Black metal has long been associated with the gray skies, snowy landscapes and Norse mythology of Scandinavia. Most people know it, if known at all, as the genre of music associated with church fires and gory murders in early 1990s Norway. (Those events were documented in the book “Lords of Chaos,” which was adapted into a 2019 feature film starring Rory Culkin as the misanthropic, occultist musician Euronymous.)
But black metal has expanded and diversified, so much so that the genre’s latest success story, the one-man band Blackbraid, hails from the Adirondacks and draws on its founder’s Native American roots rather than Vikings and medieval weaponry.
“I didn’t want to do something ingenious or be a native guy who writes about Thor and Odin, things I don’t have a personal connection to – I want to make a traditional sounding black metal album, but write something I can really identify with,” said the creator of Blackbraid, known as Sgah’gahsowáh (Mohawk for the witch buzzard), in a video call a few weeks before the release of his new album, “Blackbraid II,” on Friday.
That record sounds fairly traditional, relying on the classic building blocks of black metal: screeching vocals, barrage of ferocious blast beats, guitars buzzing like angry bees.
Yet there is also room for maneuver within those parameters, and on “Blackbraid II” you can hear a finely strummed acoustic guitar here, a traditional flute there. Infectious riffs, particularly on the single “The Spirit Returns”, are teamed with ambitious tracks like the 13+ minute long “Moss Covered Bones on the Altar of the Moon”, which grows and wanes like an epic saga.
Pretty impressive for a one-man band: Sgah’gahsowáh (mononymic aliases are very black metal) composes the material and plays all instruments except the drums, which are programmed by his friend Neil Schneider. (Schneider also recorded, mixed and mastered the new album. Blackbraid expands to five live.)
Sgah’gahsowáh grew up not far from where he lives now, and started playing guitar as well as listening to metal in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when he was, as he put it, “barely in high school”. However, he didn’t go for the styles popular in the United States, such as thrash, of which Metallica and Megadeth are an example, or death, a brutal attack that came of age in the swamps of Florida.
“A lot of black metal is just about being depressed or sad, and a lot of it is based on the loneliness and gloom of nature,” he said, adding that growing up in the woods “and also being a moody teenager” resonated with him . “And I just liked the music more,” he said.
After a few fruitless attempts at his local scene, he created Blackbraid as a solo venture and released his first single, “Barefoot Ghost Dance on Blood Soaked Soil”, in February 2022. Fast-forward 18 months, and Sgah’gahsowáh , an album under his bullet belt and another about to be released, spoke a few days after playing at the prestigious European festivals Hellfest and Copenhell. Next up is Midgardsblot, a party held in August at a former Viking settlement in Norway.
“I quit my job last year, in April or May, so I’ve been doing blackbraid for about a year now for my career,” he said. (He worked as a carpenter.) “It’s a little crazy.”
Of course, any rapid rise brings out the doubters, especially in a genre as passionately niche as black metal, where ultra-limited releases are a sign of authenticity.
“I read that someone thought he was an industrial factory and I thought, ‘Dude, black metal isn’t even big enough to have industry,'” Schneider said laughing in a video chat. Blackbraid is not signed to a label and the music is self-released.
While not remotely mainstream-adjacent, black metal has expanded over the past two decades in the US, where the domestic strain is referred to as USBM. An Indian scene seeped into it with projects such as the Californian label Night of the Palemoon and bands such as Pan-American Native Front, Ends Embrace and Ixachitlan.
“Black metal has definitely become much more diverse over the past 10, 15 years,” said Daniel Lukes, co-editor of the recent “Black Metal Rainbows” collection, in a video interview. “It has become a place where people feel comfortable expressing their identity, be it gender identity or ethnicity. A band like Blackbraid certainly belongs to that. On the other hand,” he continued, “there’s been a relationship to ethnicity or indigenous identity or tradition or heritage in black metal from the very beginning.”
Black metal’s longstanding interest in history, myths and paganism made it suitable for Sgah’gahsowáh – who chose his stage name to honor the country where he lives rather than any specific lineage, as he was adopted. (His friends call him Jon, but he’s hesitant to reveal his last name, which makes him easy to find online; he’s also discreet about his city’s location, to protect his family’s privacy.)
“There are so many displaced Indians across this continent and it’s a common misconception that we all grew up on a reservation and had access to tribal communities,” he said. “That’s kind of how I look at it with Blackbraid — I want to empower those people, as well as all the people who are enrolled and living on reservations.”
Sgah’gahsowáh also connects black metal to indigenous traditions via his early use of the highly stylized black and white facial makeup known as corpse paint; his current look draws less from Scandinavian designs.
“If you look at traditional war paint in America, there’s no difference between that and corpse paint,” he said. “I’ve always thought of it as war paint for Blackbraid anyway. It’s already so perfectly woven into the black metal aesthetic.”
One of the reasons Blackbraid’s audience is expanding is that he taps into a great source of black metal inspiration that happens to be on the minds of many people: our connection to the natural world and our ecosystems.
This has long been part of the Northern European scene (see countless songs about winter and videos of men strolling through snowy vistas) and it has thrived within a segment of USBM, led by eco-minded bands like the Agalloch precursor, Wolves in the Throne Room and Panopticum. “Sacandaga”, from the first Blackbraid album, has lyrics like “The passage of time, it slows to a soft whisper/Like wind in the pines as the creek flows softly by”, and the accompanying video is filled with shots of majestic forests and mountains.
“Almost everything I write is a product of nature,” said Sgah’gahsowáh, who describes herself as “a lumberjack who likes fishing and stuff,” as well as an avid hiker. “I want to empower the indigenous people, that’s a very big thing, but when it comes down to it, it’s really about nature.”
He added: “I want to somehow translate that relationship into my music, make people feel that too – especially people who might not really be able to spend much time in nature, or live somewhere where it’s not as accessible . I really want that to shine through in my music.”
