It is heavily gone. Heavy metal is still used as a weapon of war. The Ukrainian military is jamming the hearing of Russian soldiers by flooding their frequencies with selected excerpts of this music, according to reports carried by The Economist.
The anecdote has the merit of recalling the major involvement of music in the conflict, but also the increasingly obvious failures of the invading army’s communication systems.
The most sophisticated battlefield tactical devices normally use signals encoded on constantly changing frequencies (up to 20,000 times per second) to make them impossible to intercept and decrypt. Some Russian battalions are indeed equipped with state-of-the-art communications technology, including portable AR-187P1E Azart devices.
Obviously, some are missing or these devices are not working as expected. So, the Russian soldiers fall back on the current devices; cell phones, two-way radios and even very simple walkie-talkies. This is where the Ukrainians find the loophole, then target the source to insert reputedly stressful music broadcasts and bombard it with them.
A tactic already used
This isn’t the first time the heavy, furry genre has been used in conflict. Marines released Metallica and Thin Lizzy albums during the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban prohibit music and hate this one in particular, considered even more diabolical. The American soldiers therefore reproduced it with high-powered loudspeakers to bring their enemies out of their hiding places by interspersing the musical tracks with propaganda messages.
The funny tactic had been tested in December 1989 to get the dictator Manuel Noriega out of the Vatican embassy in Panama where he had taken refuge. He had surrendered after a week of broadcasting at the top of his voice. The song list used included hits by Alice Cooper, Guns N’Roses and Black Sabbath, and disco, but no opera enjoyed by President Noriega, arrested and subsequently convicted of drug trafficking.
“Loud music” has also been used in US detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo for “enhanced interrogation” of prisoners. In official military manuals, this technique was known as futility, since it was supposed to convince prisoners of the futility of their resistance. Musical groups including Pearl Jam, REM and The Roots have protested against this form of artistic torture.
rock mobilization
It is not known which songs are popular in the new warrior version in Ukraine. There is the embarrassment of the right choice with the national production.
Rock and its variations have a long history of political mobilization in Ukraine. A few rare groups dared to challenge the strong Soviet cultural censorship in the 1960s-1970s. Western-style pop began to sprout under perestroika. The metallic branch (black, pagan, folk or death metal) has been particularly used for twenty years, sometimes in association with the extreme right. The country has at least four metal festivals which are often attended by international stars.
The great world rock community has mobilized to support the invaded country. Green Day, Iron Maiden, Franz Ferdinand and Nick Cave have canceled planned tours in Russia. Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, has announced the suspension of its business in Russia. The Spotify streaming service has closed its offices there. The Russian federation is excluded from the Eurovision contest, one of the biggest musical tele-hooks in the world. Russian metal band Slaughter to Prevail publicly denounced the invasion.
Canadian band Billy Talent was one of the first to announce a donation to the Red Cross and encouraged their fans to follow suit. The group begins a new world tour in Quebec on Friday. The European stage was to begin in kyiv on May 28. The concert is obviously cancelled.
Ukraine’s rich music scenes suffered the devastation of war. The most spectacular transformation concerns the enlistment of musicians in the country’s armed forces. All genres, from pop to electro, from classical to folk, provided their contingent of soldiers.
Rolling Stone has profiled two enlisted musicians, including vocalist Ivan Kozakevych, frontman of atmospheric death metal band Sectorial, now stationed near the capital. He explained that the band’s bassist serves with him. They crossed paths with other musicians in their unit.
Sviatoslav Vakartchouk, known as Slava, did not stop performing despite the war. Since the start of the conflict, it has occurred near the front lines, in hospitals, shelters, refugee camps and even on the streets if necessary. His rank of lieutenant in the national army facilitates his travels.
Sviatoslav Vakartchouk, also a former deputy, is a huge star in his country. Three years ago, a poll revealed that two out of three Ukrainians wanted him to run for president.
It was finally another artist, Volodymyr Zelensky, who won in April 2019 with nearly three out of four votes in the second round. He now leads the resistance of his invaded country and has become a national and international star, probably now more admired than all rockers, rappers or k-popers combined.