Metal Reviews

Too much of one thing when everythings been done under the sun is never a good thing, right? While those are two horrible cliches, when do you believe lyrical topics with usual staples I,e gore, death, satan, running naked in the cold forest become downright comical or even weak. What are some bands whose lyrics are just painful to read, and others who have pushed the envelope to just sounding cheesy?

Easy!

Lord Of Depression is extremely odd, physically and lyrically

I think these subjects are always banal and the best a lyricist can hope for when writing about them is a clever turn of phrase or good rhythmic use of the words' phonetics.

+1 to noodz. After Autopsy, Carcass, Cannibal Corpse and the other first wave of death metal what more could you do to the human body or a cadaver for that matter?

Lyrics that are over the top about deviant behavior is Dopesmoker. Smoking weed has never been that ridiculous.

I've always thought of human anatomy as a subject of beauty is an avenue of lyrical subject matter seldom approached.

Ive always taken those lyrics, as well as their Power Metal opposites, with a huge grain of salt. Every time my wife hears me playing something that is screaming in my ear (and hers too), she asks me how I can stand it when I cant understand them. Im not about to show her the lyrics and give her more amunition, so I just tell her its not about the lyrics, its about the music and the effect it has on you, and I believe that is mostly true. Certainly there are some great lyrics to be found, but bands like Cannibal Corpse and Dimmu Borgir and so on lost any lyrical credibility they had long ago.

i am going have to say rebecca black she makes waking the cadaver lyrics look like nietzche

PERFECT example is Carcass. Started out with their medical-gore lyrics, and then turned out an excellent written album with Heartwork.

Some bands, however, are so far gone that evolving would look completely...weird. How can Deicide sing about anything other than "rah rah hate god rarrr"? Or how would Cannibal Corpse look writing socially poignant lyrics about life and the world around them?

However, some bands that have carved themselves a niche still can write very well. Take Nile for example. Every album has been themed around ancient Egypt. Yet, they paint some very vivid pictures in their lyrics, and the well of ancient Egypt is deep. Same with Behemoth and Sumerian/Babylonian themes.

Bottom line, if you can keep it strong musically, then lyrics are just a side note. I think In Flames has some excellent lyric writing, but their music is meh.

Deicide's lyrics are metaphors for how much Glen Benton hates his wife. Pretty clever and subtle really, man's a genius.

I kind of agree with DeathScream about some bands you can't really imagine without the lyrics they write. Cannibal Corpse wouldn't be Cannibal Corpse if they weren't writing their typical over the top gore lyrics. It's just what you expect from the band. Same with a lot of death metal bands.

When I think about it, the only lyrics I really look forward to are those from early 80s bm bands and early 90s Norwegian bm bands, in addition to a lot of old school death metal. I prefer the lyrics to Pestilence's Out of the Body or Entombed's Left Hand Path over any of Exhumed's, Mortician's or Torsofuck's lyrics. They actually mean something and have an effect on the listener, where as with the latter bands it's just gore and horror for the sake of being over the top.

I can't imagine them writing anything else mind you, but it's still totally silly and sometimes funny (thinking Raped by Elephants, lol). Although arguably with Torsofuck, the lyrics are the best part of the package given the music is completely retarded

I still like reading the lyrics the first time I hear an album, but I really don't care very much what they are about except when I actually enjoy them. But unless it's a new album from an old favourite like Bolt Thrower or a previously undiscovered old school band, chances are the lyrics won't be that great anyways.

To me its all a matter of if the lyrics are interesting, intelligently devised, or just plain powerful enough to suit the music. I don't particularly care much for Cesspool of Vermin novelty lyric shock bullshit, CC and old school death metal bands did it first and did it better.

I REALLY hate whenever DM bands take a blatantly misogynistic approach to their lyrics. Barnes-era Cannibal Corpse is guilty as hell, Prostitute Disfigurement...enough said. Even the last Defeated Sanity record has a sound clip of a woman crying as a knife slices through something (probably flesh) that causes some liquid (probably blood) to fall to the floor.

