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Can you show me some metal that shouldn’t be viewed with some self awareness that it is absurdist and over the top?
anti-war '80s thrash, Napalm Death and grind against inequality, Botanist, etc.
Napalm Death are an interesting one! I think there’s an interesting argument that when the punk political elements are added the songs become very serious, all the rage and screaming and death and skulls of metal suddenly gains a legitimate reason. Metal is absurd because none of that stuff really has a purpose, it’s just there to be metal because that’s what metal is, when the politics is thrown in suddenly all of that becomes legitimately dark. Where metal has no motive for the excess, punk on the other hand wears its motive quite openly. Combining the two definitely turns metal in a different direction to its usual roots.
I’m not sure about my thoughts on the usual anti-war metal, I can think of a few songs that fit this off the top of my head and you’re right that they’re hard to view as absurd in many ways. Soad does a bunch of this content and is both absurd and anti-war though.
I am just trying to understand you, examples help, I’m not really asking for “proof”, it’s not a debate it’s a conversation. This kind of thing is going to be quite generalised, we’re talking about feelings and emotions in art.
My general point is that when core parts of the identity of the entire genre are doing devil horns with your hands, screaming as loudly as possible and thrashing your head back and forth while applauding drink, drugs and DEATH to the excess… You have to accept that this is intentionally absurd, a push against the boundaries of normal.
Metal is an invitation to be excessive, and in that excess you find absurdity. I’m not saying that metal itself is all a parody, but that failing to understand that metal is at its very core an absurd and over-the-top invitation to scream and delight in death blood and chaos means a failure to understand metal. This is, at its core, ridiculous, and that is why it works when you combine it with the ridiculous.
This isn’t an attack against metal, I like metal, I have listened to a wide variety of different types of metal and very much enjoyed the metal and alt-clubs I used to regular at every weekend. I am just deconstructing why taking it too seriously like some of these people do is arguably a misunderstanding of what metal fundamentally is.
I mean I would argue that genres like post metal and other atmospheric metal genres tend to focus on more grounded suffering and communicating that through contrasting the beautiful and the harsh, thematically and aurally. It’s not exactly over the top and even tongue in cheek like you would get from power metal or some black metal (and plenty of other metal genres). I take it as seriously as I would any other piece from more self serious genres along the lines of, say, post punk.
Think of an album like Panopticon by ISIS. I have zero issue taking seriously the sound and themes presented on that album. Metal isn’t inherently devil horns and pentagrams, even if that aesthetic surrounds its origins and persists.
