Satanic cult The Temple of THEM releases Oto Anorha issue #34

the_temple_of_THEM-oto_anorha_issue_34

The Australia-based Satanic cult The Temple of THEM has released the 34th issue of its publication, Oto Anorha, as a free download online. The publication comes out intermittently according to the whims of the organization, which maintains an informal presence on the internet on Facebook.

Packed with illustrations, rites, scene reports and theory on the nature of Satanism, Oto Anorha offers the skeptic and devoted cultist alike an insight into this naturalistic but intensely focused branch of Satanism.

The Temple of THEM claims to be moving into the “second phase” of its thirty-year reign with the launch of a new local group in Australia, new goals and guidelines, and an outlook that matches its metaphysical goals to physical components.

For more information, see the Lulu page for the 205mb download.

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Satan’s Host – Pre-Dating God (2015)

satans_host-pre-dating_god

Satan’s Host create power metal with death metal influences like a hybrid of Kreator and Blind Guardian creating music in an Iron Maiden mold. Slight death metal influences intrude on riff construction in some of the songs but the majority are good old-fashioned heavy metal with speed metal technique periodically sparkled with some more extreme expressions here and there.
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#metalgate goes mainstream

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2014 will be remembered as the year when people woke up to how our minds are controlled by media. In every area of life, ideological fanatics have taken over and tried to gain control. In metal, #metalgate pushed back against these people not so much from outright disagreement with their intent but absolute hatred of their method — control through guilt — which reminds us of organized religion, high school disciplinarians, and other authoritarian types.

#metalgate has not gone away. First, Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) denied that it was happening. Then they blamed it on #gamergate. Then they claimed #metalgate had failed. In the process, however, #metalgate and #gamergate have been absorbed by the larger culture around us as people push back against the people who are getting a free ride in media, academia and entertainment by having the “right” opinions, and using guilt to force everyone to hire them and treat them as important. When in fact, most of them are semi-competent as their actions during #metalgate show.

Our own editor was kicked off a mailing list for having the wrong opinions. His satirical article which pointed out that punishments for rape are disproportionate given the nature of most “rapes” as post-sex regret, in the hands of SJWs, became treated like an actual rape. Academics and journalists on the list talked about how his words made them “afraid.” Then they kicked him off and closed their mailing list so outsiders cannot observe what goes on there. By doing so, they have made it clear that only SJWs are welcome. This reminds me of the JournoList scandal, in which media elites were using a mailing list to agree on how they would shape public opinion. Whether or not you agree with the opinions of the journalists in question, these are sleazy tactics that have more in common with totalitarian propaganda machines than a free society.

The conflict is spreading into the public sphere from several angles. #metalgate supporter and heavy metal frontman David Draiman (Disturbed) recently pushed back against the media in defense of his ancestral homeland, Israel:

“The mainstream media is setting the stage for a new Holocaust. They are the reason that this anti-Semitic fervor has been perpetuated over the entire globe,” said Draiman, who is the son of Israelis and the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

“It’s interesting how the media loved the state of Israel and loved our story when we were the underdog, and now that we’re no longer the underdog, now that we have the ability and the military might and the intestinal fortitude to always defend ourselves and defend our people and defend our right to exist, they damn us for that and they condemn us for that,” the heavy metal frontman added.

As Sam Dunn’s Global Metal illustrated, one aspect of metal is that it attaches very well to national cultures and helps people see national pride in a different way. In Israel, this means bands like Salem, Kever and Melechesh who do not shy away from the conflict in their homeland. Instead of taking an SJW-style viewpoint that there is a “right side of history” and claiming that anyone who disagrees is a racist (or sexist, homophobe, etc.), these bands explored the conflict to see what was actually driving people toward aggression. This is the metal way: we see conflict as growth, war as necessary, and we look underneath the surface illusion of society to see what is actually there. If you listen to society, you get social statements, media talking heads and neat tidy categories in politics. If you think like a metalhead, you look at the reasons for the conflict much like a scientist examines events in nature. You do not moralize, you explain.

Writing in The Federalist, Robert Tracinski discovers the high stakes of the current struggle between SJWs and the rest of us, and gives #metalgate a mention as well:

But this year, I discovered that while I might not be interested in the culture war, the culture war is interested in me. It’s interested in all of us.

This is the year when we were served notice that we won’t be allowed to stand on the sidelines, because we will not be allowed to think differently from the left.

