Amorphis are known for their terrible modern output that consists of ridiculous pop cliches and monotonous chugging. While their latest offering has furthered the pretension of this band and their Opeth like attempts of appealing to pseudo intellectuals through whatever the mainstream considers to be “deep,” it is hard to fathom that this band once produced some of the greatest Finnish Death metal to ever grace our ears. Through restrained, simplistic melodies that were all very tightly knit and some basic understanding of chord theory, Amorphis carved a grandiose album that would see them climb to the top of a fledgling movement.
The album opener “Karelia” – an acoustic piece recorded with two 12-string guitars – announced the intentions of conjuring grand battlefields where heroes would emerge amidst the chaos. The first guitar repeats a basic melody in the natural minor scale as the second guitar follows with the appropriate combination of diatonic minor and major thirds. As the melody continues without variation the diatonic chords move up a few semitones up the scale creeping towards battle as the chords quickly return to their original position until distorted guitars announce the battle.
The classic film portrayal of Bret Easton Ellis’s viciously dark novel American psycho has an incredibly open-ended ending that ultimately leaves the film’s conclusion up to the viewers. Chronicling the growing insanity of Christian Bale’s outstanding Patrick Bateman character, the film never makes a firm establishment of how real any of what we were seeing actually was. After eluding what seemed like certain doom in the form of confessing a massive killing spree to his lawyer, Bateman himself wonders if his murders really did happen.
This leaves the opportunity to make a case for three different theories:
Bateman committed none of the murders, all of them happened inside of his mind.
Bateman committed some of the murders, but hallucinated the others.
Bateman committed all of the murders.
My belief was always the least popular of these three theories, but before I elaborate let’s take a moment to examine the other two.
Music is a language, and utilizes formulas to communicate emotions to an audience. This is the most basic understanding of the idea of music as a tool, but the mastery of the manipulation of human perception through the mathematics of musical language can only be effective if an artist has something substantial to say, and uses the medium of music as the vehicle to communicate that idea, rather than approaching this communication as if the method of expression is the message itself. This is the disconnect we see as musicians “mature” and develop their craft as their passions slowly extinguish, and it is not surprising that the best releases using metal as a communicative tool are often released in a band’s initial releases, when they knew the least of how the musical language works. This ignorance allows an immediacy that overwrought cynicism betrays, and it is here that the heart of metal thrives. The education gained from elaborating on the language of music can enforce the initial artistic message when the understanding of human perception is developed, or it can suffocate the communicative process should the composer fixate on how the listener will react to the information presented. The efforts of post-reunion At the Gates are mired in the latter type of composition, and To Drink from the Night Itself is the band’s most grievous offense.
Anal Cunt guitarist Josh Martin, known for penning a number of outrageously offensive and theatrical songs, has passed away after falling from a mall escalator and striking his head.
Those who remember Anal Cunt for their enjoyable live shows, over-the-top lyrics, and grinding chaotic composition will find themselves familiar with Martin from his work in the composition and live performance of hits from the Anal Cunt catalogue.
Josh Martin, a 45-year-old guitarist with the band Anal C**t, is said to have lost his balance, fallen backwards and hit his head on a table after losing his balance while riding the escalator.
Police told local reporters that he fell one storey from the cinema level to the food court below at Providence Place Mall shortly before 11pm on Monday evening.
A report described him as ‘clowning around and riding the rail of the escalator’ and fell off as he approached the downward part of the handrail.
We choose to remember him through his irreverent sense of humor and his work, which ranged from musical comedy to fast, grinding sonic mayhem which introduced a new generation to grindcore. A brief career retrospective follows.
Every June 6 we celebrate a day sacred to all Hessians: the International Day of Slayer on which all metalheads celebrate what it is to be a metalhead, as exemplified by the music of Slayer and the lives of its musicians, including Jeff Hanneman (1964-2013).
Slayer beats back the world of human intentions which tries to make life safe, inoffensive, commerce-friendly, popular, and full of unique precious snowflakes. Its music affirms reality, which operates through power and will, over emotions and social opinions. It denies the importance of humans.
No doubt you know how to celebrate this holiday for metal folk worldwide, but as a quick refresher:
On June 6th, Hessians worldwide come together to do something upon which we can all agree – listening to Slayer! Finally, one of the most dismissed cultural groups in the world has a holiday to call its own. Join us in our cause to stand unified in our celebration of metal music and let us prove to the rest of society that we too have a voice.
Who is Slayer
Slayer is a band from California. Their music has come to epitomize Satanic speed metal music in the latter half of the 20th century. Their 1986 album Reign in Blood ranks as one of the single most influential metal albums of all time, typified by the modern classic “Angel of Death.”
Listen to Slayer at full blast at your place of employment.
Listen to Slayer at full blast in any public place you prefer.
DO NOT use headphones! The objective of this day is for everyone within earshot to understand that it is the National Day of Slayer. National holidays in America aren’t just about celebrating; they’re about forcing it upon non-participants.
Taking that participation to a problematic level
Stage a “Slay-out.” Don’t go to work. Listen to Slayer.
