The Extreme Metal of Gaerea Is Coming to the Gothic Theatre

As the morbid mind behind Gaerea, the group’s founder, who remains anonymous like his bandmates, considers how the extreme-metal project has continued to morph and evolve since starting in 2016.

While the black-veiled band historically shares sordid stories of narcissism and misanthropy – two staples of black-metal music – the latest album, Coma (released on October 25 via Season of Mist), is much more optimistic and even, dare we say, positive, in some respects. There’s even some – gasp! – actual singing on the album, as heard in the intro song, “The Poet’s Ballad.”

“We are singing about hope for the first time in eight years. Something that I just didn’t feel before – it wasn’t there. But now there is, because we’re in different states of our lives,” the founder, who handles guitar and vocals, says from his home in the Netherlands.

Don’t expect anything too uplifting or serene, though: We’re still talking about grating, blackened music here, after all. Gaerea, which originated in Portugal, proves that there’s always a dark side to the bright side of things, as it does in the song “Hope Shatters.”

“Even hope can have its dark sides to it because it’s still hope – it’s not something that will happen,” says the founder. “It’s something that lives within your psyche and nostalgia, or feelings of ‘Everything fucking sucks,’ and you just hope for something better. It’s just a different side of things that are shaped by the reality we are [in] now as people and musicians.”

The way the five bandmates ultimately see the world from behind their masks is reflected in the moniker Gaerea, which means “us,” according to the founder. While they may not have the rosiest view (listen to “World Ablaze,” for example), that is constantly shifting.

“I would say we’re all very misanthropic, utopian urbanistics singing about the lonely man in the cities and how depressing that is with today’s world, and now we also sing about hope, what’s beyond that for that character,” the founder explains. “We are evolving. Our views are evolving.”

Naturally, that means Gaerea’s sound is, too. Initially, the group fell within the modern black-metal realm after its 2018 debut, Unsettling Whispers. But Coma sees Gaerea exploring more melodic territory between the blast beats, such as on “Unknown,” which can be called catchy at times – and black metal isn’t typically catchy. In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite, which is why it’s always been a hard subgenre for metal fans to get into. As the founder puts it, there were “zero fucks” given when writing commenced for Coma.

“If being part of a genre like black metal means you should stay there forever making the same fucking thing again like most bands do, I don’t want to be part of it,” he says. “I don’t think we ever were really part of it. I think we always were a bit different, a bit more emotional and hardcore-ish every now and then. It’s just who we are. We were never the most ‘trve’ band out there, and we never wanted to be one. If this album sets us aside from that scene, honestly, it’s fine. I think it’s a way of playing black metal and extreme music.”

That’s a pretty black-metal way to look at it. See Gaerea for yourself on Friday, December 6, at the Gothic Theatre. Zeal & Ardor, the Swiss avant-garde band that blends black-metal sensibilities and traditional slave songs, and British synth-rock duo Zetra are also on the bill. So you can leave the corpse paint at home for this one.

Such a tour proves that the underground metal movement that rose to prominence in Norway during the 1990s (if you don’t know about the church burnings and murders at this point, Google is free) has also evolved beyond lo-fi production and cartoonish imagery. It’s a legitimate form of sonic extremity.

Even in all its aggressiveness, Coma is a crisp-sounding album on which Gaerea is determined and unfettered in pushing the dividing line even further while planting its flag alone on the outer edges of an already lonely, outsider subgenre. 

“I can grow other branches in our sound,” the founder says. “I don’t think we’re changing ourselves that much. We’re still the same people, and we still consider ourselves very aggressive musicians in the way we create and perform. That’s never going to change. That’s just who we are. But I like to see that we can evolve, and there’s just so much more around the corner for where we can go without any boundaries.”

And having no fear in shedding a specific tag or category is what really makes Gaerea one of the more refreshing bands out there doing it.

“We know our place. We’ve done the black-metal albums. We know we can be fast. We know we can make dissonate, big, anthem songs, as we did on Limbo (2020) and Mirage (2022),” the founder concludes.

“We already did that, so for us, it’s not about changing, because we should. It’s changing because it just happens that we don’t want to do the same record all over again, and I don’t think we ever did that. It’s time for us to explore new things. Don’t be afraid of them.”

Gaerea, with Zeal & Ardor and Zetra, 6 p.m. Friday, December 6, Gothic Theatre, 3263 South Broadway. Tickets are $43.