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Fields of the Nephilim /
The Nefilim
Fields of the Nephilim has been interwoven into the tapestry of my life for over 35 years, and within that tapestry appear all the key themes that also feature prominently in their music - Sumerian lore, Lovecraft’s interdimensional gods, shamanism and animism, infused with copious amounts of sex and death magic.
It would seem the Norns wove the fates of many others with this band as well, their fans are markedly different - seers, artists, sorcerers, and poets - all drawn to the Nephs like butterflies to milkweed. The band has also been the key driving force behind the emergence of the Nephilim and Watcher mythos into mainstream culture. So many authors, video game developers, TV and movie script writers, and of course musical artists, take inspiration from this band, they deserve our recognition and thanks for creating such rich and meaningful soundscapes.
My journey with hell’s gunslingers, as that is how they appeared on the scene, began in 1987. I was a young metalhead, and the '80s for me were a glorious decade of fiery energy where live gigs were like air - essential to life. My friend Martin managed our local independent record shop. His tastes were more old school than mine, but he got new releases first of anything worth listening to, and one night we were sitting around having a smoke and listening to the latest promos he’d gotten in - and he popped on Dawnrazor. He loved it at first listen, I was less warm to it initially. But he persisted, everytime I went to his house. Dawnrazor was a bit of a slow burn for me, but there were definitely songs I adored, like the title track and “Vet for the Insane”.
The Nephilim album, though, was a game changer for me. Martin and I had our favourite bookstore haunts where we would comb through occult and horror fiction for hours on end, spending most of my meager paycheck on Arkham House Lovecraft hardbacks, books on ancient civilizations, strange occult and philosophy tomes. The first time I heard the Nephilim album was incredible, the lyrics touched on so many topics that I was fully immersed in, it was something I’d never experienced with any band, and I was hooked. Sumeria was there, along with Cthulhu and Crowley, and the lying preacher from Dawnrazor, who fuels hate and divisiveness.
Life took me on a strange path, I moved to a small city in Georgia for my job. When Elizium came out, I was living on my own and not terribly happy in my role. My new friends all loved Pink Floyd, and they were also very fond of mind altering substances, so this album fit perfectly into that world. It was slower, but breathtakingly ethereal, my feet hardly touched the Earth for weeks on end - “where have I been?” became the norm for me. It was the best form of escapism, a desperately needed respite from the mundane world.
It moves between us
for one moment
like opium and your heart
We've remedies from the ancient gods
to heal the morals of our shadow
“Submission”, Elizium
But then the worst happened, the band broke up. What? At a time when the threads of my life began to fray around me, the band I’d come to love fell away before my eyes. I threw myself back into metal for solace, I started promoting concerts - Death (RIP Chuck), Obituary, Forbidden - from Florida to New Orleans - and that sparked my next move, to Texas.I had promoted a band called Dead Horse, self proclaimed horsecore, with a strong cult following. I quickly befriended the drummer’s wife, Lila, and she convinced me to move to Houston, where she became a cherished friend and ally, my magical sister. I got a job managing a comic book store, the best job of my life to be honest. A few years later I moved to California to work for a comic publisher, Rebel Studios, and that was where I discovered the new incarnation of FoTN - the Nefilim.
Carl McCoy said in an interview that he made massive sacrifices to make Zoon, and in that album I felt such strong emotions - rage, despair, loss, and love. It was a relentless descent into the underworld, but one that quenched and nourished my soul - my oasis in a scorching desert. There are several excellent analyses of Zoon as katabasis / anabasis, one from Paula O’Keefe (I cannot find the link any longer to that, if anyone has it please share!), and another from Beth Winegarner - Nephilim Reborn: Zoon.
Zoon triggered a deep restlessness in me, something needed to change in my world. I was back in Houston after three years in California, but it didn’t feel right. I was seeking something but didn’t know what. I moved to New Orleans, my home and heart, and eventually to Florida where I knew many musicians who were into magic. Tampa was the closest to what I was looking for, but I knew I wouldn’t stay (too hot, too humid, too many hurricanes). An opportunity came up for me to travel to Britain, around the same time I learned about the upcoming release Mourning Sun. There were many synchronicities pointing me to Britain. I met my husband here, and I’ve gotten to explore so much of Europe and the ancient myths and stories and that is, I believe, what was missing for me. Moving to the UK has also allowed me to see Fields of the Nephilim - to experience the rituals in person - more times than I can count. I am grateful that my restlessness brought me here and that I’ve been able to finally see the band I adored for so long.
