Forces of Satan Stumble

The consensus seems to be that Christ does not belong in metal.  Well, neither does Satan.  Rigid patterns of thought are not conductive to the creation of transcendental metal music.  The failure of NSBM stems from the rigid ideology into which the music was forced like a Procrustean bed.  The two Christian metal bands worth a shit have been covered on this site: Paramaecium and Antestor.  The only NSBM bands that are not terrible are the bands, like Graveland, that preceeded the creation of the subgenre and were only lumped in with the scene later… Gontyna Kry seems to be the sole exception to NSBM sucking.


Theistic Satanism encounters the same stumbling blocks as NSBM and Christian metal.  A lack of flexible thought patterns due to an estrangement from reality.  Acute observation replaced by the fog of ideology.  LeVeyan theistic satanism was rejected and mocked by the Norwegian black metal scene for a good reason – one only has to read the Satanic Bible to see that it is 4th rate Nietzsche and Darwinism processed down to the lowest common denominator.  Like the dialogue in Quentin Terantino movies, the Satanic Bible seems to be aimed at mildly rebellious, socially unfit, and not particularly bright 14 year old boys who will quote it endlessly to their loser friends and assure each other how cool it – and by extension themselves – is.   YouTube body language analyst Bombard
explains pretty clearly how awkward, immature, and uncomfortable in his own skin Anton LeVey is – like a teenager he acts out a role like he is in a movie.

The New Church of Satan has a list of satanic metal bands.  Let us go through the list and analyze the failure.

    1.  Mayhem:  Not really satanic.  They used some satanic symbolism and anti-christian themes, but it is quite a stretch to call Mayhem a satanic band.  There is plenty of extant interview material where Varg claims he and Euronymous made fun of LeVay and the COS.  Occult topics does not equal satanism.  Finally (and most damningly) Hellhammer is a known Christian, says a prayer before every Mayhem show, and played drums on the aforementioned Christian metal band Antestor’s second album The Forsaken.
    2. GorgorothHere they hit the mark.  But early Gorgoroth was far less overtly satanic (Under the Pagan Megalith, anyone?) and looking at the early interviews I could find with Infernus, he doesn’t mention satanism at all.  Later he would be come a pathetic parody of a middle school satanist and it is no surprise that after the first two albums, the music of Gorgoroth turned to shit.
    3. DeicideBenton said lots of crazy shit about satanism early in his career but it comes across more as shock-value marketing. This interview has Benton talking about making lunch for his kid and taking him to school as well as making fun of the COS.  After the Hoffman brothers quit Deicide, they launched a public smear campaign in which it was revealed that Benton was married in a Christian church.  Satanic and anti-Christian aesthetics/lyrics does not equal satanism.
    4. Ghost:  This band proves my point.  They are horrible beyond belief.  I’m not going to waste my time researching their satanic credentials, but if this is the best that Satan can do, surely he is not the Lord of This World.
    5. BehemothStarted as a nationalistic pagan metal band.  Apparently Nergal got angry that Graveland made much better music, and decided to start making cartoonish, gay-BDSM satanic death metal instead.  Notice the trend line – as Behemoth started embracing satanism and satanic themes, the music rapidly went downhill.
    6. Marduk:  Why are they on this list?  The inclusion of Marduk serves to illustrate the futility and stupidity of the binary thought patterns of sectarianism.  There is no logical chain between a band named after a Babylonian deity and Satan.
    7. Dark Funeral: Several of the members of this band seem to be down with the theistic Satanism. However, the only musician of value in the band, Blackmoon, was never kind to any organized religion in interviews and flatly stated he was not religious.  The most this band proves is that Satan, Inc. has a very good marketing department.
    8. Nunslaughter:  A solid band, certainly, but what comes across again and again in their interviews is their love of Venom and their use of satanic themes solely as a death metal conventions.  Satan as salesman, yet again.
    9. Mercyful Fate:  They would better served by inserting King Diamond’s solo career here instead of Mercyful Fate.  King Diamond himself said that MF was more about general occult topics whereas KD solo was straight up COS themes.  This further proves my thesis as MF>KD.  Satanism sucks QED.
    10. Morbid Angel: Yet again, occult does not equal satan.  Trey has often stated that the band’s lyrical/beliefs stem from the Jewish Kabbalah.  The only thing born again Christian Pete Sandoval regrets about his time with Morbid Angel is having drank, smoked, and eaten too much fast food.
    11. Satyricon:  They always kind of sucked, but their initial output of quasi-occult/nationalistic/naturalistic material wasn’t overly terrible.  Only when they contracted Satan, Inc.’s marketing department did their music really become horrible.
    12. Watain:  These guys, at least in public, take their Church of Satan theistic ideas very seriously.  They are so beholden to Satan Inc.’s fiery pecker that they even released a country and western album.  Nobody around here needs to be told that Watain sucks prolapsed asshole.