Although The Federalist is a bit too right-wing for me, others have noticed from the other side of the spectrum. Over at Medium, Dave Pell writes about how social networking has created a culture in which we crucify people for saying things that offend others:

I worry that these new realities will lead us down path towards self-censorship. Sharing was fun at first. But now we can see the potential costs. And the risks associated with broadcasting our thoughts just might be enough to turn the era of open digital communication into the age of shut the fuck up.

Over at Spiked, editor Brendan O’Neill writes about how paranoia of this kind of public shaming and destruction is causing people to self-censor themselves, and how this makes us very much like the people who see as evil totalitarians.

Self-censorship is the worst form of censorship, for it encourages people to internalise illiberalism. It plants a secret censor in every boardroom and newsroom and gallery and even in people’s minds — an invisible tut-tutter constantly warning us ‘don’t say that’ and ‘don’t show that’ because, in the words of Index on Censorship, there’s ‘the possibility of a hostile response’. It nurtures risk-aversion, even moral cowardice, and it discourages people from taking great leaps of the mind or pushing culture in a new and provocative direction. It stultifies the soul. It hampers the human spirit itself. And worst of all, it inflames the intolerant: the more people self-censor, the more the censorious will demand it, whether it’s Oxford students, Guardian feminists, or foreign tyrants. If Guardians of Peace really is North Korea, then that shows that the West has become so allergic to liberty that even that tyrannical hermit state is taking lessons from us, borrowing from our book of using online intimidation to make offensive speakers apologise and retract.

Not only that, from a somewhat disturbing news article earlier today, you can see the rise of censorship in action in this story of a teenager who posted a (perhaps 4chan-ish) joke about a garbage truck accident.

The 19-year-old, believed to be Ross Loraine, from Sunderland, handed himself in to police yesterday evening after a number of complaints were made about the tweet.

He is alleged to have written: “So a bin lorry has crashed into 100 people in Glasgow eh, probably the most trash its ever picked up in one day that.”

Northumbria Police said he was arrested on suspicion of making a malicious communication and had been bailed while they made further inquiries into the incident.

I don’t want to defend this joke. I want to defend his ability to make this joke and for me to ignore it, much like I ignore misogyny in Cannibal Corpse lyrics and comically amateurish socialist propaganda in Napalm Death lyrics. I see those two lyrical missteps as coming from the same place, which is a desire to play with powerful and offensive symbols. Metal would scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater, blaspheme in church, eat cake in the bathroom and cross-dress at football games. It’s just what we do. We are part trolls and part people who do not trust society and its tendency to create a veneer of simple answers that conceal what is actually going on, which in our case is a very sick society possible on the verge of collapse.

Frenzied grand constructions, wars and great rituals are among the common responses of ancient leaders to crises. These demonstrate powerful responses by the leaders (enhancing their threatened hold on power), but almost never really address the problems themselves. A cynic might characterize the giant U.S. stimulus bill of 2009 as such an effort.

Leaders may recognize that they are not addressing the real problems, but they rationalize their actions with the argument that they must first politically survive in order to later address the hard problems and sacrifices. Of course, they usually don’t ever actually get around to addressing the fundamental problems later, either because they don’t make it through the initial crisis or because, even later, they are not willing to risk sacrificing their own position (or “career”) with needed measures that usually require tough sacrifices by the population.

We live in troubled times. SJWs insist that they are revolutionaries who are bringing us some kind of new enlightenment but in actuality they are repeating to us the same ideas from the 1960s that our parents and grandparents thought were new and fresh. Way to not think outside of the box, guys. While SJWs insist they are rebels against the Establishment, the truth is that they are the establishment. Government regulations and laws have created situations where offending someone, even if that offense is not sensible, can result the outsider being fired. SJWs use this threat passive-aggressively to force others out of the way so SJWs can promote their own brand of hipster “metal,” take positions in media and academia, and generally get their own way through means other than competence. This is similar to accusations in #gamergate, where female games journalists with no qualifications were getting promoted at a rate that correlated highly with their sexual conquests in the media in-group that included their employers. In “Let’s have a national conversation about race — so we can figure out whom to fire”, Eugene Volokh writes in the Washington Post:

Even without the risk of litigation, many people have long been cautious about talking about matters that their listeners might feel strongly about a deep and personal level — race, religion, politics, sexuality, and more. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the risk of vast liability has been an important factor in dramatically increasing the cost of expressing one’s candid views about race (especially at work), and in deterring people from expressing those views.

