High On Fire's "Cometh Down Hessian" And The Costs of Heaviness
Drumming Upstream 41
Welcome to Drumming Upstream! I’m learning how to play every song I’ve ever Liked on Spotify on drums and writing about each song as I go. When I’ve learned them all I will delete my Spotify account in a blaze of glory. Only 438 songs to go!
This week I wrote about “Cometh Down Hessian” by underground metal icons High on Fire, who, for better and worse, represent the dead-center of heavy metal culture. In this entry I’ll explain how and why High on Fire came to occupy this role, and why “Cometh Down Hessian” took me over a year to learn on drums (short version: I goofed).
Side A
“Cometh Down Hessian”
By High on Fire
Blessed Black Wings
Released on February 1st, 2005
Liked on July 6th, 2015
In DU#21 when I wrote about Iron Maiden’s “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, the current reigning champ on the Drumming Upstream Leaderboard, I concluded by considering what makes heavy metal heavy. I think I gave a pretty good answer:
“A metal song has an insistent rhythm, usually powered by a chugging low-to-mid range instrument, is in a minor key, and is either directly about or deeply informed by the specter of death”.
I stand by that definition, but even as I wrote it I knew that it could only ever be the second best description of the essence of metal. The best description is one I know well, almost by heart, and it captures the soul of the genre far more accurately than my stuffy musicology. Here it is in full, as delivered by its author, Matt Pike:
“Heavy? Heavy’s about… being pissed off and being warlord. And laying down… like if someone is in battle and they chop some dude in the head, and it landed, and you play a riff that’s the same way that way… that’s heavy.”
A more pure distillation of the simple pleasures and brutal poetry of heavy metal has yet to pass through human lips. Whenever I watch this clip the only response I can summon is “lmao, hell yeah”, which not coincidentally is the same response I have when I hear a great heavy metal song for the first or 100th time. It’s the same reaction I had when the final, perfect riff of “Cometh Down Hessian” kicked in on July 6th, 2015, seconds before I Liked the song on Spotify. The riff was pissed off, it made me feel like a warlord, and it did play the same way, THAT way, that a human skull decapitated by an axe might upon hitting the ground. Part of the reason that Pike’s definition rings so true is that Pike speaks from a position of first hand experience. By the time that he was asked to define heaviness for the documentary Such Hawks Such Hounds (2008) Matt Pike had contributed enough heavy metal to the world to rebuild the MTA from scratch, first as the guitarist of Sleep and then as the frontman of High on Fire. Across his 30 year career Pike has embodied a cartoonishly exaggerated image of the heavy metal lifer; long haired, perpetually shirtless and prominently tattooed, wielding an ungodly racket from a wall of amplifiers down on an audience of adoring fans. If Matt Pike did not exist, American heavy metal would have to invent him.
Before we can talk about High on Fire, we must talk at least a little about Sleep. The Oakland, California power trio of Pike, bassist/singer Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius built a rabid cult following in the early 1990s by playing slow, low, and absurdly loud. In contrast to the radio-sheen of mainstream metal or the blistering speed of its most popular counter-programing in the thrash scene, Sleep drew their influence straight from the genre’s source. Following in Black Sabbath’s footsteps1, Sleep played bluesy hard rock at a snail’s pace and a fighter jet’s volume, stretching their songs into trance-inducing jams. Since this was the 1990s and major labels had no idea what to do with the mountains of cash they were raking in from CD sales, London Records signed Sleep with the hope of crossing them over into alternative nation. Sleep had other ideas. Those ideas were: buy as many amps as possible, buy as much weed as possible, and record a single, hour-long song in tribute to both. The end result, Dopesmoker, spooked the label enough to drop Sleep and shelf the record. Heartbroken and broke, the trio split up.
When asked in Such Hawks Such Hounds about his preference for writing long, repetitive tunes in both Sleep and his follow-up band Om, Cisneros recalled listening to his favorite records as a teen and wishing the best parts of each song went on for longer, up to “14 minutes straight”. In this sense, Cisneros writes heavy metal as a love letter to itself, turning his favorite riffs into hymns to the genre’s imaginative power. Though far more concise, Pike’s post-Sleep project achieves something similar. Harder, faster, and meaner than Sleep’s stoner serenity, High on Fire are the reigning lords of the center of heavy metal’s Venn diagram.
