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40 Candles upon the Altar of Heavy Metal

If we say that the average life-expectancy age in the western world is 80 and simplify things a little further by positing that half of those years are spent asleep during the night, then we’ve only got about 40 years to do some real, serious living. It’s been that many years to this day since Black Sabbath released their debut album, as good a day as you’re going to get to hail the 40th anniversary of Heavy Metal, and every single one of those years has been spent wide awake through procession of the daily sun and the darkness of the night. Heavy Metal arrived at a time to sentence a generation of delusion to death and confront the rest of modernity with the weight of reality and the power of the occult. A lot of newer generation listeners entered the Metallic planes of hell through bands that were breaking away from Heavy Metal’s Rock formalities and Blues atavisms, giving an impression that the older music was in most cases obsolete. From the moment that Sabbath had arrived and Satan unveiled his majestic black wings, the spirit of Metal was unlocked like a Pandora’s box that held all the secrets from the past and future, and the subversion of the present ensued, encoded in the language of the riff! Let us mark this unholy day with the truest celebration of Heavy Metal imagineable, as Devamitra introduces his epic compilation chronicling this wise and powerful art-culture:

History has become obscured, for few are interested to learn and explore the dawn of the barbaric and romantic sounds of metal music. All sorts of glam and joke bands are mistaken for Heavy Metal, which they aren’t, and many even believe there was never any serious merit, dark insight or focused direction to Heavy Metal in the past. The “Anvil of Thor” compilation was created to aid discourse on death metal and black metal with a friend of mine, as our musical learnings were composed in entirely different moulds and I wanted him to see the language of heavy metal with its forms, symbols and motion at least partially from my perspective. “If you don´t know the past, it´s impossible to understand the present.” Listening to these tracks in the preferred order as they appear in the playlist file, it should be easy, for example, to see how the tritone blues of Black Sabbath and the poetic narrative of Judas Priest contained the suggestion of high energy riffs as they appeared in occult bands Mercyful Fate, Death SS and Angel Witch, consequently mutating into Doom Metal in Trouble and Candlemass, Speed Metal in Slayer and Metallica and Epic Metal in Manilla Road and Manowar. This isn’t quite a “best of Heavy Metal” but one of the possible paths of seeing through core visions, techniques and moods of Heavy Metal music. For old heavy metal fans, it will hopefully revive fond memories of these sinister and majestic LP’s and for others, broaden the perception and hopefully bestow surprises.

Anvil of Thor – Heavy Metal Thunder Compilation

9 Comments »

1. 

   So awesome… listening now!

   Comment by newdarkages — February 13, 2010 @ 07:31

2. 

   Excellent collage – so much classic stuff.

   I’d get “Never Say Die” and the BLIND GUARDIAN out of there, swap in something like “Lonesome Crow” and METAL CHURCH’s debut!

   great stuff!

   Comment by markm — February 13, 2010 @ 16:48

3. 

   I know it’s quite confusing but the collage only partially matches with the downloadable compilation, which actually does not have anything from “Never Say Die” but does include METAL CHURCH’s “Beyond the Black”!

   Comment by Devamitra — February 13, 2010 @ 17:35

4. 

   ‘Never Say Die’ is in there to complete the 8 rows beginning with the 8 albums of Black Sabbath that feature the Ozzy Osbourne line-up. Eighth son of an eighth son!

   Comment by ObscuraHessian — February 13, 2010 @ 19:30

5. 

   I wonder what S.R. Prozak would say about most of these bands and albums? Maybe something like: “a couple classic albums however the rest is not bad but why bother”

   Comment by Ebelin — February 16, 2010 @ 08:25

6. 

   Such a wealth of Speed, Death and Black Metal bands inspired by and advancing the ideas of only ‘a couple classic albums’? You could write a letter to ANUS and ask him, rather than speculating! Then you’ll know exactly what to think.

   Comment by ObscuraHessian — February 16, 2010 @ 16:06

7. 

   Always been a fan of the oldies since i was 4 nd a half and always will… New Age is shit compared to old age… HAIL DM/TM/BM/HM FROM THE EARLY 90′S AND UNDER!

   Comment by John Knickrehm — February 18, 2010 @ 04:24

8. [...] undercurrents of Finland produced cultivated metal sensations over the years from the earliest heavy metal days, best exemplified by the inimitable Sarcofagus, to thrash and the Finnish death metal movement, [...]

   Pingback by DEATH METAL: Death Metal News, Death Metal Music and Death Metal Culture at Deathmetal.Org — March 11, 2010 @ 21:17

9. [...] challenge of creating relevant but still traditional Heavy Metal in this current age where even the most commercial face of Metal has been changed by the extremity [...]

   Pingback by DEATH METAL: Death Metal News, Death Metal Music and Death Metal Culture at Deathmetal.Org — March 14, 2010 @ 19:54

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