DAWN RAY’D
Anarchic Merseysiders lead a wave of resistance
Emerging from black metal’s often murky philosophical waters with a proudly proclaimed affiliation to anarchist politics, UK firebrands Dawn
Ray’d are clearly not your average corpsepainted troublemakers.
Their debut album, The Unlawful Assembly, offers an absorbing mixture of scabrous aggression, austere folk hymns and revolutionary polemic, an approach that puts the trio at odds with black metal’s faint but lingering fascination with racist or rightwing ideas. As guitarist Fabian D. explains, it’s all about starting the conversation in the first place.
“The term ‘anarchist black metal’ isn’t meant to be a comment on other types of black metal, it’s just an accurate description of this band,” he states. ”The explicitly anarchist politics are an essential, very upfront element of what we do. We’ve come up through the European squat scene, with shows where Nazism is not tolerated at all. But we really want to give people a genuine alternative to the Nazi bands, and also have that discussion at shows and to say that those ideas are not OK, they’re dangerous and cowardly and are detrimental to the creativity of this scene.”
Having expanded their sound to incorporate more directly the neo-folk and traditional folk music that has long provided them with inspiration, Dawn Ray’d are not just revolutionary in their thinking. The Unlawful Assembly works because its thematic core is so focused and refreshing: the perfect extreme metal response to a world where the common man is routinely screwed and most people spend too much time on Snapchat to notice.
“If there is an overarching theme, it’s resistance and liberation.” Fabian concludes.
“But people can interpret and describe this band in any way they want. I am always stoked to see people interpret the lyrics in different ways. Some people are more interested in the music than the politics, and that’s fine, too. I look forward to seeing this band grow, and find its own place within black metal.”