Norway’s Wordless Abyss

Studies have shown that listening to instrumental music while writing, studying, doing accounting, or any other productive task can increase stimulation without the distraction that the words of vocals provide.  But for Hessian, Templar, Heathen and other true metalheads instrumental works can be difficult to come by as extreme metal has not dabbled much into the realms of instrumental savagery.  But thanks to the necrophiliac obsession that many have had with Norwegian black metal and its culture, there are a few enjoyable demos and early rehearsals from Norway’s finest that can provide a motivational grim instrumental experience without demanding too much from the attention of the listener.

Join me if you will for a vocal-less adventure through some of Norway’s best kept foreboding hidden secrets.

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Introduction to Power Metal, Part I: Origins and Influences

(Join DMU Legend Johan Pettersson for what may be the most expansive analysis of power metal ever presented in the first of a 3 part series.  Listen to the accompanying suggested listening here)

Of all the subgenres and styles that fall within the metal spectrum (hence excluding unmitigated relapses into rock such as death’n’roll, stoner, nu- and indie metal), power metal most definitely counts as the one that has received the highest amount of scorn and ridicule from critics, fans and outsiders alike. (more…)

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Case Study: Death Metal Positive, But Only For Select Personality Types

A trio of Australian PhD researchers recently shared the results of an ambitious case study on death metal listeners.  The project, titled “Who Enjoys Listening to Violent Music and Why?” (Thompson et al., 2018), aimed to determine if there were personality differences in fans who enjoyed death metal and if lyrical content that involved inducing harm or death to individuals had any effect on the listener’s experience.  Examined were possible differences in emotional stimuli between death metal fans and non fans, genders, and participants who either were or weren’t given a lyric sheet.  The publication indicates findings similar to earlier studies that measured emotional reaction of music and personality bias as stated:

These findings are consistent with evidence that personality mediates preferences for music (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2003; Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2011a, 2011b) and that, conversely, music preferences communicate information about one’s personality (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). Rentfrow and Gosling (2003) examined the structure of music preferences, as well as the association between personality and music preferences. They used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to reveal that music preferences revolved around four major types of music: Reflective and complex (classical, jazz, blues); intense and rebellious (alternative, rock, heavy metal), upbeat and conventional (country, pop, religious), and energetic and rhythmic (hip-hop, rap, soul, funk, electronic, dance). Preferences were also dependent on personality variables. For example, people who preferred intense and rebellious music – including heavy metal – tended to be open to new experiences, considered themselves to be intelligent and athletic, and showed no signs of neuroticism or disagreeableness.

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Sin and Despair in Deathcrush

At the truest heart of metal lies a voice embodied, somewhat childishly, somewhat ineptly, but no less clearly and latent with potential, by Mayhem’s Deathcrush. The re-inversion of all values that metal enacts starts with the embracing of what modernity would see as its sickness unto death. The despair and sin of sickness unto death become vital active elements in the morbid minds of those who would vanquish dogmatic preconceptions in the Sky God Religions and their secular humanist counterparts.  Being, in essence a way of connecting back to itself, the ideological blockages set up by this dead-end society had to be faced head on.  Herein lies the relevance and meaning of the present album.  Despair is converted into pure energy, the rules disavowed, the road of sin is tread fanatically as a method of purification —a negative unity of evil towards the beyond, away from human-ness in its modern form, away from mundanity.  For the burgeoning underground, as seen from Mayhem’s perspective, primacy would placed on being and its dark discovery of self, against the presumption of knowing, and the oppressive, futile impositions from above.  All knowing, all value of music, would come from this ‘being’, from a dark exploration of the soul possessed by a cosmic force of destruction.

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Bring Back The Apocalyptic Raids

Hellhammer is the ultimate symbol of what black metal should be about: a free exploration of dark phrasal music at the hands of a twisted mind.  Typically it was not only the chromatic movements between sections which defined the music of Hellhammer but the linking between them, whose effect was great because individual sections were in fact proper tonal areas.  It was their sensible juxtaposition, which gave the music its unique flavor.  Furthermore, the maniac howling of Tom G. Warrior added the final touches of a music that was to set the example for an enactment that resembled an entrancing ritual more than it did a simple, mundane hedonism and biker metal, which had been the rule until that point.

