Metal Reviews

The review is the epitome of pretentiousness but half of what he said seemed to be correct (ex: the satan allusion from the cover artwork).

As for the Norma Evangelium Diaboli movement, what exactly is that? Is that the new black metal like Blut Aus Nord subscribing to DsO's satanism?

Norma Evangelium Diaboli is the label that DsO and a bunch of other great Black Metal bands are signed to. It's probably the best Black Metal label out there.

NED is the only label i can think of that i've liked all the releases of. Northern Heritage is great too.

They've got some interesting ideas, all ones that I was familiar with before however. They definetly seem to mean it though.

I hate watching music videos of artists like Ashley Simpson or Fergie sing in front of a "band" when they clearly don't have/need one. If you listen to the music, you can hardly hear any guitars, drums, or anything, yet in the video, the "band" is playing their instruments all hard and frantic like they actually mean business. One example would be Fergie's Big Girls Don't Cry. Terrible! And these pop starlets always have one baby faced band member in the video sporting a mohawk, in an attempt by the director, to make the singer all look raw and edgy.

I don't at all think of Atheists as these bitter/angry people. I happen to have one or two friends who are Atheists. It just bugs me that Christians tend to be singled out in these issues. While, if an Atheist does something awful, people don't seem to care as much.

I'll agree that anti-religion is probably a little easier to do in rock music than pro-religion, since it's often Christians who protest rock music. Hell, if you want to hear the ultimate in ridiculousness, my grandcousin went to a fundamentalist Christian grade school for a couple years. And they actually disallowed their kids to listen to SWING AND JAZZ music (let alone rock). I've also seen Christians calling Queens Of The Stone Age and Guns 'N Roses "satanic bands", even though a lot of them have never even listened to these bands and are just going by the fact that may be one or two of their songs have some subtle religious references.

I hate to admit it, but a lot of "hardcore Christians" really are not critical thinkers. Eric Cartman was correct in that "Christian Rock Hard" episode of South Park: You really do only need to write songs about how much you love Jesus, and Christians will eat them all up. Doesn't matter how God-awful the actual music is (which much of it is, unfortunately). And musical talent? Technical skill? Originality? Deep and introspective lyrics? None of those matter. All that matters is that you glorify God in your lyrics!

I really wish more hardcore Christians realized that even secular music can be morally straight. And there's a lot more "morally sound secular music" than some of these Jesus Freaks like Pat Robertson would have you believe.

That's an awesome South Park episode, btw.

As for bashing Christianity, I'm all for it, but we need slightly more sophisticated reasons than "RAR GOD IS ASSHOLE ALL CHRISTIANS IS STUPID SUCK MY BALLS". While I may agree with that viewpoint, it needs backing and argument behind it or it remains nothing more than an empirical claim.

It's mainly because when Christians do it they are breaking a moral code that they supposedly hold dear to them.

Atheism doesn't advocate a moral code or anything else besides not believing in god. Secular humanism actually deals with morality.

How about:

"AAAH ALL ORGANIZED RELIGIONS ARE QUITE OBVIOUSLY NOT REAL HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY ARE WHEN THEY SO OBVIOUSLY AREN'T I DON'T UNDERSTAND"?

Or maybe:

"RAAAAAH MY PANTS ARE TIGHT"

It all sounds the same to me. :P

That and the fact that it isn't really "hip" to be "moralistic." Just about everybody tends to admire the whole "badboy image" because rebelliousness just has some unexplainable coolness about it.

Lacking morals as defined by the bible doesn't mean nihilistic 'nothing matters' ANUS-type shit.

Edit - and I know you weren't saying that, but people that bandy words like 'morals' tend to be the type that say atheists are nihilistic crack-snorting foetus-killing alcoholics. I'm not saying some of us aren't like that, or on that path, but as I said elsewhere, you can't generalise. My point earlier was that in a death metal context, killing christians, beating women etc are rather cool things, even though I'd never do it in real life. Same with Black Metal and wanting to destroy humanity, or walk in the woods, or kill Jews. You have to enter into the spirit at least a little, as with all art forms, to enjoy them; you just need to know how to leave all of it behind.

Well said.

And nihilism doesn't necessarily mean some sort of "anything goes" attitude.

right on!

also, there's a musical genre that is 99% crap - reggae (reggay, more like). ugh.

Well, technically you're right. Again, I guess the whole rebelliousness just has a natural "coolness" about it (and that's not an argument, by the way - just an observation). I also know that most death and perhaps even black metal bands don't do any of these things in real life either. And the whole point of that style of music is to produce the most brutal music humanly possible (which, in order to really work, entails stepping a little outside of humanity), not to necessarily be taken seriously. The whole style still doesn't really turn me on (except may be Death and Nile). But I can still be aware of what these bands' musical goals are.

A lot of Christians really do tend to over-generalise people. Not just Atheists, but people of non-Christian faiths as well. I used to be involved in a Church group, but after hearing this one comment one of the head honchos made about how he "can't tolerate or accept anybody who doesn't believe Jesus is the son of God" about three months ago, I just had to leave. I couldn't stand that Christian-elitism, nor did I like a lot of the anti-intellectualism in that group (which, unfortunately, tends to run rampant particularly in the Evangelical/Baptist faiths - this was an Evangelical group, and I'm Catholic - where ignorance isn't nearly as glorified). I wish some of these people could just agree to disagree, if you will.

Other peoples's taste in music annoy me

as for christianity, i'm for it but against the church

Rebellion is cool, sure. From arguing with parents who try and stop you drinking or smoking onwards, many people have a healthy disrespect for authority. It's a founding stone of democracy, that cynicism, and long may it continue, says I.

Elitism is a different matter. I can accept that there are Christians who are better people than me, but not that all are. And hell, even I managed to pigeonhole nihilists as 'anything goes' chaoticians, as Jurgen pointed about above, so we're all guilty to an extent (so what do the other ones believe?)

I tend to find it annoying when bands put their lyrics in a color that almost makes the invisible (re: dark VERY dark brown on black background, light-grey on grey background and what have you) like Enslaved's "Frost"... Great album, but my eyes hurt too much in the end from squinting, trying to read those damn lyrics...
If you're gonna include your lyrics, at least make them readable so your fans don't get headaches. That's all.

Heh yeah I can agree about that. How about the latest Manowar album, where the lyrics are in friggin runes ?
I guess it's kinda cool, but come on, I wanna read the lyrics.