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Violent Melodies by Jordan Humphreys (Issue 2)

Our hearts and minds are like islands scattered upon the sea of consciousness. Each one jutting out of the watery depths of the imagination and into the open reality above. I fear, however, that the tides are turning in my mind and that as the water level rises, my heart and mind may be lost in the immeasurable depths of an insane and chaotic tempest. Constantly the music reverberates throughout my mind, it's sickening melodies and bestial undercurrents. I have destroyed the disc, the cover, but still those sounds call out to me, begging me to pick up an instrument and give them birth again.

So here I will write down what I can, what I should. For there is such a thing as forbidden knowledge, my dear friend, and I write this only to help arm you with the tools to defend yourself and others without crippling what sanity you may have.

Maybe it is all in vain, the voices could have called out to others and the sounds may have found birth once again in the barrens of Mexico City or the seedy underground of Berlin. I will, however, do what I must. What I can to arm the present and the future against the past.

I first came across the obscure underground metal band Violent Melodies soon after I left high school. I had been educated in what most would call a ‘working class environment’ which although sometimes hard was better than falling in with the other class, collaborating, middle class twats that filled up our local selective ‘public’ school. It was here that I first came across heavy metal and all its wonderful spawn of children. The bestial growls and furious blast beats of death metal. The soaring guitar harmonies of power metal and the twisted logic of metal’s industrial strand. All filled me with a sense that there were others out there like me, people who where strange and didn't feel guilty about it.

As I left high school managing to just secure acceptance for an arts/education degree at university, I became intrigued with a band called Shadows Eaten the Moon. It combined opera, death metal and traditional metal like another one of my favourite bands - Therion. It did so in far more a cohesive and odd manner. Unlike the over the top occult and mythological inspired lyrics of Therion, Shadows Eaten the Moon wrote short songs, that although on a first listen appeared to be simple songs, upon a closer listen, proved to be far more dense.

During the holiday period before I was to start my studies, I got wind that Shadows was coming to Australia for a once only tour.

The stage was like a rotting womb, preparing for the birth of some monstrous deity. Its father obviously some demonic force from the mad spaces in-between stars. My hands shook with anticipation and just as I thought this odd I looked around to see five hundred other wide-eyed metal heads doing the same. All of us, waiting with our minds going over our favourite songs, praying to whatever ancient power we believe in, that they would open with our most beloved anthem.

Suddenly the murky blackness of the stage is penetrated by a figure cloaked in varying shades of gray. The curtains fall apart and with a great howl devoid of any humanity the concert begins.

The concert becomes a blur of images and sounds, the chords that cut like knives into your brain. The furious head banging of the crowd with the screams of the front man who has always remained nameless and faceless to fans and critics alike. His features obscured by a hood and Middle eastern style scarf. It was half way through the third song that everything changed.

I remember that it was the song Capital Punishment from their debut album Love Isn’t Anything But Sex Misspelled. The lead guitarist, a Swiss man by the name of Liber who had the appearance of a prehistoric cult leader crossed with some kind of possessed bear, had just reached the end of his solo. Then I heard the shots. We all heard the shots.

Liber was dead. The guitarist next to him whose name changed with each album was dead. The drummer fell to the floor dazed and confused while the bassist fled. Only the nameless, faceless vocalist remained on stage and in his hand a sliver revolver that I could only guess had been previously hidden somewhere in the folds of his cloak.

"I am a prophet, and my gospel is that of hate. I will reveal myself in time, to those who know the truth."

He smiled and then casually walked backstage. No one stopped him. No one did anything for a few breathless moments until anarchy kicked in, but by that time the nameless, faceless, vocalist was long gone.

That was the last I heard about Shadows Eaten the Moon for a while. There were many rumours about what had happened, featuring everything from demonic possession to temporary insanity. Ultimately it didn't really matter that much. It was an odd mystery which both frightened and perplexed me but soon my part-time holiday work distracted me.

