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<![CDATA[Trial and Error Collective - Metal]]>Wed, 08 Apr 2026 05:49:19 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[An Epiphany from the Shadows]]>Mon, 31 Oct 2016 19:43:37 GMThttps://www.trialanderrorcollective.com/metal/an-epiphany-from-the-shadowsWritten by Alex Lopez

Dragged Into Sunlight live. Photo from Teddie Taylor of CVLT Nation

Alex Lopez experiences “an epiphany from the shadows” of a Dragged Into Sunlight show he saw a few weeks ago. The notorious UK extreme metal band's crushing live performance helped him understand how “art, in all its forms,” should be meant to please its creators above anyone else.

I recently started making art again. If you picked up or read a copy of Trial and Error’s last zine, you saw some of it as background art on the second page. Despite the fact that my work now adorns the pages of this fine publication, I am not a long-time artist. I first started drawing and painting only three years ago. When I moved back home to the San Francisco Bay Area from Tucson, I found myself stuck in the middle of the traditional post-college year of unemployment. As it turns out, you can only do so much job hunting in one day, so I decided to take advantage of my copious amount of free time by taking an introductory art class at my local community college. It was something that I had always wanted to learn how to do, so I decided that would be a good time to learn some basics. To this day, that class is still the only professional training I’ve had as an artist. I use the basic concepts that I learned in that class all the time, but the rest is, fittingly, a practice in trial and error and discovering what works and what doesn’t. Overall, it’s a hobby I’m glad to pursue. In addition, while I never envisioned myself publishing my work, I’m happy to share it as another way to contribute to this publication.

I consider myself a practical minimalist when it comes to making my art. All of my work is completed with watercolor pencils for two reasons. First, I am a notoriously impatient person. One of the biggest reasons why I stopped painting shortly after my community college class finished up in the first place was because it felt like such a pain in the ass to set aside some time in my day to actually paint, then set up my equipment, and finally clean my brushes and save my excess paints after I was finished. Inspiration can strike at any moment. I do not want to have to deal with too much equipment only to lose my inspiration as soon as my work space is ready, and, conversely, I don’t want to take that much time to set up my equipment on days when I’m not really feeling a creative spark. The second reason I use watercolor pencils is because, since I don’t like setting aside time in my day to make art, I usually end up doing so on either my lunch break or on my BART train commuting to and from work. Watercolor pencils are a portable and convenient way to lay down some color when you do most of your work on the go, and you can go over your work with a brush and some water to create the effect of an actual painting.

Maybe it’s my roots in the punk and hardcore scenes that made me develop this minimalist mentality, but since rediscovering my artistic talents, I’ve come to realize how important it is to create your art for no one other than yourself. If you’re not going to enjoy doing it, then it will end up killing your desire to create. It’s an old adage that many artists – regardless of medium – live by, but I never truly understood it until the day I picked up those pencils, bought an artist’s notebook, and started drawing and illustrating.

I suppose it’s only fitting that a few months after I started putting pencil to paper, I decided to catch England’s notorious extreme metal freaks Dragged Into Sunlight at The Golden Bull – a dive bar in downtown Oakland that has becoming one of my go-to watering holes on Fridays after work thanks to their cheap drinks and solid selection of punk and metal blaring over their speakers. To be perfectly honest, I was not familiar with Dragged Into Sunlight’s music prior to the show. In fact, the band that caught my eye the most on this lineup was Cult Leader – a hardcore band from Salt Lake City whose debut album, Lightless Walk, turned out to be one of my favorite releases of 2015. Still, I heard from more than a few people that Dragged Into Sunlight’s live show was something that should not be missed, and the Trial and Error piece previously written about them by Andrej Simeunovic convinced me that these guys were something special. So I decided to stick around after Cult Leader and see what all the fuss was about.

Five minutes before Dragged Into Sunlight were supposed to go on, one of the roadies brought out a large candelabra, set it down at the front of the stage, and lit the candles. My interest was piqued. Being front and center, the placement of the candelabra felt like a barrier between the band and the audience. It almost had the feeling of an ornate fence in front of an old, haunted mansion. I had never seen a stage setup quite like this, or at least not in a venue so small. At this point, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Soon afterwards, the lights dimmed and Dragged Into Sunlight took the stage.

