Roots of Evil: The Origins of Metal

With the fiftieth anniversary of metal music around the corner, forthcoming years will witness an increase of publications dealing with the history, legacy and defining characteristics of the genre. This could finally resolve the lack of consensus that still exists regarding the definition and origins of heavy metal.

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Music, Musick and “Ick”


by Andreas Languetus

Music serves many roles in our lives, but the one closest to our sense of well-being is a rediscovery of beauty and purpose in the world. While neither is universal, or experienced by all people, the former is closer to the objective, meaning that it concerns the world itself, and the latter is closer to subjective, in that we each find our own path and so our purpose — while a descendant of broader purpose like adaptation, excellence, or knowledge — reflects our discernment and choice of that path in the moment.

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Aversion to Advent Parallax


Article by Lance Viggiano. Read his take on Transilvanian Hunger here.

I was essentially swindled into purchasing the gorgeous gatefold edition of this Averse Sefira LP which showcases some rather magnificent and captivating artwork as well as an above average execution of the band’s themes, concepts, and symbolism in visual form.

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Interview: Jechael of Amon


Interview conducted by Max Bloodworth.

There has been a lot of interest surrounding the Hoffman brothers after their departure from Deicide. After some time under the radar, they reformed Amon with Jechael on bass and vocals to once again make death metal. Amon’s album, Liar in Wait, sounds like a mixture of old and later era Deicide with a different vocalist. Judging by how Deicide has pretty much rendered themselves irrelevant after the Hoffman’s departure, the potential for good death metal is in the Amon camp more than the Nu-Deicide camp. Below is an interview with Jechael, the bassist and vocalist of Amon.

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Metal-Archives’ Marxist Mania

Article contributed to Death Metal Underground by Richard Sullivan.

Western civilization is currently gripped in a culture war unlike any that preceded this one. You may ask what makes it so different than the others, considering the West witnessed a similar one of its kind back in the late 1950s with the emergence of the New Left. Arguably, there’s never been a real difference in the left’s rhetoric. For as long as anyone cares to remember, white, heterosexual, “cisgender” men, who maintain the “capitalistic, racialized, cisnormative patriarchy” have always been at the center of their ideological attacks. The only thing that has changed has been their ability to have said rhetoric heard beyond the confines of university lecture halls. It was rare to encounter an enlightened™ human™ bombarding you with vitriol and threats of violence – because you failed to recognize the intersectionality between race™, gender™, and sexuality™ – outside a gender studies class. Of course, these things still occur, but with greater frequency, and to the point where a flash mob of overweight, hipster beta males twerking in tutus in a school’s atrium is viewed as them just “expressing themselves”, but, more boldly, as an act of defiance against conventional norms of masculinity.

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Tau Cross Regresses On “Deep State”

Tau Cross previewed the cover art and a track of their upcoming Pillar of Fire album on Relapse Records. “Deep State” sees the supergroup headed by Rob “The Baron” Miller regress towards a hybrid of crust, thrash, and modern rock as seen on the final Amebix album, Sonic Mass. While free of the overt Brit pop and Godsmack of Sonic Mass, “Deep State” is still almost static like a rock song with riffs around a static chord for catchy rhythms and vocal hooks to be arranged around. The instrumental music is a tired retread that I have heard at least a few dozen speed metal band do better before.

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Revisiting The Days When Black Metal Died

“Nothing gold can stay,” reminds us the poet Robert Frost, and this applies to black metal. Its gold occurred between 1991 and 1994, when its progenitors innovated a new style and took it to great heights, but after Burzum – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, it became clear that black metal was not content to be a normal, rock-style music genre.

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Ukrainian Zoo Erects Tom Araya Statue


Article contributed to Death Metal Underground by Seth Berg.

A zoo in Demidiv, Ukraine has recently revealed a statue of speed/death metal godfather Tom Araya as well as a pillar featuring lyrics from Slayer‘s classic “Dead Skin Mask” off Seasons in the Abyss. Hats off to the folks at XII Months zoo for accomplishing something that will help introduce the next generation (and probably sections of the current youth demographic) to an essential band. Perhaps this will mean that certain children in Ukraine will be exposed to quality metal first rather than the turds that float to the top in media and plant a seed that will help ensure that up and coming hessians aren’t complete modern metal bozos.

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