That’s what #metalgate is about. Make a joke about a garbage truck crash, or say anything about race that deviates from the official Title VII opinions set out by American laws and courts, and you are the bad guy and you will be fired. But this can be used as a weapon. An SJW comes along and says, “Promote me or I’ll claim you said something sexist, racist or homophobic.” Or they find some way to construe a relatively innocent statement as such. Or maybe you make a joke about a garbage truck. They now control you because you are indebted to them for not destroying your career, so you have to hire them. They then maneuver others like them on staff. If you wonder why journalists and academics write about things that have seemingly no relation to everyday life, this is why. You are looking at a jobs program based on government anti-discrimination law abused by a small group of hipsters who want to dominate the discussion and exclude anyone who does not agree — this is different than disagreeing — with them.

Metal and gaming are not alone. Other areas of life have been affected by these people as well, since being able to get yourself hired or promoted because of guilt makes it easy to succeed. But in 2014, people started pushing back. Metal contributed an important part of the conversation with #metalgate, and as this pushback gains momentum we will likely see more from that quarter.

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Interview with Jerry Warden of the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame

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We last talked to Jerry Warden when he announced his intention to create a Heavy Metal Hall of Fame in Arlington, Texas. He took a few moments to grant us an interview and reveal the plan, along with details about his past band Warlock and Texas metal.

You founded Warlock with your brother and two members of what would eventually be Rigor Mortis. What did Warlock sound like? Why do you think it achieved such legendary status in the Texas metal scene?

Originally, we were clueless kids/young men with a love for metal. We played cover songs of the NWOBHM bands and other heavy fare of the time. We didn’t write originals until Rick began to blossom as a song writer.

Recently, members of Warlock have restored the band and plan to release material from the demos. What can you tell us about this?

We played our reunion show at Diamond Jim’s Saloon in Arlington on Sat., Aug. 2 of this year and play on NYE at The Boiler Room in Deep Ellum. We combined the 1986 recording with one song from the 1985 recording and Kerry Crafton mastered the final product.

Do you think Warlock will write and release new material?

We have completed two new songs, “Rubber Bullets” and “Devil Dance” and will continue to write and rehearse for the foreseeable future. “Walking Plague” was recorded by Gammacide but was written by Warlock and we never recorded the song. We intend to record “Walking Plague” and several new songs next year for a 2015 release.

After Warlock, members went on to Rigor Mortis and Gammacide, which were bands from the newer style of metal at the time. How do you think these bands influenced Texas metal? Was their style a natural outgrowth of where Warlock had been heading?

“Walking Plague” and “Gutter Rats” were Warlock songs. Gammacide was a direct outgrowth of Warlock whereas Casey and Harden met Mike and he took them down a different metal path.

Do you think it’s possible to be a metalhead for your whole life and never get bored? Should metal be designed for people beyond their teenage and early 20s years?

Fortunately, I’m a simpleton, a meat and potatoes metalhead. Some mention the word shallow and I’ve been accused by more than one person of failing to “grow up” but I still love metal music. I listen to the hard rock of my youth to the current sounds of Ancient Instinct by Primordius and a whole helluva lot in the middle. I love the lifestyle, too. I get excited for the first cold night of each Fall to wear my leather jacket. Metal music has grown from a community to a family with many positive results. You see a growing number of benefit shows each year for different brothers and sisters but metal continues to provide an edge for the old and clueless as well as the young and clueless.

Your newest project is a “Heavy Metal Hall of Fame.” What gave you the idea for this? Why now?

The Heavy Metal Hall of Fame (MHOF) is overdue at this point. The idea originated from the lack of respect shown to metal music by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RHOF) but, as our community or family evolves, we need a place of our own regardless of any outside factors including the RHOF.

How do you intend to get funding for the “Heavy Metal Hall of Fame”? Will it be a physical museum that charges admission? What are you going to put in the gift shop?

Our major form of funding will derive from grants. We will have a brick and mortar version of the Hall in Arlington, Texas. We should have the grant money in place to lease a building next year. Within 5 to 10 years, we should have the money to construct our own building.

What bands do you think were essential components of the Texas metal scene? Did they all get discovered and accepted, like Pantera and others did?

