It was a “bonkers gig”, pairing heavy metal with a pipe organ – a musical curiosity that the bands thought would surely seldom be repeated, if ever.

But Pantheïst and Arð, the doom metals bands who performed the concert at Huddersfield town hall last year, have been inundated with requests to repeat the performance – with churches leading the way.

“We thought that churches would look at it as slightly heretical, – having a metal band playing in church – but that wasn’t the case at all,” said Mark Mynett, a senior lecturer in music production at Huddersfield University. “They really embraced this bold new world – some of them talked about bringing a new audience into church.”

The experiment last August saw Pantheïst and Arð accompanied by David Pipe, the cathedral organist at the Diocese of Leeds, playing Huddersfield town hall’s 1860 “Father” Willis organ.

Mynett said that after the Observer covered the event, it was featured on Radio 4’s Sunday Worship, prompting dozens of churches, among others, to get in touch with him and Pipe.

Now the new genre has its own name – “organic metal” – and a series of similar concerts is planned, starting with gigs this week at the deconsecrated St Paul’s church in Huddersfield.

It will feature Mynett’s band, Plague of Angels, alongside Pipe on the organ and Anabelle Iratni, a classically trained vocalist, who will sing an aria by Handel – as well as delivering death metal growls.

edit: Pantheïst’s full set (they have more bits on their YouTube channel)

  • WamGams@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Maybe the reason we don’t go to church anymore is the lot of you are more interested in our musical tastes than the pedophiles hiding within your ranks.

    • Flax@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      1000032069

      Of course we care about paedophilia. You have to be deranged not to

        • Flax@feddit.uk
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          8 months ago

          Why are you more concerned over the Church of England than the BBC with the whole Jimmy Savile scandal?

          • WamGams@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            Didn’t Jimmy Savile regularly dine with the Supreme Governor of the church? Was he not a family friend?

              • WamGams@lemmy.ca
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                8 months ago

                The point that you want the BBC to take the entire fall for something your Church’s leaders were involved in?

                Or the point that you would rather prevent Christian children from hearing distorted guitars than confronting the real fact why children don’t want to be around you guys?

                • Flax@feddit.uk
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                  8 months ago

                  No, my point is that you cannot just do “whattaboutthisissue”

                  • WamGams@lemmy.ca
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                    8 months ago

                    I’m not whataboutting the issue. I’m saying bringing in the metal heads with their distorted guitars might make your community safer for children.