As if the candelabra wasn’t enough, the band gathered towards the back of the stage and largely played with their backs to the audience. An omnipresent strobe light behind the drummer gave the illusion of stop motion while further plunging the band into a sense of anonymity. This tiny dive bar transformed into a cavernous abyss. The music was loud, intense, bleak, unsettling, and unwelcoming. As our hosts in this void, Dragged Into Sunlight were sending a clear message throughout their performance: “This is our world. You should count yourself lucky that we’re gracious enough to give you a glimpse of it. We refuse to make you feel comfortable while you’re here.”

Dragged Into Sunlight’s performance convinced me to shell out a few more bucks that night and buy their album Widowmaker on vinyl at the merch table. I threw it on my turntable the next day. Widowmaker started out on an unorthodox foot – even by their standards. The first side features a 15-minute song simply known as “Part I,” which is an eerie, ambient piece driven by acoustic guitars, bleak piano, and a hair-raising violin. As I listened, I kept waiting for the distorted guitars, blast beat drums, and tortured screams to kick in. I was expecting to be plunged once again into the unforgiving, desolate metal soundscapes that I had just experienced the night before. That moment never came throughout the duration of the song. I thought I had fallen for a “bait-and-switch” and bought their one ambient album in their catalog; however, the side of Dragged Into Sunlight that I was introduced to reared its head on Side B, and I once again felt transported back to the gravitational pull of the strobe-lit abyss that was their live show. Ambient, acoustic-driven tracks are nothing new to the extreme metal world. In this context, however, it felt like Dragged Into Sunlight were driving their point home even further. “Part I” felt like they were sending me a follow-up message to what they had told me the night before: “We told you so.”

I have been to countless great live shows over the years, but only a handful stick out in my mind that made me feel like I walked away from the venue feeling mentally refreshed and inspired. Dragged Into Sunlight joined that club. I felt like I walked away from The Golden Bull that night just a tiny bit different compared to when I walked in. The nature of both Dragged Into Sunlight’s live show and their album structures on Widowmaker told me a message that I interpreted loud and clear: art, in all its forms, is the creation of new worlds. You are the ruler of these worlds, so make them for an audience of one and please yourself above all others. Everyone else who experiences your art is just a tourist. I like to think that what I took away from this show helped me grow as an artist and, eventually, become published. It’s an important lesson to learn in creativity, and I feel more sure of myself and what I want to accomplish as an artist because of it.

]]><![CDATA[Black Yo)))ga and Therapeutic Properties of Heavy Music]]>Mon, 23 Nov 2015 22:38:34 GMThttps://www.trialanderrorcollective.com/metal/black-yoga-and-therapeutic-properties-of-heavy-musicWritten by Parisa Eshrati

Black Yo)))ga workshop. Photo courtesy of Paul Werkmeister

It's difficult to find a genuine form of yoga since the Western world has compacted this practice into a "spiritual fast food". The Black Yo)))ga project, however, serves as a unique practice that stays true to mindfulness techniques by combining vinyasa-style yoga with doom music. This two-part blog discusses this new project and goes into detail about the psychological benefits of listening to dark music.

Part I: Westernized Concepts of Yoga and BLACK YO)))GA Music

I was catching up with some friends at a diner the other week, and after awhile we somehow landed on the subject of the Western approach to yoga. My friend mentioned that there’s a new shop that opened up in town that sells $70 yoga pants, and we laughed at the idea that anyone would be such a nimrod that they’d spend that much money on yoga pants. That laughter quickly turned into a cynical web of thoughts that had me thinking of how Westerners have turned yoga into a “spiritual fast food” of sorts. I thought about people like Swami Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda who came from India with hardly anything but the clothes on their backs, and here we are less than a hundred years later making mass profit off of form-fitting clothes as “spiritual garb”. My friends and I went on to discuss some of the upcoming events in town – including a yoga rave and a yoga class where they serve draft beers afterwards. I mean, hey, if that’s what gets you out of the house and unwind then cool - do your thing. But can we really call this yoga? Perhaps we should we call it what it really is...stretching and booze.