Have a huge block party that clogs up a street in your neighborhood. Blast Slayer albums all evening. Get police cruisers and helicopters on the scene. Finish with a full-scale riot.
Spray paint Slayer logos on churches, synagogues, or cemeteries.
Play Slayer covers with your own band (since 99% of your riffs are stolen from Slayer anyway).
In honor of Slayer, of metal music worldwide in all ages, and of the spirit of facing reality with eyes wide open and embracing the opportunity of challenge and fear, we intend to keep this website open and celebrate the International Day of Slayer every year on June 6. Join us… welcome back!
If you are here by mistake and wondering why Slayer (you’re supposed to yell this each time you say it, like this: SLAYER!) is important, check out the Heavy Metal Frequently Asked Questions file to see how this band influenced the rise of death metal and, well, basically everything else. SLAYER!
To aid in your celebration, enjoy some links to classic Slayer releases:
Ass-tier beta male hacker Tulio Baars ran out of money to keep knocking Death Metal Underground offline. Tulio, you feminine slab of loserdom, that’s all ya got? All that “special Google and NASA training” for a couple weeks of 404? Was it really worth destroying your career for that, as any future employer will google your name and see the related pictures? Did the Brazil trucker strikes knock your village’s power offline, did you get starved off by the lack of food? Will you be taking a helicopter ride once the Third Empire of Brazil is instated in the Chilean fashion?
Tulio, my man, I’m disappointed. I was really enjoying my vacation time, got some beach time in with my hot trad waifu, even got to try that new Mediterranean place down on 66th and 2nd. But now thanks to your technical shortcomings, it looks it’s back to work for me and the DMU staff.
Thanks to all our readers for your patience, with full assumptions that you had better shit to do than to keep entering deathmetal.org into your browsers every few hours. Also, thanks to everyone who visited us at our DMU in exile 8chan board at www.8ch.net/deathmetal/ and went ruthless with the shitposting. Perhaps we will keep it up, and make some rounds there. Barring any more whiny techfag meltdowns, DMU will be back to the usual sadism and destruction tomorrow with an immeasurably stronger resolve and more beta male smashing mayhem. Lefties, soy metallers, fake metal news outlets, and social justice warriors on suicide watch!!! Sodomize the weak!!!
While some loser-in-life Huffington Post reporter named Tulio Baars (the magazine does not typically employ males) continues spending his mommy and daddy’s money on a botnet to launch cyber attacks on Death Metal Underground, a temporary backup solution has been created for Hessians to get their fix of metal chaos and destruction.
An official DMU 8chan imageboard has been created and can be found at https://8ch.net/deathmetal and we’ll host all of our articles there for the time being until the Brasilia Policia catch up with Tulio. On this board anyone (including readers) can make posts there or engage in articles. Just don’t be a pussy!
And for the record, DMU is not- nor ever was- an Alt-Right or white nationalist website. We have never once have written about race. So if you think you’re a left-wing liberal crusader doing the word a service by shutting down a niche metal website you’re just retarded and probably confused about your sexual orientation.
For everyone else, thanks for still visiting here despite these pansies knocking the site offline for a couple of weeks.
As with anything labeled “USBM,” it is an inevitable that an experienced metal fan will approach this release with caution regarding just how flannelly, how post rock, how try-hard and yet how vulnerable it is. With a cliched moniker that clashes together a couple of clumsy tropes to echo the oil and water mixture that Americans and black metal suspend as, Wolvhammer presents itself and its material as confidently confrontational so the saccharine despair of modern takes on the vulturized genre are initially somewhat absent, but the juvenile approach does not in its stead give credence to the overbearing impudence on display.
Cash grab alert! After giving the classic board room “fuck you” to cornerstone musician Abbath, the corporate conglomerate of Demonaz and Horgh have secured the legal rights to the band name “Immortal” and are now positioned to promptly squeeze their fans to blindly buy music and merch advertised as that of a Norwegian black metal legend. Although the pair have only played together on one album out of 12, they’re billing this as “the comeback of Immortal!” and have already gotten the infamously money-hungry Nuclear Blast records to set up the most overused rock n’ roll ponzi scheme.
Together, the pair have released a new song “Northern Chaos Gods,” the title/intro track of their first foray into commercialized rehash. So how did the miraculous (fake?) recovery of Demonaz’s tendonitis work out? Exactly how far into the waters of retro-rehash did the band wonder? Have they evolved even the slightest as musicians or do they remain forever trapped in the 90’s? As trust fund life-dropouts living in the woods at the expense of their family might say:
Modern metal bands will often add all sorts of odd and extraneous elements to the music. What is most curious and notable, even as one cringes to the sounds of flutes or children’s choirs and such, is not what is in the music but what is lacking in the music: an aggressive, adventurous, feral spirit that is the common element of all metal music. While experimentation, new ideas, and new textures and elements are not in and of themselves bad things, most bands, being the crowdists they are, get the horses of the apocalypse before the meat wagon. As Socrates so sagely reckoned all those years ago, the spirit informs the final shape that the physical body will take – to build the creation without spirit is, in essence, to create something that lacks shape and indeed lacks the very essence of being.
