Given the extreme nature of Death Metal, it is no surprise that the lyrical content is equally extreme and often very offensive, disturbing, and disgusting to the average outsider. Most critics cite the lyrics of Death Metal music as their reason for condemning it. It is quite fascinating to note, however, that the lyrics in Death Metal are most frequently unintelligible, and many devoted Death Metal fans would be unable to recite the lyrics of even their favorite bands. Often, lyrics are poorly written (or even composed by foreign band members with little grasp of the language in which they write). For this reason, it is generally accepted that the lyrics in Death Metal (like album art and band photos) serve predominantly as a means for bands to promote an image that visually displays the aggression and extremity of their music.
Most of the lyrics within the Death Metal genre fall into the following general categorizations: gore/horror/porn; Satanism/occultism/anti-Christian; sociopolitical commentary; independence themes; and war/apocalypse themes.2 Each general category can contain numerous different sub-categories and interpretations of the same general subject matter. Within each category, it is important to distinguish the real messages from the fantastic, though it is sometimes impossible to draw a firm line between the two realms. In general we can conclude that the lyrics depicting gore and psychological horror do not represent reality. They are deeply removed into the realm of fantasy and, according to all of those interviewed, are not to be taken seriously. The hostile anti-religious or anti-political themes are more difficult to classify because they often reveal a muddled mixture of fantasy and reality. Most political, social, and personal statements are more overtly reflective of and responsive to reality. Similarly, lyrics about independence and unity often appeal to reality rather than fantasy.3
Occult themes were present in underground music long before the dawn of Death Metal. Mysticism and the occult accented the lyrics of major 1970s bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Witchfynde, Iron Maiden, and others. Among the first bands actually claiming to adhere to Satanism, Venom of Britain must be mentioned. The image and lyrics of the early 1980s band glorified Satan. It was so-called “Black Metal” music that prompted the development of genre titles such as Death Metal. The anti-religious themes embraced by Venom were adopted by the Venom fans who formed the bands Hellhammer/Celtic Frost and Possessed, both of which would impact the Death Metal genre tremendously.
Possessed focused on the traditional anti–Christian words and images of metal bands like Slayer, evoking pictures of hellfire and damnation. The band also incorporated music from the film The Exorcist into their debut album, an early example of Death Metal’s close association with the horror film genre. The lyrics of Possessed were extremely basic and simple, inverting Christian images without much creativity. Hellhammer, renamed Celtic Frost, utilized more elaborate and refined imagery to communicate visions of the occult. Although the Swiss band wrote in their non-native English, they managed to convey a tragic romantic sentiment in their mournful relations of ancient battles and apocalyptic tomorrows. Some Celtic Frost lyrics were inspired by the horror stories of H. P. Lovecraft, a 19th century author. Lovecraft spun fantastic tales of strange creatures, “Cthulu gods,” and physical manifestations of destructive concepts like chaos. The imagery and ideas of Lovecraft were incorporated into the lyrics of a number of Death Metal bands. The Celtic Frost song “Morbid Tales,” for instance, describes a post-nuclear world of humans worshipping the Cthulu Gods.
The Death Metal legend Morbid Angel has incorporated Lovecraft’s work into many of the band’s lyrics. Lovecraft’s book of spells, The Necronomicon, is quoted in the song “Lord of all Fevers and Plagues”: “Ninnghizhidda, open my eyes, Ninnghizhidda, hear my cries… I call forth the god Pazuzu, I call forth the lord of plague ... Ia Iak Sakkakh, Iak Sakkakth, Ia Shaxul, Ia Kingu, Ia Cthulu. Ia Azbul, Ia Azabua.” Morbid Angel combines such occult lyrics with traditional anti-religious and Satanic themes in blasphemous songs like “Damnation” and “Evil Spells.” Other important Death Metal bands, such as Massacre and Nile, incorporate Lovecraft’s work into their repertoires. Massacre songs that exemplify this phenomenon include “From Beyond,” Dawn of Eternity,” “Defeat Remain,” and “Symbolic Immortality.” Nile’s lyrics mix Lovecraft’s imagery with themes from Egyptian and Sumerian mythology. The song “Die Rache Krieg Lied der Assyriche,” written in the band’s early years, reads “Ia Mamtaru, Ia Lammia, Ia Asaku, Ia Pazuzu, Ia Zixul zi Azkak, Ia Gula zi Pazu.”
Bands more typically communicate fright and darkness through the use of standard anti-Christian images and themes, based far more in fantasy than in reality. Examples include Incantation’s song “Disciples of Blasphemous Reprisal” from “Diabolical Conquest” (1998): “Catholic degeneration, unholy desolation, perversions of the trinity, the sign of unholy victory, angels falling eternally, 666 blasphemy.” These lyrics generally just evoke sacrilegious imagery rather than purvey any concrete message or theme that directly relates to the world.