I have been aware of High on Fire for about as long as I’ve been aware of the heavy metal underground as a concept. When I attended my very first concert in 2004 (Converge, Cave In, and Between the Buried and Me at the old Tribeca Knitting Factory2) the venue played a High on Fire live video on a projector before the show started in earnest. I’ve kept running into them at concerts ever since. I’ve seen them play with Japanese post-rock sentimentalists Mono, Swedish progressive rockers Opeth, and their fellow Brewer Metal icons Mastodon3. No matter what sub-genre they’re paired with, as long as the amps are loud High on Fire have demonstrated a Capybarian ability to fit in on any bill. I imagine part of this adaptability was a matter of practicality. For at least the first decade of their run High on Fire were not a profitable band. In between tours Pike and drummer Des Kensel (more on him on Side B) both worked odd construction jobs to make ends meet. One can understand why they’d hit the road as hard and as often as possible. However, High on Fire’s omnipresence on metal bills also speaks to their broad appeal both within and outside of the genre. “We're not at the same level, but I kind of consider ourselves to be a band like Motörhead,” Kensel told Revolver Magazine in 2007 “we can appeal to a pretty wide audience: filthy old rockers, skater kids, younger punk rockers, metal dudes—basically just the whole genre of hard rock.”
You can hear exactly what Kensel is getting at on “Cometh Down Hessian”. Like the best of High on Fire’s material the song blends the low-frequency rumble of Sabbath and Sleep with the force and speed of the 80’s thrash scene. High on Fire feel classic without falling short of the intensity expected of a 21st metal act. Any long-hair at any point in the genre’s history could listen to the headlong hurtle of “Hessian” and conclude that they were listening to heavy metal. This timeless quality might also explain why High on Fire were many a 00s hipster’s metal band of choice. They certainly aren’t metal for people who don’t like metal, but they might be metal for someone who likes the idea of enjoying metal as much as they enjoy metal itself. No one could seriously accuse High on Fire of “falseness", Pike’s credentials are too bullet proof for that old bullet-belt pot shot, but they also don’t require all that much homework to appreciate. The metal super-taster might pick out notes of Cirith Ungol and Celtic Frost in “Cometh Down Hessian”, while the neophyte might only refer to Motörhead and Slayer. Both parties would be correct.
While High on Fire’s crossover appeal helped them grow their profile and audience, it has also led to a few misunderstandings. For example, in their review of 2005’s Blessed Black Wings, High on Fire’s third full length and home to “Cometh Down Hessian”, Tiny Mix Tapes writer P Funk claims that while the band’s lyrics “demonstrate an awareness of generic norms” they are ultimately “empty” and “plotless”. This is intended as a compliment, High on Fire’s blah lyrics return the emphasis to their undeniably rad music the argument goes, but it is a compliment delivered with a condescending backhand. To be certain, Matt Pike’s lyrics are, like many things that he says in public, a little on the batty side. But any “precluding of the possibility of substantial verbal communication” is coming from the critic’s reading, not from Pike himself.
The lyrics to “Cometh Down Hessian” may be silly, but they aren’t meaningless. In fact, they become more meaningful the more seriously you take heavy metal itself. Take the title for instance. The non-headbangers reading might wonder why Pike decided to write a song about German mercenaries working for the British during the American Revolutionary War. What cause does such a mercenary have for “plunder[ing] the archaic tomb”? The seasoned metal fan on the other hand will immediately clock what Pike is getting at. In metal circles “hesher” is a slang term for an especially devoted metal fan. A lifer, in other words. Pike merely flipped the slang back to its origin to give the lyrics some old world pizzazz, no different than adding “th” to the end of “come”. The image of a metalhead invading a tomb to uncover an ancient amulet might strike you as no less ridiculous, but stick with me here. “Cometh Down Hessian” is a song about seeking power no matter the cost. Our titular metalhead, once in possession of the amulet summons “the hound” and unleashes doom upon “the innocents”. For this crime, the metalhead is also doomed. It is their corpse that ultimately lies in the same tomb they plundered.