Stuff like that really bothers me. I know whenever NSBM comes up everyone condemns the racist themes and either won't listen to the music because of it or has a disclaimer to the effect of: "I'M JUST HERE FOR THE MUSIC, I'M NOT HERE FOR WHAT THE BAND STANDS FOR." Does anyone else feel that the same kind of disclaimer should be made for DM with explicit misogynist themes?

I mean if a band was called "Jew Disfigurement" and had photographs / illustrations Jews being killed / dismembered/ eviscerated wouldn't someone say "there is something fucking wrong with this"? I think they would., but I don't think they would say anything about something like this:

http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Ma ... ety/153027

If that same cover had a demon-thing with a sword, a dead black person to the left, another black person doing labor / sucking cock, and yet another being held captive and screaming, someone would say something. But since these are thin naked women with huge tits, there is nothing worth getting in a fuss about. It's just another DM band.

I agree in general, but Speckmann's enough of a lefty anarchist that I'm certain he didn't mean that in a misogynistic way. Especially with that album title. A lot of death metal bands are using sounds and images like to that to imply greater horror, rather than explicitly saying women <<< men. Horror films usually aren't being sexist when they have a female protagonist, it's easier for the audience to identify with a woman in danger, is all. Same with death metal.

Obviously there are a lot of obvious exceptions to this, but in general using images of violence against women is easier to give the benefit of the doubt to than explicit racism, for me. This is really just because it's become accepted, and doesn't make the scene look very inviting to women, of course - I don't think that it makes it worse than something like Hostel, though. You do have a very serious point, of course, and I'm glad I never have to explain certain bands in my collection.

I don't think misogyny is uniquely a conservative or "non-anarchist lefty" thing. I've known complete communists who have viewed females as utter garbage. Ideology does not determine whether something is misogynist or not. I also don't think that just because something isn't "meant" in that way, that that doesn't mean it isn't anyway. Someone can be full of unaddressed misogyny while still exhibiting it.



Greater horrors do not only involve women. Seeing a black and white photo of a lynched slave to me is just as disconcerting with its implications of inferiority and victimization. I think people also take racism far more seriously than sexism. Very few bands display cover art where men are being debased or dehumanized, unless it's an image of a religious figure or a gay guy or something considered "womanly." Very few bands feature people who aren't white being tortured/hanged etc. on their covers either. They seem to respect people's race more than their biological sex.

Come to think of it, despite that they aren't metal, Rammstein are one of the only bands I can think of that touches at all on the submissive man or even sexual assault against men. In many ways it promotes the stereotype of men's invulnerability despite that sexual assault against men is so underreported and nowhere near being uncommon and is just as horrific. I get the impression it's actually too disconcerting for many to even insinuate in the same way that violence or assault against women is in a "haha I'm just kidding" kind of way. Even when its brought into public view, most are more prone to mocking the guy than sympathising. Interesting how a man getting raped by a woman in Girl With the Dragon Tattoo made many people more uncomfortable than the generic rape scene seen in film or literature. A potential untapped gold mine for metal? ;)

As for women protagonists in horror movies. Haha, the average mainstream horror film is like half softcore porn, man. The stereotypical image of some bimbo running around in the wrong direction in high heels screaming her head off and making every stupid decision possible is nothing if not about the sex appeal Let's be realistic here...



I don't think violence against women is easier to give the benefit of the doubt to. Given the number of women who experience violent assault or sexual assault both at the hands of friends/family as well as random strangers or stalkers I really don't see how it is easy to dismiss it as "just words." I think it's a fair assessment to say that in the modern west there are more sexually motivated violent crimes against women today than racially motivated crimes.

All that said, while I don't consider myself to be a feminist and don't even feel I really relate to women that well to begin with, neither am I deaf, blind and stupid. I haven't often experienced the kind of misogyny that many do (probably for a number of reasons, it might be because I am more masculine and have a more dominant and aggressive personality than most born with XX chromosomes, but I won't get too much into gender identity politics here), but neither do I see that as an excuse to ignore that many do live with it every day, nor to pass it off as irrelevant or non-existent. That or that it goes unaddressed in many cases.

I'm equally "guilty" (not that I feel any personal guilt, but just that I'm not trying to be holier than thou. While it doesn't bother me it doesn't mean it's not important to look at this sort of thing) of owning cds like the Master cd metalladdd referenced and don't think much of it.

