Metal = Romanticism?

[MasterOLightning]

ANUS will always be polarizing as long as they continue to assert that their value set is inexorably linked to the appreciation and interpretation of metal music. Is the goal of the group foremost to advocate great music, or to push an agenda?

Other problems include the constant repackaging of the same ideas through various blogs, fake websites, and a series of pseudonyms on message boards (seriously, how hard is it to not get banned?). People want a thoughtful, critical source on metal, but when you haven't acknowledged merit in a release in 10 years, you lose relevance.

Also, that particular review blurb suffers from overly difficult syntax, but it's not grasping for straws or anything. It's not quite the thesaurus masturbation that others are, either.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

I lean more towards realist black metal. I like the people who really are nihlist apeshit crazy murderers. That's why we guys love Charlie Manson.

 

[Death Aflame]

Whether you like ANUS or not their is no denying that the albums they foreground and attempt to promote, are, more often than not quite fucking good.

 

[thisisaformicatable]

The reviews tend to be the most consistent thing about the site; I don't see anything wrong with that Slayer excerpt other than some unwieldy sentence structure.

I like that Sturm und Drang comparison in the OP, there are definitely some similarities there that aren't talked about much. A lot of influences to be explored by modern bands as well, you'd think at least it's a good genre to steal riffs from.

 

[DarkBliss]

Whether you like ANUS or not their is no denying that the albums they foreground and attempt to promote, are, more often than not quite fucking good.

The music is always what's most important anyway.

 

[Rabid Headbanger]

I lean more towards realist black metal. I like the people who really are nihlist apeshit crazy murderers. That's why we guys love Charlie Manson.

And manson loves the beatles.

 

[Scourge of God]

If the ANUS has a weakness, it is a tendency to overestimate the sophistication of most readers. Classic case in point: the use of heavily stylized satire in unexpected places (album reviews). It should have been obvious years ago that the DLA reviews are a deliberate dig at American academic prose, yet no discussion of the site passes without someone indignantly heaping scorn on the 'pretentious' style, which is to say, announcing that they just don't get the joke.

 

[WNxScythe]

You're pretty stupid. The art is not the artist, and is certainly not subject to the limitations of the artist.

I don't care. You don't write about music (or anything) like that.

The best lectures I've ever heard from the most intelligent professors don't even come close to using the level of "intellectual prose" (or pseudo in this case) that the writers at ANUS constantly employ. It's like a huge facade of BS to try to make metal seem more "intellectual" than it is, (why the need for this anyways? Great music can be deep without coming from a scholarly background ala Classical or having to resort to ridiculous descriptions of it)

Don't try to dig at me with that BS about art either. I'm well aware of that. Should be fairly obvious since so many different people can have different impressions/insights into the same song/book/painting/etc...

 

[Scourge of God]

^^^^^^^^^^
I am a prophet in my own time.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

If the ANUS has a weakness, it is a tendency to overestimate the sophistication of most readers. Classic case in point: the use of heavily stylized satire in unexpected places (album reviews). It should have been obvious years ago that the DLA reviews are a deliberate dig at American academic prose, yet no discussion of the site passes without someone indignantly heaping scorn on the 'pretentious' style, which is to say, announcing that they just don't get the joke.

Aren't you like...one of the main fucking people involved in that place? I remember Planetary Eulogy (Falco) used to post here, so I assumed you were him. And anyway, I don't think that's meant to be satirical. But since you're the one heavily involved, go for it and cop out by saying it satirizes academic prose.

 

[skeptik]

He once claimed that it was simply his writing style. Does Falco write reviews for ANUS? If so, he was either lying then when he said it was just his writing style or he's lying now saying that it's satire.

 

[Crimson Velvet]

The best lectures I've ever heard from the most intelligent professors don't even come close to using the level of "intellectual prose" (or pseudo in this case) that the writers at ANUS constantly employ. It's like a huge facade of BS to try to make metal seem more "intellectual" than it is, (why the need for this anyways?

Then how come the criticism rarely, if ever, go further than childish whining about their choice of prose?

I'd also like to point out that on the front lines of ANUS critics, you'll often find scores of Death and Pantera fans.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I'm an ANUS critic for the most part (their taste is pretty impeccable, but I can't stand reading the reviews...I usually end up thinking "get to the point! What does it SOUND like?!" But I suppose I understand that it MUST NOT BE MEANT FOR ME AS A SIMPLETON!) and dislike Death and Pantera for the most part.

 

[Crimson Velvet]

I am critical towards a lot of the ANUS doctrine, myself, but not the musical part, I find that to be of generally very high quality. Of course, it could be that I've taken a liking to it because I instantly saw that their tastes mirrored my own...

What I am critical of when their arguments are so obviously simplified, yet hidden behind a mask of intellectuality. It of course often ends up with them blaming all the world's problems on consumerism and the jewish media. And while that could very well be true, I'd like to see some substantial argumentation behind it.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Haha yeah the Jewish thing is really annoying to me. It also bothers me that the creators have sites under the same style sheet (it's unmissable) like nazi.org, the Burzum unofficial site there...that stuff bothers me and really makes me question their credibility. Their taste in death and black is good (seriously, they fucking reviewed Intestine Baalism's first album, which is a legitimate classis of underground melodic DEATH metal), but oftentimes the reviews are so wacked out and are trying too hard to sound intellectual that I'd almost rather read M-A reviews!

 

[S<issors]

that whole letter to schuldinger's family thing was pretty sick.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

And manson loves the beatles.

So do I. Manson himself was a great songwriter, too.

 

[Scourge of God]

Aren't you like...one of the main fucking people involved in that place? I remember Planetary Eulogy (Falco) used to post here, so I assumed you were him. And anyway, I don't think that's meant to be satirical. But since you're the one heavily involved, go for it and cop out by saying it satirizes academic prose.

I'm involved in projects at ANUS and Corrupt from time to time, but I've never been involved with the site itself. The reviews, in particular, remain pretty much a one-man (SRP) project. ANUS has always had a tongue-in-cheek element (witness, well, the fact that it's called "ANUS"), and much of the serious information the site conveys has always been coded in mocking humor. ANUS is old-school pre-browser internet, and like a lot of pre-AOL, pre-Netscape sites, its style is a mixture of guerrilla humor, subversive provocation and information dispersal. And maybe that's the problem, it emerged under far more darwinian conditions than the 'nerd currently exhibits, so it doesn't always sit well with the folks who were never exposed to the sort of sophisticated discourse that was typical of the net prior to its commercialization in the mid to late 1990s.

 

[Scourge of God]

He once claimed that it was simply his writing style. Does Falco write reviews for ANUS? If so, he was either lying then when he said it was just his writing style or he's lying now saying that it's satire.

The reviews are the work of spinoza ray prozak, and his style has always been heavy on satire. The point is to entertain while informing, but most people seem to lack the sophistication to roll with the joke, and, instead, get pissed off because the reviews aren't immediately accessible without thought input from the reader.

 

[Alter]

Whether you like ANUS or not their is no denying that the albums they foreground and attempt to promote, are, more often than not quite fucking good.

Sometimes it is just nihilistic bedroom black metal noise.

Than again I have not been on that site in a year so I could be very wrong.