P-Funk’s primary error was in assuming that this supposedly “plotless” lyric had no relation to the music behind it. Can “Cometh Down Hessian” be enjoyed without a lyric sheet? Certainly. Pike’s voice may not be a full on growl, but his lived-in rasp isn’t built for diction. You’d be forgiven for making it to the end of the song without catching a word he says. Luckily, the gnarliness of his lengthy guitar solo needs no legible lyrical motivation to rule. However, having the lyrics in mind enriches “Hessian” both on the level of composition and in the context of Pike’s career. The song begins with Pike arpeggiating a short chord progression by himself. These opening moments are quieter, tentative and uncertain compared to the burly chaos of the rest of the track. Without the lyrics in the heavy verses that follow it, this intro might come across as superfluous. With the lyrics, it evokes the first torch-forward steps into the tomb, the shadows they cast and the dust and vines they displace on the way. The band’s snarling arrival, the murderous hound.
Like the title, “Cometh Down Hessian”’s plot means more the more you care about heavy metal. Because if you care about heavy metal enough, it too can be a curse. Being a lifer of anything has consequences. Near the end of Such Hawks Such Hounds Pike speaks bluntly about those costs. “I wish I did have a house, I wish I did get married and take care of some girl,” Pike says, “you start to think about that stuff as you get older.” Given how much time the documentary spends on Sleep’s short lifespan, it’s hard not to hear these regrets in relation to his brief shot at the big leagues. Pike, a juvenile delinquent raised by a single parent with a traumatic stint at a military academy in his recent past, dropped out of high school to go all in on Sleep. When that bet failed, he doubled down with High on Fire, touring hard and partying harder. If you watch Matt Pike and current High on Fire bassist Jeff Matz talk about how they wrote some of their best riffs and drink every time the origin doesn’t involve drug use you’ll reach the end of the video safe to drive.
Going all in paid off for Pike even as it took a toll on his body. Sleep reunited in 2009, and Dopesmoker got reissued by Southern Lord in 2012. Both were met with rapturous acclaim. Thanks in part to Pike’s relentless ground game with High on Fire, Sleep’s cult had expanded to a size that would force a London Records exec to chow all the way down on their trainers (that’s what the Brits call shoes, right?). I saw Sleep live in 2018 at Brooklyn Steel around the time they unexpectedly dropped their Dopesmoker follow up The Sciences. It was packed to the gills with multiple generations of metalheads. A year later Pike, hobbled from on-going health issues that would eventually cost him a toe, hoisted the Grammy for Best Metal Performance, awarded to High on Fire’s “Electric Messiah”. By then Pike had quit drinking and had settled down with his wife in Portland, Oregon. High on Fire’s quest for the most potent and beastly of riffs had finally earned Pike the success he had so nearly missed out on.
It also left him unprepared for the scrutiny such success would bring him. In 2022 Pike landed in hot water after an interview with The Quietus highlighted the influence of reptilian conspiracy theorist David Icke on Pike’s recent lyrics, along with a number of other hair-brained quotes about the temperature of the sun and the quantum nature of the universe. In a media landscape still in the midst of a culture war over COVID vaccines and other right-wardly warped takes on reality, Pike’s quotes provoked enough of a stir to involve NPR, where writer Grayson Haver Currin questioned whether Pike also shared Icke’s noted antisemitism. Pike, along with Kensel and producer Billy Anderson, flatly denied the comparison, claiming that he only treated Icke’s work as a source for sci-fi imagery. Metal has a long history of cherry-picking fantastical images from otherwise bigoted wingnuts for its lyrics. To my knowledge no one has ever grilled James Hetfield about whether he shares H.P. Lovecraft’s racism or Steve Harris about his thoughts on Japanese Nationalism for adapting Yukio Mishima4. Pike made the mistake of drawing from a far less reputable crank and had the poor timing to enter the wider spotlight at a moment when loons couldn’t afford the benefit of the doubt.
Whether Pike deserves the benefit of the doubt is up to you to decide. As inane as I find the claims Pike makes about global politics and the nature of reality, I don’t think he’s animated by bigotry or hate. Frankly, I don’t expect someone with Pike’s personal history to have anything resembling a coherent political agenda outside of a generalized distrust of authority and a desire to be left alone to make art. A heavy metal lifer might look like a goofy cartoon to mainstream audiences from a distance. Up close, where you have to consider the material conditions that molded him, it isn’t always as funny. But the hair covered corpse isn’t in the tomb yet. With the heat from the NPR piece mostly cooled off, High on Fire are set to release another album this year. I have no doubt that they’ll be back on the road and back in front of their equally committed fans to unleash impending doom once more. Whether the mainstream institutions that had so recently embraced Pike come along for the ride remains to be seen, but I doubt High on Fire will care either way.