The New Church of Satan labeling many of these bands with anti-christian themes as satanic demonstrates the either/or, rigid binary thinking of the ideological mind.  If the Church of Satan was suddenly the official State Religion or somehow convened a PMRC-type hearing most of these bands would, at the very least, start making songs about the Book of Job where Satan loses a bet with God. We can even give the NCOS the benefit of the doubt and say, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  This, however, tends to be a mistake and shows again, the weak long-term thought processes inherent in binary ideology.  While riling up the masses with evil vs. good rhetoric can at times be useful, more often than not the unthinking enthusiasm of the crowd ends up destroying any possibility of wise policy.  In the realm of the arts, marketing is a necessary evil – Varg Vikernes is a very clever marketeer, but he also has the musical chops to back it up – but when the art is completely subsidiary to the marketing you have essentially inverted cause and effect and are contributing to the obfuscation of reality instead of the triumphal embrace of reality.

Satan had his uses.  Through the 70s, 80s, and into the 1990s various Christians were trying to destroy metal.  That was all 20-50 years ago.  The US Army, whose oath ends with, “so help me God,” officially recognizes Satanism as a religion.  I’ve seen Slayer and various other metal bands play in venues owned by the LDS church.  Modern society as a whole has embraced the sinful delights of the flesh. Satan is no longer a battle clarion nor a symbol of transgression; Satan is a sign of submission and a call to resignation.  Invoking Satan at this point is as nonsensical and absurd as General Ripper telling Group Captain Mandrake to help him operate the machine gun because, “the Redcoats are coming!”  While the battle standard of the Dark Lord will remain a treasured part of metal history, new campaigns and new battles await and proud new colours should fly above the heads of the conquering Hessian armies.

 

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44 thoughts on “Forces of Satan Stumble”

  1. Satan is gay says:

    Some other good Christian bands Tyrant (US), Angel of Sodom, Believer, Mortification, The Saviour.

    1. Brock Dorsey says:

      Fuck yeah Mortification

  2. Obscure Death Metal Warrior says:

    But the fallen angels are powerful guides. Satan is just the reflection of yhvh his most coarse portion. An excess in creation which cannot be negated. But how many of them stay on that path of monadism and worshipping one daemon after the next. The runes seem much more sophisticated.

    1. Charles Stuart says:

      I always preferred the parts of the Old Testament where Satan was God’s contract hit-man. I think the term the old KGB used was ‘wet work.’

    2. Reduced Without Any Effort says:

      tard

      1. S.C. says:

        What is your purpose here? You don’t have any appreciation for what this site produces and only seem to want to elevate yourself by exposing others supposed retardation. That must be it! Everyone you know in the real world is likely bored and fed up with your miserable nature and so you need some sort of other platform to spread it. Fuck off already.

        1. Reduced Without Any Effort says:

          As someone who actually appreciates metal music and what it means and also as a reader of DLA before it was absorbed into DMU I appreciate the articles that are actually in-depth metal reviews and musical commentary. I critique the various forms of posing and substanceless bullshit that gets posted here. Sorry if having a few brain cells to rub together and not being a dickrider offends you.

          1. S.C. says:

            No just your hipster holier-than-thou attitude offends me. You never have anything to say on the supposed articles you like that are published here. So you present yourself as someone who is out to prove how intelligent they and their opinions are, because of insecurity, by telling everyone else how stupid they are. That’s a pretty miserable way to live.

            1. Kekkonen says:

              It goes both ways my negro.

            2. I am the wack blizzards says:

              It’s amazing that you can type while clutching a veiny negro weiner in either fist

            3. Reduced Without Any Effort guy is negative and incapable of contributing anything useful. Most atheists are black holes.
              His comments about shoegaze/blackgaze false metal in https://www.deathmetal.org/review/smr-sadistic-metal-reviews-post-black-eulogy/ , were destroyed in https://www.deathmetal.org/review/smr-sadistic-metal-reviews-post-black-metal-eulogy-part-2/#comments .

