"All the identity has been sucked out of the forum. It might as well be the revolver forum" - direct quote
Sorry, not trying to throw Revolver under the bus here, but you see my point. That one's not bad compared to this one though.
"the new dimmu borgir album is horrible and they should kill themselves for making it. talk about overproduction of bad material!"
Actually I kind of agree with this guy, but killing themselves for making an album? That's a bit harsh. How bout this gem....
"this has to be the poorest excuse for black metal in the history of the genre. it's not heavy enough to qualifiy for metal anyways, I've heard green day play more brutal songs"
Actually this one was taken from a youtube video comment, but the douchebaggery remains in tact.
This is pretty much what I imagine some of of these assholes looking like... or maybe this....
Yeah that looks about right. Okay you all get the point,
"But It's the fucking internet," you say, "Its basically the mouthpiece for any idiot that things he's hot shit but really not, and wouldn't ever even consider telling his own mother to go fuck herself for fear that she may kick him out of the basement. I mean any asshole with an internet connection can start a blog up and spout of his opinion like he thinks anyone really cares about it!"
(silence)......
Um, right. Forget I said that one, moving on....
Its true that no matter what you are talking about in cyberspace, be it music, movies, television; even candle making for fuck's sake (yes, I know someone that was on some candle makers' boards and they do the same thing), there will always be people who wanna be haters. Most of us choose to do the responsible thing: ignore them. However when it comes to the world of heavy metal - and I understand its not exclusive to our world - it seems that life imitates cyberspace in these situations.
Well at least it seems to where I live. Here in Spokane Washington, there is a very small but dedicated contingent of extreme metalheads. When I say extreme metal heads, I mean the those that are into extreme metal. There are plenty of mainstreamers that are into the usual Slipknot, Lamb of God, Black Label Society, shit like that. Not that there's anything wrong with that music, just not exactly my cup of tea for the most part.
So we extreme metalheads are few and far between. You'd think that we'd be a tight knit group, but that isn't really the case. To be fair, I don't really know many of them personally. The few that I do know are actually really cool people. Its the one's that I see or casually talk to at metal shows that are usually the uptight snobby pricks that tend to dot the landscape of extreme metalheads. I hate to make this comparison, but extreme metalheads are like hipsters in the indie rock crowd; or as I call them, music snobs. They feel this strange obligation to defend the world from bad music (or at least what they consider to be bad) and feel like the fact that they love some obscure indie rock band from Oregon makes them better than everyone else. The strangest part is that on the one hand, they will totally trash you for your musical tastes, but at the same time they don't really want you to get into their music, as they will completely abandon it once it becomes "commercial." The best example in the metal world that I can give is Cradle of Filth. Throughout the early to mid-nineties, Cradle were considered on of the premier extreme metal acts, and everyone I knew that was into the genre loved Cradle. Admittedly, I didn't know that many people that were into extreme metal at the time, but I can safely say at least that those I did know listened to, if not worshiped Cradle. Then Cradle got big, and started changing their sound. "Fuck those guys" was pretty much the reaction. Now admittedly I'm not a huge fan of the stuff Cradle has been putting out recently, but I know some metal fans that denounce anything past 'The Principle of Evil Made Flesh' because it started getting too "commercial."
Maybe that's a bad example. Lets take it a step further. Lets look at a genre with (in my opinion) the snobbiest of the metal snobs as fans: black metal.
Dammit! Whose idea was it to forge an upside down cross out of razorblades anyway?
Black metal is extremely near and dear to my heart because it is what got me back into extreme music. I must admit something here: I am an extreme johnny-come-lately to the extreme metal scene. It has only been in the past three to four years that I have really been immersed into it. I had dabbled with things like Cradle of Filth, Morbid Angel, and Cannibal Corpse in high school, but none of it really stuck with me at the time. After high school the most extreme stuff I was into was Slayer, other than that it was mostly mainstream metal that I was into. Keep in mind this is Spokane Washington, and I was in high school from 1996 to 2000; a time period highly regarded as the dark ages of metal. This is after all the period which saw such great bands as Limp Bizkit, HedPE, Slipknot, and Drowning Pool were rising to prominence. (I know, shoot me now right?) Sure there was some stuff happening deep underground, but I didn't know anything about it because everyone in my high school was listening to Limp Bizkit, Korn, and ICP; I had a few friends that were in stuff like Slayer and Sepultura, but that was it. Couple that with the fact that I was a practicing Christian at the time, and there was absolutely no chance of any cool extreme metal sticking with me.
With that being said, I know I don't have a whole lot of ground to criticize black metal's followers, but I'm going to anyway because it needs to be said. This whole garbage about "true kvlt black metal" needs to fuckin stop! Again, I love old school black metal. When I discovered Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, Darkthrone, and Enslaved, I thought I had just discovered gold. I was hooked! I started finding other bands like Xasthur, Nachtmystium, Marduk, Watain, Antaeus, Gorgoroth, Carpathian Forest, and Judas Iscariot (to name just a few). Then I started doing some research into black metal's history, and seeing how it has evolved into the present day.
Today, black metal is certainly not what it started out as, but it has evolved, changed, experimented, and branched out. You have bands like Wolves in the Throne room and Agalloch (both from here in the pacific northwest I might add) who have added influences from indie rock and folk music. You have bands like Enslaved and Nachtmystium who have added progressive rock and psychedelic sounds to black metal. And then you have a band like Deathspell Omega, who.... well.... they're just fantastic! They've taken black metal to the next level. Even bands like Darkthrone and Burzum, though sticking to a lo-fi DIY type formula, have changed and evolved over the years.
Agaolloch's 'The Watcher's Monolith' from their latest album 'Marrow of the spirit. I dare you not to love it!
"True kvlt black metal" just does not exist anymore, or if it does, it exists in the extreme underground. Bands like Carpathian Forest and Gorgoroth are of course still (mostly) adhering to the black metal style and staying true to the original sound; and that is great. I have nothing against it, and I think that the black metal sound still withstands the test of time. On the other hand, these defenders of the "necro kvlt black metal' sound or whatever they wanna call it continue to rail against the new breed of "post" black metal bands that come out and dare to put their own spin on it. And while we're on the subject, I'm sick and tired of all this bashing on Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. Yes I understand they drastically changed their sound and went commercial, but honestly, who cares? Critics say, "They're not black metal!" but the thing is Cradle and Dimmu don't even call themselves black metal; same goes for a lot of the post black metal acts out there today. So what the fuck are you whining about? Either listen to it or don't. Cradle and Dimmu are going to continue to do their own things. I'm not necessarily into it myself, but I don't sit there and cry about them on the metal forums because I think they're sullying the good name of black metal or some shit.
Same goes for most extreme metal today; whether you're talking about death metal, grindcore, thrash, or whatever. There are people out there who long for the days of early Cannibal Corpse, or Deicide, or Morbid Angel, or Darkthrone, or whatever. So if that's the case... then just listen to those early albums and shut the fuck up. Either you like the new breed of stuff coming out, or you don't. If you don't then you are entitled to your own opinion about it, just keep in mind that not everyone wants to hear about it. But pining for the days of extreme metal circa 1989-1994 is not going to make it come back. Metal cannot go back, it can only move forward.
-J
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