In Sanskrit, the word “yoga” means union, coming from the root “yuj” meaning “to join, unite” and also “to control” and “discipline.” Bhole Prabhu writes:

The root... indicates that the purpose of yoga is to unite ourselves with our highest nature. This re-integration is accomplished through the practices of the various yoga disciplines. Until this re-integration takes place, we identify ourselves with our limitations--the limitations of the body, mind, and senses. Thus we feel incomplete and limited, and are subject to feelings of sorrow, insecurity, fear, and separation, because we have separated ourselves from the experience of the whole.

Bhole Prabhu continues that yoga does not “belong” to the East, but it is important to redefine it in the Western world that’s managed to package the concept of reunification of our higher selves into a workout tape accompanied with spandex and house music. I wholeheartedly agree with that statement in that we should redefine yoga to its original intent, but there also can be unique variations to yoga and it shouldn’t belong to just any one culture. Self-exploration through yoga can come in many forms (i.e. mantra, bhakti, kundalini) - there’s no one path. It’s all about finding what one can truly resonate with. After having that initial conversation with my friends at the diner, I kept thinking that there had to be some unique Western approach to yoga out there that could stay true to mindfulness but didn’t incorporate $70 yoga pants. I was determined to find something.

A few weeks later, I checked my email and saw a subject line that said “New promo material for Black Yo)))ga”. I was immediately intrigued as it both was related to my current quest and had a reference to SunnO))), one of my favorite doom metal bands. The Black Yo)))ga project is a vinyasa-style yoga set to drone, noise, ambient, and space doom music.Certified instructor and creator of Black Yo)))ga Kimee Massie tailored the project in order to create heavier meditative spaces for those seeking to find a balance and release negativity in their lives, but perhaps don’t feel that they fit into a typical Westernized yoga class.Black Yo)))ga just came out with a two-part release consisting of a video from one of their classes, as well as an album with original drone music from the Black Yo)))ga ensemble.

I started delving into this project by solely listening to the meditative soundscapes curated by the ensemble. The twelve minute opening track, “Wandering Through”, begins with quiet noise that builds momentum with a deep vibrational drone that gets louder and more expansive. The intensity heightens as whispering echoes scatter throughout the droney melody. Just as our scattered minds speak to us on a day-to-day basis, the voices in the song similarly feel claustrophobic as they layer up on one another until they culminate into this storm of inaudible chatter forcing its way into the track and under your skin. The voices seem to mimic the anxieties and fear that one naturally would have before trying to silence the mind. Perhaps one of the hardest parts of self-exploration is facing those inner thoughts we battle or try to submerge with distractions, and the ensemble so cleverly captures this feeling and puts it at the forefront of the album. They realize that it is an uncomfortable but necessary process to first face your demons, but they gently guide you in with that droney melody and fade out with an ominous yet beautiful string section. The strings pull you forward with their entrancing sound, but the dissonance reminds you that this is just the calm before the storm.

The album flows effortlessly into more melodic and hypnotic movements. Simple guitar parts create a spiraling pattern that create an ethereal sense of movement, all while maintaining a simplicity so you can focus on your journey and not be distracted by the music itself. Listening to the following tracks reminded me of seeing SunnO))) in concert just over a year ago. Although SunnO))) isn’t a meditational ensemble, their drone music similarly put everyone into an altered state of consciousness. Fifteen minutes into the concert, I noticed half of the audience was grounded on floor of The Rialto Theater with their eyes closed and spellbound by the engulfing boom of each long, strung out note. Similarly, the Black Yo)))ga ensemble creates this sense of space with sustained, repeated notes that suspend you in a cosmic state of doom.

Half-way through, the album gets noticeably heavier and more intense. The track “Negative Confession” features blistering screams accompanied by punishingly intense drum kicks, trembling symbols, and a thick wall of reverb that bounces all of this intensity back and forth to create a powerful whirlwind of sound. At this point in the journey, I believe this track is to aid in releasing the tension of everything you brought into the yoga session - whether it’s from your day, your year, or perhaps even some karmic connections from previous lifetimes. Whatever your beliefs are, this thunderous track liberates any negative feelings by completely letting go and driving every sound into the loudest frequency the album has exposed yet.