You’ve gotta begin at the beginning with Warlock, Pantera, Rigor Mortis, Helstar, Watchtower and Militia but gotta mention dead horse, Gammacide, Rotting Corpse, Arcane, Morbid Scream, Absu, Blaspherian, HOD, Shawn Whitaker, SA Slayer, Solitude, Aska, Primordius, etc. The list of bands who were and are essential components of the Texas metal scene should never end.

With Warlock returning and the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame, do you see yourself re-living your youth, or simply doing things you wanted to do the first time? Was there some moment in the past where things did not work out, that you’ve now managed to get past?

The Heavy Metal HOF is a natural progression for me in life. Rick Perry left Warbeast and asked me to reform Warlock with him. Rick Perry defined heavy guitar in the D/FW Metalplex as well as around Texas and the rest of the world. I am honored and very fortunate to share the same work space as Rick and very lucky to share a band with Clay McCarty & Randy Cooke.

Who do you feel is the audience for the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame, or the typical person you imagine will visit, and what do you think it will be like for them? How would it have felt to a 16 year old version of yourself?

I believe metal music transcends the generations and expect to see metalheads of all ages at the Hall. I believe we still have the same excitement within us as the 16 year old metalhead. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, as adults, we’ve learned to contain our excitement.

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Nachtmystium – The World We Left Behind

Nachtmystium - The World We Left Behind

When you say you like black metal, people will speak band names to you and it takes the same amount of time to figure out that one is horrible as it does for them to suggest ten more. It is a literal infinite stream that is mostly worthless but there is always the elusive possibility that one might not be terrible and sometimes, very rarely, a great one exists among the waste. Nachtmystium is not that rare greatness.

Other than the vocals, utterly nothing on this record suggests in any way that it is related to black metal. For the most part, this is an Iron Maiden clone album that, if it were aesthetically decked-out like the original, would be immediately filed with the B-rated bands on the far shelf. It specializes in soft rhythms that trudge to a familiar cadence and have catchy melodic hooks overlaid, but its real power is its ability to set up a chorus with verse repetition. The primary instrument is the voice, which through varying texture enables it to imbue the verses with emotion. And if you like 1970s overblown lead guitar soloing that keeps going on and recapitulates the dominant vocal theme in five different ways, you are in for a treat.

The World We Left Behind is newsworthy only in that it is not newsworthy yet was seemingly in the news for a long time. Musically it falls into the mid-1970s with some updated technique but nothing else, and artistically it appeals to people who want droning boring music to sit through on their days off while they think about what victims of the world they are, and how this justifies buying another cherry tart at the bakery and eating it with wine while watching Notting Hill. It is not incompetent like early USBM missteps but in its competence there is an emptiness driven by an attempt to attention whore certain “deep” emotions it identified in black metal. As a result, this serves as a fitting epitaph for a once-worthy genre now swallowed up by mass taste, and nothing else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTIpLBnkPjU

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#metalgate SJWs blink

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Last night, the Music, Metal and Politics mailing list had its archives available for the world. Then we ran an article here showing various list members calling for censorship, career destruction and other forms of retribution against me for having published articles critical of SJW antics in #metalgate.

This morning, the list archives are password-protected, as if there were something to hide and a fear of outsiders. In round one of #metalgate, the SJWs struck what they thought was a decisive blow, but in the end, they blinked.

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Interview with Abscession

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We have kept our eye on Swedish death metal style band Abscession who make a somewhat modern version of the classic sound of bands like Entombed and Cemetary. Their first album Grave Offerings touches down early in 2015, and has already generated interest and criticism in the metal community. We were fortunate to be able to chat with the two active members of Abscession, Thomas and Skaldir, about the band and its music.

When did Abscession form? Why did you choose the name that you did?

Skaldir: We formed in 2009 and it was important to us to choose a one word band name. Since almost every word is taken by some metal band by now, it wasn’t easy. The name also should have a classy feel. Brutal and concise. We all had bands before. Personally I had my first band in 1992, which played some kind of melodic Doom never heard before and after. I started playing piano and then later also tried guitar.

Thomas: I’ve been in various bands since the mid nineties both as a guitarist and as a vocalist. I’m a pretty lousy guitar player though so nowadays I tend to focus on the vocals. I’m also active in blackened death act Throne of Heresy, and have been in Zombie Destrüktion since 2002 together with Markus Porsklev who also plays the drums on Grave Offerings.