Often the mystical and frightening images of Satanism are replaced by more realistic attacks on Christianity as an institution and a means of mind control. Immolation has maintained an anti-organized-religion stance throughout the band’s career. Immolation’s lyrics express a deep distrust of Christianity as a philosophy of lies and fantasies designed to obtain power and control over the masses. In the song “No Jesus, No Beast,” the band chants “Can you hear us, Death to Jesus,” presenting God and Satan as fictional characters designed to suppress freedom and individualism. Immolation warns of the “second coming” in the song “Once Ordained”: “You will all be fooled, when he reveals himself. . . He’ll rise, We’ll fall, His rule, Our end.”
The lyrical style of Immolation may also be found in the work of Entombed, the Swedish creators of the album “Left Hand Path.” Entombed’s song “The Truth Beyond” mourns “People put to death in the name of God, And blood run red in eternal flood, The word has been spread throughout the centuries, Millions of corpses lying in the cemeteries, Reek of Christianity, Down of obscuration, The birth of insanity, And death to liberation ... Discover the lies; There is no resurrection, Get your eyes open wide, And discover the lies, See the truth beyond, The shadows of a Fool’s paradise.” The Swedish band Grave takes a similar stance in songs like “Christinsanity.” Many other Death Metal acts have used their lyrics to bitterly criticize the Church as a money-grabbing and politically manipulative organization. Dying Fetus’ “Praise the Lord (Opiate of the Masses),” Death’s “Spiritual Healing”, and Napalm Death’s “Suffer the Children” convey deep criticisms of Christianity.
Today, the forbearers of this lyrical style are Deicide and Morbid Angel. Deicide’s early material displays crude and simplistic Satanism. For example, the song “Trifixion” in the Deicide debut does little more than offer praise to the Devil and condemn God and Christ, with little mention of why. The band’s later lyrics are more complex and critical of Christianity. In the Deicide song “Blame It on God” from the 1997 album Serpents of the Light, lyricist Glen Benton presents his view of God as an uncaring father. Benton tears into God for allowing his own son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die. He compares the fate of Christ to that of all humans, condemned to struggle through painful lives in an unjust world without help from their creator. This anti-religious sentiment almost borders on social commentary, and is a good deal less fantastic than the standard fare in the genre.
Like Deicide, Morbid Angel has evolved in its anti-Christian lyrical stance. The band’s very early songs, like “Chapel of Ghouls” and “Bleed for the Devil,” simply spout blasphemy without much depth (or even sense): “Bleed for the Devil, Impious mortal lives, feel the enticing power, fill the chasm of your soul.” Gradually, the band’s lyrics would evolve and grow in sophistication. In the song “God of Emptiness” from the 1993 album “Covenant,” Morbid Angel professes anger towards a higher power: “Lies—and you fill their souls with all oppressions of this world. And all the glory you receive? So what makes you supreme? Lies.” In truth, these lyrics are not evil by any definition of the word, but they are certainly not accepting of traditional religious views and values. Today, the band’s lyrics are even more philosophical and thought-provoking. Current lyricist Trey Azagthoth has diagramed his personal ideology in the album “Formulas Fatal to the Flesh.” His stance is blasphemous and non-traditional, but hardly evil.
A few bands have attempted to present specific philosophies or describe themselves as members of an organized occult group, like the Order of Set or the Church of Satan. The latter organization was formed in the 1960s by Anton LeVey, whose socially Darwinian views have been used to justify fascism and racism. Bands such as Acheron and Angelcorpse are thought to have adopted lyrics rooted in these visions. Acheron’s lyricist was actually a “minister” in the Church of Satan. Angelcorpse has invoked fascist images in songs like “Solar Wills” and “Stormgods Unbound.” Both songs include descriptions of a powerful “sun wheel,” the English translation of the word “swastika.” “Solar Wills” declares “The stirrings of genocide unfurl, Commanding swine to the abattoir ... Four-armed comet scrapes the earth, Solar Wills,” while “Stormgods Unbound” describes “Proud-Iron youth, of the noble cultures of the past ... A volk of purity of vigor ... Sun wheels expansive, through thunder and blood bold, Weltmacht oder neidergang.”
Former members of major Death Metal bands like Morbid Angel and Malevolent Creation have also been suspected of racist and right-wing leanings. David Vincent, formerly of Morbid Angel, made suspected references to Hitler and has mentioned Frederich Nietzsche, Charles Manson, and others on his thanks list for the album Blessed Are the Sick. Malevolent Creation’s album Eternal caused much controversy due to usage of the word “nigger” in the concluding line of one song.4 Although the Death Metal audience as a whole generally avows strong disapproval of white supremacy and racism, many fans and bands in the Black Metal scene have embraced such themes. Such bands include Emperor/Zyklon-B, Mayhem, Burzum, and Absurd.
