A Case for Weakling’s – Dead as Dreams (2000)

Article Contributed by Salustiano Ferdinand

tl;dr: Despite controversy surrounding the indie pedigree of Weakling’s musicians and their musical descendants, Dead as Dreams remains, as described by none other than Fenriz, an “odd masterpiece” on its musical merits and should be a part of any serious underground metal fan’s collection.  The album, for a number of reasons, is currently something of a locus of blame for whatever particular sins people ascribe to west coast black metal. Some people point to Weakling as the origin point of indie creep into US black metal due to the supposed indie credibility of its members in particular as well as to a lesser extent the trend of questionable publicity stunts engaged in by mediocre bands from Velvet Cocoon to Ghost Bath (although in Weakling’s case this should be blamed on the label, not the band). As a result of these complaints, Dead As Dreams has over time become something of an Emmanuel Goldstein for black metal fans, and the album some people are critiquing when they say “Dead as Dreams” (such as the time DMU’s most alpha editor described it as “shoegaze black metal”) bears little resemblance to the actual album Dead As Dreams.

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Thrift Store Alert! Judas Iscariot to Get the Re-Release Treatment



Of all of the bands and all of the musicians that have come out of retirement in attempt to cash in on their past, Judas Iscariot’s Akhenetan (Andrew Harris) has been one rare exception who has truly vanished into the depths of obscurity for good.  (more…)

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Dimmu Borgir – Eonian 2018

Dimmu Borgir are through and through, the most popular and most successful Norwegian metal band.  They are also #2 in bands that were at one point in their career black metal (falling just behind Cradle of Filth).  Since 1993, Shagrath and Silonez have clawed and breathed fire and went through dozens of musicians- some very well known- and marketed themselves as the “evil fantasy/RPG villian” better than any other band.  The brand, however obscure and seemingly non-conformist, resonated with millions as it’s two core musicians have turned their Hollywood Satanism gimmick into a big moneymaker for Nuclear Blast Records.
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Infamous “A Su Connottu, Oro Sa Lei De S’Antigoriu”

For centuries Italian engineers were valued throughout the western world for their skill in both destruction and construction. The great Imperial warlord Albrecht Wallenstein, who exhibited a keen eye for excellence, had Italian mercenaries in his army and Italian architects for his for his manors. With their relatively recent split release with German band Gorrenje, the Italian black metal band Infamous carry on this tradition of dual excellence.

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These Musicians May Be Executed When Sweden Institutes Sharia Law

Sweden is lost.

With an unstoppable invasion of Muslim migrants and a judicial system that refuses to prosecute their crimes, the nation’s progressive government leaders have definitively surrendered the future of Sweden into a Muslim majority.  It will only be a matter of time until a revolution occurs similar to that of Iran in 1979, when the country’s republic is overthrown and replaced by an Islamic theocracy and hijabs are forced on the women of Sweden.  It’s a reality that Swedes had better accept sooner than later as it has already happened to many other less willing nations within the last century.

Under Sharia law, there are harsh penalties for blasphemy, witchcraft, female indecency (exposing your body/not wearing a veil in public) and devil worship- ranging from a life in prison (with the press declaring you committed suicide) to public execution.  There will be no mercy shown for those who profaned/denied the image of God whether the act occurred during or after the new rule of law was instituted.  Therefore, any and all Swedish bands with such lyrical content will be quickly and efficiently strung up en masse when the new government arrives.

And if all this sounds crazy to you, just read the tale of Iranian metal band Confess and the horrors its musicians have been forced to endure.  After recording the lyrically harmless In Pursuit of Dreams (of which song titles include “Did You Get My Last Massage?” and “What Doesn’t Kill You Make You Exhausted!”), the band’s vocalist Nikan Kosravi were thrown into prison, forced in solitary confinement, and denied bail for almost a month.  The kid’s parents had to sell their houss and pay $30,000 for him to be released, and he faced the punishment of death by hanging for the crime of blasphemy.  He eventually hired a human trafficker to smuggle him out of the country to escape a 6 year prison sentence!

FYI Those are Saudi Arabian women being hanged, for all of you hijab-wearing feminists out there

But all the while brainless beta-cuck musicians existing in a Gothenburg liberal bubble like Tomas Lindberg of At the Gates will be decrying nationalism and populism as the horrifying bogyman that threatens their world.  They will cheer the eventual institution of Islamic government as “the end of a tyrannical Christian reign” and will not even notice the militants sneak up behind them until the bag is thrown over their heads.  Some of their fans will cry and throw tantrums and in retaliation be beaten in the streets, but they will ultimately do nothing as their Swedish death metal heroes are hanged by the neck right before their very eyes.

If you have ever played in a Swedish death or black metal band, you’d better get the hell out of the country before the day of Sharia comes (I’m giving it less than ten years).  And if you’re in a band on the below list, I am not kidding you: you are going to die!!!  To the rest of the world, prepare yourself, because it is likely only a matter of time before the musicians of following bands will likely be executed in front of a liberal metal world that was too dumb and too feminine to stand up to what is happening:

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The Most Popular Death Metal Bands- Who is #1?

