Metal Culture

Similarities Between Metal and Celtic Cultures

What Do I Mean When I Say Celt or Celtic?

Now, for clarification, I’m not talking about that hokey, new age melting pot of wishful thinking that gets associated with the Celts. I’m talking about a very distinct group of Europeans distinguished by common language and artwork (arguably, as more research is coming out, genetics as well).

When I use the words Celt or Celtic, I use them in the same way we use the terms German or Germanic to refer to groups like the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Teutons, Goths, Vandals, and the like. They didn’t refer to themselves as German or Germanic, but we can recognize lingual/cultural similarities that tie them all together into a larger group.

Likewise – when I refer to Celts I’m talking about the Celtic Nations (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, The Isle of Man, and Brittany), as well as the areas referred to as Celtic (from the Hallstatt to La Tene Cultures). All of these areas are culturally connected in some way, shape, or form so as to be recognized as Celtic or having been Celtic at some point in history. Also included in this definition are people from the ‘Celticized’ zones represented on the map, as they all at some point are tied archaeologically to Celtic culture.

According to Barry Cunliffe‘s most recent material on the Celts, we can see they are a group who started both linguistically, and genetically, in the Atlantic zone of Europe. They then spread that culture throughout the majority of Europe.

What Do I Mean When I Say Metalhead or Metal Culture?

I’m referring to a very specific group of people when I speak of metal culture. It’s a group that has developed since the first metal bands of the 70’s started amassing a following. This following began to distinguish itself from greater “rock and roll” culture through the following decade, and became a distinctive and separate group in the late 70’s to early 80’s.

In the decades that followed the culture has grown, fractured, and diversified into a large bricolage culture of smaller scenes and sects of metalheads. Many of these groups have their own identities, but are still recognizable as part of the greater umbrella culture.

Introduction:

I’ve been looking for an excuse to compare and contrast these cultures (Metalheads and Celts) for a while now. With the exception of metal music and culture, by far my favorite topic is anything Celtic.

So fucking cool

On to the Comparisons:

Cultural Composition:

The Celts weren’t a centralized group, they were a bricolage of cultures (similar yet distinct) that were all linked by certain cultural characteristics (art and language).

Likewise, there isn’t a centralized heavy metal culture. They’re all branches of the same heavy metal family tree, but each branch is distinct and unique.

(I take no credit for these photographs – the mapping of the metal family tree is the brainchild of Sam Dunn and company at Banger)

So, compositionally speaking Celtic culture is analogous to Metal culture. Both are overarching terms used to identify multiple sub-groups that make up a larger culture.

Art as a Distinguishing Cultural Feature:

Celtic art is one of the most distinguishing facets of the culture. Generally, people who speak of Celtic art are referring to visual styles deriving from what is referred to as “La Tène” art. It’s a distinctive and absolutely beautiful style (all of my tattoos derive from the La Tène style – I guess you could say I’m a bit biased!).

I could get into my argument as to why it shouldn’t be called La Tène (as there’s no proof the artistic style developed in that region – it’s just the first area where this sort of artwork was found, and has led to some very shoddy theories as to the origin of the Celts that hold very little weight with me), but It’d probably take up the rest of the article. Anyways – here’s a few of my favorite examples of artwork we can call Celtic.

Celtic cultures also have very unique music – Irish music is a testament to this. But generally speaking, you can tell Celts at least lived in an area based on the fact that bagpipes are currently (or ever were) played in the area. This even extends to Scandinavian countries, which certainly had contact with Celtic cultures throughout history.

And it’s safe to say that Heavy Metal Culture isn’t just known for a distinctive type of music – the entire culture is based around a distinctive musical style.

Masculinism:

The Celts were almost certainly a masculinist society. I don’t care how many post-menopausal women (who may or may not have “developed/discovered” psychic powers shortly after a bitter divorce/mid-life crisis) tell you otherwise.

This isn’t to say that the Celts didn’t celebrate the feminine as well – they certainly did. But as someone who’s put a fair amount of study into Celtic folklore and literature – I can tell you (the reader) with some certainty that the overriding themes of the culture were masculine in nature.

Likewise, as I have illustrated in another article, heavy metal is also a masculinist culture.

Examples of celebrations of masculinity within each culture can be found in social norms – one of my favorites is facial hair. Both the Celts and Metalheads are pretty famous for long and rather wild facial hair.

While the continental Celts were noted as primarily sporting a mustache (especially nobility), island Celts such as the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh were noted for the growth of a full beard. In fact, it was often seen as dishonorable for a Gaelic man to have no facial hair.

A good example of this can be found in the Welsh legend of Yr Gywddfa, where the warrior Rhita Gawr shaved the beards of two lords as a punishment for arguing(and stitched them together into a cap, before turning them into oxen who could only work when hitched together).

The news of this quickly spread to the kings of the universe, who took it very seriously, “If we permit Rhita Gowr to do this thing, which is the greatest insult against a warrior that can be made, what beard among us will be safe?” They proceeded to (unsuccessfully) wage war against Gawr, who cut off all their beards in turn and fashioned them into a cloak.

Long story short, Rhita Gawr then went for the beard of a warlord named Arthur (who would later be romanticized into the Pendragon of Arthurian legend). Big mistake. Arthur bested him, and as punishment shaved the beard of Gawr and stitched it onto the final empty spot on the beard cloak.

I took enough analytical literature courses (included analyzing literature of oral cultures) where I think it’s safe to infer that the beard was kind of a big deal to the island Celts.

While metal culture is a bit more forgiving when it comes to a lack of facial hair, for the most part you can expect to see anything from goatees to a full-on Viking (or Celt, haha) beards when you go to a metal show/festival. In fact, apart from a black band shirt I’d say facial hair is the most common thing you’ll see on a metalhead.

Also, violent/warlike tendencies. This one’s a little less obvious, but when you see it I think you’ll agree.

All of the classical writers, when speaking of Celts, at some point mentioned warlike tendencies. The geographer Strabo, who died 24 AD, described the tribes in the interior of
Britain as taller than the Gaulish colonists on the coast and describes the men as warlike, passionate, disputatious, easily provoked, but generous and unsuspicious.

They were also noted for the use of psychological warfare – before a battle, warriors would shout, beat weapons against shields, and employed carnyx players. The sounds had been described as making the earth shake, and was noted as demoralizing the opposing army to a large degree. You might even say they helped pioneer the “wall of sound” so many bands strive to achieve.

Compare that description with these videos:

There are differing opinions on the subject as to why people enjoy moshing, my personal opinion is that it gives the same sensory overload as a war scenario in a (mildly) controlled environment.

My opinion is supported in (and partially derived from) Heavy Metal literature. An example of this can be found in the book “Metalheads: Heavy Metal Music and Adolescent Alienation” by Jeffrey Jenson Arnett. The title of the first chapter of this book is ‘A Heavy Metal Concert: The Sensory Equivalent of War’.

Also interesting to note, the Celts (at least in Ireland) had some rules when it came to war, first and foremost was the notion of fairness (this, like the value placed on facial hair, is a common theme in Celtic mythology). Likewise, anyone who’s been around a few pits will tell you there are certain rules of engagement people tend to follow.

Dress and Appearance:

While the plaid of a tartan bears little resemblance to the obligatory black band shirt that serves as a vital part of the metalhead ‘uniform’ – they both serve the same purpose. They serve as a visual representation of membership to that particular culture. The differences here are obvious – a person is born into a clan with no say in the matter, while membership in metal culture is purely based on personal choice. Regardless, the similarity is worth noting.

Also worth noting is the practice and prevalence of tattooing in both Celtic and Metal cultures.While there is some disagreement as to the prevalence of tattooing among the Celts (many people believe groups like the Picts simply painted themselves, as the very name Pict means “Painted People”), there is absolutely zero question as to the fact that tattooing was practiced among the Celts as far back as 1,000 BC.

And there is no question as to the prevalence of tattoos in Metal Culture.

Fondness for Alcohol

Classical writers like Diodorus, Polybius, and Plutarch all remarked in their writing a certain Celtic fondness for drinking alcohol. The barbaric way in which they consumed it was also noted – they drank wine right out of the bottle (as opposed to the Roman tradition of mixing it with water).