              I started writing on an article about it, why he was wrong, but Part 2 was excellent, so there is no need at the present time. I would have added some additional shoegaze bands for comparisons as proof.

              Reduced Without Any Effort did not answer/refute anything in Part 2, and has not given any valid reasons why nationalism is wrong (especially white nationalism), but only gave opinions to attempt to disuade anybody to embrace one of the most natural feelings.

              1. Reduced Without Any Effort says:

                The whiny faggot keeps whining. It’s hilarious that I of all people have your panties in such a twist when Dopey is an Israel dickrider. Not seeing where any of the points I made were even refuted at all, let alone “destroyed”. I didn’t reply to part 2 not because it “destroyed” my righteous ridicule of part 1, but because it was so boring and safe as to not even be worth the effort while not at all addressing any of the critique I made. It was like a filler track. It attacked some of the lowest hanging, lowest quality fruit in the so-called “post-black metal” movement, but did not address at all the parallel lack of quality in its contemporary underground metal counterparts. Feel free to write an article yourself, I’ll bite even though reading it is inevitably going to make me lose a few IQ points.

                Also I explicitly told you why white nationalism is retarded, it’s idiot egalitarianism for white people, because just like idiot leftist egalitarianism, it uses identity checkboxes rather than individual worthiness as its foundation and is fundamentally anathema to real elitism. It’s especially retarded when applied to metal music, a genre where only the very best of the very best actually matters at all.

              2. Reduced Without Any Effort says:

                P.S. I’m absolutely not an atheist, I believe in a single supreme God, and I concurrently and strongly believe devil-worshippers and the like are the dumbest of the dumb. You don’t know a thing about me, but I threaten you just by stating my opinion so much that you resort to conspiracy-theorizing about me: I must be a Jew, I must be an atheist, I must be aiming to subvert western civilization, etc. You’re a joke and that bit exemplifies why I call you a whiny faggot.

                1. canadaspaceman says:

                  What “god” do you serve? Maybe same multicult god the rest of the planet serves?
                  Mine created all that surrounds you, including the fallen angels/demons that are here to serve as lessons.

              3. Kekkonen says:

                Define “white”, kanuck.

                1. canadaspaceman says:

                  search yourself, if you really care https://christogenea.org/

      2. Obscure Death Metal Warrior says:

        It is retarded. But taken that we have reptile and mamallian brains should encourage for you to look beyond the symbolic and to the realm of pure thought or Spirits and what their use could be to you.

        1. Reduced Without Any Effort says:

          Gnosticism and descendant esotericism is to Abrahamic religion what Alex Jones and David Icke are to western society – self-serving roleplay that is more a way to signal “wokeness” to other idiots than real conviction, preferably dressed up with jargon to avoid being called out for what it is. Only a true idiot simultaneously embraces the dying mental prison that is Abrahamic religion as a context yet simultaneously goes far enough down the rabbit hole to exalt its fallen angels.

          1. SocialJesus says:

            ehhh your understanding of Gnosticism is a little lacking. I suggest reading up on the simonians and valentinians; gnostics viewed pagans the same as abrahamics. (For good reason >:D)

    3. fryguy says:

      has anyone ever told u ur a faggot

  3. Schadenfreude for all ages says:

    You know there’s no god or belial
    Your mission’s to show the only way is denial
    Denial…
    All christians and satanists you see must be crucified before they flee
    You’re allowed to eat every soul
    You avoid it, they are too foul
    You know there’s no god or belial

    1. I am the wack blizzards says:

      Real nigga shit

  4. fryguy says:

    I mean, your average NSBM band’s not really much conceptually different from something like Blood Fire Death or even the lyrics in Manowar’s “Kill With Power”–hacky wotanist Right-Nietzscheism, etc. Not every nsbm band is Der Sturmer, doing obvious sieg heil stuff. Good call on Gontyna Kry though, that shows you’ve listened to some of it at least.

    The entire Russian NS scene is a nice development of the stuff Varg was doing (emphasis on development, not regression into shoegaze and folk-pop-punk like the Ukrainian bands) including the lesser known BBH projects like Nitberg. Incredibly passionate music.

    Satanism is tired and needs to go, but big obvious symbols do work to convey big ideas to small minds, which is exactly why the satanism schtick worked for a while. The new big obvious “dangerous” thing that startles church ladies seems to be white European consciousness, and honestly that’s better suited for meaningful art than the satan theme ever was.

