One of the music genres that I have been into, of varying degree, since my early teens is Death Metal. I know that it’s definitely a genre that is not for everyone. However, I do think it is sad that the whole genre (and variations thereof) is discounted by so many as being “just growling and mindless noise” and that the genre is solely based on “evil” and shock value. On the whole though, a significant number of artists in this genre of music are excellent musicians and lyricists. Many of them are probably even better musicians than some classically trained orchestra musicians. The lyrics, in many cases, are actually deep and full of meaning. It’s not just gore and killing, but of course I’m not denying that gore and violence is a very common topic in the genre.

I would probably be the worst music critic of all time, because I find it hard to put a finger on why I like and don’t like certain genres, songs or artists. I either like it, or I don’t — I almost never have a way of motivating the reason for my liking or disliking. As with most things, there are exceptions of course… which leads me to what prompted me to ramble on about this subject…

One Death Metal act that I have liked ever since I listened to them for the first time is the band Death (yup, for those not in the know — that is the name of the band). Sadly enough, these dudes are not around anymore, other than in the record collections of their fans, since the singer, guitarist and general backbone of the band passed away a few years back.

A song that perfectly highlights what I mean by death metal, as a genre, actually not being devoid from substance or meaning is the song ‘Spiritual Healing’ from the album of the same name. The lyrics rather perfectly pinpoints some of my feelings towards religion in general.