Back in the ’90s, a big part of the local punk scene in North Jersey that I bounced around in was centered around street punk and oi bands like Headwound, Niblick Henbane and The Wretched Ones. Their music was stripped down, catchy and their lyrics reflected a mix of working-class life, light hooliganism and, in the case of Those Unknown, grassroots leftist politics. One thing that none of them struck me as? Nerdy.

Fast-forward to 2023 when I stumbled across Harvest, by Philly’s Poison Ruin. Self-described peace punks, the album is a leftist working-class manifesto filtered through the aesthetics of medieval peasantry. It gets weirder! The tunes are gruff head-kickers with a strong sense of ’90s-era production, but there are all these clearly dungeonsynth-influenced interludes and, well, come on, look at that cover. Spooky chainmail guy with a sickle, black on yellow — it’s basically a MÖRK BORG zine. Can’t help but notice that flail is real similar to the one in the Gnoll logo, too…

Poison Ruin reminded me how much I liked aggro-infused music, so I went hunting for more. Most of the stuff I dug up hewed to the ’90s standard of slice-of-life working class lyrics and aesthetics, though many have a strong mix of post-punk and new wave influences, a la later-era Blitz, which is also surprising and intriguing. But some bands have decided to explore even stranger trails.

Enemic Interior, out of Barcelona, mixes oi and post-punk, and their album art, by David Soto, clearly evokes the look of old school RPGs — that ghost on II (2022) is very reminiscent of the ghost from the original Monster Manual — and could easily front dungeonsynth albums. Same for Castillo but more so — the sleeve of their self-titled EP (2020) boasts Sutherland’s green dragon and frost giant from the MM, and the Paladin in Hell from the Players Handbook (I can’t place the wizard). And for Pete’s sake, just look at that cover for Lost Legion’s Beyond the Concrete Veil (2024). It’s not explicitly tied to RPGs, but it could totally be an illustration in Realm of Chaos. And in a million years, I’d never have expected to hear oi this catchy and stompy to also be so entangled with science fiction, psychedelia and Aleister Crowley, but here we are. And, mind-blowingly, when I ordered the Mutant Genes 7-inch, Derek Atkinson at the label was already following my Instagram and popped the vinyl in a custom hand-stenciled sleeve featuring the text of the gelatinous cube entry from the Monster Manual. Fuckin’ wild.

Does this mean anything? I dunno! Medieval fantasy, and the notion of the fantasy dungeon in particular, can be a pretty handy visual shorthand for brutality, whether physical or metaphorical. Just look at all those poor adventurers getting eaten by monsters in the original Monster Manual! Does the frost giant and his huge ax on the Castillo sleeve represent the oppressive, exploitative forces of capitalism? Are frost giants with huge axes just cool now? Two things can be true simultaneously. And, regardless of intent, it’s interesting how the aesthetics have shifted in 30 years. Maybe fantasy is having a moment of broad appeal reminiscent of the last golden era in the ’70s.

P.S.: And, yes, true, the Misfits were into nerd shit way before any of this stuff, but I think horror nerd shit has always had more cachet than fantasy nerd shit? Perhaps because it maps more readily to established masculine norms; there was a big gulf in 198X between Danzig watching Plan 9 from Outer Space and Danzig copping to running a weekly D&D game).