A Case Against Death Metal

I'm really not a big fan of the whole "OSDM" bullshit craze that has been flaring like a Herpes outbreak within the last few or so years. At 37, I'm old enough to remember having to actually get out there and do the required footwork that it took in order to unearth the really crusty and obscure gems that the death metal underground had to offer. These days, ANY-fucking-one can gallop on over to Youtube or glance at any of the 75,000 or so band profiles on Metal-Archives and walk away a self professed scholar of all things metal. Now I've never been big on crying about and/or using the word "trendy" to describe the mounting popularity of a particular genre, but I cannot help but feel that that's exactly what death metal has become as of late, and what's worse is that it's happening to bands such as Incantation, Autopsy, Abhorrence, etc... bands who would never in a million years have been considered to be trendy 10-20 years ago are now the recipients of the most absolutely pretentious fanbase to have ever latched onto a style of music within the last 100 or so years. "Like, oh my god, like, my brand new vintage Severed Survival spaghetti strap arrived this afternoon!", "Like, oh my god, my 2 ft Incantation dildo signed by Johnny Mac & Cheese is scheduled to arrive in my P.O. Box this evening!". Fuck. They're fucking everywhere. You'll especially find them staggering around in that teenage wasteland also known as 'social media'.

One of the more annoying aspects of this current generation of 'OSDM' flagbearers are the overused mantras such as "No Bill Ward = No Black Sabbath" or "only vinyl is real" not to mention absolutely absurd and infinitely pompous statements like "Demigod from Canada can't use their name because Demigod from Finland is more Kvlt". BARF. When exactly did these twats become the spokespersons for all that is cool and "right" in the metal "underground"? The internet is indeed a double-edged sword as now, more than ever before, we are "treated" (subjected) to the opinion of every douche-bag hipster from here to Zeta Reticuli as well as 9,000,000 photos of themselves posing in front of their bathroom mirror. To me, it matters not how many washed up/has been underground death metal "celebrities" you sat there and collected over on Facebook. You're still a pretentious and superficial attention seeker wielding your meaningless opinion around as if the "statue built in your honor" justifies the diarrhea gushing fourth from out of your cephalic cunthole.

Throughout my almost 4 decades on this planet, I have never seen such an overwhelming need to confound and one-up each other as now, an epidemic turned pandemic with the advent of social media sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Last-FM, Tumblr and so on. Absolutely NO one gives a fuck about anyone else's interests or opinions. It's all about shoving their own down your throat. A cyber-sea of self important face-huggers, hauling ass towards you in order to be the first to violently gag you with their thoughts and opinions... on EVERY-fucking-thing, and the so-called "newbies" aren't the only ones. Every two-bit cretin who released a now "kvlt" rehearsal demo that was recorded in their Grandparent's basement 30 years ago have also crawled from out of the confinements of said basement to "lend" their oh so sought after take on the profound machinations of what it takes to be cool in the metal underground.

One of the biggest and most rampantly homosexual hipster fests to rear its condom-less head was the reaction to Morbid Angel's 'Illud Divinum Insanus'. Do I think that that album is praiseworthy? Not in the slightest, and no, the fact that the band claims to have written and released the album in the interest of themselves does little to convince me that statements such as that are nothing more than an attempt at justifying a nearly catastrophic and creative misstep on their part, the type of which not seen since 'Cold Lake'. No, I wasn't terribly enthralled by MA's latest, yet I never once took it personally, nor was it enough for me to forsake the band's classic material. On the other hand, however, veritable legions of whiny butthurt denizens spread across the internet felt it was their duty to thoroughly trash the band as if Morbid Angel set out to personally offend every snot nosed metal faggot across the globe. As if these momos actually went into their pockets and paid for the album. Yeah right. Funny how months in advance, dweebs and douche-bags alike were leaking their opinions on the album from out of their gaping assholes up until and well after its release. All of a sudden it became cool to trash Morbid Angel. The "in" thing to partake in. Every nu/metal core homo that had recently discovered Incantation and Autopsy within the last six months were now all of a sudden gravely offended by Morbid Angel's actions. Funny enough, I can distinctly remember each time a Morbid Angel album was released since 'Altars...', there was a hearty group of "unholier than thou" faggot metal hipsters that claimed that the band has "lost it" and how only "Altars..." was worth owning. Fast forward to 2011 and you would think that the whole world had not once lost faith or interest in the band until their latest album, with all manners of doofus cuntholes making grand proclamations on their Facebook pages and personal blogs that "Morbid Angel" is no longer relevant, yada, yada, yada. Not so sorry to inform you that MA will always be relevant. They pretty much raised the bar as high as it could go, and each and every band thereafter has more or less jocked their technique in an attempt to ride their creative coattails. Every time you hear a death metal band incorporate a blast beat or some insanely odd time signature, you can thank Morbid Angel. Their "relevance" was put firmly into place well over 20 years ago and shall remain as long as their are humans left on the planet to discover music.

Of course the other tell-tale hipster revelation is the recent interest in absolutely everything "old school death metal". I've noticed that in their quest to out-old school and out-undergound everyone around them, OSDM hipsters have taken to publicly embracing each and every piece of shit death metal band that reared their phonic hooked mongrel cabezas 20 years ago, just to appear as if they've heard of and own everything by every el-fucking-lame-O has/never been DM band they "discovered" courtesy of Metal-Archives and Youtube quickly followed by a visit to Rapidshare or Mediafire. Of course, these are the same clowns who scream on every comment section known to Man how "vinyl rules" and "only vinyl is real".

There was actually a time when I was hopeful that death metal would achieve commercial success, withOUT losing an ounce of integrity. I've grown to not only lose hope in that possibility but largely lose interest in it as well. When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, many of the "metalheads" that I knew were borderline (and in many cases, all out) delinquents. People that looked and appeared as if they truly "practiced what they preached"! Nowadays, I look at this new generation with complete disdain. Somewhere along the way, Death Metal lost its spiritual edge. Sure, the music is as abrasive (though infinitely less interesting) as it has ever been, but something is amiss. Aside from a pitiful handful of tried and true bands and individuals, I have, for the most part, lost interest in something that I spent the majority of my life obsessing over. Despite the overwhelming accessibility of it all, death metal and its minions have become one and the same with all other aspects of our plastic society. Gone are the dusty record shops and the pigeon sacrificing, LSD addled youth rocking the feathered mullet and Slayer 'T'. They have been replaced by a generation of whiny and opinionated fags over-concerned with how underground and "kvlt" they appear to be.