Heavy Metal, Queerness, and a Powerful Celebration of Noise

Divide and Dissolve, Tower, Scimitar, Lurch, Eaeres, The Divine Accolade

Loud and Proud Festival – Day 1 presented by Heavy Lezzers, Flucc Vienna, Austria 20251121

Tickets for Proud and Loud sold out in just a few days, setting the expectations quite high. I had the chance to get one of them, so I could not miss the opportunity to attend the very first edition of this festival. The programme, scheduled for the 21st and 22nd of November, not only included six metal bands per day in Flucc‘s basement but also a merch and games area (pen & paper role-playing games), as well as drag shows and DJ sets on the upper floor. Of this two-day festival, I report here just on the first one.

The festival is hosted by Heavy Lezzers, an association (or cult, as they remark) founded in 2017 from the feeling of isolation, that feeling of being “too queer for the metal scene, too metal for the queer scene”. On one hand, Heavy Lezzers constitute a collective of loud queers, nerds, outsiders, dreamers, and allies who stand against gatekeepers, fascist ideologies, and male-dominated culture that sometimes lurk in the metal scene. On the other hand, they point out that queers have widely proven how to party, but here they want to make a statement about how queer folks are just as good at moshing, headbanging, and showing up with power and presence. Proud and Loud thus crowns the collective’s efforts, showcasing metal bands with FLINTA*/queer members across the broad spectrum of metal music, including heavy, doom, black, and, indeed, hybrid and experimental approaches.

The DACH Triad

The evening at Praterstern was quite cold, anticipating the first season’s snowfall that would arrive in the coming hours. The first presentation was scheduled for 17:00, but I did not arrive until 17:45. By then, the basement of Flucc was already pretty full with a diverse crowd, although obviously almost everyone was in black clothes. I only caught the final 10 minutes of The Divine Accolade‘s set, but it was not an obstacle to enjoying this German act (Leipzig). With only one person on stage doing the guitar and vocals (mainly guttural/shriek) accompanied by a sample, The Divine Accolade opened the festival with their dungeon synth sound infused with mediaeval romantic black metal.

Luckily for me, the gaps between bands were frequently filled with the sounds of doom metal from the venue speakers (thanks, DJ!), which provided a perfect ambiance. I used the pause to do a brief tour of the facilities, since it was my very first time at Flucc. Soon after that, it was time for the night’s second act.

The Viennese Eaeres arrived at the festival with an EP/cassette under their belt, I Love My Sister, released last year, which features some simply brilliant doom metal. A particular highlight was the frontwoman’s vocal work, who skilfully and fluidly transitioned from “placed” and guttural vocals to the most desperate screams and even cries you could ever hear. Another interesting aspect was the band’s instrumentation, which, in addition to voice, bass, and drums, incorporates electronics and abstains from using guitars. Eaeres’s music is slow and repetitive in the best sense of the word, including also some experimental touches and drone sounds. There were even no speeches or introductions between songs, yet the performance itself and the extremely loud sound felt like a 40-minute statement in its own right. From this point onwards, the overwhelming loudness became one of the most notable features of the entire festival, possibly more intense than I had ever experienced before, a quality that would later reach its peak with the headliners. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The third band on stage was Lurch, who have been covered extensively here on State of Guitars but whom I personally had not yet heard live. They are one of those bands I am constantly told “I have to listen to”, and happily, I finally had the opportunity to see them perform. The Viennese quartet (two guitars, drums, and bass) is dedicated to heavy rock with psychedelic touches and occasional doomy moments (like in the last chords of their final track at the festival, “Wauga”). The band’s proposal is largely instrumental, built around extended riff-based sections with small but clever expectation-shattering variations, elegant guitar solos, and well-executed rhythm changes and transitions between sections. A prime example of this “playing with expectations” came during one of their last songs, when they seamlessly dropped the main theme from Super Mario Bros right in the middle of the track before continuing with the main riff. But perhaps the most relevant aesthetic proposal from the band, and something that quickly spread to the audience, was that they were having a really amazing time on stage.

