The Primordial Glare of Pazuzu in the Eye of Death

[skeptik]

I don't see why you always have to jump to the defensive regarding newer Death Metal. If I was responding to anything you said, I would've quoted you. I was making a general observation. But with regards to your post, I think the second half of it is highly unfounded, going on the notion that everyone that created old school death metal was just a flannel clad, band shirt and blue jeans toting, beer-swilling pedestrian neanderthal, when I'm sure even you can find plently examples of at least something profound in the old school bands that you listen to.

 

[byrne]

I thought the article was ok, but its view of death metal is too narrow to actually have any valid point.

going on the notion that everyone that created old school death metal was just a flannel clad, band shirt and blue jeans toting, beer-swilling pedestrian neanderthal, when I'm sure even you can find plently examples of at least something profound in the old school bands that you listen to.

on that, I've always thought that people give bands FAR too much credit for being more intelligent or putting more thought into their music than they actually do. Ok, sure there are bound to be cases of bands intentionally doing some of the things people infer in their music, but on the large I think there is more read into it than is actually substantially there. I'm not suggesting that it is at all a case of "beer-swilling pedestrian neanderthal" song writing, I'm suggesting that it is generally somewhere in between.

 

[skeptik]

on that, I've always thought that people give bands FAR too much credit for being more intelligent or putting more thought into their music than they actually do. Ok, sure there are bound to be cases of bands intentionally doing some of the things people infer in their music, but on the large I think there is more read into it than is actually substantially there. I'm not suggesting that it is at all a case of "beer-swilling pedestrian neanderthal" song writing, I'm suggesting that it is generally somewhere in between.

Duh?

 

[byrne]

still had to be said.

 

[skeptik]

Mmkay. Well I didn't mean to imply the contrary, fwiw.

 

[byrne]

ah, i didnt mean to suggest you did. its just a good topic that i cant remember having actually discussed, so i thought id elaborate on what you started.

 

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

I don't see why you always have to jump to the defensive regarding newer Death Metal. If I was responding to anything you said, I would've quoted you. I was making a general observation. But with regards to your post, I think the second half of it is highly unfounded, going on the notion that everyone that created old school death metal was just a flannel clad, band shirt and blue jeans toting, beer-swilling pedestrian neanderthal, when I'm sure even you can find plently examples of at least something profound in the old school bands that you listen to.

Yeah I wasn't calling you out or anything, I kind of just wanted to know if that had any relevance to what I said...sorry for the confusion.

I can find profundity in plenty of metal, new or old...big deal.

Anyway, I only defend newer death metal because a lot of you guys trash it for being worthless when that's not even the case; why can't you just like both...I know you do at least.

 

[Necro Joe]

Anyway, yeah as I said, it's good but I HIGHLY fucking doubt that those bands back then were trying to do something musically defining or seminal or invoking ov ancient evil...sure, the atmosphere may be that way, but they didn't actually channel darkness by any means...that's just retarded and also a big part of why death metal is hated by the media and Christian conservatives (though they're faggots too).

I think this reaction misses his point quite a bit.

"So with time, the bestial, only barely controlled chaos had developed/civilized/degenerated into a hairless creature fully aware of its own actions. Or rather: the primal, subconscious streams were now replaced by 'intellect' and 'consciousness' and even when the youthful hunger may have been there, it was melted together with influences from third generation radio-friendly mediocrity."

Here I think he is trying to articulate that early death and black metal are not intellectual forms of music at all, that the intellectual side came later when people like the author of this piece (and yes, even anus.com) tried to identify what it was about the music that was so special. The wordy descriptions of a metaphorical and metaphysical darkness became inevitable because if there is an answer it is not only in musical techniques that can be picked apart using theory. It is in the ideas and emotions that the bands were conveying without even consciously trying to or being able to understand how they did it; hence the subsequent loss of these characteristics as the initial, indefinable conditions faded and others tried to recreate them without grasping the essence of the music that set it apart.

 

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

However, the use of negatively charged words presents a problem for me.

Thank you for the explanation, in any case!

 

[Hell Awaits Us All]

I thought the article was ok, but its view of death metal is too narrow to actually have any valid point.



on that, I've always thought that people give bands FAR too much credit for being more intelligent or putting more thought into their music than they actually do. Ok, sure there are bound to be cases of bands intentionally doing some of the things people infer in their music, but on the large I think there is more read into it than is actually substantially there. I'm not suggesting that it is at all a case of "beer-swilling pedestrian neanderthal" song writing, I'm suggesting that it is generally somewhere in between.

great post, I agree 100%

hell if you listen to anus... they'll have you believing that every good death metal band was a musical and artistic genius with an IQ of 200

these guys are great musicians who make interesting music... but people just take it way too far - discussing philosophical hidden interpretations of each riff, each blastbeat - and it just sounds ridiculous to me

 

[MasterOLightning]