Quantity was as important as quality, and this can be seen from the discovery made at the Vix burial site in France. The most remarkable find in the site (and there were quite a few, it is speculated that the occupant was a princess of some sort) is a wine vessel made of bronze that holds roughly 300 gallons. 300 fucking gallons of wine. Herodotus actually wrote about it, and the writing was considered exaggeration until the find was made.

I’m not just impressed that the continental Celts commissioned the Greeks to make a 300 gallon wine vessel in roughly 500 B.C. That’s cool, but the ridiculous aspect of the whole thing is that it would have been transported FULL OF WINE (that’s a gigantic metal vessel with 300 gallons of liquid) over the fucking Alps to France. Stop and think about that for a second. Look at the size of that thing – people would have trouble doing that with forklifts in modern times. That’s a pretty incredible reverence for alcohol.

On the metalhead side of things, Deena Weinstein dedicates roughly 6 pages (at least in the paperback edition) of her book ‘Heavy Metal’ to Metal Culture’s preoccupation with intoxication – predominantly alcohol. On page 132 she notes that, “Metalheads substances of choice are beer and pot, the former taken over from the bikers and the latter borrowed from the hippies…Drugs and alcohol are commodities to be bought and consumed, but they are also symbolic objects, the meanings of which are integrated into the rest of the subculture.”

Arnett’s book ‘Metal Heads’ makes reference in at least 4 instances to alcohol use in his case studies of young metalheads, and alcoholism in 4 separate instances.

I’m sure there are more literary references to alcohol use and it’s importance in the Metal subculture, but I’m focusing on these two books as they focus on metal culture as a whole (and as such are a tad more relevant to the topic at hand).

And in my own experience – I think it is worth noting that in the 20 plus years I’ve been going to metal shows there has never been a single one where alcohol wasn’t consumed (often to excess) by concertgoers.

Preoccupation with Death Imagery

This is where things get interesting. Heavy Metal, especially the extreme metal branches, is almost synonymous with death imagery. Skulls, Skeletons, Grim Reapers, Corpse Paint, etc. Dark religious themes pervade album covers and song lyrics, and the subject matter of songs themselves quite often pertain to death and the darker aspects of life.

Given the fact that most of my readers are probably metalheads, I’m going to assume this isn’t some sort of life altering revelation.

But the Celts were also obsessed with death imagery, and expressed it in their art and decoration, as well as in mythology. One of my favorites is the “Celtic Beast” from France:

(The Beast of Novace statue from territory associated with the Cavares tribe, 3/2 century B.C.)

You can clearly make out the fact that the monster is holding two severed heads with a severed arm grasped in it’s mouth. Pretty morbid. I’m no scholar, but I’d lump this in the ‘death imagery’ category.

Then you’ve got the Cult of the (Severed) Head. There’s little to no doubt that the Celts were headhunters – it was believed to be the repository of the soul, and is speculated that a Celtic warrior believe keeping the severed head not only prevented his enemy from entering the afterlife, it added the slain man’s power to the victor. There are some scholars who doubt the validity of such a cult, but I think the findings at Roquepertus leave little doubt…

This isn’t some bone Cathedral where people were making use of human remains to make space for more of them. This is a site where figures sitting in poses normally reserved for Celtic gods sit in front of large pillars where severed heads were placedadorned with skull niches. A lot of people speculate that the bird on top of the pillars is a goose – I have a little trouble believing it’s anything other than a vulture (there is a species of Vulture native to Southern France, so it’s not that much of a stretch to assume a carrion bird sits atop a death shrine).

As far as mythology goes – there’s the Dearg Due (literally translates to ‘red blood sucker’ from Gaelic), who was arguably as much of an inspiration for Dracula as Vlad the Impaler (considering Braham Stoker was an Irishman, and his most famous horror character has more in common with and Irish Celtic demon than the supposed basis of the character). It’s been said that locals in county Waterford still pile stones on her grave every year on the eve of her death to prevent her from rising again.

Or, we have the Dullahan (‘Dark Man’ in Gaelic) – the Irish version of the headless horseman. A headless rider on a black horse that roams the countryside as a portent of death. He throws buckets of blood on passerby’s, whenever he calls out a person’s name they die immediately. He uses a human spine as a whip, the wheels of his carriage are made of human thigh bones, and the carriage is covered in human flesh. Interesting side note, a Dullahan is scared of gold – odd considering usually iron is the metal of choice to fend off otherworldly specters in Celtic mythology.

False Accusations of Ritual Sacrifice

Anyone familiar with the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and early 90’s should know what I’m talking about here. Basically, there was this mass endemic of fear in the United States that there was a gigantic Satanic conspiracy threatening the American way of life. One of the chief scapegoats of this was metal culture – I’ve touched on this subject in other articles. A good example of this coming to a head is the case of the West Memphis Three. They were three teenage metal fans who were accused of brutally and sadistically murdering a young child in their hometown – despite a lack of any credible evidence. In fact, plenty of evidence was overlooked to make the case stick.

Likewise, Greek and Roman writers liked to throw the stigma of ritual sacrifice onto the Celts. The most famous accusation (made by both Caesar and Strabo) was that a large group of humans and animals were gathered into a “wicker man” and then burned alive as a sacrifice.

Now, one thing I can’t stand is people who pick and choose what to believe and not to believe in terms of classical writings regarding the Celts. And it may look like that’s what I’m doing, but there’s a method to my madness here. Anything written by classical authors that is confirmed by solid archaeological evidence is safe to consider fact. But it’s also good to take what those Greeks and Romans said with a grain of salt – as they were describing an enemy. And demonizing an enemy in the public eye is always a good idea when you’re waging war against them – as the Romans were known to do from time to time.

So, if there was any evidence of mass graves of humans and animals that were obviously burned – this might be believable. But if there is only a written account and no physical evidence to back it up – I consider it akin to putting someone on trial and finding them guilty with no evidence other than hearsay.

There is evidence of humans being killed in a ritualistic manner – but this does not in and of itself point to human sacrifice. The example generally used is the Lindow Man, an Irish mummy found in a peat bog. Forensics showed that he died a pretty violent death – he was bludgeoned, garroted, and then his throat was slit before he was dumped in the bog. Could it have been a human sacrifice? Sure, it could have. I find it just as likely that this was a form of corporal punishment/the death penalty. And unless some record of it comes to light, we’ll probably never know.

Being an American, I do like to stick to that “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” thing we like to pretend is the law of the land.

Conclusion:

So there you have it. I’m pretty sure this is all of the similarities I’ve found between the two cultures (besides the fact that both Heavy Metal and Celtic cultures seem to have formed in the general vicinity of the British Isles).

The comparisons between cultures are neat – but it’s good to remember that all human cultures have a tendency to follow certain patterns. As such, I’m sure a similar article could be written comparing Metalheads to Vikings or Saxons or any number of other cultures – but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as fucking cool as this article.

Obligatory Celtic Metal Gallery

Celtic Metal is either hit or miss, here’s a few bands I enjoy.

567AEF3C-testaments-eric-peterson-and-celtic-folk-singer-leah-reveal-symphonic-winter-track-winter-sun-lyric-video-image

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Metal Stuff!

March 16, 2017 2

Suicide Silence Pioneer “Mediocrecore”, Experience Worst First Week Sales of Their Careers

~~I really hate to say I told you so.~~

Fuck that, I love saying I told you so. I fucking called this a month ago.

Actually, if anything, it was worse than I thought (Whitechapel only did 50% as well as their previous album, Suicide Silence soared around 30%). Apparently diminishing returns is a thing in real life. Who knew?

The critical acclaim for this album is completely non-existent.

Unless you count Metalsucks, who seem genuinely surprised the album sales didn’t set some sort of fucking record.

I don’t feel particularly bad for the band – they’re reaping what they sewed. Insulting the majority of your fanbase while you’re in the middle of selling out will get you exactly 30% of the sales you’re looking for.

I do, however, feel bad for the mindless drones who read metalsucks like it’s the fucking bible and worship at the altar of Suicide Silence. Like this kid.

Who literally unblocked me the day after Suicide silence went on record bashing metal fans at their shows as patch wearing weirdos for the express purpose of quoting the band to insult me (before promptly blocking me again). It was magnificent. But now that the band’s eating crow, who will think of things for people like him to say?