    “King Diamond himself said that MF was more about general occult topics whereas KD solo was straight up COS themes.”
    Right, Mercyful “I will kiss the goat / world without end” Fate is just “general occult topics” and KD’s solo career, which is all about ghosts and GRANDMA, is super Satanic. Give me a break, anyone who’s heard even a little metal is gonna call bullshit here.

    1. Charles Stuart says:

      Yeah, call bullshit on what King Diamond himself has literally said on repeated occasions. A quick google search quickly brings up three (3) interviews where King Diamond himself explicitly states that King Diamond solo act was more satanic than Mercyful Fate.

      ” I would say King Diamond is a lot more satanic, if you want to put that word in there. It’s very much about satanic philosophy and horror, whereas Mercyful Fate is more about old myths and religion. ”

      “King Diamond was always more Satanic than Mercyful Fate. And I’m not saying anything bad about Mercyful Fate – I love that band but sometimes people forget that King Diamond is the Satanic philosophy through and through. I was a made an eternal member of the Church of Satan by Anton LeVey himself in 1988.”

      “Actually, King Diamond is much more Satanic than Mercyful Fate ever was because the stories and life philosophy on King Diamond albums are from LaVey’s ‘Satanic Bible’. Mercyful is more about legends like the headless riders, stories of Egypt, questioning religious beliefs.”

      Next you’ll be telling me that Woody Allen movies are really about a tall, blond, physically fit guy from Sweden who enjoyed having moderate sexual relations with women in his approximate age-group.

      1. fryguy says:

        Kerry King said Slipknot are the future of metal, do you really think appeals to authority are meaningful?
        https://genius.com/Mercyful-fate-the-oath-lyrics
        nice “general occult topics”, nothing satanic about this, nosiree

        1. Charles Stuart says:

          When they are talking about the music which they wrote, I think that musicians are the sole authority. After all, they are the only ones who new what they were thinking about when composing – everyone else is just inferring. The musician might be lying, but they are the only ones with direct evidence.

          You are making an apples to oranges comparison – Kerry King’s prediction of general trends in a large genre of music has nothing to do with and no similarity to King Diamond’s knowledge of his own songs.

    2. Charles Stuart says:

      Capricornus was pretty good. Despite having godawful cover art, “Alone Against All” is an above average album.

      1. DMX says:

        Where my dogs at?

  5. Cynical says:

    “LeVeyan theistic satanism”

    U WOT M8?

    1. Svmmoned says:

      Yeah, and there is that confusion, although I feel that Laveian satanism isn’t as atheistic and materialistic as people like to think.

  6. Homosexuality is the new asceticism says:

    You are claiming that saytanism is a rigid ideology, yet even LaVeyanism is about doing whatever you want, though mostly it just boils down to hedonism (like people need an excuse for that). The problem is it never went far enough. You listed some third rate bands, but couldn`t be assed to list Acheron, which was affiliated with the COS.

    Body language analysis videos are the new 9/11 truth videos.

  7. Marc Defranco says:

    Infernus really wrote some fantastic riffs. Also under the sign of hell, while not as good as the first two, is still a great album especially for its time

    1. Charles Stuart says:

      I really like that album, even the bizarre production sound that makes the drums sound like toys. It has got some fantastic songs but as an entire album it just does not have the coherence of their first two.

  8. Special Hypnotherapist says:

    Charles Stuart, this is fucked, you’re trippin’.

    “Satanic and anti-Christian aesthetics/lyrics does not equal satanism.”

    Then what does?! What do you require of a band to pass the threshold unto Satanic? Must they explicitly state a religious worship of the Satan deity?

    Mayhem — merely had an album called “DE MYSTERIIS DOM SATHANAS”
    Gorgoroth — “Pentagram” — certainly not of or related to Satan
    Deicide — “Satan Spawn, The Caco-Daemon” — no relation to Satan

    NO. Satanic = of or relating to Satan. You’ve failed to shoehorn the legends into Brock Dorsey’s revisionism.

    Sidenote: y’all gotta read this amazing interview with Glenn Benton:
    http://www.markprindle.com/benton-i.htm

    1. Charles Stuart says:

      LOL, that interview is LITERALLY LINKED IN THE VERY ARTICLE.

      A few satanic references does not make a satanic whole. Burzum has a song ‘Dominus Sathanas’ therefore all of Burzum’s music is satanic. Right? Right? No logical fallacy there?

