I've noticed that the purpose of death metal, grindcore, and black metal is most often to sound as diabolical, scary, and heavy as possible. Because of this realization I think its mostly a failure. When it comes to the heaviness of riffs, the speed of the drums, and the deep voice which sounds like its from a monster movie, its overkill. Many of these artists are afraid to have some slow songs, some songs which aren't as 'dark' as the others, or a comprehensible singing voice because they think they would be 'sell outs'. Darkthrone has an album which I like quite a bit: A blaze in the northern sky. I'm an atheist who thinks that Satanism is too corny because for one thing Satan does not exist. (There's no "proof" he's not real but he's about as credible as Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.) Another thing is that the lyrics are so narrowly focused on "Satan", so called dark spirituality, etc. That being said I love that Darkthrone album because the music is top of the line and original. Other than Transilvanian Hunger, Darkthrone's albums tend to be "pretty good" at best. As much as I've spoken out against overly repetitive music, that one has also been quite successful in my world.
This blog posts content is most likely influenced by the fact that I've been taking my Clozaril regularly. In a previous blog post or two I've espoused Satanism and at the time I was off medications for a while. Not that I regret any of that- Life is a journey.
Napalm death has put out good music but I think they're horribly overrated. I liked Deicide back in the 1990's, their music was consistently good. Despite being so "Satanic" they managed to come off as genuinely creepy and evil. Dying Fetus is another band which is too stereotypical of a death metal band at times but Raped on the alter and a few others are some of my favorite songs in metal. As would be expected, I feel the same way about Cannibal Corpse. One of the only flawless 'extreme metal' albums I know of is Prowler in the yard by Pig Destroyer. This is probably the only grindcore masterpiece that there is (they don't sound like they're trying to hard). It sounds authentically angry and malevolent; singer JR Hayes isn't trying to sound like some creature on a game like Doom and he's an excellent poet. On prowler, there is a surprising amount of variation between songs for a grindcore album which is a sub genre known for producing yawn inducing blast beats track after track. Sadly, Pig Destroyer gradually regressed into the typical, run of the mill grindcore band after their magnificent Prowler album.
'Extreme metal' needs to change for it to sound good again; the standard instruments used are no longer adequate because they would need to borrow riffs and other musical elements from previous work for a song to not bore you. The bands and albums mentioned in this post aren't the only metal bands I like.
This blog posts content is most likely influenced by the fact that I've been taking my Clozaril regularly. In a previous blog post or two I've espoused Satanism and at the time I was off medications for a while. Not that I regret any of that- Life is a journey.
Napalm death has put out good music but I think they're horribly overrated. I liked Deicide back in the 1990's, their music was consistently good. Despite being so "Satanic" they managed to come off as genuinely creepy and evil. Dying Fetus is another band which is too stereotypical of a death metal band at times but Raped on the alter and a few others are some of my favorite songs in metal. As would be expected, I feel the same way about Cannibal Corpse. One of the only flawless 'extreme metal' albums I know of is Prowler in the yard by Pig Destroyer. This is probably the only grindcore masterpiece that there is (they don't sound like they're trying to hard). It sounds authentically angry and malevolent; singer JR Hayes isn't trying to sound like some creature on a game like Doom and he's an excellent poet. On prowler, there is a surprising amount of variation between songs for a grindcore album which is a sub genre known for producing yawn inducing blast beats track after track. Sadly, Pig Destroyer gradually regressed into the typical, run of the mill grindcore band after their magnificent Prowler album.
'Extreme metal' needs to change for it to sound good again; the standard instruments used are no longer adequate because they would need to borrow riffs and other musical elements from previous work for a song to not bore you. The bands and albums mentioned in this post aren't the only metal bands I like.
