{"id":793125,"date":"2019-02-16T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=795388"},"modified":"2019-02-16T08:00:05","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T15:00:05","slug":"song-you-need-to-know-xasthur-for-shannon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/song-you-need-to-know-xasthur-for-shannon\/","title":{"rendered":"Song You Need to Know: Xasthur, \u2018For Shannon\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the mid-2000s, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Scott Conner became something of an anti-hero in the heavy-music underground. Recording entirely on his own under the pseudonym Malefic and the \u201cband\u201d name of Xasthur, the California artist created dense, plodding black-metal tracks<\/a> that, even in a subgenre known for its sonic bleakness and history of real-world crime<\/a>, stood out as particularly severe.<\/p>\n

Some held him up as a figurehead of a movement dubbed (certainly not by the artists involved) Depressive Suicidal Black Metal. Considering Xasthur\u2019s anguished sound, song titles such as \u201cBeauty Is Only Razor Deep\u201d and \u201cMemorial to the Waste of Life,\u201d and the fact that he purportedly performed guest vocals for a 2005 Sunn O))) track<\/a> while enclosed in an actual casket, the label seemed to fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t recall ever making claims I can\u2019t back up in my lyrics, like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m gonna kill myself.\u2019 I don\u2019t do that,\u201d he said in the 2012 Noisey documentary \u201cOne Man Metal.\u201d<\/a> \u201cBut instead what I do is, I just say, \u2018Hey, you know, here\u2019s a few reasons for you, listening to this, you might want to look into dying and killing yourself. You might want to look into that.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Conner ended Xasthur<\/a> in 2010, but after a period of performing under the name Nocturnal Poisoning, he rebooted the project<\/a> in 2015. The name is really all that remains of the old Xasthur, though. Not only has he moved on from black metal entirely, opting instead for a folk-influenced acoustic sound he\u2019s referred to as\u00a0\u201cDoomgrass,\u201d<\/a> he\u2019s actually writing love songs. His YouTube channel, which hosts a trove of videos<\/a> tracing the impressive evolution of his acoustic phase, recently featured a lovely fingerpicked instrumental guitar demo entitled \u201cFor Shannon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe didn\u2019t want me to get her name tattooed, so I made this instead,\u201d Conner writes of the song, performed by him and another musician identified only as \u201cJoe,\u201d and dedicated to his significant other. \u201cSince it ain\u2019t black metal, I can title it anything I want or whatever needs to be, dig?\u201d<\/p>\n

The track craftily combines a bluesy main riff with sections that feel eerier and more mystical. Overall, it seems to stem more from the offbeat, genre-blurring world of an artist like John Fahey<\/a> than from traditional Americana. In a 2018 Decibel<\/em> interview<\/a>\u00a0Conner cited both Fahey and Jerry Garcia as influences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe that lots of black metal fans are looking for something different,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s hard to find. Supposedly, they like technical music, and I try to do that. Supposedly, they want stuff that is dark and dark subject matter. I think there are things in this music that will appeal to them and if they are looking for something different I can provide it.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the mid-2000s, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Scott Conner became something of an anti-hero in the heavy-music underground. Recording entirely on his own under the pseudonym Malefic and the \u201cband\u201d name of Xasthur, the California artist created dense, plodding black-metal tracks that, even in a subgenre known for its sonic bleakness and history of real-world crime, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 05:26:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}