An era comes to an end with our editor, Titus Pullo, leaving us to work elsewhere. Thanks to him, this site encountered new life, but he had taken it as far as he could and so now, it is time for yet another change.
Death Metal Underground felt the smile of fortune in its choice of editors not once but many times. Devamitra, Gabe Kagan, D.A.R.G., Daniel and others have done a great job helming the site and producing quality content which shows that underground metal is still relevant. We continue our goal of writing about the best in metal and asserting a Darwinistic elitism that pushes out the garbage which will reduce the genre to a lowest common denominator and thus usher it into failure, as happened in the late 1990s.
While many get black pilled about the future of metal, the more complex reality is that there is hope, and not just from older bands. A new generation is taking up the mantle from Generation X and making its own versions of classic metal styles that do not fall into the rock/punk hybrid format that record labels are just certain is the future. The underground continues breathing and fighting.
For us to take advantage of this, we have to broaden our horizons while doubling down on our quality standard. We can write about anything heavy, but we cannot do what every other zine and blog and magazine out there does, which is to adjust our quality to fit what is new or retro. That is the funderground mentality, and it leads to people praising three-chord droning blockhead music instead of seeking quality.
The future is bright. New staff will come on board; new writings will come out; there will be new ways for the average metalhead to assert the strength of this genre by buying the good and bashing down the bad. We need to do both: praise good, smash bad. And we need to bring in new people who are listening to other forms of heavy music, but are open to the really intense stuff if they are able to hear it.
And so, as 2018 dawns, this ancient and violent metal site rededicates it to a new iteration of its mission. This is not a new mission, but a new method of achieving the same mission we have always had. If you love metal, considering joining up by contacting us and volunteering. But as always, if you are a false do not entry!
Tags: dark legions archive, darwinistic elitism, death metal underground, fisting, generation x, heavy music, underground metal
Onwards to Calcutta…
Thank goodness the 2017 albums post got deleted. The mortal horizon is quite a good album and one of the few instances where a metal musician has been able to mess with the pulse (not playing with a click track 100% of the time).
To me, it is more interesting and inventive than SA’s full length: though it is a decent album I do not believe it to be what recent DMU posts have made it out to be. It aims high, but he does not have the musical tools, or maybe just the artistic sensitivity at his disposal to fully realize his vision. The motivic unity throughout the album is present in an obvious, blockheaded way, and for this reason it does not hold up to repeated listens. Perhaps it’s a lack of trust in himself as a composer, or a cynicism regarding his audience. And Justice for All is more tasteful and subtle in how it goes about this idea.
Kaeck, despite having Sammath’s songwriter aboard, seems to be a background for the vocalist.
Sammath’s last album is great; wish someone on here would recognize the war metal influence prensent in the drums and sense of space in general.
METAL NEEDS A GREAT PURGE. THE WEAK HAS BECOME THE NORM. CRUSH THE WEAK, HAIL THE STRONG!
“Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulants to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be. Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it— so high, indeed, that no fulfillment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world. (Precisely because of this power that hope has of making the suffering hold out, the Greeks regarded it as the evil of evils, as the most malign of evils; it remained behind at the source of all evil.)”
I trust only in “the hope of our hands.” Expecting the gods/God to bail us out is silly and weak. And we all know what happens to The Weak…
Is Devamitra ODB? Smashing the bad doesn’t happen enough outside of DMU, I’m glad someone’s doing it
No, that’s another guy. ODB posts under the pseudonym “William Pilgrim”.
ODB doesn’t bash anything on his blog, he just writes about what he enjoys.
The problem with this is that it tends to become an end in itself, especially as its easy to do: Any idiot with a hammer can »smash« something. And idiots with hammers are very fond of smashing good things, not bad ones, as the latter are harmless.
Sounds like it is time to simply smash idiots. Eugenics is never wrong.
It is a duality: good to the good, and bad to the bad.
Some claim we over-praise certain bands for simply attempting to be good and getting most of the way there. But it is a parallel and complementary motion to our smashing of the bad, including the popular bad like Opeth, Cannibal Corpse, Led Zzzzeppelin, Meshuggah, Pink Floyd, Watain, Elvis, Leviathan, Rush, Tiamat, The Beatles, Suck Chuldiner, Cradle of Filth, Lja!!!, Krallice, Conqueror, Deafheaven, Arntor, nu Morbid An(g)el, etc.
Devamitra is better than Maarat and Titus Pullo is just gay. Serpent Ascending is still shitty.
Those Kyle stories are also gay.
CEASE YOUR ATTACKS ON THE FUNDERGROUND SCENE. I TRIED REAL HARD TO LET MOM GIVE ME HER PAYPAL PASSWORD SO I CAN ORDER SO MANY HELL HEAD BANGORS T SHITS AND DIE HARD PAJAMA FROM CHIENSE MAN.
Order yourself some Conqueror and a tranny prostitute. War Metal!!!!!
you buy from chi-nee-zee man NOW ! You no go, no place, but go pay chinese man! Banzai! mukka hai ding ding ! Ming the Merciless is coming!
He can’t see how shitty his releases are because his eyeballs are sideways
An “era” comes to an end? Wasn’t Pullo just on here for like 4 months?