Death Metal & An Alternative

Recently I’ve been listening to death metal, especially Cannibal Corpse. In my experimentation with this genre I have come to realize something: it’s very hard to sound incredibly loud, choatic, and aggressive with insanely violent lyrics without being laughably bad. A lot of bands just aren’t capable of meeting the standards set by the genre. I mean I came across this one band called Cattle Decapitation that has created songs like “Humanure,” “Pedeadstrians,” and “Carnal Fecophelia Due To Prolonged Exposure To Methane” with supposedly serious intent in mind. The lyrics are just dumb, the music sounds terrible, and the lead singer sounds like he’s belching out the words. Although their origins make me wonder about their intent. I know they were originally formed by two members of The Locust. That band was all about incredibly weird, nonsensical lyrics and song titles, such as “The Half-Eaten Sausage Would Like to See You in His Office.” They also had really wild and out of control songs. Although nowadays Cattle Decapitation doesn’t have any Locust members left over from their formative years.

Anyway, let’s get back to Cannibal Corpse, the band I mentioned at the beginning of my post. They’ve been pioneers in the death metal scene for over ten years now and I can see why. Their music is definitely chaotic but not so chaotic that it’s lacking in structure. It’s also really frickin’ heavy! And their lyrics are actually very well-written, even though I would rather not look at them most of time. When you read them, you don’t get the impression that they tried too hard to come across as being excessively violent and you don’t laugh because they’re just plain dumb, both of which happened when I read through Cattle Decapitation’s lyrics. Instead, they succeed in doing exactly what the band set out to do: evoking some of the most violent imagery imaginable. Not pleasant. Luckily, you can’t understand a thing the lead singer is screaming in the songs, so there’s no audible lyrics unless you’re reading along.

To summarize, Cannibal Corpse is at least tolerable and most other death metal is laughably bad, like Cattle Decapitation. I also don’t really think that death metal is for everyone. I started listening to it because I’m a hardcore music fan who likes everything. I guess hardcore heavy metal fans would like it as well. And those who have violent or aggressive personalities, but I think they should steer clear of death metal and start listening to classical music.