A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Musings of a Queer Pagan

  • Superiority in Metal: Recognition, Avoidance, and Overcoming

    Now Playing: Chronicle of a Frozen Era by Elvenking So something that comes up sometimes in metal spaces, especially online, is gatekeeping and a certain air of superiority about the kinds of metal one listens to. I’m not immune to this, I’ve been that uptight bitch about the metal I listen to, though I try…

  • Powerfolk and Other Melody Centric Metal and their Classical (ish) Influences

    Now Playing: Neverending Nights by Elvenking “But wait, there’s melody centric metal? That’s a thing? I thought metal was all just really angry screaming and growling and walls of noise!” I hear you cry. And yes, a lot of metal is just screaming and growling and walls of noise. But there’s a lot more to…

  • Metal (Culture) Is Many Things: A Poem

    Metal (Culture) is Many Things It is the breaths between words. It is a sculpture that each person adds to as they encounter it. It is an incomplete song that grows with each new part. It is a tapestry weaved by the weary hands of many generations. It is a large mosaic of individual lives,…

  • Pagan Metal: My Deep Love of Elvenking

    Now Playing: Pagan Purity by Elvenking I’m not sure how obvious it is, but I am, in fact, a massive Elvenking fan. Maybe it’s the violin, maybe it’s the fact that they’re pretty Italian elf boys, maybe it’s the folk metal start leading into powerfolk in more recent albums, who knows. Maybe it’s the fact…

  • Music and Religion: Performance of Christian Music as a Pagan

    Now Playing: Midnight Madonna by Powerwolf Currently, I sing in a community choir. As with most community choirs, this choir rehearses and performs in a church as a way to reduce expenses, since rehearsal spaces can get quite expensive, especially for larger groups. Many of the pieces we perform are also based around Christian themes…

  • Classical Music: Universal Language or Tool of Oppression?

    Now Playing: Wonderland by Tungsten So as a classically trained musician living in Canada, I read music in the traditional European (or “Western”) fashion. Basically, I was trained to read music like all those snooty, elitist assholes who act like the big name composers from before 1920 are the best thing to ever happen to…

  • A Year of Metal

    Now Playing: Son of a Wolf by Powerwolf 2023 was a solid year for power metal. New albums from Elvenking, Twilight Force, Bloodbound, and Powerwolf (as well as a live album from Freedom Call), several EPs and singles from Sabaton, Rhapsody of Fire, and DragonForce, with album announcements set for next year from several of…

  • Artistic Worship: An Intersection of Music, Studies, and Paganism

    Now Playing: Rún by SKÁLD (Intimate Version) Paganism, especially in its modern, reconstructed form, is incredibly diverse, both in terms of the number of types of paganism and the differences between different kinds of people who practice the religion. How it’s practiced and the specific beliefs will differ from person to person. (Ask ten different…

  • Interests and Composition Style: Should They Overlap?

    Content warning: Mentions of death, mental health, suicide, and war. Now Playing: The Time of Your Life by Elvenking A question that composers who are just starting out sometimes ask, and one that is very worth considering, is the question of how to make music, specifically what music one should make. This is an interesting…

  • Chance Encounters: People We Remember

    Now Playing: Forest of Destiny by Twilight Force So one thing that I think is interesting is that sometimes, we meet someone by chance and we remember them for years to come, even though we’ll probably never meet them again. These people may not have been anyone of any particular note, they may not have…