Personally, I have my reservations about the upcoming High on Fire album, but only because Des Kensel isn’t on it.
Side B
“Cometh Down Hessian”
Performed by Des Kensel
136-144 Bpm
Time Signature: 4/4
Heavy metal, the conventional thinking goes, is a guitarist’s genre. We treat riffs and solos as the genre’s building blocks, and idolize or demonize a band’s guitarist for how well they construct songs out of those blocks. The truth of the matter is more complicated. While metal wouldn’t exist without the slackened roar of a down-tuned guitar, those guitars wouldn’t mean half as much without the drums pounding behind them. It is the riff that makes the metal fan raise the horns, but it is the drums that make them bang their heads.
If High on Fire are the quintessential American heavy metal band, then Des Kensel, who drummed for the band from their inception until 2019, must be the quintessential American heavy metal drummer. Kensel’s combination of power and groove had as much of a hand in shaping the band’s identity as any of Matt Pike’s riffs. Pike says as much himself. In the Revolver interview I linked to earlier, Pike said that his chemistry with Kensel was immediate and that he never considered another drummer for the band. Unlike Chris Hakius, whose patient, rambling playing often felt blissfully unrelated to Pike & Cisneros in Sleep, Kensel charges straight at the riffs with horns down. Even on High on Fire’s early records when Pike was still writing in the meandering style he’d honed with Sleep, Kensel’s insistent tom fills and emphatic accents guaranteed that no one would mistake Pike’s new project with his old band. In a more recent video for Loudwire, Pike also cites Kensel’s double kick skills for unlocking his inner Motörhead. Without Kensel High on Fire may never have earned the “Motörhead meets Slayer” one-liner that critics hammered to death in 2005.
Kensel’s power is all the more impressive for how long he’s able to sustain it. If drumming in a hardcore band is like sprinting, metal drummers are long distance runners. In the 2000s when not working construction gigs that required frequent blood tests to make sure he wasn’t lead poisoned, Kensel also worked as a bike messenger in famously hilly San Francisco according to an interview with Metal Rage. All that cardiovascular exercise clearly paid off. I’m no Cody Davis, but I’d bet that the balance and strength in the hips and calves that biking requires has a sizable overlap with the demands of high level double bass drumming. Kensel won’t be the fastest drummer to show up in Drumming Upstream, but few will be as unflaggingly persistent as he was with High on Fire.
But, as I’ll soon demonstrate, focusing solely on Des Kensel’s footwork misses the bigger picture. Part of the reason that Kensel’s legs never seem to tire is that his arms are just as active. As indebted to the double kickers of 1980s metal as his playing is, Kensel is also the product of the 1990s when drummers like Matt Cameron, Danny Carey, and Jason Roeder were pioneering a tom-heavy, linear style. Kensel synthesized the two eras, mixing his double bass grooves with long, looping rolls across the whole kit. Kensel prefers large, low tuned toms that he hits hard enough to match the sound of his kick drums. In tandem with Pike and Blessed Black Wings bassist Joe Preston, the individual drums blur into an imposing and indistinguishable mass. Since Blessed Black Wings was recorded by Steve Albini, whose name in the liner notes almost certainly played a role in bringing High on Fire to the Pitchfork set, the album has none of the plasticine articulation common to extreme metal from the 2000s. This is without a doubt a good thing. When Kensel going full bore on the kit, as he does at the very beginning of Blessed Black Wings or at the end of “Cometh Down Hessian”, he sounds like a marching band on a war path to chop some dude, namely you, in the head.
