Metal Reviews

Actually you raise no relevant points of your own and just crap on about how stupid I am.

As for how logic works, my example is just fine unless you're one of these anally retentive philosophy students who lives in la la land and not the real world.

Umm yeah I won't take offense at that but you're simply wrong.

Saying you have good tastes because you like what everyone else does is fucking stupid. The drivel that people eat up these days, many more people than those who like Slayer or Iron Maiden, I assume you would not consent to. Or maybe you really are into showing how you duggie whatever the fuck that means?

You have shit taste in music and apparently since you're into whatever everybody else likes I'm sure you hit on some classics like Atheist and Bolt Thrower. Citing CoF and DB as your favorite black metal bands when you are describing yourself as knowledgeable of bm is kinda a joke. CotB was pointing out the development of black metal as a response to commercialization. You mentioning death metal doesn't make you right because 1st wave bm saw death metal as just the continuation of the ever more commercial thrash acts. Death metal was a reactionary attempt to make it more evil but it came off as silly and weak. That's where black metal came in. I know death metal was revolutionary and underground but in response to the development of black metal that is a non-issue.

Maybe you're just really into non sequitur and I should just give up.

Oh let me rephrase:

Slayer and Iron Maiden are two revolutionary metal bands that most of the metal community respects. Also add in say Megadeth or early Metallica or whatever.

What our yellow friend was saying was that I have shit music tastes. Yet my tastes include bands such as Slayer and Iron Maiden.

So are then bands such as Iron Maiden and Slayer shit because I like them and have shit taste in music?




No idea what this means.




Wow I didn't know everyone else was into Ghoul, Frightmare, Malevolent Creation, Edge of Sanity, Nosce Teipsum, Gorefest etc.

And for what it's worth, my past experiences have been that people think Bolt Thrower are a sad joke with only 1 good album (Realms of Chaos). I personally love them.





No-one said that they were Black Metal. They're the closest I listen to Black Metal these days. And Black Metallers hate this stuff being called Black Metal.

In the past I had a ton of Emperor, Darkthrone, Impaled Nazarene, Mayhem as well as blackened DM ala Dissection etc. I didn't really like it and flogged it all off or gave it away about 5-6 years ago.

(I do not class Bathory and Venom as BM so continue to listen to them).




Development of most metal was generally a response to commercialisation be it NWOBHM, Thrash, Crossover, Death, Black or Grindcore.

Back in 1991-93, Death Metal was fucking extreme and not commercial. And it was brutal and back then had a lot of variances.

It had more of an impact in 1989-93 than what BM did in it's first wave in the mid-1990s. BM only became more widely acceptable in the Metal world 10 years ago.





So you don't like Death Metal because it was trying to be "evil"so you consider it silly and weak.

Look at how stupid wannabe evil the early Black Metal stuff came off - wannabe evil guys in face paint killing gays and each other and burning churches whilst playing stuff that sounds like it was recorded in a trash can on a tape deck.

In fact the dude out of Burzum killed Euronymous cause he was trying to be more evil than Euronymous.

And muscially Black Metal was also Thrash trying to be evil - from memory one of the major influences on BM was Sodom's early stuff.

But I don't deny that these early BM bands had a big impact on extreme music and that bands ala Enslaved or Ihsahn are still having a massive impact.

Yet you're writing off Death Metal cause you generally don't like it.

Pointing out how I listen to band x, y, z... is not a way of proving how refined your tastes are. All you've been doing is talking about inane bands or criticizing quality bands and just generally talking about music oafishly. Get over yourself; you're a mess.

It's simply my case in point that just because a lot of people like it does not mean that it is not shit.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear but I was simply describing black metal's development as a response to death metal from how I understand those who participated in it viewed it. Music isn't evil. Evil is concrete behavior of humans. I wouldn't even use that as a criticism.

Why assume I don't like death metal? I do. I don't even know where the fuck to start defending this. Link to my last.fm included.

