Unfettered, death metal's adamantine skeleton of communication-for-its-own-sake, that ethic of riotous expediency, appears on the stage without trappings or costume changes of any kind. We, as the heirs of this massive tradition, must remain open to these high points of the music we love, or we lose completely the entire impetus for the genre's once-strong ethics in the overwhelming barrage of homogenous oversaturation - true originality and emotional impact in the music is lost beneath the genre's own obvious self-destructiveness.įor a band like Nokturnel, however, headed by Tom Stevens (formerly of Incantation, for a time, and other bands), and in this incarnation featuring Tophetarath of the impressive USBM group Fog (and also Dark Horizon Records) on drums, these ideas, these pure motivations and traditions of death metal run strong and clear. if only because they were 'perfected' some time ago, and have been passed down to us as a secret communiqué, as bits and pieces on separate albums, open and virtuous moments in different bands' careers. Without a single concession, these bands look to the past in determining their own stylistic vagaries or moments of strength, and it is because of this concentration that I can suggest that there are certain elements of the genre that are simply 'classic' - as in motives, methods, and deliberate concentrations in creative construction that are timeless, permanent, eternally valid. ![]() ![]() even now, there are still bands in this genre worth listening to, and with the scene's resurrection more and more are arising from silence. The utterly bizarre status of the matter is that. To deny feeling this paradigm shift is to admit one has completely lost contact with the movement's swaying all together. only because with the turning of the millennium there has been a turning within the death scene, within the framework of the entire zeitgeist - what is seen (or thought) to be allowable, what is worth pursuing in death's own aesthetics. So, after ten years now of black metal's dominance (yes, it really has been that long), what has come down to us through the hazy filters of hindsight when we turn our minds back to death metal? Who will be remembered? And even more important - is the genre still valid, does it have anything to say? Anything left in terms of ammunition, the ability of its aesthetics to impress, convince, or - at the very least - allow for music that does not collapse under its own weight of cliches? In the coming years, as I prune my music collection of all the dross and jetsam that has accumulated there due to failures in my own diligence, how will I decide what to flush and what to keep? Will it just be based on my own emotional reactions to the music? Memories, associations, nostalgia, or is there a code by which I can actually judge these things as being worthy of listening sessions in the future? I dwell on this. ![]() As anywhere else in life, those who shout the loudest have their voices heard. looking back, one is apt (and this is excusable) to confuse the two separate (but never equal) sides of the scene, as tunnel vision fixates on the strongest proponents of certain variations or fluctuations within death's aesthetics, not necessarily the originators of the same. ![]() Like any other form of music, death metal has seen a very small cadre or inner cabal of truly creative, original artists, and then the hosts or legions of imitators that covered them like a carpet of parasites. The fact that death metal, as a genre, style, reserve of creativity, and outlet of expression, had already been on the ropes long before the ascendancy of black metal (in the role of dark horse, a shadowy contender) never escaped my notice, and at the time when the faint rumblings were first beginning to be heard from the forests and fjords of Northern Europe as the ethic of extremity-for-its-own-sake began choking the life out of the death metal scene, I was already so jaded with death's limitations that I was ready to toss the entire genre all together - to consign it in my memory as something ventured with little or no gain. I'll be honest, I've greeted the resurgence and reawakening of the death metal scene lately with an instinct approaching dire suspicion even in the best of moments.
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