Throughout Death Metal’s history, the two lyrical themes that have dominated the genre are the aforementioned blasphemous tirades and pure gore. The pioneers of Death Metal gore lyrics were Death and Necrophagia. In the early years of Death, horror films inspired the band’s lyrics. Films like Cannibal Ferox, Gates of Hell, and Evil Dead gave birth to the Death songs “Torn to Pieces,” “Regurgitated Guts,” and “Evil Dead,” respectively. Lyricist Killjoy of Necrophagia was similarly inspired by horror films. The Necrophagia song “Ancient Slumber,” for instance, is based on the film Evil Dead. Bands Deicide and Repulsion would bring equally gory and horror-film-inspired lyrics to the Death Metal scene. Deicide’s “Dead By Dawn” song is based on Evil Dead II, while Repulsion songs showcase various sources of gore, death, disease, and mutilation in songs like “Radiation Sickness,” “Splattered Cadavers, “Festering Boils,” and “Bodily Dismemberment.” Such lyrical pioneers helped to bring extreme gore into the mainstream of Death Metal.
New-York band Mortician became famous for using horror-film samples and gore lyrics. The film Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired the covers of the albums Chainsaw Dismemberment and Hacked Up for Barbecue. Mortician embodies the most simplistic and primitive approach to gore lyrics. The band’s song “Stab” from the album Chainsaw Dismemberment (1999), best exemplifies the gratuitous scenes of violence presented in Mortician songs: “Psycho killers, endless slaughter, eviscerated, throats will be slit, cut, chopped, hacked, stabbed in the back, calls of terror, game of horror, fuck up, you die, gutted alive.”
Cannibal Corpse, most infamous for the lyrics written by former front-man Chris Barnes (who has been quoted in dismay by such powerful politicians as Bob Dole and John McCain), would explore psychological themes in its presentation of gory images. From the 1992 album Tomb of the Mutilated, the song “Necropedophile” offers Barnes’ speculation on the inner workings of the deranged mind driven to murder children and rape their dead bodies. Lyrics such as these not only touch on the physical effects of depravity, but contemplate the psychological state of a person suffering from this derangement. Cryptopsy, in the song “Phobophile” from the 1996 album None So Vile, presents an equally chilling interpretation of the mental state of a very sick human being: “Said amputee’s stumps are my way of saying ‘thank you for just being you.’ Its fear tastes better than its limbs. Terror of mortality I draw from the slowly dying damned.” These lyrics not only describe gruesome acts, but also offer speculation as to the feelings, drives, and desires that would motivate a person to commit such acts.
Some gory and violent lyrics describe the execution of disturbing vengeful and sexual fantasies. Hatred toward enemies or females has also been expressed in many lyrics. Such themes abound in the lyrics of Cannibal Corpse. Desires are indulged and anger explodes in songs like “Stripped, Raped, and Strangled,” “Fucked with a Knife,” “Pulverized,” and “Hammer-Smashed Face.” The lyrics of these songs contain terrifying lines describing morbid urges to slaughter and sexually exploit others, particularly the weak. Perhaps these songs are especially disturbing because they relate such tales of horror from the perspective of the perpetrator.
A significant variation on gore lyrics may be found in the work of bands inspired by Carcass. Carcass is known for introducing complicated medical terminology into the lyrical descriptions of gore and death. This style is typified by song titles like “Pyosisfied,” “Excoriating Abdominal Emanation,” and “Mucupurulence Excretor.” This elaborately putrid vocabulary runs throughout the band’s lyrics, as in the line “I rip open pectoral cavities to devour my still-steaming grub, Drinking adeps and effluence, smearing myself in congealing blood, I tear at sautéd crackling to guzzle on fetid swag, Butchered remains are carved and collected in a doggy-bag.” The acts of demented pathologists are described in songs like “Psychopathologist” and “Reek of Putrefaction.” In Carcass’s material, the dead human body becomes a theater for disgusting and perverse entertainment. There is a certain irony in the lyrics of bands like Carcass, for they describe absurdly revolting ideas in the most medically appropriate terminology. This result is something bizarrely comical.
Gore lyrics of other bands would become similarly humorous. Impetigo from Illinois adopted this less serious approach with songs like “Dis-organ-ized,” “Jane Fonda Sucks,” and “Teenage Bitch Death Mucus Monster from Hell.” Many of the band’s song and album titles were taken directly from B-grade horror films. Other bands would find humor in the gruesome acts of serial killers. Chicago band Macabre bases each song on the life or actions of a different serial killer, from the most infamous killers to more low profile psychopaths. “The Ted Bundy Song” lightheartedly relates “a story of Ted Bundy, murdered young girls, Monday through Sunday.” Perhaps the humor is more overt in the song “McDahmers” from the 2000 album Dahmer: “The ketchup was blood, the mustard was pus, inside the closet was pickled private parts.” We need not continue on to the description of the Chicken McNuggets.
