: Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ (1970) is frequently mentioned as a precursor of Viking motifs in metal music, as is Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force’s song ‘I am a Viking’ (1985). Other bands deployed these themes without being deemed Viking metal, including Manowar on their 1983 album Into Glory Ride and their more recent Gods of War (2007) or, to name a more recent example, Burning Witches with their album The Witch of the North (2021). Today, bands such as Amon Amarth or Týr have a huge fan base and play concerts worldwide. Despite the numerous bands coming from Northern Europe, bands from other countries came into play by the end of the 1990s. Viking metal, one of the ‘place-based metal labels full of mythology’,⁷ became a global phenomenon, and today there are, for example, Viniir from Malaysia, Thorvald from Egypt or Jörmundgandr from New Zealand. Apart from Old Norse mythology, other mythologies such as references to ancient Mesopotamia also emerged.⁸ The early 2000s saw the rise of Pagan metal, with bands mixing folk and metal music with lyrics about pre-Christian eras or other religious or historical backgrounds.⁹

Viking metal as a name of a metal subgenre is highly contested. While it is certainly a genre featured in metal magazines¹⁰ and the Encyclopaedia Metallum – The Metal Archives, many bands such as Amon Amarth reject the term for their own music because it refers to the textual instead of the sonic dimension.¹¹ Sometimes, even atmospheric bands that do not indulge in metal music are included in the genre. One of them is Wardruna, a band that are partially made up of (former) metal musicians but do not use electric guitars, which is an indicator of metal music for many. The question of why some bands are deemed part of the Viking metal genre while others, whose lyrics also take up Viking and Norse mythology, are not, shows the complexity of the manifold genres of metal music.¹² In order to understand the features that define Viking metal, one has to turn to the history of black metal. Many of the 1990s Viking metal bands moved away from the nascent Norwegian black metal scene¹³ when realising Satanism and the occult were based on the same Christian beliefs they were trying to avoid. With the Viking Age, bands focused on an era before the Christianisation of Norway or Scandinavia – or, as some of the musicians I interviewed¹⁴ argued, ‘the authentic religion of Scandinavia’. Sometimes, musicians from the respective countries even extend the geographical focus to Germany, the United States and others.

One can only make assumptions about the music of the Viking Age, as there are no written sources on music from this era. Today’s knowledge derives from sagas,¹⁵ Eddic and Skaldic poetry, various Latin chronicles, illustrations and archaeological findings.¹⁶ The sources mention music-making frequently¹⁷ and suggest that musicians were of importance during the Viking Age.¹⁸ The little information that exists on the horns, lures and rattles¹⁹ may have inspired bands such as Wardruna. Having said that, some sonic characteristics appear in Viking metal, which may have derived from popular images of the Vikings. As a seafaring population, they are often depicted as chanting in a sort of choir, an image reflected in more epic passages, such as in songs like Skálmöld’s ‘Gleipnir’ (2012) or Helheim’s ‘Rignir’ (2019). Another feature is horn sounds, which are perhaps intended to resemble a Gjallarhorn, a horn instrument associated with the god Heimdallr, as in Helheim’s ‘Yme’ (2000) or King of Asgard’s ‘The Nine Worlds Burn’ (2012). Simon Trafford also suggests that bands try to make their sound more ‘Viking’ and highlights instruments such as violin (for example, in the Swedish band Månegarm) and accordion (for example, in the Finnish band Ensiferum). He further mentions sea shanties²⁰ or, in the case of Týr, traditional Faroese folk songs collected in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

An important feature of both the sound and the lyrics is the language. Many Viking metal bands use their respective native language exclusively or add some English lyrics. Some bands include local variants, such as the Sognamål dialect used by Windir from Norway. Often, a translation is available in the album booklet by the bands themselves or in online sources such as Darklyrics.com, usually provided by fans.

Apart from a ‘Viking sound’, the visual elements of Viking metal in the cover artwork of albums, on various merchandise and in stage props are also crucial to the overall concept. These references to a Viking past in popular culture are usually dominated by male figures: ‘indeed the Viking is hyper-masculine. They are big and strong with blond or red hair, and equipped with swords or axes and winged or horned helmets’.²¹ Without the winged helmets, this image could be applied to Viking metal as well: strong bearded with long, wild hair and beards, apparently ready to climb onto their longboats and sail to their next battle. The martial appearance can include women, but it usually does not. In terms of musicians, the impression is similar: in a cursory review of the first twenty of 486 entries in the Encyclopedia Metallum for the music genre ‘Viking metal’, 54 musicians are male, while only six are female. A comprehensive study including cis- or transgender women musicians in Viking metal is still lacking,²² as is a comprehensive analysis of Viking metal outside of Europe and North America.²³