The end of the journey is welcomed by sounds that are still heavy in nature, but are lined with an airier atmosphere that lifts off any negativity left behind. The second-to-last track (and my favorite track off the album), “Nest of Thorns”, features every instrument throughout the album. Together, the instruments comprehensively create a feeling that every phase of journey led to this point. The guitar melody keeps you rooted in present moment by keeping you grounded in the repetitive riff, but the other instruments create this experimental and psychedelic movement to help you completely detach.

I then watched some promo footage of one of the Black Yo)))ga classes. The first video began with an unattributed quote stating, “You can’t fully appreciate the light until you understand the darkness.” Aside from already appreciating the expertly crafted drone music, this motto is what really made me feel that Black Yo)))ga was the exact project I was searching for on my quest.

Black Yo)))ga workshop. Photo courtesy of Paul Werkmeister

Part II: Therapeutic Properties of Heavy Music

I’ve always felt that it’s necessary to embrace the darkness within our human nature. This passion started back in my mallrat days circa 2005 when I bought a Marilyn Manson t-shirt at a Hot Topic (…hah) behind my parent’s back. This was when Manson was still the poster face of shock and rebellion in mainstream media, so wearing this shirt would get me a lot of dirty looks and, of course, massive disapproval from my parents. My parents told me I couldn’t wear it anymore, and well, I paid a solid fifteen bucks for it – so I wasn’t gonna take no for an answer. I went online and came across a scholarly article called From Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson: The Significance of Adolescent Anti-Heros, which revolved around a case study of a teenage girl who looked up to unconventional role models such as Manson. It concludes that anti-heros can be a very beneficial resource for adolescents who experience anxiety, and so on. Looking back on this paper, it’s a little outdated and relies on a case study, which does not always make for a very solid scholarly article. Either way, it got me my shirt back and sparked the idea that there is something actually very therapeutic about embracing the darker facets of human nature.

I continued this research in my last year of college when I wrote my Honors thesis on music as an evolutionary tool for our cognitive capabilities, and the intrinsic vs. extrinsic reasons for developing tastes. As a music lover, I knew that music can be extremely therapeutic. That’s sort of a given, right? But what processes are taking place that allow music to be a way of catharsis? This study found that listening to music strongly modulates activity in a network of mesolimbic structures, the hypothalamus and insula, which are all linked to physiological responses to rewarding stimuli. The data from the fMRI test combined with participant ratings on a Likert scale revealed that the positive effect of listening to music is also associated with increased dopamine levels.

It may seem obvious to someone who has been interested in extreme metal their whole life why heavy music is therapeutic, but to others it may seem contradictory to listen to dark music for therapeutic purposes. Recent research efforts have been finding that these types of music can still regulate emotion in different situations. This study offers an explanation via associative and semantic networks in the brain. It explains that negative emotion nodes that represent feelings such as anger or sadness can become activated and still enjoyed because in an aesthetic context, such as music listening, any activation is pleasurable. This theoretical model claims that the mere activation of negative emotion nodes is a pleasant experience because listening to music actives a node which inhibits the “displeasure center”. In layman’s terms, this is essentially describing that since listening to music is an enjoyable experience, it will still be pleasurable to listen to negative music because having any emotional center activated will feel gratifying. This other study also notes the more obvious fact that this type of music is more empathetic and sometimes it just makes more goddamn sense to listen to something intense when you’re feeling that way.

So, all this psychological and physiological research shows that “dark” music can be extremely therapeutic. In my opinion, though, I’ve always considered that it’s more than something that can be beneficial. I think it’s necessary for everyone to embrace darkness before experiencing light. We shouldn’t ignore the fact that this duality exists within ourselves, and we should respect both sides in order to understand all facets of human nature. There are countless ways to delve into that darkness, whether it’s aided from music, movies, artwork, or even taking grim walks through frost-bitten forests. Whatever path you choose, remember it’s not an easy journey - but one that will get you a lot further than wherever those $70 yoga pants take you.

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