Anger is one proper emotional response to what happened last week in Charlottesville and the disgraceful way Trump (twice) responded to it. Another would be blinding, suffocating, volcanic, steam-coming-out-of-the-ears-like-an-old-cartoon rage. Thankfully, there are healthy, nonviolent outlets for those kind of feelings. You could call or write your representatives, or attend a peaceful protest, or donate money to anti-hate organizations. Less constructively but maybe more cathartically, you could also listen to a bunch of blistering heavy-metal songs about whooping Nazi ass.
Metal critic Kim Kelly has you covered on the last of those solutions. Yesterday, the Noisey editor tweeted a proposed playlist for those of us not nostalgic for the antebellum days.
As is to be expected from an authority on heavy music, Kelly’s selections run wide and deep, from the berserk, unintelligible frenzy of Magrudergrind to the groovy thrash of Sepultura to the politically-charged black-metal fury of Panopticon. And lyrically, the songs range in specificity, some taking aim at police brutality, some generally decrying fascism, others just imploring Nazi punks to, well, fuck off. (Yes, Kelly still recommends the Dead Kennedys’ anti-Nazi gold standard, though she goes for the heavier, more bludgeoning Napalm Death version.) What every track on this impromptu mixtape has in common is a strong, take-no-shit anti-authoritarian streak.
Not every song Kelly cites is available on Spotify, but you can stream a decent portion of them below; otherwise, the original thread links to YouTube clips. Listening to them won’t stop racist crybabies from complaining about the oppression of not being allowed to oppress, white supremacists from committing horrible acts of violence, or the president from suggesting that people protesting Nazis in their streets are as bad, if not worse, than the Nazis themselves. But it may give you a little spike of righteous pleasure during this depressing, shameful chapter of ongoing American history.