I've never encountered a story like that of Arkangel. It's so shrouded in myth and mystery that even today no one is sure of the truth regarding this band's history, which is especially odd considering the band is still active. Arkangel is a Belgian metalcore band that formed in the late 90s. They play an aggressive, evil-sounding style of metalcore that was very popular in Europe at the time. This metalcore microgenre is often referred to as "edgemetal" due to influences taken from extreme metal bands and its association with Straight Edge acts. Arkangel didn't pioneer this sound, but they refined it, made it their own, and are among the most popular bands to ever play it. Arkangel's brand of the edgemetal sound combines somewhat technical, yet moshy, metalcore with thrash metal riffs and faint traces of Swedish melodic death metal. Imagine "Hell Awaits" and "South of Heaven" era Slayer with breakdowns and you basically have Arkangel.
The band, like many in the European hardcore/metalcore scene at the time, were apparently a militant Vegan Straight Edge band, and were extremely vocal about their sober and cruelty-free lifestyle. The story says that after their first two releases, a 1998 EP entitled "Prayers Upon Deaf Ears" and a full length entitled "Dead Man Walking" that released in 1999, their guitarist and founder, Numa Malabat, who was their musical and ideological linchpin, left the band. Following Numa's departure, all or almost all of the remaining members very suddenly dropped both veganism and Straight Edge. They were reportedly spotted at bars and restaurants drinking and eating meat. Hell, a friend of mine told me earlier this month that he heard they broke edge on cocaine and I heard somewhere else that frontman Baldur went on a coke-fueled bender in London at some point. A large portion of the Belgian scene was very militantly Straight Edge/Vegan Straight Edge at this point in time, so this didn't go over well with some people. By some accounts, they still fronted the whole XVX thing for awhile after they broke edge/vegan and that was what pissed people off, but I can't confirm that. In 2001, Arkangel came to the US and played some shows including Hellfest 2001. At one of these shows, someone, said to be a disgruntled Vegan Straight Edger, held up a sign that said something along the lines of "I hope you die by overdose". I think this video is from that show. You can see some dude holding up a sign and a fight start a few seconds into Arkangel's first song. Some people think this happened at Hellfest, others say it happened at a different show, some guy said that that the whole sign thing was the start of some band beef with Shattered Realm, no one knows what the hell actually happened at this point. That instance actually inspired the title of Arkangel's second full length "Hope You Die By Overdose" which came out in 2004. The band went on to release another full length, "Arkangel Is Your Enemy", in 2008 and still play shows today.
So that's the history of Arkangel. Now I'm going to look a little bit deeper. I already talked about some discrepancies and things that are not 100% known, but there is more to unearth. I realized at one point that I never saw any photos of Arkangel X'd up at any shows or anything and saw mixed accounts, some saying that Arkangel were Straight Edge and some saying they weren't. I heard about flyers that showed the band as "xArkangelx" but never saw any myself. That got me wondering. I had never seen any direct evidence of the band being XVX, so could this whole thing have been some sort of misunderstanding due to word of mouth or misinterpretation of their lyrics? It was definitely possible. To this day if your band plays a style reminiscent of edgemetal, many people will automatically assume you're a Vegan Straight Edge band for some reason. I decided to take matters into my own hands and look into this myself. Arkangel are one of my favorite bands, I have an interest in the history of older heavy music scenes, and I've been Straight Edge myself for over 9 years, so I thought it would be fun to see if I could get to the bottom of this. First, I looked at their lyrics on their first two releases. Nothing there was explicitly Straight Edge, which isn't too uncommon for XXX bands, but still that means the lyrics can't confirm if they were Straight Edge or not. I then decided to investigate the original Prayers Upon Death Ears CD release on Discogs. There weren't many scans there, but there was this one:
So based on that last paragraph, we can safely assume that Arkangel were at one point a vegan band. Nothing references Straight Edge, so that is still an unknown, but we are halfway there at this point. After further research, I came across an interview with Arkangel guitarist Kirby Michel from 2008 on French website skartnak.com. Kirby joined Arkangel in 2001, after they apparently broke edge and vegan. There are a few passages of note here. I had to run them through Google Translate since I don't speak French, but it's accurate enough for me to get the gist of what they are saying. I've edited the answers for grammar so they are more easy to read as well.
By the way, speaking of "Hope You Die by Overdose", can you tell me what the meaning of this sentence is? Is this an ultra militant Straight-edge message?
Not at all, it was basically a threat to our singer Baldur from a frustrated American fan. He was at a show we did there and he had a poster on which he wrote: Baldur, I Hope You Die By Overdose. Thanks to this fan or ex-fan because he gave us one of the most beautiful album titles we could hope for.
Do you still care about the fight for animal rights?
Me, I have always been concerned by this fight but I never felt the need to adopt a label for it.
I know Arkangel is basically a committed Vegan / Straight Edge group but are you still currently Vegan and Straight Edge? What about the other members of the group?
I have never been Vegan or Straight-Edge. Baldur, the singer as well as David, the drummer were in their youth but growing up they tasted, as they said, the delights of life.
Okay, that shed some light on the history of this band for sure. Kirby wasn't in the band originally, so his lack of XVXness can be ignored. Baldur Vilmundarson and David Vandezande have been in Arkangel since the beginning and we now have confirmation that they were both Straight Edge earlier in their lives. According to Encyclopaedia Metallum, the lineup for Prayers Upon Deaf Ears was Baldur on vocals, David on drums, and Numa on guitar. There is no bassist listed. On the next release, Dead Man Walking, these three are listed again along with Vincent Kempeneers on bass. Vincent also played in a band called Out For Blood, where he was credited on their demo as xVincentx and on their full length release as XVincX, confirming that he was also Straight Edge. That does it. Prior to Numa's departure, Arkangel were 100% a Vegan Straight Edge band. There is no doubt in my mind now. I'm glad I was able to put this to rest for myself and deduce the truth behind the band. Straight Edge or not, Arkangel are one of the best metalcore bands of all time and their influence on "true" metalcore can't be understated. Just as a little sidenote to end this piece: I have to say I can't imagine how little you have to have going on to be legitimately angry that someone else broke edge or vegan. I was really bummed out when I found out most of Vatican broke edge and they weren't an XXX band anymore but I didn't write to them saying I hoped they drank themselves into a coma or anything like that. It also didn't change my opinion of them because Vatican are still among my favorite metalcore bands. I'm glad the majority of the militant edge crowd have moved on because that mindset was always fucking stupid. Anyway, listen to Arkangel.
No comments:
Post a Comment