Death Metal Underground

Decimation: Atonality in Death Metal

by Nicholas Vahdias on February 25, 2018

Never has there been a word in metal as misunderstood as atonal, allowing all kinds of ridiculous claims since most individuals confuse atonality with dissonance and chromatism.

There are two ways to define atonality, one being the complete lack of tonal character and being reduced to noise like some of Kerry King’s solos or the works of Merzbow. The other definition that interests us here is the complete lack of functional harmony. In simpler terms that implies not having the root note that commands a certain melody. Without a root note, the notes in an atonal melody are not connected by scales, modes or chords.

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22 Comments

Tags: atonality, chromatism, death metal, demigod, Demilich, mayhem, metal, morbid angel, music theory, sepultura, slayer, suffocation, wagner

OZZY IS RIGHT: “NON-CONFORMITY” IS CONFORMIST, METAL MUST REBEL

by Brock Dorsey on February 23, 2018

Death Metal Underground’s wise founder Brett Stevens posted a thoughtful article last weekend about the duality of exterior and interior being. It describes how in these modern times we’re seeing an illusion of non-conformity that masks the conformity of thought and nature within. This is an effective tactic of those in power be they media, silicon valley, deep state, or (in the case of metal) record executives and journalists: get people to look different, but think the same. This also masterfully articulates why metal is at its lowest creative point in the entire history of its existence: fans and musicians alike have accepted conformity of thought and sound through satisfaction with mere non-conformist aesthetics and culture. And the only way to escape this rut is to violently rebel against everything we have been conditioned to believe is “metal” and “metal culture.”

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35 Comments

Tags: brett stevens, conformity, death, death metal, destruction, Deus Vult, future of metal, Gen-Z, Generation Z, hessian, metal, metal culture, non-conformity, ozzy osbourne, rebellion, Romanticism, tattoos, Templar, Western Culture

Tombs – The Grand Annihilation (2017)

by Jerry Hauppa on February 21, 2018

There won’t be a challenging listen anytime soon from millennial metal bands. The best we can hope for is something engaging, because given how neutered the general public is today, most things, “underground” or not, will be geared with mass appeal in mind. When we as seasoned listeners encounter a new metal band we approach their newest release with the hope that they at least have some framework of metal history at hand to draw from in order to at least give their inherently gimped effort a palette of direction that resembles metal. But with that mass appeal looming in the back of the creator’s mind, that history may be utilized as a checklist for social acclaim to adorn empty musical gestures instead of a well to draw inspiration to guide a commanding voice. Those type of Frankenmetal releases are easily dismissed as a series of “Ta-da!” moments wrapped around a rancid kernel, but by blunting the confrontational elements of disjunct pieces you can somewhat pull the wool over the listener’s eyes as if you are more steadfast in your artistic message than you actually are.

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8 Comments

Tags: 2018, metal, post-metal, review, riff salad, The Grand Annihilation, Tombs

INDIVIDUALISM KILLS CHILDREN (NOT GUNS)

by Brock Dorsey on February 21, 2018

Welp, another school shooting is in the books, and this means we begin the cycle of another nationwide emotional meltdown of reactionary liberals over a founding pillar of our “evil” American culture. Since metal heads and metal journalists everywhere are weighing in on this, and since most (all?) of them are too dumb to say anything logical or researched, it once again has fallen on the staff of DMU to be the sole voice of high-IQ reason in the metal world. For despite guns being legal in America for over 200 years (with over 200 being free of school shootings), despite automatics/machine guns being loose on the streets since at least the 1920s (with 70 of those years being free of school shootings), and despite gun ownership being in steep decline the last few decades (despite school shootings being on the rise), liberals everywhere continue to fall for the totalitarian “give up the gun” scam and blame our second amendment for the mass murder of innocent children. While stats clearly prove otherwise, many miss the true root of this tragedy: the individualism our society has been embracing since the cultural revolution of the 1960s.