The holiday work was to help pay for my university fees and whatever extra financial considerations I might find myself in. The work was simply manual labour in a fish food warehouse squished in-between an industrial and suburban area. Here I made friends with another head banger and fellow working class, public school educated, outcast. It was he who introduced me to Violent Melodies. The lead singer claimed to be the old lead singer of Shadows Eaten the Moon who had escaped to the backwoods of Europe in order to escape police investigation. There he had forged a new band out of the mess of outcasts, vagabonds and cutthroats that he found himself with. I was given the bands first EP featuring two thirty minute songs and called "The Rising and Falling Force of Devastation." It helped me break the cloak of boredom that had threatened to strangle me at my new workplace and filled me with conversations to have with my fellow worker.

Several months later I had left the warehouse for university, although I still stayed in touch with my fellow Violent Melodies fan by creating the first Australian fan website for the band with him. Through this we avowed to show the world the greatness that was this band, taking up the banner of Shadows Eaten the Moon but taking their sound into new and far more terrible nightmarish realms.

Both of us prayed for a live tour down under. Our prayers went unanswered, but our fan site grew.

More and more people came to find Violent Melodies and became entranced by their music. Half way through my first semester we got wind of the second EP release date. It came via the internet which is always of course a little dodgy but this time the email came from someone we thought we could trust. Warren Morrison owner of the cult underground music studio that created not only Violent Melodies first EP but also all of Shadows Eaten the Moon material as well as other strange and nocturnal bands of the no limited notoriety.

It read like this:

Dear fellow worshippers of the Night,

I am please to inform you, as well as every other major Violent Melodies fan site that the second EP will be released in one month. It will go under the name Prelude. It will be fairly short as it is in reality just the opening to the much larger first full length album that will be released later in the year. This album is to be named Hate Gospel.

Yours sincerely,

Warren Morrison

At first we thought it a fake and then just as he had said the EP was released.

The message may not have been a fake but we were sure the EP was. It was for all intents of purpose a blank disc. Two hours of nothing but silence.

Soon the mid-year holidays where upon us and my rage against Violent Melodies started to waiver. It became the general mood that the disc was the studio’s cruel joke or maybe even the band's itself.

That's what we all thought until when playing the music on random the second EP came on and I heard something. It was little more than a whisper really, a few quick syllables that I couldn't make out. I turned up my speakers to full volume but still couldn’t make out what was being said. Then I rang up one of my old friends who worked as a roadie for some minor league power metal band and asked him for some louder equipment.

When we hooked up the sound to his system, we couldn’t hear anything. The voice or whatever it was, was gone. My friend shook his head and left, I soon followed suit.

My days grew filled with disappointment and my co-creator of the Australian Violent Melodies fan site soon lost interest. I too was losing interest in the band, although every now and again I would listen over the blank disc trying to find those unusual noises.

A couple of months later just as I was looking over my bills and considering taking down the Violent Melodies fan site, I received another email.

"I know that you have heard the sounds, my fellow dammed man. If you want any chance of salvation -- come to us. Take a plane to Berlin and I will be waiting. And not waiting in vain I hope."

Yours sincerely,

Warren Morrison

At first I ignored the message and the strange stirring in my heart that accompanied it after I had finished reading. I went back to University and tried to find some more part-time work but always there lingered some sense of foreboding. One day I turned up to the university lecture room only to feel suddenly ill. Every job interview I went to was futile and unsuccessful and my friends found themselves uneasy in my presence. I began to spend long hours wandering about, taking walks all around the city, even during the heaviest down pour. Then I got sick with a mysterious virus that seemed to linger on.

Within time, I started listening to the blank disc again. The voices had returned and although still uninterpretable were growing louder and increasing in quantity. Eventually I began to hear the noises or voices- whatever it was, everywhere and anywhere. They seemed to fuse to the noise of the city itself and only I could hear them.

Finally I begged my sister for the cash I needed. I told her that I was chasing after some girl or some other shit like that.

I had fled to where civilisation melts with chaos. But to be honest I can’t tell the difference anymore, for the horrors of the urban sprawl are just as terrifying as those of the empty township. From Mexico City do I write this tale, and it is here that things get truly weird. I thought I would warn you. Warn you to stop reading to go back to your sheltered lives of security and safety for as long as you can, for even now I am unsure that mankind can stop what is coming. The story must go on however, there must be an ending. Yes, in time all must come to an end.

