Days of Darkness Fest: San Francisco

End times
Now that Days of Darkness are upon us, the time has come to ponder "thinking person's metal" and wonder, whither the Melvins?
By Will York

SAY WHAT YOU will about neo-folk, hairy psych-rock bands, or Wolf Eyes the strangest recent development in underground rock has to be the doom- and drone-metal phenomenon. It's not the music itself that's new, but the acceptance and critical respect it has gained outside the metal community is unprecedented and downright weird. Bands like Sunn O))), Khanate, Boris, and Earth, who perform at this week's Days of Darkness fest and have been making obscure and difficult music for years, have recently come to be accepted by tastemaker publications such as Arthur and the Wire not as ass-kicking headbangers, but as through-the-backdoor avant-garde artistes.