Your style runs the gamut from old school heavy metal through 1990s Swedish death metal and perhaps beyond. What are your current influences? Have these changed over time?

Skaldir: For me there are always some records that never get old. The first stuff I liked as a teenager, like DEATH, HELLOWEEN, EDGE OF SANITY. But I listen to a lot of different music from AOR, Progressive Rock to Death metal. And even if I have a lot of favs from the early 90s, there are happily also some new albums that can excite me from time to time.

Thomas: Well, I find it interesting to mix things up a bit and I like lots of different music. My death metal influences are mainly from Swedish style death like EDGE OF SANITY, BLOODBATH etc but I also enjoy more progressive stuff like OPETH. I always like stuff that has hooks in it but which also grows on you with every listen. I think maybe that’s where our death ‘n roll-style influences come from, since I really like that kind of stuff when it’s done in moderation. But then there’s a whole range of bands outside the realm of death metal that influence me in different ways. Everything from classic IRON MAIDEN to FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM have had a huge impact on the way I write lyrics for example.

Where did you record Grave Offerings and how did you achieve the sound you did? Was it to your satisfaction? Would you do anything differently next time?

Skaldir: Since I am a sound engineer most of the recording was done at Studio Kalthallen.

Thomas recorded his vocals himself, and everything was mixed in my studio in the end. We decided to let Dan Swanö do the mastering.

It is a classic BOSS HM-2 guitar sound. That is a distortion pedal a lot of people will know from ENTOMBED. Actually I used two and combined two different stages of distortion and mic’ed the cabinet with three microphones. I am pretty happy with the sound, but I think next time I will rather mix a “normal” distortion” in to a HM-2 distortion.

Are the members of Abscession full-time musicians, or is this a “spare time” project?

Thomas: We’ve all got other jobs outside of the music since it’s not something we can really live on (yet…). But we’re all dedicated to this art form and see it as something more than a part time project — it’s been a part of all our lives for many years and makes us who we are.

Why, do you think, is Swedish metal 1985-1995 so legendary? Even though that was two decades ago?

Skaldir: I think it was a good time for metal in general. People just did what they liked and a lot of new genres were founded. Those old bands didn’t exactly play perfectly and the sound also wasn’t perfect at all. But it was unique and it was something never heard before. Doing something new these days isn’t so easy.

Thomas: Sweden has been a big music nation for decades with everything from ABBA to Europe paving the way. A lot of people growing up back then learned to play instruments in school and of course it all helped to pave the way for successful metal bands. Even if they didn’t play perfectly there was something experimental and organic over the music from that time which also made it interesting to listen to.

Did you ever consider composing in a newer style of metal, like metalcore or “melodic metal”? What do you think is different between those styles and the classic underground Swedish metal sound?

Skaldir: I would say we are a rather melodic Death Metal band. The style we play at the moment is exactly what we want to play, and maybe the only thing we are good at. It’s not like we want to copy the old bands, but it is just our thing to sound that way. We will develop within the sound.

Thomas: Well, I think it’s always difficult and often unnecessary to brand everything within preconceived genres. I can’t remember a single discussion over the years where we’ve said “we’re gonna play within this or this genre.” We’ve written the songs we’d like to hear ourselves within our own capacity and it’s some kind of death metal. So no, we never sat down and considered writing metalcore or melodic death, even though our songs ended up having some melodies in them. I still wouldn’t brand it melodeath since we’re nowhere in the vicinity of IN FLAMES or other melodic death bands.

How do you compose songs? Do you start with a melody, a riff, an idea, a visual concept or something else?

Skaldir: I wrote a lot of riffs on my classical guitar here when I felt like writing riffs. Then later I thought about which riffs to combine. Normally you start with one riff and the rest just happens and you just know what has to come next and how you arrange it. At least that is how it is for me.

Later Thomas will listen to the song, and the mood of the song will inspire him to write lyrics.

Thomas: Yeah, Skaldir’s music sort of paves the way for the lyrics. I often have themes or ideas in my head that I wanna write about, but I never really know where to start. But usually after a few listens to a song I find a lyric rhythm and just start putting words in there that fit with the theme I want for the song. Sometimes it becomes clear very quickly but other times the lyrics takes on a life of their own.

For example The song “Plague Bearer” on Grave Offerings was supposed to be a really rotten track about a plague victim but ended up being an allegorical and anti-religious text instead. And to be honest, it’s a much better text now than it would have been if I had stuck to the original idea.