Also, I’ve heard a lot of people saying bad things about the band for talking shit about other deathcore bands. I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint here – the single greatest thing about Suicide Silence’s PR campaign for the new album is the fact that they were talking massive amounts of shit about deathcore bands.

Now, I shit on deathcore bands all day long. So, in my opinion, knowing that even deathcore bands can’t resist shitting on deathcore tickles my irony bone to no end. And that, dear reader, is a silver lining worth noting.

Bear with me here, it gets better. The deathcore scene (as well as the tail end of the metalcore scene) is almost single-handedly responsible for the negativity towards “metal elitists”. It’s been inflated by the metal media, and Metal Sucks is a perfect example of this. I’ve written a few articles dealing with this in the past, and the contradictions inherent in the “elitist dichotomy”. This viewpoint is expanding on the premises outlined in those articles.

You’ve got a metal news website (metal sucks) who is notorious for propping up the elitist controversy, participating in a bland (and played out) PR campaign for a band from a scene that germinated the whole elitist dichotomy. The metal news website (who never misses a chance to bash elitists) is openly promoting a deathcore band who is doing exactly what they (the site and the scene) pretend to hate.

In other words, they’re virtue signaling a hatred for elitists while openly supporting elitist behavior.

Is there a term in the English language that describes this phenomenon? Oh, wait a minute…

Fucking textbook.

Also, Suicide Silence obviously wasn’t being original or groundbreaking. The thing about being an original, groundbreaking artists – it’s like being rich. If you’re rich, you don’t have to tell other people you’re rich. If you’re a creative, groundbreaking artists, you don’t have to explain it to people.

In fact, in both cases – the fact that you need to tell people implies exactly the opposite.

Hiring a one trick pony producer who lost all cultural relevance to metal 20 years ago (and then writing in a style of music that played out and died 20 years ago) isn’t brave, or groundbreaking – it’s exactly the fucking opposite.

Puke.

March 8, 2017 3

Should Someone Tell Lady Gaga Her “Metallica” Tattoo is Really a Death Angel Tattoo?

In the interest of full disclosure – I like Lady Gaga.

Not her music, that’s shit.

But she seems like a cool person. I’ve mentioned in other articles how cool it is that she’s a legit metal fan (Maiden and Metallica, at very least). That’s why I’m hoping an appropriate amount of time has passed to let her know that her Metallica tattoo isn’t really a Metallica tattoo.

It’s a fucking Death Angel tattoo.

From the album they released the same fucking year as Metallica’s new album (The Evil Divide).

Probably an innocent mistake. After all, Lady Gaga was performing “Moth into the Flames” with Metallica – so she presumably wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate the occasion. A moth is a natural selection to make – and she made it more “metal” by adding a skull.

Solid “E” for effort.

What I can’t believe is that nobody – fucking NOBODY – saw this and was like, “Hey, Lady Gaga, that’s a really cool tattoo idea. But that’s the symbol on Death Angel’s new album.”

Que Gratuitous Fantasy Montage

I like to picture it going down something like this. The tattoo artist was a disgruntled thrash-head from back in the day. He had a strong preference for Death Angel’s new album over Metallica’s. And when Lady Gaga went in to describe the tattoo she wanted, he had an epiphone.

“She’ll thank me in the long run, ‘The Evil Divide’ was much better than Hardwired”

“I’m going to troll the fuck out of Metallica at the Grammy’s” the anonymous tattoo artist thought to himself. At one point he even whispered, “I’ve got your fucking Black album right here, Sell-outtica”

Lady Gaga (hypothetically) responded with a, “What? I couldn’t quite hear you.”

He responds, “Nothing”, and diligently goes back to work. The hilarity of Lady Gaga showing off a Death Angel tattoo to honor Metallica gets him through the 4-7 hours of tattooing – in fact, he debated not charging her.

After all, virtue is it’s own reward.

Later that day, I like to picture said tattoo artist meeting up with his buddy for a few brews. The topic of conversation – how horrible every Metallica album after “Justice” was (the same conversation they’ve been having for roughly 30 years).

After said tattoo artist relays his work of creative genius to his friend, the response was appreciative but inquisitive. “Do you really think anyone watching will get the reference? I mean, it’s pure fucking genius. But unless they’re thrash fans, they might not get it. You have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Like, a lot more people would understand if they played a Metallica song while Megadeth walked up to accept an award. Lowbrow – lowest common denominator stuff”

Reflectively, the tattoo artist responded, “I guess you’re right. But honestly, I don’t even think people would get the Megadeth/Metallica reference. That’s still a bit obscure for this audience. You’d have to have something really low-brow, like the announcer forgetting to even fucking mention Metallica. And even that slight might be overlooked unless something more urgent followed – for fuck’s sake they’d have to leave Hetfield’s mic off for like 1/3 to 1/2 the song.”

His friend responded, “That’s fucking brilliant. I bet that’s all they’d report on Metal Sucks and Metal Injection, they’d milk that fucking cow for like 3 days.”

Unbeknownst to them, a few select members of the Grammy planning committee were (presumably) listening in at a nearby table. They realize that this is the perfect way to keep people talking about the event for days.

Quick Aside

I like to picture them drinking something with an umbrella in it.

But I digress

Back to the Fantasy Montage

So, the night of the Grammy’s, the plan comes to fruition. Everything goes according to plan.

Meanwhile, the real hero of the night is overlooked.

Back to Reality

We here at Metal Stuff salute you, (hypothetical) brave soul who offered up the real middle finger to Metallica for playing the very awards show that snubbed them in favor of fucking Jethro Tull for the very first metal award ever.

A Side Note to Lady Gaga

This is why we don’t get spontaneous tattoos. On the bright side, if you’re trying to get credibility in metal culture – a Death Angel tattoo goes a lot further than a Metallica tattoo nowadays.

February 14, 2017 6

Suicide Silence are NOT Employing a Failed Marketing Strategy For Their New Album

This is Not an Introduction

Suicide Silence are obviously musical pioneers. As the lead singer so eloquently pointed out in an interview – some people just can’t see the inherent virtuosity of dumbing down your music.

They obviously understand metal fans, and what drives them. It’s not like there was a scientific study that proved metal fans (like classical music fans) are innately attracted to grandiosity and technical prowess in music.

And the majority of metal fans certainly aren’t weirdos. Observations to the contrary have never been the subjects of academic study (by people like Deena Weinstein), or noted by the artists themselves.

Suicide Silence’s Methods are NOT Transparent and Gimmicky

They’re certainly not using the “Metallica Defense” to justify the musical direction they’re taking on the new album.

And Suicide Silence are totally above playing the elitist card. They’ve obviously gotten some very sound advise from their producer, who is a vital part of the network of metal news we metalheads rely on.

It’s not like Whitechapel tried the exact same thing last year (Elitist bashing on Metal Sucks), or made a video called “The Elitist Ones”. And I’m pretty sure it didn’t backfire spectacularly, giving them their worst album debut since 2008. They certainly didn’t receive less than half the first week sales of their previous album..

How could Suicide Silence fail utilizing a winning recipe like that? Isn’t doing the same exact thing one of your professional peers did last year the definition of pioneering?

The SS crew couldn’t be admitting that deathcore is stagnating. Or that the next step (for deathcore) is it’s inevitable decline. And it’s certainly not 10 years too late for a genre with so much diversity to expand. If it was, it would have progressed to the phase referred to by sociologists as “crystallization”, where a metal genre becomes embedded and rigidly defined. And if that was the case, we’d see a bunch of fucking deathcore clone bands playing the exact same song (exactly like what happened to hair metal).

But that’s not the case, right guys? Like, other metal bands weren’t noticing the crystallization of Deathcore (and praying for it’s inevitable demise) 7 years ago? Right?

Suicide Silence Definitely Knows Who Listens to Their Music.

Suicide Silence is obviously not commercially inflated faux metal from a genre that predominantly caters to 16 year old girls (that warrants comparisons to nu-metal). So, it’s safe to say the introduction of clean vocals couldn’t possibly have anything to do with pandering to young girls that want to seem edgy, right? It’s about branching out as artists, right?