Who is the most popular death metal band?

It’s one of those esoteric questions that wanders in and out of the mind without a quick Google search to offer a definite solution.  But today it dawned on me that if I don’t try to find an answer, it’s unlikely any one else will do a decent job at doing so.  And given the fact that deathmetal.org is the number one site that comes up when you Google “death metal news,” I believe we have a journalistic duty to present the world with this information.

Since where to draw the line on what’s “true” death metal or not is a matter of opinion moreso than concrete fact, I determined that anything labeled “death metal” would be fair game whether it truly was a pure death metal band or not.  Therefore I’d consider melodic death metal, black metal, and even deathcore in an effort to find who had conquered the greater sphere of death metal.

Unfortunately, the Nielsen record sale tracking data is not public and often does not identify how well an album has sold for many years after its release.  Thus, I determined that the most accurate metric for mining this data would be to measure by Facebook likes.  Yes, I know it’s not an exact science- many fans aren’t on Facebook, and many people click a band’s like button without really listening to them.  But still, it was as good as I would ever get to finding who the most popular band in the greater bounds of “death metal” truly was.

I expected to see the favorites of the 90’s metal press and MTVX dominate- Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Decide, Death, and probably In Flames take the number 1 spot.  Imagine my shock, that only one of these bands even cracked the top 5!  I had always heard about Morbid Angel and Deicide had the highest album sales, but it appears neither band has been able to conquer the internet age.

So again, this list was populated within very forgiving boundaries (bands loosely considered death metal, whether or not I believed them to be), and the best metric I could come up with.  Also, DO NOT FUCKING EVEN THINK OF CONFUSING THIS AS BEING A LIST OF THE BEST DEATH METAL- IT IS QUITE THE OPPOSITE!!!  And finally, if there are any bands you think I missed please let me know in the comments below and I will gladly do a live update and give you credit- maybe.

Without further ado, here is – for the first time in history – a list of the most popular bands that people considered to be death metal, and an explanation to why I would endure the immense visceral hatred for even considering them:

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Twilight of the Guitarist?

It is a harsh truth that all things in our finite world will end at some point or another.  I was fortunate enough to learn this lesson at young age, with friends moving out of state and death claiming some of those closest to me. But there are many who are not so lucky to experience the cruelty of life during their youth and are now struggling to adapt to the harsh political and cultural upheaval that is sweeping the world at large.

This failure mainly stems from a cultural and educational system that leads us to to believe none of the beloved things in our safe American bubble will ever see massive change and upheaval- that our world and lives probably won’t be much different than that of our parents and teachers. But already, we are witnessing the death of malls, the value of college degrees, major retail chains, cable television, Hollywood movies, mainstream media, atheism, and an the age of idealism.

And sadly for fans of rock and metal music, the final hour may be at hand for a beacon of our pride and culture: the guitar hero.  With the impending bankruptcy of Gibson and now the imminent bankruptcy of Guitar Center, it would be foolish for anyone to still proclaim the immortality of the “guitar god.” For all things of this world must one day end, and dare I must ask… could the twilight of the guitarist truly be at hand?

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Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology (2018)

When you have nothing of substance to fuel the creative urge necessary for musical catharsis, the artistically bankrupt are forced into invention. Here, the muse for this act is a fictional slug overlord that has somehow provided a modern metal band with enough tongue-in-cheek material to spew out four records so far, so at the very least you can’t accuse Slugdge of not sticking to their guns. Bad ideas however tend to foster quicker and more permanent results, and I’m failing to see the inspiration of this act yielding anything further than superficial amusement, so perhaps this is the perfect modern metal product seen from start to finish.

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Some Thoughts on Nature

I enjoy camping. Solitude. Enjoying primitive conditions. Witnessing the power and beauty of nature. It helps one keep a good Hessian frame of mind. I try to go as often as is possible and there is one location near me that I frequent rather often. After a bit of a drive over old logging roads through the hills I stop and pull my car off the side of the road and put on my pack and get my rifle at port arms. To get to my favoured camping area it is a 5 mile hike that for a short while follows an abandoned narrow-gauge railroad that some logging company built to expedite the extraction of resources from the area many years back. The place I like to set up camp is a tiny, elevated clearing in the pine trees next to a small creek from which I can get water. The area is a temperate rain forest of sorts, so there are 3-6 foot tall ferns everywhere, and in old-growth areas that have not fallen prey to logging, you can see the triple-canopy growth that is common to all rain forests. However, most of the forests around have been logged at some point so this sight is rare. I use a small shovel or a machete to clear out the ferns so I have a nice place to build a camp fire and an area to lay out my sleeping bag. The chopped down ferns double as a nice mattress.

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