Back to Zoon, in another interview Carl McCoy stated that all of the Nephilim albums were a cycle, but Zoon was a cycle in itself. That idea resonated with what I was already thinking, and as I had been a longtime fan of Joseph Campbell, the legendary mythologist, I decided to put the Nephilim / Nefilim studio albums into his Hero’s Journey mythic structure. Zoon very much stands alone as a death and rebirth cycle, but that road leading to katabasis was paved with the studio albums that preceded it.
Dawnrazor has to be the call to adventure. As I mentioned, FoTN appeared to me as hell’s gunslingers, embracing horror and gore in dusty Spaghetti Western gear. If you’ve ever read Rebel Studios’ Gunfighters In Hell comic series and you are a Nephilim fan, it’s hard to miss the fact that Dawnrazor could easily be the soundtrack for that series (if you haven’t read it, seek it out, it’s worth adding to your collection!) An outlaw gang of six-shooters riding out onto a post-apocalyptic wasteland, outcasts from “civilized society” with an otherworldly axe to grind, as it were.
If Dawnrazor was the call to ride out, The Nephilim takes our heroes (and us along with them) across the threshold. Imbued with Thelemic references, the album enchants the listener into a dreamlike state - where we find ancient gods and monsters, those who dwell on the threshold and those that lurk below the surface of our subconscious.
Once our heroes cross the threshold there is no turning back, and The Nephilim album perfectly represents this crossing - for fans, and for the band, there really was no "return to normal life" after this.
My life's turning pages,
I see a promised day
Watchmen never age here,
they just sleep in vain
Drowning people stare here,
they don't care to call
So I rebury the pages, Kthulhu calls…
“The Watchman”, The Nephilim
Elizium, the Elysian Fields, is a place of rest and refuge accessible through death, dreams or astral projection. This sanctuary is where our heroes stop to prepare for the coming reckoning. The lyrics of Elizium allude to this knowledge of what’s to come - “rehearsal of my despair” - and the desire to stay in this paradise of love and light, free from the maelstrom that is to come. It is an achingly beautiful respite, this Sumerland of souls. We would stay here forever and dream, if only we could.
We must suffer to free our pain
Can you help us to find our way
You're here to stay, stay here in paradise
I'd end this moment to be with you
Through morphic oceans
I’d lay here with you
“And there will your heart be also”, Elizium
Paradise no more as our main protagonist departs to face the reckoning, leaving his allies to their own path and fate. In Zoon, the hero must traverse the darkness alone. Descending as one of the Watchers, we get a real sense of what it meant to fall, and to fall in love with a mortal woman. “Morning comes as light, burning out my eyes, this is the place we’re suffering, as we come in from the night”. It is in “Shine” that we witness a love so strong that it will become the undoing of them both.
I will bring her down
Lord I'm barely human
I could raise her now
But I can't bear to lose her
And I'm not afraid
“Shine”, Zoon
The result of their passions is of course the coming of the Nephilim, uncontained violence that destroys her, destroys their love, and in “Melt” the Watcher asks forgiveness, but we’ve gone beyond that now. She has her peace with God and he must atone for his sin. Atonement comes as black rain - a flood of rage and sorrow. But his love remains true, through the transformation, through the pain. And our hero is remade, as he was unmade by this sacrifice, he emerges transformed, reborn.
Arising from the darkness, the hero sets his sights on returning home, it is the Road Back in the Hero’s Journey, but he is not Earthbound. The title Mourning Sun pays fitting tribute to loss, but the theme of waking up, taking flight, and returning to the light is unmistakable.
We served this world like angels
Been burned both night and day
Now we turn with eyes blazing
Well, it's time for us to go
Look straight into the light
“Straight to the Light”, Mourning Sun
There is a sadness on Mourning Sun that comes both from loss but also from holding on. In "Requiem (Le Veilleur Silencieux)", the hero is longing for the connection he had, the love he lost, but is it still there? It must be, he can sense her, feel her near, but where is She?
Feel you by my side
Want to hear you cry
Not alone tonight
Where is She?
“She”, Mourning Sun
After the katabasis, the Hero always emerges with a reward, something he or she has learned that must be shared. The “Prophecy” in this case, is that the world will burn, because She is not there. He searched, he walked the heavens and the Earth and cannot find her, so let it all burn. A new Heaven and a new Earth, the prophecy fulfilled.