Diagram displaying Suicide Silence’s Definition of “Death Metal Elitist/General Metal Elitist (Patch Wearing Weirdos)

Q: Where can you find Deathcore fans, Death Metal Elitists, and “General Metal Elitists” (Patch wearing wierdos)?

A: The Gathering of the Juggalos, of course.

I’ve been wondering where all the deathcore fans, death metal elitists, and patch wearing metal elitist weirdos hang out. Metal Elitists are well known for their love of the Insane Clown Posse. It just goes without saying.

Or maybe Suicide Silence is referring to the ‘elitist ones’ Whitechapel encountered at the Warped Tour. Because that’s another place to find metal elitists of all sorts.

Yeah, that must be it.

Suicide Silence have obviously got marketing to their fans down to an art – nay, a fucking science.

I just wonder what the head of Sumerian Records thinks of all of this? What would he do? What would he say? What did he have for breakfast? What does the inside of his anal pore taste like?

Could he impart some transcendental wisdom on par with these pearls of enlightenment from the mouth/keyboard of Ross Robinson?

What is the relevance of mentioning the head of a record label known for it’s metalcore and deathcore associations in a Suicide Silence article detailing the inevitable downfall of deathcore? Are producers and record labels counting on controversy to keep their names on the mouths of the general public as a form of life support for a dying genre? What is the meaning of life?

Musical Pioneers

I’m sure Suicide Silence will find innovative new uses for the dotted crotchet on the new album – perhaps in multiple songs. They’ll probably revolutionize deathcore by employing some sort of “down-tuning” (drop A, or something equally as innovative and unique).

I’ve been hearing a buzz about a new musical convention referred to as a “breakdown”, perhaps they will blow our minds by indulging in one or two on the artistic masterpiece coming out later this month. Maybe they’ll really let loose and use gang vocals – how fucking cool would that be?

If your (original) lead singer’s death is the most interesting thing about your band, the sky is the fucking limit.

(Still better than Doris)

Be a Force for Positive Change in the Metal Community!

February 10, 2017 1

Global Metal Culture: The Rise of the Digital Metal Scene

The strangest thought hit me today – there are actually people alive and active in the metal scene that don’t know what it was like before the internet.

Stop and let that sink in for a minute.

(cliché reflective opening statement to blog post, check. god I’m getting good at this.)

Is the Internet the Last Major Metal Scene?

When speaking of a metal “scene”, generally people are speaking about a shared sub-cultural space where members are able to participate in the culture. For metalheads, this generally means bar and live shows. Or, at least, it used to.

With the advent of the internet, a person can completely immerse themselves in metal culture without ever physically meeting another metalhead. This isn’t without precedent – I have written previously about how metalheads had social networking before the internet. So really, the digital metal scene can be viewed as a natural evolution of the tape trading scene.

But this is a bit different. More all-encompassing. Scenes arise from the collective need for a sub-cultural space. The internet meets the needs of every metalhead, or at least allows for those needs to be met.

I’m not saying there won’t be local scenes in the future. Of course there will be, that’s the heart-blood of metal.

I AM saying there will never be another band (metal or otherwise) who gets big without the internet. Ever. So, what I AM saying is that the internet has become the largest possible metal scene – with pretty much every single metalhead on earth participating in some way, shape, or form.

The Internet Changed Everything

Metal’s Place in Society at Large

There’s a trade-off here. The best and worst thing about the digital metal scene is how easy it is to access and participate. Metal is no longer the pariah of the music world – it’s become (comparatively) safe in a cultural context.

There is always going to be metal that’s on the outside of what is considered “good taste” by the majority of Western Society – metalheads will make sure of that.

But Jesus Christ, when the President of the United States visits Finland and cracks a good-natured joke about the number of metal bands (per capita) – it’s safe to say the outsider status is gone.

So, lets take a brief look at how the digital age is affecting the unholy (hehe) trifecta of metal culture: Metal fans, metal bands, and the metal media.

How the Next Generation Experiences Metal (The Rise of Digital Metal Fans)

There is a generation of metalheads who, feasibly

never listened to heavy metal in an analog format.
never knew what purchasing music was like before Napster and other file sharing sites. (or torrents)
never had to stay up on a Sunday night to hear the ONE metal program on a radio station.
never had to play “album roulette”, going to a music store and finding the minuscule (if existent) metal section – and buying an album purely because it looked cool as fuck. Chances are, they won’t understand that every genre of metal has its own logo style for exactly this reason.
will never know what it was like to depend on ‘zines (specifically the classified section) to know what’s happening in metal.
have no idea what it’s like to be stereotyped by the police simply because they favor a style of music (well, maybe not as much).
have no fucking clue what the significance of MTV was to music in general, or why Headbanger’s Ball was such a big fucking deal.
have never paid 30 bucks for a CD
don’t have to rely on the metalhead “uniform” to find other metalheads.

This is literally a group whose experience with metal, and the metal community is so vastly different from previous generations of bangers as to seem almost alien. I think it’s funny – people have been so focused on how the internet and computers changed metal in the past few decades, that they’ve completely neglected to examine how it changed the fans (or even ask if/how it would).

Might it be logical to assume that, as their experience of metal culture is so vastly different – maybe it will change the fan base?

Metal Bands in the Digital Age (And the Digital Metal Bands)

Even the way new bands create and share music. Remember Job for a Cowboy? The first (and only, to my knowledge) metal band to successfully launch a major career in metal using Myspace? Fucking Myspace?!? I still remember getting messages and a friend request from the band when they were a bunch of unknown dudes from Texas.

Which brings me to deathcore. Sure, I shit on it all the time – 99% of deathcore bands are generic and boring. But if we’re being really, brutally honest here – 99% of thrash, death, and black metal bands are just as generic and boring. I write for an online magazine, and believe me – if the only good thing you can say about a band is that they have an old-school death metal/thrash/black metal sound or aesthetic – it’s a roundabout way of saying there isn’t much good you can say about the band.

Deathcore does have the distinction of being the first metal sub-genre to come to prominence through the internet. Metalcore stands kind of in between – half internet/half old-world. Djent gets a participation trophy.

Nowadays, bands don’t need to physically amass a following to be heard – they just need access to a computer and pro-tools. Self-releases are more common than ever. In fact, record labels seem like they’re becoming almost vestigial. Bands can crowd-fund an album and write exactly what they want.

Speaking of music production – I guess the “American Metal Sound” is totally a thing now. Essentially it just means you have crystal clear production values and a “full” sound, but I’ve heard people from outside the US use this term to describe a lot of the Thrash albums that came out this year (i.e. Testament and Megadeth’s 2016 releases). Not that this is purely a deathcore related phenomenon – the New Wave of American Metal certainly influenced this as well – but I think it’s a nice change.

Sure, there’s a certain aesthetic associated with the production values of classic metal albums. But you can’t tell me you want every goddamn metal album for all eternity to sound like it was recorded inside a garbage can.

But I digress.

The Digital Metal Media

So yeah, this is the first generation who got their metal related news purely in a digital format. I mean, sure, for novelty’s sake a few people might go out and buy a physical magazine or two. But the medium is simply outdated. The only reason to get them is to act like a hipster or for genuine nostalgia.

Dramatic Re-enactment of a “Dinosaur Metal” band

As such, a lot of the “dinosaur” metal publications were unable to get past their own bureaucracy (and mounds of paperwork) to get with the whole “information age” thing. Which isn’t really a bad thing, considering most of them got so far out of touch with the metal community. I’m really not sure how they kept going (Well, yes I am. They sold their souls and started catering to the tastes of 16-year-old girls. But that’s another topic altogether).

Interestingly enough, all the major metal news websites have conglomerated in exactly the same manner as the magazines did. Just like the old guard – they publish the exact same stories, they share writers, they cooperate on contests together. It’s a massive circle-jerk.

Lambgoat, Metalsucks, Metal Injection, Decible, theprp.com – they’re all in on it (example, they all use the blast beat network for their advertising). I guess life really does come full circle – reading these guys commentaries on metal culture is about as much fun as chewing on tinfoil (sorry, that’s an old person joke from way back in the day when they used mercury in fillings).

Capitalist bureaucracy at it’s finest, I tell you.

Metal’s Transition from Counterculture to Culture

Pretty much every metalhead who was alive and active in the scene before the internet remembers how things were. “How the internet changed metal” is a pretty popular topic to discuss in metal circles.