I arrived in Berlin during June. I can’t remember exactly when anymore, time is (at least to me) becoming more flexible and so less real. It was raining, that I remember clearly, thick and oily it was and it seemed to pollute everything. The clouds above hung heavy and always had more to unleash.

As soon as I left the plane I could feel a vibration go through me. It spread up my feet and tapped into my spine. I just followed the beat, even while a part of my mind screamed not to.

As I approached the train station near the airport, the floor felt as though it was trembling with the unrecognisable noise. The drumming (or what I now thought was drumming, or at least best described as such) brought me underground and onto one of the trains. It kept me on the train, passing through endless corridors of ancient railroad track, until we got to the second last stop.

It was a particularly seedy looking station, all moss and broken tiles but the call beckoned me onto the station platform. I walked up a skeletal corpse of a staircase and into the Berlin streets above.

It was then that the noise started to become a melody. Haunting and ethereal with an undercurrent of something else - hatred. And as I entered the Berlin streets (the buildings hugging close to me, as if to embrace), I found the source of the melody.

It was a nightclub.

Crammed in-between a seedy looking bar and an adult bookstore, the place was called The Equinox and as far as I was concerned this was the heart of a heartless world. From out of its crudely cut entrance (purposely I presume to give it an air of primal danger) came the beat that had ensnared me since landing in Berlin and whose echo I had heard in far off Australia.

Now I was at the source, and I had no idea of what to do.

It was then that I felt a hand clasp my shoulder, temporarily distracting me from the unnatural composition. He was dressed in an array of grey, green and brown shades which would have looked druidic if not for the modernistic zipper at the front and machine made stiches. He was enormous, a behemoth of a man. Impossible height and weight. Or at least improbable for he now stood before me as real as day.

"I wouldn’t go in there quite as yet my fellow dammed man, just because your predestined for the flames doesn't mean you should rush to get there any faster."

‘Who are you? I said."

"Warren Morrison of course silly, who else would I be."

He spoke english and not with a hint of German accent, as far as I could tell he could have gotten off the same plane as myself.

I tried to get a good look at his face but the top half was obscured by a crimson hood, upon which was the symbol of the third eye.

"If you want to see inside there is a much safer way, my dear damned one, follow me."

I followed because I wanted to see inside the nightclub, because the beat drew me ever closer and because I knew that if I did not exorcise this demon and rid myself of that melody it would rid the world of me.

We went in a back way to the club, not through the front entrance like everybody else. As Warren opened the door I looked back and saw the security guard lock the front entrance from the outside after the last person had entered. I found myself in a stairway devoid of light, I could only just make out the outlines of the stairs and a door at the top of them. Warren pushed me forward and we ascended the stairs (I half stumbling) in darkness.

The door before us opened and I entered a room bathed in a weak light. On a decaying couch slumped near the door was a man with platinum blonde hair, dark sunglasses and a black beanie. He turned his head towards us as we entered, a small grin injecting some emotion into a face that looked as if its usual stance was stone cold.

Warren motions me to sit on a chair opposite the man and as soon as my flesh touches the steel of the metal the man brushes his hand through his hair, knocking a few stay blonde locks out of his face. As I await for whatever will happen next I notice that one side of the room is actually a window, overlooking the nightclub dance floor below. The man on the couch distracting me from noticing it before.

Below us people were in the full primal rage of the music. I recognized its muted sound as the opening song from Violent Melodies first EP. Without turning back from the window to look at the man I asked. "Who are you?"

I could almost sense the smirk.

"I’m the ex-lead singer from Shadows Eaten the Moon, and current lead for Violent Melodies. My name is of no importance for reasons simply beyond you my simple fan. As to the next question which is practically ready to spring from your lips - you came of your own volition. If Warren had not helped you along you would have found a way to me one way or the other. You will have noticed of course that the music that you heard throughout the cityscape has also stopped."

