Music critic Ben Ratliff has a discerning and scrumptiously written review, in today’s New York Times, of a recent NYC show by the metal band High on Fire. (A band that, by the way, has been practicing serial monogamy with its bassists, having run through four in the last dozen years.) Ratliff’s coy conjuring prompts me to add an entry to Rock and Theology’s “rock bestiary.”

First, a refresher course: Because it has been a while since I’ve mentioned the bestiary, regular readers may have forgotten this category for theorockish arcana, and newer readers may never have encountered it. Here is a part of how I described it at the hazy dawn of its invention in this post from 14 July 2009:

“Bestiaries were medieval theological works that illustrated and described animals in moral and theological terms so as to emphasize particular qualities of salvation or Christian teachings. (And as modern theology-of-animals defenders might also note, so as to schematize the place of animals, fanciful or real, in the economy of salvation.) So, too, no one with theological awareness can fail to note the provocative character of the ‘bestiary’ of ‘rock animals’ — that is, living entities from rock culture (musicians, fans, roadies, and more) that are picture-able and catalogue-able — bearing some promise of spiritual insight. [...] But now with the notion of ‘bestiary,’ I want to signal the pictured ‘rock animals’ as moral teachers of a kind, but above all as possible soundboards for a theological life today. Here the picture, still and framed, becomes the possible rock icon (and/or idol). Here we meditate on the gesture, the act, the pose, the singular bodily conclave. (We can even start with the observation that many rock fans have not only deep attachments to whole concerts or songs, but also to specific pictures of fan culture or rock performance, in which a facial expression, hip pitch, or conjunction of hands is, in short, everything.)”

Now back to Ratliff on High on Fire. For our bestiary, hear the description of guitarist and lead singer Matt Pike:

“Shirtless, tattooed, dirty looking, he stood straight up, sneakers together, his guitar neck at 2 o’clock, pumping his chords at a strange angle across the strings, wincing or looking terrified between croupy roars.”

Other entries in the bestiary can be read here.

Tom Beaudoin

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, United States

1 Comment »

1. 

   I almost went to see them last week when the played (and probably slayed) in Morgantown, WV last week. I regret not going.

   Comment by Michael Iafrate — April 13, 2010 @ 11:29 am

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