But I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read anything discussing the logical progression of the though/sentiment. If the internet changed metal bands, metal music, and metal media – isn’t it safe to say it significantly changed the fan base?

The biggest change I’ve noticed is that metal is no longer a counterculture.

Other sites have touched on the subject, but I don’t think anyone has really gone the extra few feet to discuss the logical implications (positive, negative, and neutral) for metalheads, and metal culture in general.

It isn’t hard to find other metalheads anymore. Besides going to concerts, hanging out at bars, randomly bumping into people in the metal section of your local music store, or (if you were lucky enough) having a metalhead crowd to hang out with when you were in high school – there was a point in time when it was actually a bit difficult to find other metalheads. We used to have to rely on “the uniform” (or people with a particular look) to find each other.

A positive aspect of this is that heads can now use visual cues other than band shirts to find one another. Facebook metal groups abound, metalheads create their own digital sub-cultural space in popular forums. I think we can all collectively agree that talking shit about Metal Sucks in the comments section of every single one of their articles is one of the purest expressions of sheer collective joy metal culture has to offer it’s adherents.

A negative aspect of this is that although it’s not hard to find metalheads, metalhead interaction on the internet will never be as satisfying as interaction in person. This doesn’t just affect metalheads, in general people fall into the trap of substituting online social interactions for face to face interactions – and this can be very unhealthy. It makes confrontation and altercation infinitely easier, and therefore more inviting. In person, confrontations are a lot less likely, and the results of a confrontation are generally a lot more amicable to both parties. So yeah, there’s that.

OK, enough of this touchy feely shit. Back to the metal.

With online participation, metalheads are better able to come to a consensus as to what constitutes a sub-genre, and what bands fall where on the heavy metal family tree. And nobody, I mean nobody, has done a better job of this than Banger Films.

Sam Dunn and the crew up in Canada are (in my opinion, and many others judging by their popularity) revolutionizing metal – by bringing all the little mini-cultures that constitute metal culture into one shared sub-cultural space for the express purpose of documenting and furthering metal culture as a whole.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend subscribing to their YouTube channel. Their revues are top-notch, the sub-genre episodes allow people to democratically discuss a particular section of metal in-depth and decide, democratically, on which bands fit within the categorization being discussed.

A Quick Recap

Let’s do a “Five W’s” test real quick.

What changed? Metal culture

Who changed? The three major aspects of metal culture – fans, bands, and metal media

Where did the change take place? The internet, of course.

Why did the change happen? The internet provided unprecedented access to metal culture, allowing for a universal allocation of sub-cultural space regardless of geographic location.

When did the change take place? It’s still happening, arguably it came to a head in 2000 with the Metallica/Napster dispute.

Conclusion(s)

I would argue that the internet is not just a logical progression of metal culture – it’s the logical conclusion of metal culture.

When I say logical conclusion – I don’t mean that metal culture will be ending because of the internet. I mean that in terms of progress, it’s impossible for metal culture to move PAST the internet.

Tape Trading? You don’t have to peruse metal magazines and write letters, waiting on the postal service. New metal is literally at your fingertips 24/7.

Meeting new metal fans? Until there is a cultural space for social connections more efficient and all-encompassing than Facebook – there will never be a faster, easier way to meet and interact with other metalheads.

Metal news? Instead of waiting for magazines, we find out what’s happening in the metal universe almost in real-time. It’s just not possible to find things out any faster.

Metal bands don’t need to jockey for positions to be heard by major labels anymore – in fact, it’s (theoretically) possible for a band to gain mass popularity almost exclusively through social media (i.e. Job for a Cowboy, Vulvodynia, etc.).

Integration into greater culture? As much as is humanly possible – I don’t see people getting arrested for wearing metal shirts or being sent to camps for “de-metalizing” (a la the PMRC days of the 1980’s).

Maybe the police will stop using pictures like this in training manuals?

School shootings might still be blamed on metalheads now and then, but since the culture has become more visible (due to the internet) I think that’s a lot less likely. Occasional hate crimes against metalheads? Yeah, probably still a thing – anyone who looks “different” is going to be a target by small-minded clusters of mouth-breathers. With the “metal look” as big as it is right now in popular culture, I would even predict that sort of thing is on the decline.

In other words, because of how convenient and efficient a tool the internet has turned out to be – I believe the final frontier of heavy metal (the music and it’s culture) has been reached.

It’s not a good thing, it’s not a bad thing.

It’s just a fucking thing.

January 19, 2017 0

Phil Anselmo Speaks With Eddie Trunk on Racism, Social Justice Warriors, Robb Flynn, and PC “gotcha” Culture

Phil Anselmo has taken a lot of shit in the past year over the alleged “white power” incident at Dimebash. Internet Social Justice Warriors jumped all over it, condemning him and riding the wave of publicity to further their own agenda and public appearance.

On one hand, I kind of get where people are coming from. Once someone throws the racist label at you, it has a tendency to stick (as Mr. Anselmo has discovered through the years). On the other hand, if metal culture is really a brotherhood – where the fuck is the benefit of the doubt? Where are all the people standing up for a brother getting unfairly slandered?

Thank god Eddie Trunk (and a few other internet media sources) have given Phil the chance to air his side of the story. You can watch the interview on Trunk’s radio show.

Every fucking word this man put out is something I’ve expressed at some point on this blog. Everything I said on my initial article about the “Dimebash Incident”, my sentiments on Virtue Signaling and Social Justice Warriors in Metal, Robb Flynn and his ulterior motives throwing Phil under the bus, fucking all of it.

It makes me wonder if he’s a fan of Metal Stuff. That would be the fucking coolest.

(Phil, if by some fucking long shot you’re reading this, you’re the fucking man!).

December 15, 2016 0

What, Exactly, is Groove Metal?

Introduction

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the sub-genrification of metal. There’s just so much metal out there, they’re kind of necessary. A sub-genre is essentially a quick label used (mostly by fans) to describe bands with similar sonic characteristics.

For pretty much every major sub-genre, most fans will be able to list a couple big name bands that exemplify the sound. With Thrash, you’ve got the big four (bay area) and the big Teutonic four (Germany).

Death metal has bands like Death (obviously), Morbid Angel, Deicide, Nile, Obituary, and Suffocation bringing up the oldschool end of things – and (being the most popular sub-genre in the world) probably several thousand other bands branching off into even more subgenres.

With Black Metal you’ve got the first wave guys like Bathory, Celtic Frost, and Venom. And then there’s the second wave guys who pretty much defined the genre as most people know it today – guys like Darkthrone, Mayhem, Burzum, etc.

Power metal, Doom, Melodic Death Metal, Glam, Nu Metal, Grindcore – they all have very distinct, easily identifiable sounds. Within a couple of second of listening to any song within these genres, it’s easy to identify where it belongs in the metal family tree.

Except for one. Groove metal.

It’s weird – this is one of those genres that a lot of people know about. Everyone I’ve ever talked to about the topic can list off a few Groove Metal bands. Which is great – except there’s almost zero overlap. If you talk to three different metalheads about Groove Metal and ask for a list of Groove bands – you’re most likely going to get three very different lists. Even the definitions of Groove Metal vary from person to person. It seems like the only band that people can consistently agree falls in the Groove category is Pantera.

Now, there is a pretty big group of people who argue that Pantera (post glam, naturally) is a thrash band.

The argument has some merit, but I have some problems with it. Pantera, like most thrash bands, is a very aggressive riff oriented outfit. However, while thrash is typified by fast tempos, Pantera is generally a mid tempo band by comparison. Also, they generally tend to ride what’s known as “the money riff” for the majority of a song. While this isn’t unheard of in thrash, in my experience it’s not the norm.

Fleshing out a Genre from the Middle Ground between Genres

So seeing as Pantera is a generally agreed upon forefather of the Groove genre, their relationship with thrash metal makes defining Groove Metal much easier.Bearing this in mind, I would like to express a few opinions that will (probably) be a tad unpopular.

Because of the black album, I contend that Metallica were as influential as Pantera in the consolidation of Groove Metal as a genre. Think about it, the things people complained about on the album – catchy riffs, predominantly mid-tempo (as opposed to the breakneck pace of Thrash). They ride the money riff for the majority of songs. It’s mid-tempo Thrash. It meets all the criteria of Groove Metal.

