Top 25 Albums Of The Decade (#9)

9) WEAKLING – Dead As Dreams (2000)

Pure fucking Armageddon. Right now somebody is probably screaming (read: typing) “HIPSTER BLACK METAL!” while tightening that spiked gauntlet they bought on sale last year from Total Holocaust Records. But, really, it is highly emblematic of this decade that possibly my favorite black metal album of all time was recorded by a band that: a) was not from Norway but from San Francisco, b) sported the guitarist for The Fucking Champs, c) was named after a Swans song, d) had a drummer named “Little Sunshine” and e) was led by a vocalist/guitarist/songwriter who admits that he “kinda had a drug problem” while recording it. About the only thing “authentic” about Dead As Dreams is the fact that it was released two years after the band had already broken up, and was more-or-less forgotten about immediately thereafter. “My objective was not to think,” said John Gossard in an interview that took place a few years later, by which time Dead As Dreams had become an underground classic. “[I wanted] to be visceral and to touch the darkest thing I could touch. It’s ridiculous, and it’s something few people are going to try and do, because you look like a fucking idiot.” Now this is completely unacceptable: a drug-addled American (who uses the word “sketchy” five times in aforesaid interview) who realizes that black metal might be ridiculous. Or, at least, what passes for most of it these days: mySpace pages, black-and-white covers with snowy forests, interchangeable Ildjarn riffs and feigned hatred for all things Judeo-Christian. I would hazard to say that at least 85% of the people who listen black metal are so firmly entrenched in the scene (read: the internet) that they rarely ever venture out of it (read: the dorm room). So is it really so surprising? That a black metal album of such high quality could originate from such an unexpected source? Of course, the purists are right: the fad is beginning, the assholes are taking over. Just last month I was walking up Haight Street and counted not one but two Burzum shirts and, when I got home, saw Immortal on the front page of the New York Times website. But I grudgingly accept this—it had to happen eventually. After all, the genre has been over-saturated for years now, and it’s about time some ignorant trend-hoppers got ahold of it. To kill it dead, put it out of its misery. After that, who knows what dreams may come, what entity will spawn itself from the remaining bile? Until then, Dead As Dreams will remain the perfect capstone. The measuring stick. The high-water mark.