DMU Song Contest #3: King of the Serfs Edition Part 1

by Nicholas Vahdias on May 14, 2019

The third edition of the DMU song contest has finally returned and a staggering amount of contestants are ready to prove that they can escape the curse that confronts the modern musical landscape. The DMU team has united in reviewing this large field of hopefuls. Each writer will review a selection of songs and then nominate the two best songs from their song list to the finals where we shall form a panel to determine which of these bands can escape futile serfdom.

Onwards to war!

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Shub Niggurath – The Kinglike Celebration (Final Aeon on Earth)

by Nicholas Vahdias on May 13, 2019

Shub Niggurath is the third band in what can be called the Mexican big three of Death metal with the other two being The Chasm and Cenotaph. Though Shub Niggurath shared members with both bands and subsequently shared some similarities with both in terms of aesthetics they managed to forge their separate identity in regards to composition. Opting for a form of Death metal based on early Morbid Angel,Deicide and some influences from Emperor and Darkthrone. Shub Niggurath create pompous Death metal out of bare bone parts.

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Brief Analysis: Richard Wagner – Parsifal

by Ioannis Metaxas on May 6, 2019

Has any painter ever depicted so sorrowful a look of love as Wagner does in the final accents of his Prelude? ~ F. Nietzsche

Parsifal is the final opera of Richard Wagner and the manifestation of four years of work. Here we shall attempt to briefly present from a structural perspective the use of contemplative silence and modulation in crafting great songs. The prelude contains all that the opus requires and it all unfolds like a flower from the bud.

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Mangled Torsos – Drawings of the Dead

by Guest Contributor on May 4, 2019

Article by Svennerick

Not shortly after its inception, Death metal saw not only a stagnation in popularity, but also in creativity and artistic spirit. A genre that peaked and that had already developed most of its subgenres before even being given a concrete name showed the metal scene something new in the mid 80s and early 90s. But that magic eventually faded and now Death metal has only seen a small amount of innovation or peaks in the last two decades, since we mostly end up listening to band worshipping Gorguts‘ Obscura, yet missing its ferocity, or a band creating an entire album consisting out of blast beats and overly technical riffs, which feel more like filler than forwards moving music. Bands lost the connection to what made Death metal special in the first place and would rather waste their impressive talent and devotion trying to rehash what Necrophagist or Spawn Of Possession did in the early 2000s with great success.

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Delving into the Depths of Richard Wagner’s Genius: The Tristan Chord

by Nicholas Vahdias on May 2, 2019

Richard Wagner’s character is famous all over the world, admired as well as decried as just behind Christ and Napoleon, it is the German composer who has given rise to the most impressive bibliography; in 1962, according to Jean Gallois, nearly forty-two thousand books, articles or documents were written about him and if one considers the tetralogy as his greatest masterpiece, it is “Tristan und Isolde” that will remain the most innovative harmonically. The chromaticism of the prelude pushed to the extreme marks a turning point in the history of music, arriving at a point of no return for tonal music. Is it the end of romanticism or the birth of the processes of modern music? The question has often been debated and the French composer Achille Claude Debussy, very influenced by Wagner and this opera before detaching himself from it and rejecting it, will write about Tristan:

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