Sepultura’s album “Roots” is widely credited as a Nu Metal album. Interesting thought, but there is nothing remotely rap/hip hop oriented about the album. I would argue that Groove metal and Nu metal developed side by side, and ended up having a lot of similar qualities in terms of sound. I don’t think anyone with half a brain cell can lump this album in the same category as the Linkin Park discography – I lump Roots squarely in the groove metal category.

Slayer’s misfit album, “Diabolus in Musica”, is described by the band themselves as an attempt to jump on the Nu Metal bandwagon. The only problem is, all they did was down-tune and ride some grooves. No DJ’s, no rapping – I also classify this album as Groove.

When it comes to fleshing out and discussing Groove metal nobody does it better than Banger. Check out their episode discussing Groove Metal below (then like and subscribe to their youtube channel, facebook page, etc). Seriously though, these guys know what’s up when it comes to metal. I would argue any list of the most important people in metal today that excludes Sam Dunn is a total crock of shit.

Groove’s Influence on Other Genres

We’ve already touched on the Nu Metal/Groove connection a bit, but now might be a good time to reiterate. Groove and Nu Metal share a timeline (and in many cases, an audience) – they formed a genres around the same time, and they influenced each other heavily. Example – it’s no secret that Sepultura were heavily influenced by Korn’s first album when they released Roots (another reason people try to lump the album in the Nu Metal category).

Nu Metal is very groove-heavy, and it’s safe to say there’s a significant amount of overlap between the genres.Example: Machine Head did a one off nu-metal album before returning to Groove Metal. This is a perfect example of the overlap between Nu Metal and Groove Metal:

Nu-Metal Machine Head

Groove Metal/NWOAHM Machine Head

Which leads me to the New Wave of American Heavy Metal (which was as much a movement in metal is it is a genre). Besides Machine head, bands like Lamb of God and Chimaira (flag-bearers of the NWOAHM) also fall squarely in the Groove Metal category.

In fact, I would contend that most of that wave of metal bands from the 2000-2010 era wouldn’t exist without Groove Metal (specifically Pantera, but all those Groove pioneers played a part in paving the way for the NWOAHM).

These bands have been known, on occasion, to even pay tribute to the late great Pantera…

Not that only NWOAHM bands cover the Groove legends, but there’s enough bands that have paid tribute through the years (even before Dime died) where you can make a pretty solid inference as to the influence of the band (and therefore the genre).

In Conclusion

Probably the strangest thing about Groove Metal is that it just kind of “happened”. It wasn’t like Thrash or Death or Black metal, where you had a scene with several bands that fleshed out the sound and defined it in a short amount of time. Instead it developed over the course of (at least) two decades, influencing at least two major metal movements as it went.

This is the only time an entire genre was (or ever will be) formed in the empty space between extremely fast (i.e Death Metal, Black Metal, Thrash, Speed, etc) and extremely slow (Doom and it’s derivatives) tempos.

The only genre with stranger origins (in my opinion) would be Djent – who the fuck names a genre with an onomatopoeia?

December 14, 2016 7

Metal Stuff’s 2016 Review: The Year in Metal

2015-2016 has been an unprecidentedly good time for metal. We’re in the middle of a “metal bubble”, the market is saturated with excellent material. Not sure how long it’ll last, but (seeing as there isn’t anything really incredible slated to release in December) I thought it would be a good time to sum up Metal Stuff’s best releases and biggest dissapointments in metal: 2016 Edition.

Metal Stuff’s “Top 15” Best Releases of 2016

15) Vivaldi Metal Project – The Four Seasons

This one hit me out of nowhere. I saw something about the release of the album on facebook, checked it out, and BAM. Blown away. Probably one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve experienced this year.

It’s an all-star lineup of metal musicians in a modern (and metallic) interpretation of Antonio Vivaldi’s masterpiece “The Four Seasons”. And by All-Star I mean they have members of Symphony X, Testament, Unleash the Archers, The Scorpions, Helloween, Within Temptation, Stratovarious, Savatage, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Soilwork, and a whole fuckload more.

I really can’t say enough good things about these guys, this is a piece I would reccomend to metalheads, fans of classical music, and just about evreyone inbetween.

14) Scorched – Echoes of Dismemberment

I first heard this album through my side gig doing reviews for Hard Attack Magazine. No bells, no whistles, no frills. Just excellent (old school style) death metal with horror b-movie samples. If you’re into old school death metal – be sure to pick up a copy.

13) Rob Zombie – The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser

Have to admit, I was pretty eagerly anticipating this album. I participated in the crowdfunding effot they put forth to make the album happen, I went and saw them live twice in the year leading up to it’s release. And I wasn’t dissapointed one bit.

This is easily his best work since “Hellbilly Delux”, and while he hasn’t completly strayed from the hard rock sound, the band certainly went in a more metallic direction. This is the first album the band’s put out in years that I can listen to from start to finish without skipping a single track. If you’re a Zombie fan, you won’t be dissapointed.

12) Blasphemer – Ritual Theophagy

Kick ass album, read my full review here. Brutal Italian tech death that doesn’t sacrifice on the low end (or become riff-salad). Very highly recommended, this album melts faces.

11) Insomnium – Winter’s Gate

Sooooooo fucking good. Adding layers of atmosphere to melodic death metal seems like a pretty big risk, but these guys took it and the result was (in this author’s humble opinion) a huge fucking success. I would go so far as to say this is the Melo-Death version of the album Opeth should have released. I’ve always liked the band, but they were never really at the forefront of my musical collection. This album changed that a bit, I’ll be keeping an eye on these guys now for sure.

Proggy and ambient, while still managing to retain the soul of melodic death metal – I highly recommend this album to anyone who will listen. And a few people who won’t.

10) The Devin Townsend Project – Transcendence

I’ve been a fan of Devin Townsend’s work for over a decade now, but I had never given this side-project of his a listen before this year. And I’m glad I finally did, the man’s a fucking genius. His mix of electronic/ambient music and metal is flawless. Transcendence is a fucking masterpiece from start to finish.

9) Anciients – Voice of the Void

This album was another pleasant surprise for me in 2016. They ran an (apparently) successful Facebook advertising campaign for months before the album released – so when it dropped that whole “name brand recognition” thing they talk about in advertising took effect. I checked them out just to see, and boy am I glad I did.

Excellent prog metal that ranges from melancholy to borderline brutal, with cleans and screams for days. I’ll be adding this album to my vinyl collection shortly after the holiday season ends (when I actually have money again).

These guys fucking rule.

8) Meshuggah – The Violent Sleep of Reason

This one was no surprise, I’ve been listening to these guys for about 2 decades now (since Destroy, Erase, Improve was released in 1995).

I have to admit, I was nervous about this one. I’m not a huge fan of Koloss or Catch 33, and I thought there was a good chance they’d continue in the “artsy” direction of concept albums and slow songs. Boy was I wrong, this is a return to Chaosphere-level heaviness.

I think some of their marketing strategies were a little campy (a delux edition of the album that includes a vinyl mask?), but as far as I’m concerned this album was pure fucking gold.

7) Saor – Guardians

Admittedly, I have some very strong (and sometimes conflicting) opinions when it comes to the style of black metal known as “post black metal”. I’m hesitant to embrace “post” anything, and (at least in the US) the post-black metal scene is nothing but a bunch of whiny hipsters aping black metal music to seem edgy, when in reality all they’re doing is playing shitty alt-rock with a few black metal elements thrown in.

Saor, to me, embodies the exact opposite of this. It’s a solo project hailing from Scotland, and let me tell you this guy is a fucking artist. He’s the real deal, and a wicked cool guy to boot. He nails the black metal aesthetic and combines it with traditional celtic instruments to create soundscapes that are melancholy and ambient, without sacrificing some of the pure fucking rage at the heart of real black metal.

This guy is pretty much single-handedly responsible for making me redefine what I consider “heavy music”. Nothing but good things to say about this band, and this album simply cements him as a consistently solid and groundbreaking artist.

6) Wormed – Krighsu

This album will rip you a new asshole. Then it will rip your new asshole a new asshole. I think you can see where I’m going with this. By the end of the album you’ll be shitting yourself out of your asshole’s asshole’s asshole.