Focus on the Past

History and mythology have often been addressed in metal music: From references to the colonialisation of the Americas (Iron Maiden: ‘Run to the Hills’, 1982) to Greek myth (Iron Maiden: ‘Flight of Icarus’, 1983) and the history of the Middle East²⁴ (Melechesh: Enki, 2015), history has always been a part of metal music and is certainly not restricted to Viking metal. And yet, the Vikings were the first to establish their own metal subgenre. What is it that renders the topic so suitable for metal music? Simon Trafford and Aleks Pluskowski state that

With respect to the rebellious character of metal music, Catherine Hoad argues that the Viking in Viking metal is ‘frequently configured as oppositional’,²⁶ that is, the figure is characterised in opposition to Judeo-Christian religion like Satan is in black metal, or, in the case of Týr from the Faroese Islands, in opposition to the Celts. Yet, while this might be the reason the Vikings became popular in metal culture, I argue that this is only one of many reasons why the Vikings and Norse mythology have infiltrated metal music. It does not explain, for instance, why references to the past in general play such an important role for the musicians and fans and, more importantly, what the meaning of this past could be. In order to understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to analyse the elements of the Viking era and Norse mythology in Viking metal and the contexts in which they appear.

With a focus on the Viking Age and Norse mythology at the heart of the definition of Viking metal, the phenomenon raises questions as to the reason for applying Norse motifs, the sources considered and, looking back at the history of the use of Viking motifs, what ideological aspects this use in Viking metal entails. The following analysis is an extension of my earlier work on cultural identity in Norwegian metal music. In an attempt to grasp the character of ‘Norse-themed metal music’, I conducted qualitative analyses of outputs by Norwegian metal bands and identified five main categories that mattered within this frame: nature, religious elements, representations of history, references to metal music and aesthetics, as well as Nordic and Norwegian aspects of cultural identity.²⁷ The categories overlap in some aspects: when Amon Amarth’s vocalist Johann Hegg sings about Thor in ‘Twilight of the Thunder God’ (2008), he does so by referring to the Christianisation (and a Vikings’ battle against Christian invaders) in ‘Where is Your God?’ (2008) on the same album (Twilight of the Thunder God, 2008), setting the mythical thunder god in direct relationship to the Christianisation and a possible defence against an intruding force. The study included many representations of history and considered references to battles and fighting without concrete historical contexts (including imagery of past battles, weaponry and wounds, but also personal struggles and peace), mentions of historical practices, and some literary, sonic and visual sources. It is interesting that most of the battles are mentioned in the context of the fight against Christianity and the emotions of hate, grief and wrath connected to a force perceived as colonial. Another big group in this category are mythical battles, often specified as Ragnarök, the mythological end of the world.

The second biggest sub-category are references to ‘time and the past’. Even when the Viking Age is not mentioned explicitly, the analysis suggests a connection to the era due to references to Norse mythology, for example, in Helheim’s ‘Det Eteriske Åndevesenes Skumringsdans’ (1997): ‘I edle tider og døde stormenns land, hvor myter ble skrevet av norrøn mann’ (In noble times and the land of the dead lords, where myths were written by Norse man). Specific historical events such as the Lindisfarne raid in 793 are mentioned in Enslaved’s ‘793 (Slaget om Lindisfarne)’ (1997) or the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 in the case of Amon Amarth (‘The Berserker at Stamford Bridge’, 2019), among others. It is striking that the ‘past’ in general, as well as ‘timelessness’, are mentioned often, sometimes connected to words such as ‘ancient’ and ‘eternal’. Even though the past is presented as a lost one in most cases, it is a time of primordial power that is lingering and waiting for its return. Some ancient elements are connected to sound(s). For example, Einherjer mention sounds that suggest a force that connects warriors to their roots: ‘Gamle tonar, djupe tonar’ (Ancient sounds, deep sounds) in their song ‘Norrøn Kraft’ (2011). In the same song, ancient elements are related to wisdom, which affects the people involved: ‘Eg står støtt på norrøn grunn/I kraft av tanken på vår tid’ (I’m standing supported on Nordic ground/strengthened by the thought of our time).

The Vikings in the lyrics usually show certain characteristics and are portrayed as very masculine in their strength and endurance, and hard-working ‘men’ and ‘sons’. They are intimidating, tough and brutal, for example, in ‘Svart Visdom’ (1995) by Helheim. Time has left a mark on these men: Vikings are ‘Menn tæret av tidens tann’ (Men marked by time) and, in the same song, one is also described as old and possibly marked by many battles: ‘Hans hår er grått og hans sinn er likeså/Hans øyne speiler bare sverd’ (His hair turned grey, just like his mind/His eyes mirror only the sword). A certain fixation on wisdom and age is shown by referring to ancient knowledge and ideas, which might be superior to those of the present world and transmit powers to people relating to their antique roots, such as in Glittertind’s ‘Svart Natt’ (2005). In their song ‘Jotunblod’ (Blood of Giants) (1994), Enslaved present a primaeval force alongside mythical references: ‘Vår Urkrafts dype røtter/med energi fra treets fire elver’ (The deep roots of our primaeval power/with energy from the tree’s four streams), the tree being a reference to the gigantic ash tree Yggdrasil, which in itself is a reference to the cosmos. Further Viking characteristics are glory: ‘Let’s drink to the sons of glory!’ and seafaring skills (Glittertind: ‘Longships and Mead’, 2009).

