Metal Reviews

"But we never saw this as a game. Our friends fucking died man, that shit never was cool." - Blasphemer

That about sums up that whole early 90's BM scene for me.

BM is inextricably linked to truth, in my opinion. I feel that facing the reality of the human condition - grasping it at the core, for what it is - is what fuels its nihilism. That deeply personal revelation makes the experience a "religious" one - at least in my case.

Religions, as we know, are an impediment to human progress, and we would be better off without them. BM is an extremely - perhaps, the most - pure expression of that view. If you care about where humanity is going, it is almost hypocritical to not be anti-religious.

Satan should be (and is) a metaphor for pushing back. In my opinion, the defining characteristic of BM is anti-religion, and the ends justify the means. Fans in malls? No problem - at best, we are recruiting people to the way we see the world. At worst, they are being exposed to a "radical" point of view (in their eyes).

As the limits are pushed -- if people are used to hearing "eradicate religion" - then it is that much easier (and that much less extreme) for a kid to come out and say I'm an atheist or agnostic - and again, BM wins.

That being said, the day Rotting Christ is on MTV is a day closer to marginalized, irrelevant religious influence - and one step closer to an improved human condition. The only prerequisite is that the bands stay true to the message - anti-religion - and that is the most important standard we should hold them up to, in my opinion.

Well said. I see music as art, and each particular "off-shoot" of a genre or sub-genre as just a different form of musical expression. I am not a proponent of "the music is the message", and truly believe that nearly any ideology can be expressed through nearly any form of music. I mean, we have sugary female pop bands singing about how great it is to be "white", why not have crushing black metal bands singing about candy canes & puppies? I don't think lyrics & music are mutually exclusive, and there are certain topics that lend themselves well to a particular music aesthetic, hence the rampant use of occult imagery in the early 80's thrash & metal scenes, blatant satanism (in all forms) in black & death metal, gore & violence in death metal, and so on. But obviously with albums like Pestilence's "Spheres" (and its contemporaries in Atheist in Cynic) speaking of very esoteric concepts blew the "death metal is all about death" idea out of the water, as if several dozen other DM bands hadn't already well refuted that mindset.

I firmly believe that a musical "style" is just that - a series of aesthetic approaches that are adopted because of their appeal, broad or not. By contrast, a musical "movement" is perhaps a much more focused & specific thing. NSBM would be a movement, as would "Christian metal" (of which I am a fan & proponent). These terms can get somewhat dodgy because of the very nature of them (what is "Christian" music, or "Aryan" music, or "satanic" music?), but we as humans crave those identifiers to help us better sort out our relationship to the art we love. Some rise above those trappings (or ignore them altogether), but I believe the majority of us still need them to help us express things.

Nice editorial. I believe this says the same thing I was crucified for saying earlier by Symphonic Black Metal fan boys. Anyways, I don't see the value in preaching hatred and destruction constantly, not if you seriously mean it. I like it when bands arent serious about this shit. Venom is a good example. They're about as Satanic as Wasp is now.