https://youtu.be/wINHZy0i5N4
Band info
Band: Opus Est Sanare
Album: ‘Live and Unadorned‘
Genre: chamber music, instrumental
Released August 1st, 2025
Location: US
Review
Metal, and extreme metal even more, for many, is first and foremost violence in musical form. And even though this isn’t the whole story, it is obviously not a wrong conclusion, given the imagery and lyrics many artists use, and given the music itself; even the way we dance, with our mosh pits and headbanging, is in many ways ritualised, consensual aggression. As leftists, we at ABMN always seek to contextualise that violence and, in a way, to appropriate it and use it – it is no secret for anyone who has read us that we are not pacifists in any sense, and it IS justified in many situations, like against colonisation, apartheid and genocide. Fuck the specific person who wrote that sentence first, but yes, Black Metal IST Krieg.
This first paragraph, however, is not what today is about here. Today, we will talk not of violence, but of HEALING, and of how the very same musical metal music can be applied towards that end, sometimes simultaneously. Today we talk about Opus Est Sanare, a project by Christopher Brown, a cellist who you have quite likely heard before, be it in neofolk through Osi and the Jupiter, be it in the many metal acts he has performed with (like Periodeater or Antecantamentum). Today, we have Mr Brown playing a live set of instrumental chamber music in the midst of a metal event, a fundraiser by the SoCal RABM Collective aimed at helping pro-Palestinian and anti-ICE mutual aid. Today, we have things for which we are not used to speaking about, but which touch us all the same.
Because yes, mosh pits can be brutal and filled with assholes who just want to hurt someone, but the best are those when the second someone drops their glasses or stumbles, everyone IMMEDIATELY stops to help. Black metal is blastbeats and growls, but it can also be crescendos and comfort and cleans. Black metal can be a call to violence, yet it can also build consciousness around liberation. And our efforts to murder capitalism and tyranny are, ultimately, an attempt at healing the world – and are nothing without caring for each other and ourselves. Today, we heal.
Other links and platforms:
BC: https://opusestsanare.bandcamp.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/opusestsanare/
FB: https://s.42l.fr/XbD0dfrE
Red Nebula: https://rednebula.bandcamp.com/