Some Thoughts on Nature

by Charles Stuart on April 22, 2018

I enjoy camping. Solitude. Enjoying primitive conditions. Witnessing the power and beauty of nature. It helps one keep a good Hessian frame of mind. I try to go as often as is possible and there is one location near me that I frequent rather often. After a bit of a drive over old logging roads through the hills I stop and pull my car off the side of the road and put on my pack and get my rifle at port arms. To get to my favoured camping area it is a 5 mile hike that for a short while follows an abandoned narrow-gauge railroad that some logging company built to expedite the extraction of resources from the area many years back. The place I like to set up camp is a tiny, elevated clearing in the pine trees next to a small creek from which I can get water. The area is a temperate rain forest of sorts, so there are 3-6 foot tall ferns everywhere, and in old-growth areas that have not fallen prey to logging, you can see the triple-canopy growth that is common to all rain forests. However, most of the forests around have been logged at some point so this sight is rare. I use a small shovel or a machete to clear out the ferns so I have a nice place to build a camp fire and an area to lay out my sleeping bag. The chopped down ferns double as a nice mattress.

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Polarized Metal Genres Must Unite Against The Funderground

by Sawyer Clark on April 13, 2018

Metal is facing a decisive moment in time. As a genre and an entire sub culture, it’s threatened with a massive flux of outsider interest into what was once an isolated community forged in passion. Metal was a cause for tight bonds among like minded disillusioned youth that wanted nothing to do with the status quo, a lawless free for all where no ideology or point of view was too extreme. Thus grew a voice to rally against the farce of mainstream politics, social acceptability, resolute contentment with mundane lifestyles and herd mentality. Though acts like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden were to find great success within the public large, they laid the groundwork for that rebel yell that gave the disgruntled youth the foundations for connecting with others so disconnected. And with such a ground roots movement that metal was, true artists and musicians who may have never have been given an opportunity to rise otherwise were now rising and exponentially so. Quickly NWOBHM became speed metal became death metal became black metal. Then, as with all great explosive cultural movements, metal began losing its traction and sight of its original goals of fighting against the mainstream culture of quantity over quality. But it is now that we see its greatest threat in its acceptance by the masses. Now it is being taken for a boutique exotic exploration into what most really don’t want to explore: cold unforgiving reality.

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We Merry Few

by Charles Stuart on March 11, 2018

For the older among us, being in a band was something of a badge of honour; sure, there were more than a few bands around, but not so many that it was still worth comment when people learned you played in one. Musicians were and are not all that common, but music scenes are inherently incestuous and the number of bands expands until nearly every musician is leader of his own that features players from other bands. It was comradely, fractious, fun, and instructive. But in the modern music world the concept of the band is in rapid decline.
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DMU STAFF ANTI-DOXXING POLICY

by Brock Dorsey on March 11, 2018

Death Metal Underground has formalized a policy that it WILL NOT doxx any former writer, editor, user, or frequent commentor.  So to those former editors and former writers that continue to hysterically spam the comments section in bitterness of our current staff’s superiority without realizing you’ve used your actual/writer names from the same IP address, don’t worry- I won’t doxx you, even if I may have threatened in classic Brock-mind-game fashion.  While you are correct to assume hot-blooded Brock Dorsey is the most sadistic writer/editor in the entirety of music journalism and will go further than any other, I can assure you that I do in fact bare the loyalty of the Templar. In all and complete seriousness, I dearly respect each and every writer that has contributed to Death Metal Underground over its nearly 3 decade reign, and especially hold admiration for the editors that had the strength to survive more than 6 months as creating daily engaging content for a metal site is quite the challenging task.  You all are welcomed and encouraged to return, but I can’t promise you won’t receive IP bans if your menstruation levels are inexcusably excessive as they have been lately due to the Templar mercilessly trampled over your reissue-marathon coverage and your boring beta-male occult philosophical outlook.  I also am infinitely grateful for our frequent readers and especially those who consistently engage in our nihilistic killing fields of a comments section, even if we have opposing points of view and particularly when feedback is thoughtfully challenging of the narrative.
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Metal Works as Stepping Stones

by Hereweald Cola Algar on February 18, 2018

Until now, metal works (albums, EPs, pieces, etc.) have been regarded as products, even by those who would assume anti-commercial postures. Why this is so, why the underground metal community still sees albums as products and so judge them in that light, has to do with the history of metal as arising from the general rock business context. Black Sabbath as the foundational metal band followed this path and they were also the first metal band to sell out, though there never was much to sell out. In any case, they did not really know what they had and quickly devolved into rock-ized (standardized) “improvements” on the gold they had struck at first, instead of exploring those new sounds and ideas regardless of the commercial context, regardless of the business prospects (gigs, deals, etc.). We must understand, however, that the ideal of metal beyond rock, beyond trends and commercialism, only arose with the Mayhem cabal. Their commercial activities, it should be understood, were a means to something greater, as can be seen from the meticulous selection of albums that came under the auspices of Deathlike Silence Productions.

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Mastadon – Cold Dark Place Really Sucks

by Joe Slater on February 14, 2018

Bought an EP of Cold Dark Place by Mastadon, since the album cover looked cool, like a classic Aeternus. To my dismay, as I started track one, some horrible over-produced folk-rock attempt came blaring through my headphones, complete with horrible synced male and female off-pitched vocals.  Another track has a weird, crappy beat and Jane’s addiction styled vocals.  These songs are so bad that its hard to listen to more than fifteen seconds of each song before feeling violently ripped-off.
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Morbosidad – Corona de Epidemia

by Nicholas Vahdias on February 8, 2018

Hailing from Houston, Texas, home to a few great USBM bands, Morbosidad are more likely known for the Spinal -Tap-like deaths of two of their drummers (one in an explosion in the rehearsal room and the other from falling of a building). Multiple lineup changes have plagued this band as well with the only remaining member being Tomas Stench. Due to such changes all releases differ immensely save for aesthetics and Spanish lyrics. Being released on Nuclear War Now! Productions, it is very easy to predict what this band has to offer musically (or lack thereof).
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