Where do you feel your demo “Death Incarnate” and Grave Offerings differ?

Skaldir: I think having a more technical drummer on Grave Offerings is the biggest difference to the demo. The songwriting is still pretty simple with the same trademarks the demo has.

Thomas: I think we’ve sort of found our path. A three track cassette like Death Incarnate can’t show the full range of a band’s sound as well as an album. And Skaldir has worked a lot with the overall production so it all sounds fucking great!

Grave Offerings is your first signing to a label. How is that working out? What do you plan for the future? Is there a tour in the works?

Skaldir: Well the demo tape was also released by a label. Suffer Productions is a small underground label though. Final Gate is a bit bigger, but still underground. We just signed for one album and will see what will happens next. So far we are pretty happy.

Thomas: Even though the current deal is for one album only I feel confident our next release will be a label release as well. We’re actually already working on the next album so no matter if there’s a label or not, ABSCESSION will go on. As far as tours go we’re not planning anything yet, even though we’d like to at some point in the future.

If people like what they hear, where should they go to learn more about Abscession? Are the demos still available? Do you think you’ll ever tour UK or USA?

Thomas: I actually don’t know if there are any demo tapes left, maybe Suffer Productions have a few but I doubt it. There are probably some underground metal webshops that would consider trading or selling it if you look hard enough.

But it’s also available as a digital release on our bandcamp. In this digital world we’re of course also present on facebook/abscession.

That’s probably the best way to learn more about us. As for touring the UK or the US, who knows… I guess we’ll have to wait and see how big the demand is once the album is released in early 2015!

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Mindcage – Our Own Devices

mindcage-our_own_devices

Heavy metal with melodic vocal lines, Mindcage immediately calls to mind a cross between Queensryche and Candlemass, writing complex guitar leads on top of rock-rhythm classic heavy metal riffs. This allows Mindcage to create verses which showcase the melodic male and female vocals that serve as the lead instrument in these mid-paced songs, but also facilitate the inclusion of more intense metal riffing and soloing that will please fans of middle-period Iron Maiden. The rock-based focus on vocals pulls inside-out the extreme guitar-centric attitude of most metal bands, but with Mindcage, the result stands on its own.
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Martyrdöd – Elddop

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Coming from the fusion of d-beat crust, hard rock and melodic heavy metal, Martyrdöd demonstrate a greater ability to write songs than your average underground band, both through musical knowledge and the instinct to know how to complete a song convincingly. The problem that appears out of the chaos is that these are basically all the same song since the band has such a broad approach that making it successful requires narrowing the eventual product.

Songs start over the high-speed Disfear-style modified d-beat that is played more rigidly than its original UK inspiration and so fosters a healthy environment for driving music, which Elddop offers in mixed metal and bluesy hard rock riffs for verses and At the Gates style melodic twists and turns for choruses. Over this the vocalist approximates a decent black metal vocal with varied emphasis except at the end of each phrase where he reverts to hardcore phrasing to emphasize the rhythmic hook. It is not unpleasant to listen to, and thanks to the superior musical abilities of these players is in fact a bit of fun, but it lacks anything to make a listener pick this album up again. Martyrdöd does not nail a certain feeling, a moment, an experience or an idea but rather makes sonic wallpaper of the intersection of ideas in a single experience of vague resistance but basically a desire for some hard rock riffs in a new form.

Naturally this opinion will be controversial because it is hard to argue with the better musical knowledge on this album. But in art, as in music, technical knowledge is a means to an end, and when it becomes an end in itself, it eclipses the purpose of art which is to communicate a profound realization in an aesthetically pleasing way. Elddop nails aesthetically pleasing, but by doing so in the empty aggregate intersection of many styles, creates merely a high-tech form of elevator music with crust and metal flavoring.

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#metalgate SJWs prove their real purpose: censorship

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Let us quickly get rid of a basic confusion: censorship is using social or governmental pressure to remove from view unpopular ideas that are also plausibly accurate depictions of reality. This separates the act of removing someone spraypainting “death to all metalcore” from a ban on articles about metalcore.

Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) comprise the driving force behind the incursion into metal against which #metalgate is a reaction. Metalheads do not want to be told what to think by a self-appointed cabal determining what is “true” based on their ideological agenda. It does not matter which agenda that is, only that it swallows up truth and metal equally and uses them as means toward its real goal, which is power and control.