This album doesn’t let up for a goddamn second. Full on brutal tech-death. Who the fuck knew Spain could produce (basically) the perfect death metal band? Holy fuckshit. I want to buy two copies of this album – one to listen to and the other to leave unopened for posterity. I’ll be telling my fucking grandchildren about how brutal these guys are.

So fucking good.

5) Infant Annihilator – The Elysian Grandeval Galèriarch

Yo dawg, I heard you like blastbeats. So we put blastbeats on your blastbeats.

In all seriousness, no human on earth has any business playing as fast as the drummer does. This British teen duo actually makes deathcore tolerable. Scratch that, enjoyable. Not quite as good as their first album, but still one of the best albums this year.

4) Fallujah – Dreamless

Not going to front like I’m some O.G. who’s been listening to them since “Harvest Wombs” – I came across this band by chance right after their previous album, “The Flesh Prevails”, was released. I was just surfing YouTube and liked the album artwork (Totally a valid way of finding new music, it’s scary how good YouTube has become in recommending things you might like). I didn’t listen to anything else for a week, and turned a few of my coworkers on to the band.

When I heard they were releasing a new album I was super fucking stoked, and I wasn’t dissapointed. Every track is pure fire, and I still listen to this album at least once a week. I love the fact that they retained the ambient/brutal sound while making sure that each album has it’s own unique sound, atmosphere, and identity. Easily one of my favorite bands period.

3) Sabaton – The Last Stand

I’ve been a fan of this band since I was street teaming for Nuclear Blast pre-2006, and I have to admit I find it pleasantly odd/surprising that a band I’ve listened to for years is becoming as popular as they are. Sabaton is easily the fastest rising band in metal, and they deserve it. These guys are relentless road dogs, with a solid live show. The fact that you learn more about history from a Sabaton show than you do in an entire year of public school in America is just the icing on the cake.

Plus, they wrote a song about the Scottish battle of Bannockburn (that pays tribute to William Wallace and Robert the Bruce) – what’s not to love?

2) Dark Funeral – Where Shadows Forever Reign

These guys are hands down my favorite black metal band. Every album they release is consistent while remaining stylistically fresh and distinct. “Where Shadows Forever Reign” is, in my opinion, their best material to date – and they’re gaining a lot of well deserved international attention because of it. This includes their fair share of controversy – earlier this year they garnered a lot of attention due to members of a local Romanian government announcing they would allow a church-based political group to vet which bands would be allowed to play in the area (in direct violation of the Romanian constitution). This was a direct response to Dark Funeral’s show at Bucovina Rock Castle.

I don’t think a lot of people realize that bands like Dark Funeral and Behemoth are bastions of free speech in that part of Europe, as many Eastern European countries are firmly in the grip of a very conservative church (the Russian Orthodox Church, especially, seems to be radically motivated against heavy metal music).

Even without all the controversy – this is a solid fucking album that I listen to with some regularity. Lord Ahriman is a fucking musical genius.

1) Testament – Brotherhood of the Snake

Easily the best album release this year. Probably the one I anticipated the most, my full review of the album can be found here. Heavy metal isn’t a contest, but if it was Testament would be winning. I’ll just sum my thoughts on this album up from the first paragraph of my review;

“The “Thrash Revival” has been in full effect since 2015 – it seems like every major player from the Bay Area Thrash scene is back in the studio pumping out the jams. Testament stands out among these giants – delivering, hands down, the best Thrash release of 2016. In fact, I think ‘Brotherhood of the Snake’ deserves a nomination for the best metal album of 2016, period. Considering how good ‘Dark Roots of the Earth’ was, I had high hopes for Testament’s new album. Brotherhood of the Snake not only met my expectations – it exceeded them (and then some)!”

Honorable Mentions

Abbath – Abbath (huge fan of the guy, not as good as his work in Immortal)
Megadeth – Dystopia (This album made me a fan of Megadeth)
Fleshgod Apocalypse – King (Criminally underrated band, excellent release)
Rotting Christ – Rituals (Not their best work, but really quite good)
Killswitch Engage – Incarnate (Second album with Jesse Leach back on vocals, fantastic album!)
Otep – Generation Doom (has a few good songs, but has some stiff competition this year for best album)
Aborted – Retrogore (these guys never put out a bad album)
Hatebreed – Concrete Confessional (If you’ve heard one Hatebreed album you’ve heard all of them – good but not great)
Dead by Wednesday – The Darkest of Angels (Love these guys – from the same scene as Shadows Fall)
Death Angel – The Evil Divide (excellent and diverse Thrash album)
Nails – You Will Never Be One Of Us (Quite the pleasant surprise this year)
Be’lakor – Vessels (Good melodeath, if a little bit stereotypical of the genre)
Brain Drill – Boundless Obscenity (Jesus Christ, so good)
Despised Icon – Beast (Triumphant return of a deathcore band that doesn’t suck)
Running Wild – Rapid Foray (These guys are legend)
Sodom – Decision Day (German Thrash, awesome album)
Vader – The Empire (Pure gold)
Starkill – Shadow Sleep (I helped crowdfund the album, was not disappointed one bit)
In Flames – Battles (Had a few good songs, better than their last album)
Metallica – Hardwired to Self Destruct (They set the bar so low for the past 30 years that even a sub-par thrash album is praise worthy)
Avantasia – Ghostlights (just good fun!)
Anthrax – For all Kings (hooray for thrash revival!)
Entombed A.D. – Dead Dawn (death’n’roll done right)
Lacuna Coil – Delirium (Surprisingly good)
Gojira – Magma (Good, but not my favorite)
Amon Amarth – Jomsviking (Awesome album, but not quite good enough to make my top 15)

Metal Stuff’s Biggest Disappointments in Metal, 2016 edition

Devi ldriver – Trust No One

Considering the lineup changes DevilDriver went through in 2015, I tried to give this album a little wiggle room when criticizing it. 2 guitarists, no bassist, half the band is green. They didn’t really have time to get together and synchronize as a band – this album sound to me like a record company rushed them to meet a deadline. It’s not bad, but to call it anything other than a disappointment would be disingenuous. I hold DevilDriver to a pretty high standard – Dez is a goddamn genius as far as metal is concerned. I hope their next album will be a little better.

Robb Flynn

This fucking guy. Don’t get me wrong, I love Machine Head – and their album from last year (Bloodstone and Diamonds) was fucking excellent. I just can’t take Robb Flynn seriously. He’s a fucking attention whore who tries to stay socially relevant and apes Corey Taylor to do so. He’s an mildly successful social chameleon at best, and an overreacting turncoat bitch at the worst. His treatment of Phil Anselmo in the media was fucking horrid.

Avatar – Feathers and Flesh

Maybe I was hoping for “Hail the Apocalypse Part II”, but this album fell flat for me. Which sucks, because they’re a very cool band who’s been underrated for the majority of their career. This album just didn’t clique for me, there wasn’t one song I can honestly say I enjoyed – just a massive disappointment.

Solution .45 – Nightmares in the Waking State II

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but this album just didn’t feel right to me. Like, maybe it was a bit too rushed or under-produced. Which sucks, because Christian Älvestam is my favorite metal vocalist – the guy’s easily the hardest working man in metal and super talented. From Scar Symmetry to Svavelvinter, Torchbearer, Miseration, Quest of Aidence, and all the fucking songs he’s lent vocals to – this guy is the fucking man. He shits excellence, except this album. I feel like he should have spent a little longer perfecting the songs, and not rushing to release a double album.

Whitechapel – Mark of the Blade

It’s sad to see a halfway decent band on the downswing of their career. They tried to stay relevant by releasing a song bashing “metal elitists”, and ironically that’s what seems to have tanked their career. Maybe the elitist ones were correct.

Chelsea Grin – Self Inflicted

Bands like this are the reason I despise Deathcore. They have one tolerable album, and if I’m completely honest it’s only 50% tolerable (the first half).

Steel Panther

I’d rather let this speak for itself.

Sumerian Records

From every single band on their roster, to the act of completely selling out the image of the Summer Slaughter tour to sell a movie starring the lead singer of the Blackveil Brides, the continued existence of Sumerian Records bothers me. Apparently, in the metal scene money = credibility in some circles. Puke.

