by David McEric

The shamelessly slimy Metalsucks claim to have received an “open letter” from The Anti-NSBM Working Group, asking Hells Headbangers Records “to cease releasing and distributing Nazi propaganda,” a spurious claim at best, and a needlessly high-handed position against a family business with no ties to Nazism, racism, or any specific intolerance of any kind, past running a label and distro full of acts that advocate mass murder and devil worship like any good metal band should. The alleged group who wrote the letter doesn’t have much of an online identity, but Metalsucks does, and since they were the ones who posted this clickbait tripe in the first place, this open letter is directed at them.

Hey Dicks (aka Matt Goldberg and Ben Umanov),

I guess another month has gone by where your precious clickbait business isn’t reliably keeping you in ironic sweaters, so now, magically, you’ve got yet another axe to grind! It seems your embarrassing attempts to defame Destroyer 666 didn’t make you rethink your tactics, at least not until the dust had settled. Yes, I realize this is how you make your living, and that your business model is just another variation on moronic clickbait headlines, but now you’ve needlessly put another entity’s livelihood at risk to line your pockets. Regardless of the reasons why, that’s pretty sleazy. And hypocritical. And self-serving. I don’t think for a moment that anything I or anyone who agrees with this letter has to say would ever shame you or make you question your methods. If pride and honor mattered one iota, you wouldn’t gleefully slander bands and their labels, much less have a website called Metalsucks at all. No, you are clearly greedy and insincere pieces of shit, so instead of trying to talk you out of all that, I’d like you to promptly do the following:

• Shut the fuck up, immediately, about everything metal, from this day forward. Close down this abortion of a website and shove your opinions up your asses, or each others’ asses if you like. Most people in metal are more open-minded that you claim, and we respect your choices.
• Purge your brains of the idea that you have ever cared about this genre past what it could do for you. You don’t, you haven’t, and you won’t, so just surrender the pretense and at least reclaim a little dignity.
• Get real jobs. You managed to stretch this tenuous little cottage industry further than you ever imagined, but keep in mind it didn’t come from being a legitimate music journalism outlet, nor did it come from your pathetic bid to be a parody site in the interim. No, it came from muckraking, slander, and unwarranted attacks. That’s what they used to call, “yellow journalism”, boychiks, though since you generate no actual journalistic content, you get off on a technicality. Keep in mind that while this approach is serving you marginally well right now, Trump will probably not get a second term, everyone will forget about Charlottesville, and suddenly nobody will want to hear your gossipy bullshit. Your dot-com bubble will burst like one of the many zits on your backs, and then where will you be? I just want to see you guys land ok, ideally from about 40 stories up.
• Retract everything you ever said regarding the character, politics, or motivations of any band you’ve attacked on your site. Then apologize. Then kill yourselves. I would respect you both very much if you could find it in yourselves to seek this degree of redemption. I would attend your funerals and say nice things about you, albeit in a Nyogthaeblisz shirt, which is currently available at Hells Headbangers Records.

In conclusion, I don’t expect you’ll take a single directive, serious or facetious, from this letter, and I don’t care if you do. This is about discussing who you are, and why you are scum and enemies of metal. That reminds me, I have an additional request for anyone reading this:

• Do not click on any links attached to Metalsucks! This is how they make their money and justify their petty business model. Even if you want to know what they’re saying, just don’t do it. It’s nothing relevant or legitimate, and the only way to put these shitheads out of business is to boycott them, the same way we’d boycott any other business. It’s easy, just don’t click.

Thanks for reading, and if you are a false, please stop trying to entry, ok? Cheers.

Tags: ben umanov, blast beat network, carpetbaggers, matt goldberg, MetalSucks, poseurs, profiteers, russians