Our first #metalgate article pointed out that the agenda of such people is inevitably control. Written by Cory van der Pol, the article detailed how political movements assimilate genres like metal, re-purposing them for the movement’s own needs. He followed this up with an article showing how the methods used by SJWs are bullying. Passive-aggressive bullying perhaps, hiding behind the pretense of morality and “good” politics, but nonetheless bullying. Then he illustrated how SJWs are associated with metalcore and indie-metal and are using it to slowly blot out real metal and replace it with this ersatz and inferior substitute. Finally, he predicted that SJWs would deny and conceal their actual goal, which is to censor — see definition above — any metal that does not fit their ideological needs and by doing so serve as a justification for their employment in media, academia and promotions.

He was 100% correct.

Today SJWs mounted a concerted campaign to remove me from the MetPol mailing list, which discusses metal and politics. As of this evening, apparently I have been removed. Here are some of the highlights:

Can the mods please block Brett Stevens / writing an article like the one natalie linked to is not only repulsive it’s misogynist.

We should take stand against this kind of thing. It’s unacceptable. It’s offensive. Especially to survivors of rape and sexual assault. – Rosie Overell

I would feel immensely safer if he were removed. – Natalie Zina Walschots

I am aiming to give #metalgate and its instigators as little oxygen as possible, but am glad Natalie brought this up here and would support the moderators if they chose to show Brett and his sympathizers the door. This is a place where people strive to broaden the understanding of metal, not narrow it, and while narrow views have a place in the world they’re not in keeping with the mission of this particular list. – Beth Winegarner

As one of the people that this piece of shit screen-shot their FB page and posted on his website, I must add that what astounds me – but doesn’t necessarily surprise me, unfortunately – is the lack of comments from both this thread and my so-called metal ‘friends’ on Facebook and Twitter about racism that surrounds the issue. – Laina Dawes

I will say, however, that I have been dismayed by this situation and I remain in awe of Laina’s courage to speak out despite the harassment and terrorization she has received. – Jeremy Wayne Wallach

This is a public list, with public archives that you can search via Google, Bing or the search engine of your choice. They are open to all and can be read by non-list members without a login or leaving any identifying information. These people are voluntarily posting this data to a public list where they hope it will be read for years to come. With this kind of outcry, it is not surprising the moderators chose to avoid damaging the list with more such drama and to remove me. It was the act of the small group — a dozen members out of a thousand — who chose to demand that I be censored and removed.

I have been a member of this list for the past year, entering in discussion about metal and providing links to resources there, without engaging in a single political opinion. To my mind, #metalgate has never been about politics and whether one side is right or not. It is about the tactics of a certain group who, in Cory’s words, use politics as the mantle behind which they assume power. In other words, they are doing it “in our best interests” and against our wishes are educating, enlightening and improving us to make us good citizens of their ideal society.

I’d like to keep this conversation going without hammering on the idiotic obvious. I appreciate the banning, but I’ll echo Olivia by quoting her: “…banning a single individual is not going to solve the problems of racism and sexism in the metal community. These prejudices are within us and among us, and begin with the complacency purchased by our various privileges.” – Sara Sutler-Cohen

My stance on this issue has always been clear: we stood up to the Christian right, then we stood up to the NSBM people, and now we’re standing up to SJWs. Metal has a unique view of life and a unique viewpoint on how to handle certain things, and it benefits no one to have metal start parroting the points of view of other groups. We should have a diversity of approaches instead of a lock-step uniform viewpoint enforced with guilt and threats of censorship and lack of tenure. My participation in this entire event was as someone opposing censorship, and those who can read will note that none of our articles here targeted the beliefs of SJWs, only their methods and motivations.

During my twenty years of writing about metal, I have sought to avoid both political dogma and commercialization. After initial experiences, I did not trust academia because of its long-standing bias in one trend or another. (And if metal hates anything, it is trends.) From starting the first underground metal site on the net, first as FTP and later as a series of web sites, I have always advocated an open mind and open discussion. This apparently is not the agenda of SJWs and despite their initial denial, they proceeded exactly as their dissenters said they would: with calls for censorship and propaganda.

In the meantime, #metalgate is gaining momentum with new articles in the work on both metal and social commentary websites. The SJWs have defeated themselves by becoming the caricature that their critics said they always were. And if we need to look for a silver lining to this cloud, it is the confirmation of that stereotype.

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