Ancestors are a vital factor in establishing a connection to the past: They are ‘sønner av den norrøne ætt’ (sons of the Norse tribe; Helheim: ‘Svart Visdom’, 1995) and ‘sviklause ættar’ (authentic dynasties; Einherjer: ‘Balladen om Bifrost’, 2011). They are immortal in spirit, as described by Helheim’s ‘Fra Ginnunga-gap Til Evig Tid’ (1997): ‘Den norrøne ætt vil aldri dø!’ (The Norse lineage will never die!). In ‘Jotunblod’ (1994), Enslaved connect to mythology and primordial forces: ‘Om en søker all Midgards viten/Om den kloke Volve svinger sin stav/En unngår ei sitt opphav/Urkraftens kaos, Jotunblod’ (If one seeks all Midgard’s knowledge/If the wise woman swings her staff/One cannot avoid one’s origin/The chaos of the primitive force/Jotun blood). Outside of Viking metal, the Vikings were farmers and seafaring people, but especially in Viking metal’s early days, very few bands included this aspect of Viking life.

Another vital aspect connected to the bands’ lyrics, cover artwork and interviews are sources, yet the information gathered from interviews with musicians is certainly a limited one. While musicians are able to provide information on specific sources and material they gathered for writing a particular song or album, we can never know what other elements may have subconsciously influenced their way of portraying Vikings, which might include elements from popular culture, such as films and books that are often consumed at a young age. However, some of the material is referenced in album booklets and, in the case of Norwegian metal bands, often points to Old Norse literature, such as quotations from and references to the Poetic Edda. Many bands refer to ‘Hávamál’ (for example, Helheim’s ‘Viten og Mod’, 2011) and other sources such as the ‘Völuspá’ (for example, Ásmegin’s ‘Vargr i Véum’, 2003) or ‘Lokasenna’ (for example, Solefald’s ‘Lokasenna’, 2003).

The question remains why musicians (and fans) spend so much energy on members of a people who lived and raided more than a thousand years ago and are often associated with ideologies of right-wing extremists. The answer to why bands devote their band concept to the Vikings and what they aim to achieve with their work is complex and, of course, invariably depends on the person writing the lyrics and the band concept in question. Both have been analysed by scholars in various academic disciplines, focusing on the role of authenticity in Viking metal and other metal styles with ‘country- or place-of-origin references’.²⁸ Catherine Hoad calls this phenomenon with reference to Týr’s music a ‘practice of symbolic (Nordic) ethnicity’ and describes the band’s work as a fight against Christianity as a ‘foreign, slave religion’ in order to prepare the ‘return to their “true” gods’ and describes it as ‘hegemonic representation of ethnicity’.²⁹ Toni-Matti Karjalainen, in his work on Finnish metal bands, observes ‘country-specific characteristics and stereotypes’ appearing in media coverage on such bands, including ‘features of the local scenes and cultures, natural environments, geography and weather, cultural mentality, and other contextual portrayals’, set to connect with the musical style.³⁰ Jan-Peter Herbst sheds light on the economic perspective and perceives the bands’ efforts in presenting their heritage, and thus authenticity, as a marketing principle.³¹

In my previous research, I have found that the musicians indeed strived for authenticity, but also to connect to their very own, personal level of how they perceive the world and emotions. I asked Norwegian musicians about their motivation and intention when writing about Norse themes and what they wished to express with their work. Enslaved’s guitarist Ivar Bjørnson explained that one way of writing lyrics for him meant historical and mythical references with a poetic take on Nordic history, for example, an interpretation of runes, which Enslaved have been well known for since their album Isa (2004) or even earlier in the case of single songs (for example, ‘Ansuz Astral’, 1998). In order to make sure fans from across the world would understand the lyrics, the band switched from Norwegian to English lyrics. In contrast, a member of a band, which I will call band A in the following to grant their wish to remain anonymous, connects their lyrics to their life phases and refers to the Vikings, especially in an early period, when they were in search of identity and belonging. The project led them to Norwegian history and specifically Romantic nationalism and the (forceful) Christianisation of Norway. The person described their music as heavily inspired by Viking rock, which is decidedly ideological and revered by right-wing extremists, especially in Sweden. When moving to another city and becoming less isolated, however, they began working with other musicians and widened their lyrical focus, turning away from potentially right-wing ideas. Another band, here referred to as band B, explained to me that they imagined their music as a view into the Norse with a dark take on mythology and interpretation of runes. It is interesting that this band’s bassist studies languages and is fascinated by the diachronic aspect of the Norwegian language. So, rather than presenting a Viking image with longships and the likes, this band aims at finding meaning in the language itself. For a band that I call C, the concept behind their music was a reverence to their roots with an emphasis on nature, Norse mythology and belief. Another band in the study, here called band D, focused on history, mythology and Norwegian roots, but without too much focus on the exact words. Their idea of making music was to transport moods and tell stories while making it sound as Norwegian as possible.

