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.
Concerts at St Mary Redcliffe, a gothic church in Bristol that has architecture dating back to the 12th century, and Rochester Cathedral in Kent are being planned, along with other venues. There is also strong interest from Germany, Mynett added.
Part of the reason for churches’ interest is a hope that gigs may help to reverse the rapid decline in attendance. About eight churches of all denominations close each week, according to Martin Renshaw of the charity Pipe Up for Pipe Organs.
“There were around 42,000 churches 20 years ago,” he said. “It’s probably down to about 35,000 now.”
Renshaw and his colleagues have rescued nearly 100 organs and shipped them to churches in Italy, the Philippines, Norway, the Netherlands and France – although post-Brexit red tape means that he has been charged €2,000 (£1.700) in import duties for organs being given away in Europe.
Church leaders have been trying to maintain their importance as community spaces by holding other events, such as silent movies accompanied by organs, as well as other recitals.
Joe Cryan, director of music at St Mary Redcliffe, said: “Part of my mission is to see how we make music at reflect Bristol now, because it’s very much a secular city, not a sacred city. How do we make the music and the liturgy do that?
“Our organ is world-famous – Handel played it. It has 4,327 pipes. Roger Sayer, who wrote the music for [Christopher Nolan’s] Interstellar with Hans Zimmer, came and performed the soundtrack here. There’s a lot of history, so by doing something like a rock concert with an organ follows on in that kind of tradition.”
Churches have often been used for other purposes: in the 16th and 17th centuries, Londoners would “walk Paul’s”, meeting in the nave of the old St Paul’s Cathedral to swap news and do business, while St Paul’s churchyard was used by book and newspaper sellers before they moved to Fleet Street.
Not all modern events are popular with parishioners, however. A silent disco at Canterbury Cathedral in February, known as the “rave in the nave”, was opposed by campaigners, who disliked the idea of churches being used for dancing and drinking alcohol. But church officials said dancing had taken place in the cathedral for hundreds of years.
“Music went on in churches from dawn until dusk every day – every church, not just the big ones,” said Renshaw. He added that the presence of doom metal was also redolent of the doom paintings in medieval churches, which depicted the Last Judgment, when souls were sent to heaven or hell, as a reminder to the congregation.
Mynett said pipe organs were an important part of our culture that were in danger of being lost.
“Pipe organs are a unique auditory experience – the organ’s resonance fills the space with these rich sonic tapestries,” he said. “And we’re sleepwalking towards losing all of that.”