The effect is exhilarating, but it led me to an assumption that slowed my progress on “Cometh Down Hessian” significantly. I made my first attempt’s at playing along to the song in the first season of Drumming Upstream before I repaired my double kick pedal. When I reached the song’s verse and heard Kensel’s 16th note avalanche, I shelved the song until I had the proper equipment. In season two with my trusty DW-5000 fully operational I gave “Hessian” another shot. I got BLASTED. My feet stood no chance of keeping up with Kensel in the verse, let alone the marathon of the song’s conclusion. I abandoned the song again, this time with a plan. To build up the speed necessary to take “Hessian” on, I shifted my focus to “Towing Jehovah” by Converge. Not only is the Converge tune slightly slower, it’s much shorter. Once I could handle a quick sprint it was just a matter of practice before I could take on the full mile. After six months of practice I finally nailed “Towing Jehovah” and returned to “Hessian”. With the “Jehovah” under my belt it only took me another two months of shedding to close the gap. But right as I was starting to feel confidant with Kensel’s part I made a horrible discovery. There was no double bass on the song at all. Kensel was trading between his hands and one foot the whole time. Perhaps it’ll be easier to explain if you watch me play the tune.
I’m wearing this outfit because I originally planned on recording a straight forward indie pop song that day before deciding to go for glory and tackle this tune too. I realize that I am not helping High on Fire beat the hipster metal allegations.
Trading between the right hand on the floor tom and the right foot on the kick the way Kensel does in the verse and climax of “Hessian” is still difficult, but for a right-hander with only casual double bass experience it was far easier for me to get the hang of. But even though I was up to the physical challenge I still had a lot of work to do before I could make it through the tune alive. As I’ve mentioned in my other covers of metal tunes, the genre doesn’t have much use for conventional song structure. Pike hews closer tradition than most, plenty of parts repeat in “Hessian”. It’s the way that Pike repeats his riffs that makes the song unusual. After the subdued intro Pike moves between four different riffs. Here’s how I charted the song out:
Main Riff (16 measures)
Long Verse (12 measures)
Main Riff (8 measures)
Short Verse (8 measures)
Chorus (14 measures)
Main Riff (8 measures)
Long Verse (12 measures)
Main Riff (8 measures)
Short Verse (8 measures)
Double Chorus (29 measures)
Solo (16 measures)
Climax (16 measures)
As you can see, Pike and co. get a lot of milage out of “Hessian”’s main riff. This chart actually downplays how often they return to it. Each long verse is a short verse with four bar return to the main riff nestled inside of it. Making matters even more complicated for would-be memorizers like yours truly, each of these riffs usually feature two alternating turnarounds, a long one and a short one, each with a different fill from Kensel. I had to remember a) the order of the riffs b) the order of the turnarounds to each repetition of each riff c) the order of the fills leading into each turnaround of each repetition of each riff all at high speed and high volume. You can understand why in the video above I had to psyche myself up before the song kicked in. Learning this tune was the closest I’ve come to fighting a Dark Souls boss in real life, a perfect compliment to the song’s tomb raiding theme. Making it to the final 16 measures when I didn’t have to worry about what was coming next and could just let loose on the toms never failed to feel transcendently, righteously heavy.
“Cometh Down Hessian”’s twisty-turny structure may make it a fun song to play, but does it make it fun to listen to? Find out on the Drumming Upstream Leaderboard.
DRUMMING UPSTREAM LEADERBOARD
I began and ended this entry with “Cometh Down Hessian”’s final riff deliberately. It is without question one of my favorite metal riffs ever. To be blunt I doubt that “Cometh Down Hessian” would be here without it. The repetition of the verses and the countless returns to the main riff make sitting through the song for the triumphant ending more trouble than its worth. It is not Matt Pike’s favorite High on Fire song (according to the Revolver video I linked to above, that would be “Snakes for the Divine”) and it isn’t mine either. Give me “Rumors of War” or “King of Days” over “Hessian” any time. The song is middle of the road for the band, which I suppose makes it the middle of the middle of heavy metal. That puts the song at 25th on the Leaderboard.
The Current Top Ten
Thanks for reading! For the next entry… wait what? This can’t be right, it’s Bruce Springsteen AGAIN???
Black Sabbath will eventually appear in Drumming Upstream.
For more on Converge, check out DU#32. Between the Buried and Me will eventually appear in Drumming Upstream.
Mono and Opeth will both eventually appear in Drumming Upstream. It’s as much a shock to me as it is to you that Mastodon will not, but you can read more about Brewer Metal here instead.
Metallica will eventually appear in Drumming Upstream. As noted at the start of this entry, Iron Maiden have already appeared in Drumming Upstream and will again.