    2. Kekkonen says:

      “I’m more of an intellectual fuckin combatant of fuckin God. So yes, if you’d like to fight the battle against Christianity, do it on a fuckin intelligence level, not a fuckin theatrical level.”

      What a fruit. He fits in perfectly with the deus vulters.

  9. Svmmoned says:

    Ask yourself a question what constitutes the actual satanism. It is really interesting, complex question. You took an easiest path by choosing COS as a designate and called it a triumph. Either that or that the band must manifest some pseudo-religious fixation, both merely mirroring shallow orthodoxy of puritanism.

    Morbid Angel was inspired by many things. Were they always inspired by kaballah, or only on later albums?

    Satan as understood by Darkthrone, Emperor, Beherit or Antaeus is still applicable and powerful.

  10. Exfoliation says:

    Yawn inducing spergin’

  11. NWN War Metal Tranny Rapist says:

    Shemaleism is the pretext to global suicide! Rape these trannies out of society!

    1. AAAAARGH! Bloody 2-handed Chainaxe Blow says:

      I think Satan was god’s first shemale wasn’t he/she?

  12. organized.religion.is.for.lost.idiots. says:

    Finally someone has the good attitude towards metal on this site (no more religious bullshit!).

    Satan in himself can be a good subject for great works of art (think William Blake, John Milton), but most of the metal musicians are not on that level of poetic genius. And frankly, it’s already pretty hard getting one thing right (excellent riffs for extreme music) to also be a great poet or philosopher.

    In a perfect world, black and death metal would have already become anti-Islamic, anti-religious, pro-European heritage by this point and some of the musicians or fans would have had the balls to burn down some mosques at least in countries with high brownie concentration. But no, it’ll be cuck metal and party metal forever. SAD!

    However, the second best thing would be winning the propaganda war, keep up the good work !

  13. Bill Baker says:

    “The two Christian metal bands worth a shit have been covered on this site: Paramaecium and Antestor. ”

    I was a born againer for a number of years, apostasized in 2004, but during those years I was immersed in the Christian metal scene. And dependin on sub-genre{heavy metal, speed, thrash, death, black, doom,etc} there was actually quite a few Christian bands that still today I’d say were pretty good metal musicians, some I’d still say were amongst some of the best metal bands I’ve ever heard in my 30 years as a metalhead{only about ten years- in the middle of that time- as a born againer}. Certainly more than just Paramacium and Antestor{both definitely “worth a shit”- AT LEAST}, But there were more. Thrash: Tourniquet, Seventh Angel, Sacrament, Living Sacrifice, Mortification, Betrayal, Ultimatum; death: Early “Mortification”, Crimson Thorn,Paramacium, Inversion, Vomitorial Corpulence, 2 of “Living Sacrifices” albums, and more; unblack metal: Antestor, But ALSO= Sorrowstorm, Horde{which was a man man band, all instruments played by “Anonymous” who was Jason Sherlocke- who played drums in both Paramaecium and Mortification}, Crimson Moonlight, Sanctifica, Lengsel, Extol{well progressive/technical extreme metal somewhere between death and black and proig thrash}, Slechtvalk, Frost Like Ashes, Drottnar; in fact most Christian black metal bands I recall ere pretty damned good compared to Christian death and thrash and heavy metal having less good bands{but still had some}.

    Now, as far as extreme metal bands and “Satanism”.
    -Grgoroth are sincere in their Satanism{Infernus is a genuine theistic Satanist or SINCERE in his belief; Ghaal is more a animist pagan but his character and sole values are pretty Satanist as well},
    -Behemoth are very sincere in their occultism. But they are more a combination of Crowleys Thelema and Chaotism with some paganism and Satanism and luciferianism. But are more Crowleyan and Chaote.
    Morbid Angel were pretty Satanist in their early years, and David I think is a straight up COS Satanist, Trey is more a mix of Chaote, Crowleyan{hence the Qaballah elements} or Thelema and gnostic Luciferian and some paganism.
    Dark Funeral and Mardul are both pretty sincere I think in their ‘satanisms”, though Marduk aint so easy to pin down with any labels.

    You forgot some other bands, such as Samael- who are genuine gnostic luciferians

    1. Kekkonen says:

      “Horde”

      Aww shit, completely forgot about dat nigga, pretty good shit. He aint no Paul Ledney though.

      1. Bill Baker says:

        Yep

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