While there is a lot of literature on the role of religion in metal music studies, the role of religion in Viking metal – or, for that matter, pagan metal – has been surprisingly rarely studied in academia. In ‘Antichrist Superstars’, Simon Trafford and Aleks Pluskowski draw a link between Ásatrú and the evolving Viking metal phenomenon during the 1990s. They describe the turn from Satanism and the occult in favour of Norse gods as the opposers of Christian followers and Scandinavia’s conversion to Christianity as a ‘wrong that needs to be righted’.³² My 2017 study suggests that religion plays a surprisingly limited role in the opinion of musicians.³³ In her research focusing on the visual and textual representation of Celtic and Germanic mythology by Pagan metal bands, Serina Heinen concludes that Pagan metal bands may seem like a religious movement to outsiders, while musicians seldom refer to religious aspects.³⁴

As mentioned above, ideological aspects are certainly a part of Viking metal. While many bands claim, ‘[w]e’re not even political in any way’,³⁵ the focus on Norse themes is influenced and informed by studying Vikings and runes in Europe in the past. Romantic nationalism in Northern Europe adapted the Viking (and rural depictions) as a means of connecting with their past, especially in Norway, a country that was under Danish and Swedish rule until independence in 1905. European history also referred to strong male and blonde Viking warriors prior to and during World War II in Nazi Germany and beyond. While the representations of Vikings in Viking metal are certainly martial, the ideology behind the music is, in most cases, not connected to ideas of a supreme race. However, there are subgenres called National Socialist Black Metal, or the aforementioned Viking rock, which have a distinct right-wing extremist and racist agenda. Yet, it is important to include the etic perspective by people not involved in metal, who view the music and culture as problematic, which may not correspond to the musicians’ emic perspective. Additionally, there are racist or right-wing extremist bands that use (Viking) metal aesthetics, so Viking metal becomes adaptable by people following this ideology or is being used by bands from this spectrum.

Having said that, some bands change their way of dealing with the past. While in the 1990s, bands such as Helheim can certainly be perceived as referring to ‘mean’ and brutal Vikings conquering and taking in terms of ‘narratives of nationhood and liberation’,³⁶ the band Helheim in the 2010s is one that focuses on different perspectives of the topic, taking a more personal approach to the Norse. The same can be said about Enslaved, who, rather than describing Viking or mythical battles, analyse and explore the inherent meaning of runes, trying to interpret them in a way that fits into their personal and today’s world (for example, on the albums Riitiir (2012) and E (2017)). In a recent interview with a German metal magazine, Johann Hegg of Amon Amarth, a band that write about battles and fighting on the majority of their eleven albums, talks about lyrics with different themes: On Jomsviking (2016), he wrote about a Viking burial rite (‘One Thousand Burning Arrows’) and included a duet of a man and a woman, in which the woman perceives the changed character of the man, who wants to take her by force, and refuses to let him ‘take her with him’ (‘A Dream That Cannot Be’).³⁷

Conclusion

Viking metal is part of a growing phenomenon in metal music. Instead of focusing purely on sonic characteristics, as is the case with black or folk metal, a focus on the Vikings is the defining feature. It is interesting that some bands do not wish to label their music Viking metal and instead refer to the style of music as death, black or progressive metal. Regardless of the debate on subgenres, the aspects of time and the past play a crucial role in defining the Viking genre and are closely related to questions of religion, mythology and ideology, but they also serve very different purposes and for very different reasons, such as a means of placing oneself within a tradition and heritage, telling stories and exploring Norse mythology, among others.

Scholars have pointed out the role of authenticity in metal in general and Viking metal in particular, which can be perceived as problematic in terms of the politics of belonging but can also be a way to engage with heritage, tell stories or be a means of marketing for labels. Viking metal has been widely regarded from the musicians’ perspectives. A comprehensive study of the fans’ perceptions of Viking metal in general, ideology in particular, and the way Viking metal culture works (for example, at festivals such as Midgardsblot in Norway and Ragnarök in Germany) is still missing and would contribute to understanding the way the ‘products’ rendered by Viking musicians are received and what the interaction between both parties is like.