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80 Comments

Tags: America, church, collectivism, culture, disease, gun control, guns, individualism, liberalism, mass killings, mental health, metal, news, school shootings

Accept – Rise of Chaos

by Joe Slater on February 20, 2018

Accept is a band best remembered for their old school song called “Balls to the Wall”, which used to play on the Headbanger’s Ball. Driving my BMV down the Autobahn at 120MPH through the Black Forest, I stopped in Bad Reichenhall. You know how they always have insane amounts of Gummy Bears everywhere in Germany. And then next to them are porno mags and stuff like biker lifestyle mags. Those were where I found out that Accept was still going strong at the time. It never ceases to amaze. This band just keeps hanging around, like a bad STD. Here they are again 20 years later. And they have this new album Rise of Chaos, which sounds like a cross between Sabbath’s Dehumanizer and an Exodus album.

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6 Comments

Tags: 2018, accept, Balls to the Wall, classic metal, Headbanger's ball, Heavy Metal, iron maiden, metal, STDs, The Rise of Chaos, Thrash

Troll 2 and (the Joy of) Miscategorized Metal

by Joe Slater on February 18, 2018

Tower Records and Musicland didn’t seem to have much the other day. So I went by Camelot music instead. I was wearing my old green Slayer demon head shirt. I had built up points at that store, and they gave me a free purple shirt with their logo on it. I hated the shirt and donated it to Goodwill. In the metal section was the cassette soundtrack to Troll 2. I was almost certain this was a mis-categorization. I didn’t have the money to buy it that day and it sold out before I could get my hands on it.

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7 Comments

Tags: bach, burzum, Camelot Music, Dvorak, guitars, kvlt casettes, metal, Raputin, Richard Band, soundtrack, The Omen, Tower Records, troll 2, trve kvlt

Metal Works as Stepping Stones

by Hereweald Cola Algar on February 18, 2018

Until now, metal works (albums, EPs, pieces, etc.) have been regarded as products, even by those who would assume anti-commercial postures. Why this is so, why the underground metal community still sees albums as products and so judge them in that light, has to do with the history of metal as arising from the general rock business context. Black Sabbath as the foundational metal band followed this path and they were also the first metal band to sell out, though there never was much to sell out. In any case, they did not really know what they had and quickly devolved into rock-ized (standardized) “improvements” on the gold they had struck at first, instead of exploring those new sounds and ideas regardless of the commercial context, regardless of the business prospects (gigs, deals, etc.). We must understand, however, that the ideal of metal beyond rock, beyond trends and commercialism, only arose with the Mayhem cabal. Their commercial activities, it should be understood, were a means to something greater, as can be seen from the meticulous selection of albums that came under the auspices of Deathlike Silence Productions.

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3 Comments

Tags: black sabbath, consumerism, Deathlike Silence, Demilich, dionysus, mayhem, metal, Philosophy, stepping stones

Death Metal to Save the World

by Joe Slater on February 16, 2018

I had a dream about the future. In the future the year was 2018, and I will give you an overview of the prophecy which I saw… shit?
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20 Comments

Tags: Bieber, death metal, depression, drugs, metal, metoo, Pink, soma, taylor swift

Mastadon – Cold Dark Place Really Sucks

by Joe Slater on February 14, 2018

Bought an EP of Cold Dark Place by Mastadon, since the album cover looked cool, like a classic Aeternus. To my dismay, as I started track one, some horrible over-produced folk-rock attempt came blaring through my headphones, complete with horrible synced male and female off-pitched vocals. Another track has a weird, crappy beat and Jane’s addiction styled vocals. These songs are so bad that its hard to listen to more than fifteen seconds of each song before feeling violently ripped-off.
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41 Comments

Tags: Cold Dark Place, Dry, Las Vegas Massacre, Mastadon, metal, review, Ripoff

“It’s Okay to be White” – The Metal Song

by Brock Dorsey on February 13, 2018

Political YouTuber Finntronaut has uploaded a silly new metal song and video themed after the “It’s Okay to be White” prank that violently triggered thousands of snowflake liberals earlier this season. While the song is not exactly good, it’s a pretty funny take on how ridiculous this culture war has gotten lately here in the U.S.A. Thematically the video takes no political position- it’s just a bunch of goofy satirical visualizations overdramatizing the racial/cultural tensions of this age.

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12 Comments

Tags: 4chan, alt-right, It's Okay to Be White, metal, nu males, pranks, racism, snowflakes, youtube

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