Metal is in many ways meant to shock, it's meant to have album covers and lyrics that make people uncomfortable or are over the top and offensive. It's one of the things I love about metal and I'm "guilty" of being insensitive of a few things myself just because I love the genre or because it doesn't ring true for me and my experience. At the same time, I try not to lose sight of the social reality. That these things can be deemed misogynist even if I enjoy listening to the bands and am not really bothered personally by it. I think it's important to look outside personal experience on this one.

I didn't mean to imply that misogyny is a right-wing thing, by any means, just that the stereotypical left-wing anarchist viewpoint is as concerned about male/female equality as that of racial equality. Otherwise, the rest is all more than fair enough, of course, and it's good to get a female insight into it. I suppose I was clutching at straws for a fair amount of it.

Ah, common man don't drop me down to the "official female insight"/"token female" status thing. Not to mention I can imagine it'll be iinevitably followed by people running away from the topic in fear of "offending" someone I just see it as discussing as human beings about a situation that concerns human beings and human dignity.

Yeah, it's stereotypical to see left-wing anarchist view points skewed that way as far as equality...but I still don't buy it for that particular album cover

Anyways, with all that in mind I guess I tend to view art as somehow removed from reality. When someone talks about impaling newborn babies on inverted crosses or something I don't think it's because they're actually planning to do it. Art can be a reflection of social norms, but at the same time, with metal in particular, there is always that sense of "over the top"-ness.

Heh, don't worry, no relegation going on here, just recognition of a minority in a male-dominated place. And agreed in terms of art being removed from reality, but like you say, it's the ever-present aspect to it as a mirror-image of life that concerns in situations like this. Extreme metal can have escapist fantasies as much as power metal can with dragon slaying.

Considering changing your title to 'Token Female' now.

I agree. Chew on this one:



This is an awesome song and the execution of the vocals fits the brutal music excellently. But when I first read these lyrics I started feeling a bit of shame. Sure you could say, "these lyrics are way too extreme to be taken with any seriousness" but the fact remains that "invagination" is in the title and all sorts of horrible things are being done to this woman's "beefhole."

Assuming this song is about Ted Bundy ("my name is Ted"), I guess one could make the same argument that this is like Slayer's "Angel of Death", whose lyrics are made "ok" by Hannenman's interest in Nazi concentration camps, not his support of them.......but still.

You don't consider women equal to men?

I generally approve of what is being said here. I'm now confused how what I said a week ago about that women in metal article is different, leading me to be labeled holier than thou.

I honestly notice a lot of misogyny in leftist circles. Most often older males who have a "women in the kitchen" attitude.

I had forgotten about some of Rammstein's themes. Nice mention. The only comparable theme I could think of would be Prison Sex by Tool but not really comparable.

Feminism/being a feminist goes beyond simply considering all genders as equal. For me and what I've experienced in certain circles, it goes beyond that and gets entrenched into a lot of idiotic gender politics that keeps trying to gatekeep as far as what is acceptable behaviour, beliefs, attitudes etc. among said circles.

To make it short, I disagree with the legacy of certain aspects of second wave feminism in our current age. While the writings of Donna Haraway and Simone de Beauvoir among others were definitely ideas I received well, radical feminism has always found a way to leak into both second wave feminism and, by extension, modern day feminism. As such, many who are not white and/or upper middle class and/or heterosexual were and continue to be either left out of it entirely or shunned by many feminists. While on the surface it's about ideas of equality, beneath there is a heck of a lot of ugly politics that seeks to help or recognise only certain people, or in many respects seeing these people actually fight to maintain what I see as an inadequate gender binary. Of course, there are feminists who aren't like this, but it's hardly worth the trouble to label one's self a "feminist" these days when in some respects sexism becomes an aspect of how some relate to gender equality within spheres where feminist ideology is still prominent or recognised to a greater degree than in mainstream society.

Things are improving, but I see absolutely no reason to take on the label "feminist." When I consider any issue regarding equal rights (not just among men and women, but among all people) I do it as a human being, not a "this" or a "that." Instead, I would prefer to stop isolating and focus on the rights of all people.

That would be the short of it without getting into the specifics here.



Now I'm confused. I think I missed that. Care to link me?