Trapt, don't even try, man. I was wrong to start this anyway. This guy is impossibly stupid to talk to.

It doesn't even really matter whether or not death metal actually was becoming more commercialized (it actually was, in the early 90's it was easily the most popular sub-genre of metal, and rapidly gaining steam. But let's overlook that for the sake of argument).
Thrash was on it's way out, NWOBHM, traditional metal, etc., likewise, except for the die hards, of course... the funny thing is the few people that I knew at the time, along with myself, that were into black metal were just tired, bored and disdainful of death metal and wanted a return to a more pure form of metal. Enter Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone, Emperor and Gorgoroth.
Stripped down, raw, unfettered and do it yourself, as opposed to the relatively polished, technical and layered Morrissound bands with a budget of the time as well as the (mainly) Swedish death metal movement, it was a return to form.

The fact (and this is the real point) that in the minds of those that spearheaded the second wave (really the first wave as, was rightly observed, Venom, Bathory, Hellhammer, etc. were really proto-black metal, if that, but still the general consensus states that they are the first wave; so be it), that is to say Burzum, Darkthrone et al, saw it as such and did something in response by creating what is now known as black metal, is enough to constitute the notion of revolt, ergo, revolution.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder.

Burzum for example are hailed by some as some sort of brilliant musical art statement.

I frankly think it's worthless shit made up by a murderous moron in gaol.

I like Pantera but many "refined" metallers think it's oafish (to use your words) shit.

Talk to some one else and they'll think both Pantera and Burzum are shit and that <insert band here> is awesome.




Again you're trying to represent subjective opinions as objective facts.

It's typical Metal elitism. Don't worry, I do it too. So did all the punk rock and jazz guys I used to know.



Actually you said that:



My point was responding to this by showing that Black Metallers tried very hard not only to sound evil but also to look evil and be evil

As for Death Metal getting more commercial, it never did. Death Metal never had even close to commercialisation or associated success that Thrash did.

Some bands did go softer (Entombed and Carcass come to mind) but most of the DM guys stayed brutal.

It's why people got sick of it.

I remember articles in 1995 stating how Death Metal had run out of new ideas and was just retracing the same old shit. Morbid Angel's Domination was heralded as some sort of saviour cause it was a bit diverse but just about everyone else was labelled as tired and not offering anything new.



You called Death Metal "silly and weak."

Only in the underground.

The bands that were selling heaps were still Metallica, Megadeth, Guns N Roses, Slayer, Skidrow as well as new stuff ala Pantera (talking about 1990-92).

After that it was Machine Head, Pantera, Fear Factory, Sepultura and lesser stuff ala Pissing Razors, Skinlab etc and by 1996 Nu-metal led by Korn.

The underground was all about Death Metal and Grindcore and occassionally stuff like Napalm Death and Morbid Angel made it into the charts but nowhere near the number 1 and 2's as experienced by Metallica, Megadeth and Pantera.

Though this was after their peak anyway (Fear,Emptiness Despair and Covenant were their most commercially successful from memory).



It was different where I'm from. Metal just dropped off the radar by about 1994 and was replaced by grunge and pop punk. By 1996 I was the only Metal guy left at my school of about 600.

Some of the older guys stayed true to Metal but they got into the ever more brutal DM/Grind (Suffocation, Mortification) or melodic DM and Doom. A small percentage got into Black Metal.

Small town syndrome I suspect (town of only 70,000 people means a smaller fan base).



Fair enough.

Though that revolution took a lot longer to gestate than Thrash Metal or Death Metal.

Death Metal pretty much became the standard form for underground Metal throughout the 1990's. We have far more variety these days.


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Oh I agree with your statement about Morrisound studios/Scott Burns production. Personally I think that sound got oversaturated. Even British bands ala Napalm Death went there and adopted that sound (e.g. Harmony Corruption).

It's kind of like Andy Sneap production these days. Any band that gets work produced by him has a too similar sound.