Heavy Metal!

The Danish band Scimitar started their set at around 20:15, presenting a sound rooted in heavy metal but with undeniably extreme metal influences: it included growls, blackened blast beats, and truly dissonant and suffocating sections. 10/10. Furthermore, their sound was impeccable and the execution cohesive, which is especially noteworthy considering that the band was only formed last year by veterans of the Danish scene. The vocal work was also outstanding in terms of quality, delivering an expressive and powerful performance that complemented brilliantly the band’s overall sound and demonstrated the creative possibilities of the voice in metal music.

Next on stage were the US-Americans from Tower, who around 21:10 kicked off the second to last act of the night. The band, founded in 2015, was promoting their latest album, Let There Be Dark, released earlier this year. Tower’s sound follows the footprint of classic heavy metal, and they stood out for their fresh and energetic live show that guaranteed intense headbanging. The band also includes excellent compositions with some epic sections that are perfect to sing along to. In this vein, one of the highlights was “Prince of Darkness” from their 2021 album Shock to the System. Also remarkable is the frontwoman’s potent voice, which seems tailor-made for heavy metal.

Divide and Dissolve

I am not going to deny it. I was absolutely excited to have the chance to witness one of my favourite bands (but that I only discovered this year) perform live. Divide and Dissolve is one of those projects that beautifully intersects so many things: explicit criticism of colonialism and white supremacy, cosmological reflections, queerness, a looper, and a whole lot of doom metal. The band’s show also included an immeasurable dose of acoustic violence, in the form of every available amplifier at Flucc stacked like a wall behind the two musicians. Specifically, they used four heads (three guitar and one bass, if I am not wrong) and seven speaker cabinets (six guitar plus one giant 8×10 bass cabinet), all for just one Telecaster. The drum kit setup was another science in itself, as it had to be lowered from the riser so both musicians could be at the same level and create that unique synergy between themselves and the audience. So, despite the long setup time, during which I waited in the front row to secure a good spot, it was all worth it.

The set opened with a saxophone solo. Using the loop station, Takiaya Reed, the two-spirit Black and Cherokee leader of the band, built the soundscape layer by layer, recording and overlaying melodies in real time. Following that, the musician slung their guitar and, in coordination with the drummer, initiated an explosion of extremely slow, ultra-loud, heavy, and monolithic yet temporally fluid riffs. Among the numerous effects used on the guitar, besides distortion or fuzz (or perhaps both), an octave pedal was also quite prominent. This, together with that wall of amplifiers, made the sound not only audible but also intensely experienced throughout the body.

Divide and Dissolve’s presentation was also defined by its low, red-toned lighting and the absence of lyrics. I am even surprised myself by how much I like the instrumental approach of this Australia-based band, although it is true that their slowness and varied monotony become loaded with meaning via elements that are outside the sound: be it our own stories and experiences, the song titles, interviews, or the speeches given at the concert against the genocides in Palestine, Sudan, or the Congo, these aspects allow us to make sense of an artistic approach that thus masterfully blurs the boundaries between stage and non-stage, musician and crowd. Furthermore, the sound also expresses an excess of something that cannot be put into words, as Reed notes in an interview: “How do I talk about something that we don’t have the ability to talk about but have felt for so many generations, or how do I explain the experience of feeling something that my ancestors have felt…?”. The band likewise plays with the boundaries of time, one of the most fascinating examples of their set being the track “Disintegrate”, whose live version gradually slows its tempo to such an extreme that the song itself seems to collapse and decompose the very concept of time.

Final note

The arrival of the Loud and Proud festival is a cause of celebration, serving as a timely and pertinent response to the global conservative turn. Furthermore, while it is true that at present European metal concert audiences are relatively diverse in terms of gender, the stage itself is still marked by a persistent male predominance. This festival directly addresses that gap and acts as a broad platform of resistance within metal music. I look forward with great interest to the next edition.