I like the graceful adagio and I like the crooning

Burning down but not out

Underground culture sits on a foundation of voluntary participation. Metal has survived multiple heat deaths, blooms, and retractions over the years thanks to a core crowd of dedicated – and often unhealthily fanatical – underground activists. It’s participatory infrastructure arguably anticipated the online norms of today. The 24/7 engagement, the grassroots content, these were ways of working that metal established decades ago. In part, this long history of volunteerism explains why metal has seen a renaissance of engagement today. This, regardless of whether you think there is any value to be found in the sheer volume of stuff pumped into our devices each day.  

Despite the unique loyalty and dedication metal seems to engender in people, inspiring them to commit thousands of downtime hours to maintaining and regenerating scenic infrastructure, burnout is just as much a part of this territory as any other.

Despite this, I have long resisted “burnout” post. Whether clickbait cliché or sincere admission of mental strain, sharing the deeply personal mechanics behind one’s mental state with strangers has never sat well. That’s not to say I begrudge others who feel compelled to bear all to their online community.

Equally, I have also begun to seriously interrogate the nature and purpose of music criticism more generally. Whilst I post reviews in the hope that it will encourage musical discovery, the pressure to push inferior work for the sake of mutual promotion brings the proximity of this activity too close to banal consumer advice for comfort.

My reviews are designed to be honest and deep dives into the context and value of new artworks as I interpret them. Whether they always succeed in this aim is by the by.

Increasingly however, I am unable to do this to a standard I’m happy with whilst keeping up a regular churn of new posts, not to mention setting my observations apart from other sites who engage at a similar depth of critical analysis, but who seem to have greater time and resource to dedicate to this endeavour (see Grizzly Butts, Cave Dweller Music, No Clean Singing et al.).

So, rest assured, this is not a burnout post. But personal circumstances have undoubtedly altered my ability to enjoy the process of reviewing new music, and this will directly impact the approach of Hate Meditations.

With that in mind, the Beats and Yelling Features will now be far less regular, and probably only feature one or two releases that I believe to be particularly noteworthy, hopefully with a deeper dive into their mechanics.

Having said that, I know there are people occasionally washing up on these shores looking for some recommendations. I will therefore aim to sporadically post small batches of quality new releases with shorter pieces of commentary.

Within both these formats, I will not be featuring any release that I don’t believe to be 100% worth your time (unless I find something uniquely offensive, in which case the occasional stink piece is not out of the question). This decision is as much about reaffirming quality control as it is a need to row back on my time spent reviewing new releases.

As always, these are not plugs, paid promotions, or vapid praise in the hope that a band shares my site around. I will only ever present releases from artists I believe have something to say about what metal is, where it came from, and where it’s going.

Needless to say the essays on random chunks of metal culture will continue piecemeal.

To all the labels, bands, and individuals that have supported the site and sent us music in the past, and to anyone who may send us material in the future, please continue to do so, nothing makes me happier than spending to spend time with the thoughtful, considered, and often deranged art. And I have no wish to break ties with people from around the world engaged in the same pursuit of sustaining an underground scene, and fighting for its status as a unique form of artistic commentary. Thanks for all your work, and for supporting the site over the years.