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Victory Over Peace

There are those who would make us think that peace is essential for life. They demand we must reconcile all manner of disagreements and simply live happily together. In reality, what happens in a real compromise (if indeed it is a compromise) is that every one involved gets a bit of what he bargained for. It is not unlike Celtic Frost, a.k.a. the failed post-Hellhammer experiment that tried going mainstream a step at a time. By the time the band released Into the Pandemonium it was clear that by trying to bring the monster of underground black/death metal into the light they only degenerated it into a joke that no one, except masochists, want to ever hear again. The reader may want to attribute the downfall of Celtic Frost to a host of other causes, but the decision was in fact simple: give in to niceties and benefits through a compromise, or keep on fighting, towards a transcendental victory.
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Demos and a Forsaken Future

“Dude, their demos were so much better” is one of the most obnoxious cliches of underground metal.  Usually a sign of virtue signaling used to mask one’s insecurities about their knowledge or taste, many lost souls of a nostalgia-obsessed age will use this one as a pale attempt to one up their brethren.  However in many cases within metal’s sonic sphere, bands that were truly fantastic on their early demos left much to be desired and ultimately left listeners unfulfilled.  Whether it be a record company’s influence, a change in heart or band members, or a touch of genius quickly fumbled away, may bands throughout the history of metal have never quite been able to match the quality of their demo recordings.

With death metal built on an entire sub culture of tape trading, demos were more than a proverbial foot-in-the-door to a potential record deal.  For musicians of the genre’s early days, the demo was the equivalent to having your record in the store- it was being shipped all around the world to fans desperate for something they couldn’t find in shops and to musicians hungry for new ideas.  Furthermore, a band’s demo was untainted by the direction and input of record labels who, in those days, quite often suppressed what was deemed “too weird” or “too extreme” as death metal was often determined by the suits of those days.  Tape trading death metal demos was an underground of its own, and your band’s demo tape wasn’t just a pathway to commercialization or musical success- but a often the start of new friendships in a rapidly globalizing world.  Given all of these unique factors, it’s no surprise death metal was full of bands who could never quite capture the magic of their demos.

To offer a complete list would be a dishonor and disservice to the legions of quality works that fall under this umbrella.  Therefore in today’s editorial, I will briefly offer a handful of my personal favorite death metal demos from bands that could never quite capture the magic.  Though I pay little mind to what happens in our comment sections, this will mark a special occurrence where I’d be delighted to know what DMU’s readers would have on this list.

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A.V. Club Editor David Anthony Posts Metal Hit List

Social justice warrior hipster scumbag David Anthony of communist multimedia shill website The A.V. Club (owned by The Onion) thinks that heavy metal has a Nazi problem. David Anthony is a bitchy, neurotic pinko throwing a fit that certain musicians who want to kill everyone as all humans are damn, dirty apes are not particularly fond of the concept of arbitrarily protected classes of people. The AV Club think that mildly successful and average death metal band Disma should be publicly hanged, drawn, and quartered in front of all of the proletariat as former Incantation frontman Craig Pillard released a National Socialist themed techno album over a decade ago. Nobody is spared from David Anthony’s hit list. Joining Pillard in the AV Club’s metal pogrom are Inquisition, AbsurdLemmy from Motorhead, Slayer (especially Tom Araya), Varg Vikernes, Deafheaven, Antichrist Kramer, Lord Mantis, and No Colours Records. Anthony also cited two quotes from Mayhem drummer Hellhammer‘s interview in Until the Light Takes Us as of course closet case David Anthony does not listen to black metal and only watched the movie. The only relatively unknown dirt he dug up was Lord Mantis fucking a transvestite but that was from a Vice interview he probably bookmarked due to the graphic description of a casual homosexual encounter.

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Mayhem Tour, Washington, DC Stop Review


Article contributed to Death Metal Underground by Mike Alexander’s friend who is a Bill & Ted type of guy, you know.

I saw Mayhem play De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, the only album of theirs that actually counts of course, last week at the Howard Theater in Washington, DC so I wanted to tell my fellow Death Metal Underground readers what’s happening inside the ANUS of this tour. That was surely an ironic choice of venue the band made there. Playing a black theater in a historically black city was strange for a band whose drummer, Hellhammer, is a badass drummer who hits like a fucking beast like a German in a tank trying to conquer Africa back from his historic racial enemies, the Polish and the Africans and Hellhammer is Greek or something so how can these losers with nothing better to do claim he’s even racist you know? Also practicing under their swastika banners and shit like that they shouldve brought out to steam roll all the drunk hipsters instead of comic book covers to hide behind onstage. I had to check this shit out to see if some shit would go down. I wanted to see if the gig would rule or if any crazy shit from hipsters, communists, or any other idiot life forms that could come out of a UFO or something would be real you know and prevent Mayhem from pounding my face in you know.

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