This debate should be compared to the debate about "true" and "untrue" black metal. It is basically the same argument, and an argument about context at that. Context is the real separator from the old-school and new and the true and untrue. It took a specific time and place in history, musical and otherwise to produce black metal and death metal in their original forms. Bands had room to do innovative things that they do not have in 2006. Back then it seems that knowing that they were pushing boundaries is what really drove them and provided much of the fuel for their creations. Those days are over, and the leaps that bands take today are not as great as the leaps that were taken then, or the leaps that were taken into newer death and black metal. In a way, the separation is large enough that to criticize new death metal for not being old school enough is to criticize an apple for not being an orange. This isn't to say that you can't like both, or prefer one.

and even when the youthful hunger may have been there, it was melted together with influences from third generation radio-friendly mediocrity."

This part seemed rather unjustified to me. If it refers to scenesters and those out to make a quick buck, it goes without saying; it doesn't apply to the death metal bands popular with those who have taste. If it refers to the new school as a whole, bands mentioned in the piece like Nile in particular, then it is very questionable. A dubious statement either way.

 

[Evil?]

Very interesting discussion. I too beleive that often times people give the artists more credit than is do in terms of what they were trying to accomplish. Some times I feel that a band really just wanted to make some fuckin' rad tunes and people start talking about the philosophy and what the band was trying to accomplish when in reality there wasn't a goal outside of creating music they wanted to listen to. When people start talking about channeling dark forces and shit, it sounds cool and interesting and all, but come on. I hardly think that Satan or any other deity (assuming they exist) gives a shit about some dude with a guitar.

 

[Necro Joe]

Bands had room to do innovative things that they do not have in 2006. Back then it seems that knowing that they were pushing boundaries is what really drove them and provided much of the fuel for their creations. Those days are over, and the leaps that bands take today are not as great as the leaps that were taken then, or the leaps that were taken into newer death and black metal.

I'm not sure this is what he was driving at, innovation alone is not what he believes separates early death and black metal from other genres and raises it above them. These days there are still extremely innnovative bands but the obscure, almost primitive sense of doom that people find in the early bands has been replaced by characteristics that can be found in many other types of music. The experimentation has become a conscious effort to progress rather than a secondary product of the feeling the bands were creating. The criticism leveled at newer death metal is that it has failed to recapture the more profound qualities of the originators, that it has lost what made the scene special to begin with and become like all other types of metal.

 

[Nico]

I could not possibly have come close to saying it as well as Necro Joe. None of this relates to intellectual dissection of music or mindset - indeed, quite the opposite! It is the "vibrations", that even the flannel wearing neanderthal can understand better than your metal "intellectual". It's the importance of the notes that are being played, not the number of them, nor the mathematical precision of their progression or tempo, or god forbid, their time signatures. As Jon DePlachett puts it, "Each note that I allow to flow forth is an annunciation, a living characterture of an idea sustained by the power of the current." It's that simple, really.

 

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

Only that's just pretentious. I'm under the impression that it is almost always a case of "just music" with a possibility for being a classical art...but not really much more.

Still, I like this discussion.

 

[Nico]

Well look, I think it can be agreed that in the early days of Death Metal, the general mindset was more devoted to the art of darkness and obscurity. Those without this mindset would have had little to grasp in the world of death metal, and so it was those with genuine occult interest, those a little off-centre who revelled in this style of music. Maybe some of them, but maybe none of them, had any intention of creating "dark art" in any way, shape or form, but merely had the interest in creating some sort of reflective musical representation of the inner workings of their mind and perhaps their travels beyond.

 

[the cakeposter]

Let each note that I play be a black arrow of death, sent straight to the hearts of all those who play false metal.

 

[Satanstoenail]

I'm not sure this is what he was driving at, innovation alone is not what he believes separates early death and black metal from other genres and raises it above them. These days there are still extremely innnovative bands but the obscure, almost primitive sense of doom that people find in the early bands has been replaced by characteristics that can be found in many other types of music. The experimentation has become a conscious effort to progress rather than a secondary product of the feeling the bands were creating. The criticism leveled at newer death metal is that it has failed to recapture the more profound qualities of the originators, that it has lost what made the scene special to begin with and become like all other types of metal.

The early DM had purity and innocence as well as innovation on its side; the newer stuff will never be able to compete on that level because the "newness" is long gone. But I dunno if I buy this argument about the earlier stuff being more in tune with the spectre of death or Satan himself or whatever. I think that over-analyzation combined with a teary nostalgic eye creates myth and makes the music out to be a lot more profound and meaningful than it actually is/was.

 

[cookiecutter]

I think that over-analyzation combined with a teary nostalgic eye creates myth and makes the music out to be a lot more profound and meaningful than it actually is/was.

Agreed.

 

[Demilich]

All the wordiness and nostalgia in the world can't change the sound of the music as it was recorded! It is as profound as it is to whoever is analyzing it, and that is never going to be the same for two different individuals!