The Brooklyn Rail

This past May 31, just before the start of the Jewish Shavuot holiday, another spiritual—though markedly different—convocation took place. As dusk approached, clutches of people entered Park Slope’s Old First Reformed Church. Inside the gothic confines of the nearly 140-year-old building, darkness draped the pews, the only light coming from a stage set up at the front of the nave. In between were tables with unlit candles and a small screen set up on the left.

This was the sixth presentation of Despair Sanctuary, advertised as “a drone metal vigil for all who are weary. Whether you’re mourning a profound loss, in the throes of a deep depression, burdened with rage, or struggling to find hope—all are welcome. Immersed in sound, we will make space for negative emotions and hold together what is unbearable alone.” For those not up on their metal sub-genres, founder Jack Holloway offers this helpful definition: “Drone metal is defined by long, sustained tones and heavy distortion with a booming low end. It’s essentially ambient metal. It’s minimalist, slow, atmospheric and usually has an element of foreboding to it.” Despair Sanctuary was first presented in October 2023 from a surprisingly prosaic inspiration: Holloway doing his taxes after a year of accumulating debt, feeling miserable, listening to Bongripper’s Miserable, indulging all his darkest emotions and thinking “there ought to be a place where you can go to feel this for a time, where you’re invited to sit in the awfulness.”

For those attending for the first time, the sounds ricocheting around the wood, glass, and limestone surfaces are jarring, as if one expects the clergy to be bound and gagged somewhere in the church’s bowels. Despair Sanctuary both exemplifies and belies the disparity. “Despair Sanctuary is unique because it’s both religious and sacrilegious, sacred and secular at the same time,” says Holloway:

I am an Elder at Old First, which means I’m part of the church’s leadership body. So on the one hand, it’s part of my ministry at Old First and is very much a church service. However, the service is specifically engineered to be open to all people. There is no celebration of the risen Christ, nor do we use any Christian-specific creeds or prayers. I think of it as a public service for the mental health of New Yorkers, so in that it’s secular. I also say it’s sacrilegious because most religious services offer some kind of hope and this one invites you to sit in the darkness and feel the heaviness of your burdens, without the expectation that you need to feel better.

In the modern era of social media-driven misery and hourly reportage of war, famine, environmental disaster, and societal breakdown, Despair Sanctuary is refreshingly honest about processing one’s feelings and how blithe positivity is not the solution for everyone. When asked what he hopes a participant may take away from the experience, Holloway says:

I like to imagine that the sound waves take all the negative energy in the room and cast it into the air. The image I have is like each person holds a little poison inside them and the sound is like water that fills the sanctuary, draws the poison out of each person and causes it to dissipate by overwhelming it.

As to the darkness described above, that too plays a role. Part atavism to a far-gone era of torch-lit prayer, part rejection of the klieg-lighting of today’s mega-churches, the idea is that a sense of connectedness can still be attained even if there is no direct communication involved. People learn about the event from various analog (flyers at record stores, bookstores, libraries, and coffee shops) or digital means (social media channels), or simply walk in from the street, fascinated by the unexpected sounds emanating from the sanctuary. There is lots of dark clothing and beards, age varying but mostly the youngish-and-restless and many couples with a different idea of a date night. Attendance on a clement late spring evening was robust, maybe as much, if not more, as that of the more traditional service to be held less than twelve hours later.

There are various components to Despair Sanctuary. At one point, a line of people forms to light candles; later, others blow them out. This is to create, as Holloway explains, a communal activity:

But we say, “The meaning of the candlelight is up to you,” to leave the interpretation of the ritual open-ended and let people think about their own reasons for participating. Later, we invite people to blow out the candles and we say, “The meaning of blowing out the candle is up to you,” for the same reason.

The screen rotates quotes from a wide array of sources: hip-hop’s Nas; philosophers Theodor W. Adorno and Heraclitus; authors Sylvia Plath and James Baldwin. Attendees can journal or draw with provided supplies, do yoga, or simply sit. Another part is a writing prompt, whose answer cards are later composted at a local community garden, becoming soil for growing food and plants. Holloways explains this with a quote from poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Fear not the pain. Let its weight fall back into the earth; for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.”

In between these activities and drone metal playlist—which Holloway says starts “lighter, more ambient, easier on the ears, and then gets progressively darker and more sinister as it goes on, the idea that we’re sinking deeper into that negative experience”—are invited readers. One recited Bible verses, another fables, the last, original poetry. Holloway looks for people who are highly attuned to difficult feelings but never knows what they will read beforehand, hoping they will “facilitate the reflective and therapeutic experience we want attendees to have.”

The evening closed with live musical offerings: a solo recitation by violinist/vocalist Concetta Abbate; and then she, Holloway (now on bass), guitarist Leena Hussein, and drummer Scott Genovese converging under the moniker of Chthonic Rites, a group that debuted with the first Despair Sanctuary. How one integrates this last portion varies. For some, it can be a summation of all that preceded it, while others may be just there for the concert. Holloway cannot be certain but does feel that the entire evening is a process, “from the periods of self-reflection to the powerful sonic flood at the end.”