I can't believe that I'm defending Trapt but he wasn't calling death metal weak in general some black metal bands and some black metal fans were calling death metal weak in its tempt to make it sound more evil then black metal. Or that's what I was feeling when I read his response.

Now I feel so dirty

I'm actually rejecting subjective opinions as facts insofar as a million subjective opinions is not what makes something good.
Like I said I didn't make this clear. I don't think what I wrote. I was paraphrasing the opinions of early Norwegian musicians who didn't like death metal, e.g., Darkthrone's jump to black metal after Soulside Journey. I don't give a fuck how evil music is, jesus christ.

Paraphrasing/quoting accounts I've read of early Norwegian musicians. I listen to Pig Destroyer, Cattle Decapitation, Death, etc. This is fucking stupid to defend.

Here's his full statement:




Nothing about Black Metallers thinking DM was weak and if that was his point, he didn't write it very clearly.


EDIT: He now does state it was "what Black Metallers thought." So why not say that as opposed to the ambiguous statement he did post.

Dead1's like a more boring Ken, it seems.

So how do you measure quality of music?

We're not discussing quality of an engine or other physical object. These are measurable (e.g. time between failures, litres of fuel per kilometre).


My own personal measure of quality is: "do I like it?"

The only other measure of something as subjective as music is general consensus. If you take a million people and 900,000 like a song, then the song appears to be good with widescale appeal.

On the other hand if out a million people, 900,000 don't like it then generally the song appears to be poor quality.

Still doesn't mean I should like it and I am not wrong in not liking it.

So I think Burzum or Judas Priest are shit. That's my opinion.

I said it at 6:55 pm and I never said the phrase which you put quotes around as if I was saying. So fucking ridic.

Quality of music is subjective insofar as it a personal opinion putting out the idea that what he deems as great everyone else should to. A universalized subjectivity a la Kant. The feelings which I get when I experience music whether it is empowerment, alienation or joy I expect others to feel the same way and now it doesn't always work that way but that is what I do when I say something is awesome; that everyone should think it is awesome. I couldn't say Cattle Decapitation was awesome if I didn't think that you should like them to. Then they would just be something that I like. But Decap isn't just something that I like; they put out really great music and I based that on the fact that as much as I like them you should too. They wouldn't be great if I didn't think others would like them.

Not to dwell too much more on this, but I was generally speaking of the "underground", more or less.
Maybe it was different here (the States) but, I remember death metal being the most popular at the time. Around about 1995 I discovered Mayhem, Emperor and Darkthrone, almost simultaneously. A year later I heard Satyricon, Gehenna, Burzum and the rest; at the time, it (to me) was the purest form of metal around on a parallel with anything from the late 70s - mid 80s.
More of a visceral experience, like a triggered memory, than anything tangible I can put my finger on really.

Not to dminish death metal's contributions to the genre (even though outside of the early bands such as Death, Obituary, Morbid Angel I generally don't care for it any longer), as the subgenre was pioneering in it's own right.

Let's just say that "taste" is something that is not really quantifiable, and be done with it. Arguing about it is futile.
There's something in this world for everybody.

When I was getting into metal black metal bands that I constantly saw mentioned were xasthur and leviathan and since I'm American I thought I should listen to american bands haha. I still don't like either of those bands and now am way more into the norwegian bands.

I remember I got Mayhem's Deathcrush album when I was 17 and thought I was really cool for having it, and I was into Emperor and liked some burzum when I was 16-17 but I wouldn't say I was totally into the black metal sound like I am today.

I don't really like death metal anymore, don't really like children of bodom, don't really like to much thrash either. I've just listened to so much music that it's all starting to run together anyways. Bands like Agalloch keep it fresh though.

Black metal has a stigma, mystique and aura around it that attracts people to it as well. It's darkness in musical form.

Extremely well said!

I'll agree to disagree. If you accept that you can't critique things.

Still has yet to hear Gehenna