The root word in anger, ‘angh,’ is indo-European and means painful and constricted. Unexpressed anger cedes into the unconscious, and into the soma. When truth is repressed, we clench the jaw, grind the teeth, and the throat constricts. And so, it is no wonder that unbinding this muscular tension can release a scream. However, vocal cords can be damaged if the voice is forced rather than safely unlocked. Similarly, if the fires of anger are not corralled, we may get burned or burn others. Such is the case with Deftones singer Chino Moreno, who paralyzed a vocal cord early in his career due to his willful blowtorch scream style. This injury, the resulting surgery, and correlated life happenings might have catalyzed Moreno into one of the most experimental voices in metal history. His famed vocal range of an impressive 4.5 octaves represents the paradox from haunting whispers to catapulting vocal unleash. 

 

Cut to 2012’s album Koi No Yokan’s lush, otherworldly Tempest. The storm is brewed through an ominous intro; kicked up are the stories that have been put into your head, from constraining familial and societal conditioning to oppressive authoritarian regimes. Let the examination-and transcendence- of suffering begin. Switch back to your time, thrust ahead, turn in circles, get caught in stasis, and spit through to the end. Discreetly, the listener is disoriented from a usual sense of self in time, space, and motion. Chino invites the ancient’s arrival, or our archetypal guides that are alive across time and beyond personal narrative. Anthropologists call this primordial aspect of the human psyche the “primal mind.” What are we beyond these adopted narratives that we tell ourselves? Stare at the sky, the sky beneath, look unto your mind from a new angle, and brace for the glory of new understanding. The mystery of life has just begun blooming inside of you. Don’t be tired. 

 

Anger can wake us up to what we care about most— to get back to our prize, or innate gifts, we must desire to be taken apart from the inside and sort through what arises. Anger is a powerful fuelant to address and resolve our conflict. Anger is passion and power turned inside out when we do not, or are not allowed to express our gifts to the fullest extent. A favorite movie character comes to mind: Mallory Knox, delirious from rattlesnake venom wants to give up. “You’re going to make it, Mal; get mad,” and together she and Micky fight off an oppressive authoritarian regime. Minute 3:24 of the song marks the calm before the torrent comes to rain all over. Don’t be tired. Moreno’s scream rips the listener, caught in limited stasis, into their infinite eye of the storm. The sound inverts, reverses, and the storm is wrangled into a moaning burn. 

 

For a more urgent access to anger, Leathers lights a fuse that travels towards an onslaught of face-melting screams carrying the message to revolt and resist what is not serving. Have skin thick like leather to relax your jaw, extend your tongue, and speak out. In the next breadth, a melodic pleading. Open your chest, look down, reach in. Time to let everything inside of you show. Shed your case, show your lines and textures. Even your enemy should know what you look like. Promises are the reward for being genuine.