I hadn’t noticed, at least not consciously and I searched my memory for the time when the sounds had stopped, and came back empty handed. For a moment I felt not relieved like I should have, but lost as if I had been severed from a limb.

But only for a moment...

I turned to face him when he finished talking, as I had imagined he had a wicked grin on his face as he watched me and so he did. It wasn’t even predatory just insane.

Warren grabbed me from behind and although it was unnecessary, I was unable to resist. The nameless singer stood up and strode across the room, his eyes penetrated mine as he came to a stop just inches from my flesh.

"Not all muses are people." He drew his breath before speaking again, the air from his lungs feeling odd on my ear.

"A muse is simply the reflection of our desires embodied in an object. And in many curious things does mankind see its hopes and fears revealed. Few muses are heavenly, however, for what desires of man are exalted by God? Don’t you see? This music is a muse, one intended to inspire mankind to an all new low." Another pause and breath, sending shivers up my spine.

"Mankind needs to be brought back down to earth. It needs to realize the truth. That it is shit to be ripped apart and eaten by those who rule above and inside. That is what I am, you see, a prophet of hate as you may recall. The one who will return mankind to the primal womb of rage and disappointment and then turn it loose on itself so that others may feed on their blood letting."

This time I managed to suppress my shudder and ask him a question.

"What others?"

Another smirk."Show him Ellison". I am turned if by another's hand or my own inclination I do not know, to face the window overlooking the dance floor. Below us a multitude of people are in a frenzy with the music, at first this is but a metaphor but then the music changes. The nameless singer whispers in my ear.

"This is from the new album." Then he puts his hands over my ears. I can’t hear, but I can see. The frenzy was but a metaphor, now it is real. First the people on the dance floor just start twitching at random parts of their bodies, then a few fall over while others leap onto them. The people start tearing into each other, first against skin, then bone, then flesh, finally organ. Gore spills onto the stage, and some start to devour it.

Finally it stops and only five are left standing, each glaring at one of the others from across the dance floor. The hands are removed from my ears and I hear no music. Ellison and the nameless one look exhilarated by the performance below them.

"The five that are left have proven their worth, their minds will now become thrones of those who rule inside. Normally this process would take much longer, but we can speed up the process now thanks to our new sound system". Ellison points vaguely towards the metallic monolith in the corner of the room, its dark surface punctured with neon lights and cables.

‘Why are you showing me all this?" The question is greeted with another smirk, this time by Ellison as well as the nameless man."

"You are a special guest, the voice called you from half a world away. You are different from the rest, even those that survive can only be used as temporary shells for the children of those who rule inside. Your mind, body and soul can be the throne of something much greater, just like Ellison and I."

"I'm not sure I want that -- no I'm sure I do not!" My voice is little more than a whisper now, both of us have gone quiet and I don't know why.

"But can’t you see how happy they are?"

I turn to look down upon the dance floor once again, the five who survived now start to fall to the ground screaming. Slowly their heads grow in size, swelling and pulsating. Their veins pushed to the outer limits of the skin and then out of that too. Blood starts to rush down their faces mixed with a yellowish puss and other foul liquids. Slowly their heads come apart and before I look away I see a tentacle not unlike an octopus slipping around inside one of their skulls.

"This can only occur if you wish it -- I repeat -- only if you wish it."

He places a CD case in my hand, the words Violent Melodies and Hate Gospel printed upon it’s front.

"You will come back to us one day. I will promise you that."

It’s been five years since I left Berlin and returned to my place of birth. Five years since I dropped out of university for I was unable to deal with the terrors that haunted me at night. I sought solace by running away to the edges of civilisation. All in the while realizing that the beast at the heart of the modern world was far more frightening than anything that the archaic barbarianism of old could unleash. But still even here some things follow me. Sometimes I see them on market streets. Strange men hooded and cloaked who watch my steps and pierce me with their eyes.

And sometimes my mind goes over those words spoken to me in Berlin and when I am fired from another shitty job or find myself eating cold beans for dinner the words he spoke to me echo through my mind: "You will come back to us child, one day...

If mankind is dammed then isn't the only way out to stop being human? I have pondered that since and the thought haunts me to this day..

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