Hipsters and Social Justice Warriors

I don’t make it a secret that I fucking hate hipsters. They seem to have the innate ability to ruin anything. I can’t wait till hipster metal is no longer a thing.

Opeth – Sorceress

I respect when an artist or band wants to branch out, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Opeth has earned the right to do whatever the fuck they want, but that won’t stop me from getting my hopes up (and consequently having them dashed on a rock to the point of near death) every single time they get ready to release a new album. The band even signed to Nuclear Blast and were allegedly down-tuning for the record. I was so hyped. I heard the first single, “Sorceress” – SO EXCITED! Then the album dropped, and what transpired afterwards can only be referred to as one of my biggest disappointments of 2016. Fucking artsy prog from a band that had (at it’s peak) some of the best fucking death metal vocals ever.

The Dio Hologram

Christ, stop capitalizing on the metal god. For fucks sake, he’s dead. Let him rest. It sounds cool, but I really dislike the idea.

As opposed to the Lemmy hologram at the Rainbow that randomly offers you cocaine and compliments your appearance when you walk by. That’s probably the most fitting tribute ever.

So, that’s about it for 2016 in metal.

December 7, 2016 2

What a Trump Victory Would Mean for Heavy Metal

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a lifelong liberal. Not just a little bit liberal – very liberal. Like, tree-hugging socialist progressive grass-roots liberal. And I’m not making an argument for or against any presidential candidate. At this point, they all fucking suck.

The one and only point of this post is to illustrate trends in American heavy metal, and their relation to the US political climate. I will also illustrate that the same pattern holds true in Great Britain. Between the two countries, there’s been (for lack of a better word) a stranglehold on major movements in heavy metal history. And any other major movements or players in the global metal scene are subject to the same (or a very similar) pattern.

An important note here – I’m not implying causation. I’m implying correlation. Major trends in American extreme/underground metal have ALWAYS happened during conservative republican presidential terms. Likewise (with the exception of hair metal) all major “mainstream” trends in American heavy metal have happened during liberal (to moderate) democratic presidential terms.

I’m actually not the first person to notice this. I had been thinking about how there had been nothing but regurgitated crap (as far as new metal bands are concerned) coming out of the United States lately. Then it hit me, and I immediately did a google search to make sure nobody had already written an article on the subject. Lo and behold, some anonymous writer for a conservative website had noticed the same trend.

Established bands are another thing altogether, they’re not going to create a second wave of Thrash or Death metal with the same impact as the original. We’re in the middle of a “metal-bubble” right now (the market is absolutely saturated with good metal from established acts), and within the next few years it’s going to burst no matter what – but that’s another story for another day.

American Metal

In the United States, there really wasn’t much to speak of as far as original, ground breaking heavy metal besides a couple of bandwagon bands until the rise of thrash. From about 1970-1981 Americans might have consumed a good deal of metal, but most of the major artists were Brits. Sabbath, Motorhead, Deep Purple – Brits. Judas Priest? English. Iron Maiden? You get the idea.

Then something happened. Ronald Reagan won the Presidency of the United States, and ushered in a conservative era that lasted over a decade. Reagan was sworn into office in January of 1981. In that same year Anthrax, Dark Angel (not to be confused with Death Angel), Metallica, Pantera, and Slayer were formed. The following years saw Death Angel, Death, Megadeth, Testament, Atheist, GWAR, Morbid Angel, Nuclear Assault, Obituary, etc. Literally within a 3-4 year period you’ve got the seeds for two major movements/splits in heavy metal, not to mention about 2/3 of the base of what we now refer to as extreme metal. And it wasn’t just metal – VICE magazine just released an article discussing why Reagan was the best thing to happen to punk music.

I’m not sure if I can stress how big of a deal this is.The seeds for America’s permanent stamp on heavy metal history were planted and germinated during a very conservative time in the American political climate. During Reagan’s first term, the bands known as “the big four” all formed, and by the end of the second term Thrash had taken the world by storm. Metallica became the most successful metal band in the world, and Death metal was blossoming.

By the beginning of George Bush’s (senior) term in 1989, Death Metal had already overtaken Thrash. Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Death, Deicide, Morbid Angel – Death metal was on the rise until it peaked out and stagnated around 1992-1993. Bill Clinton (Democrat) took office in January of 1993.

From 1993-2000, ~~there were also major movements in metal that contributed to the culture as a whole~~ metal pretty much sucked. And the overall political atmosphere of the United States was predominantly liberal/democrat. Remember Grunge? Clinton era. Nu Metal? Clinton. Slayer’s attempt at nu-metal? Clinton era. Metallica cuts their hair, goes “alt-rock”, and takes photos tongue kissing each other? Clinton era. Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park? Thanks a lot, Democrats.

Enter 2000, a democrat wins but is rick-rolled out of office by a republican. Suddenly, there’s a resurgence in metal. A lot of players in what is commonly referred to as the “New Wave of American Metal” start picking up and getting more attention and rotation. Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, Shadows Fall, and Chimaira all released albums – essentially a mutated Thrash renaissance. Also of note, Devourment started getting big. Slam was born, and real brutal death metal started taking off. Tech Death flourished. Ozzfest, admittedly around since the Clinton era, took off and saw it’s highest attendance ever.

2008, Obama wins. Ozzfest stops touring the US. Metalcore devolved into a bad caricature of itself, and Deathcore (a death metal influenced offshoot of metalcore) came to prominence. Blackgaze took off. You get the idea.

I’m not here to debate whether metalcore/deathcore/blackgaze are good or bad, I’m talking about global musical impact. There are Thrash bands, Death Metal bands, and Black metal bands all over the planet. Beyond the United States and Great Britain, there aren’t very many deathcore or metalcore bands. Deathcore has gotten to the point where quintessential founding bands of the genre like The Acacia Strain refuse to be associated with the term any more. And it seems like, while the rest of the world might not mind listening to these bands – by and large they don’t replicate these styles.

Global Confirmation of the Trend

Black Sabbath released their debut album under a conservative Prime Minister (in fact, he was from a political party literally called “the conservative party”). The NWOBHM occurred during the reign of the Conservative Party in Britain (in fact, the party held sway for 57% of the 20th century in Britain). Grindcore as a genre germinated almost exclusively under conservative control.

In the early 90’s, Black Metal came to the attention of the entire world through a scene that formed, in large part, as a cultural response to the incredible grip conservatives had on the country.

Sepultura? Rose on the tail end of an authoritarian conservative regime in Brazil. Behemoth? Yeah, Poland is still wicked conservative.

And this isn’t to say that there isn’t good metal made by bands during liberal regimes. It’s saying I haven’t seen a legitimate artistic movement within American heavy metal that’s permanently changed the face of metal during a liberal regime. There are probably always going to be dark-horse bands like Pantera that carry the flag for decent metal – I’m just saying as of right now they seem to be the exception, not the rule.

(Clinton fans, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Hillary Clinton is still more conservative than any honest democrat should be comfortable with. I’m sure there will be plenty of angry music made if she’s elected. I’m just saying it’ll be shitty mainstream stuff that’s overtly politically correct)

Conclusion

If Trump wins, America’s going to start pumping out the fucking jams. The “Metal Bubble” we’re currently experiencing will probably pop immediately following his presidential term (4-8 years, depending on how generous you are. Remember, we as a country elected George W. Bush after he stole the election the first time, so don’t give American voters too much credit). We might even finally get another “real” movement in extreme metal.

If Hillary Clinton wins, subsequent movements in heavy metal will all be mainstream in nature, and the trend of whiny millennial hipsters taking over the American metal scene will continue. Metal concerts will continue to be referred to as people’s “safe spaces”, and former leaders in the metal scene like Phil Anselmo will continue to be demonized. Metal will continue down the track it’s on, and become a bad parody of itself.

If you’re voting for Trump (and listen to metal), this is probably another vindication of your choice to vote for him. Good for you.
If you’re voting for Clinton (and listen to metal), consider it a silver lining for if she loses. As of right now, it’s not looking great.

Whoever wins, we’re all fucked. We’re literally watching the crumbling decay of an empire. It’s unavoidable at this point. I just want there to be a decent soundtrack.

October 30, 2016 12

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