Puns on words and bastardizations of sanctified songs and phrases often adorn the lyrics of gore bands, adding an extra layer of humor. Macabre has usurped tunes from folk favorites, like “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” and “She’ll Be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain When She Comes,” adding perverse lyrics in a display of utter irreverence. Impaled defiles the prayers “Hail Mary” and “Our Father” in the song “Fecal Rites”: “Holy anus full of shit, the corn is with me, Blessed be the copraphagious, messed be the fruit of thy feast ... Thy kingdom bung, Thy will be dung.”
As in low-budget gore films, misogyny is a common theme in the gore lyrics of many Death Metal bands. Pornographic gore lyrics are common in the work of bands like Cannibal Corpse, Gut, Dead, and Lividity. In fact, the members of the band Gut have elected to label themselves “Spermsoaked Consumers of Pussy Barbecue,” “Masturbators of 1,000 Splatter Whores,” and “Commander of the Anti-Whore Gestapo.” Gut’s songs, often intended to be humorous, are grossly misogynistic, boasting titles such as “Defaced Slut,” “Anal Sushi,” “She Died with Her Legs Spread,” “Dead Girls Don’t Say No,” and “Spermatic Suffocation.” Sarcastically exploring fetishism, lyricists find humor in concepts like “Raping the Elderly” by Blood Duster or “MS Rape-a-thon” by Undinism. Songs like Cannibal Corpse’s “Meathook Sodomy,” “I Come Blood,” “Fucked with a Knife,” “She Was Asking for it,” and “Addicted to Vaginal Skin,” as well as Lividity’s “Randomly Raped Rectum” and “Rectal Wench,” indicate that pornographic gore lyrics are prominent and recurrent elements in Death Metal.
Carnage is sometimes presented less graphically and more realistically by Death Metal bands exploring themes of war and apocalypse. Angelcorpse has created images of the apocalypse on the album Exterminate, and one will find apocalyptic song themes scattered through Mortician’s work, featuring song titles like “Extinction of Mankind,” “Mutilation of the Human Race,” “World Damnation,” and “Apocalyptic Devastation.” The English band Bolt Thrower has consistently embraced themes of war and the apocalypse, including lyrical descriptions of both mythical and actual battles. The lyrics that focus on war and apocalypse are significantly different from most gore lyrics in that they describe events, images, and even characters based in reality rather than fantasy. As evidenced in the humorous approaches of most gore bands, the lyrics are not to be taken seriously and the actions described are not endorsed.
Congressmen seem to believe that gore-oriented songs are serious and that those who listen to them are likely to take part in the vile behavior described within the songs. They do not discern the difference between fantasy and reality in these lyrics, yet most metal fans feel themselves capable of recognizing this distinction. One of the youngest pre-teenage survey participants took a moment to write in defense of his favorite music: “Death Metal just talks about crazy slaughter that you know never happens, but [it] is just making fun of it all. ...Death Metal fans don’t go out and slaughter people and eat them because Death Metal lyrics shouldn’t be taken seriously. They should be laughed at.” Nearly every interviewee agreed with this fan on the topic of Death Metal’s gore lyrics. Often Death Metal albums give the reader a taste of the purely outlandish and bizarre nature of gore lyrics, which are thrilling and chilling. Fans seem convinced that the actual scenes and activities depicted in such lyrics are not at all connected to reality, but politicians do not agree. It can be objectively stated that most of what is depicted in such lyrics does not occur in reality, and never has. In many instances, there is no purpose in trying to discern a meaningful theme beyond the violent, shocking, and aggressive nature of many of the gore lyrics in Death Metal.
Many of the musicians interviewed assert that the lyrics are not meant to have meaning, much less are they meant to be translated into reality or taken as an impetus to act on violent impulses. Matthew Harvey has suggested that, at most, gore lyrics represent a rejection of conventional aesthetic and sexual values. He believes that by inverting the normal and natural perception of what is attractive and what is repulsive, gore lyrics essentially provide the same opportunity for questioning accepted norms and mores as anti-religious themes. In short, they prompt a questioning of pre-prescribed notions of what people should and should not accept or do. There is still no literal relationship between the gore images and reality.
On the contrary, Death Metal bands with sociopolitical lyrics often describe reality and use their lyrics to offer critical, if not always prescriptive, commentary. Still, the lyrics are not always literal. Such bands often adopt a strange mixture of violent imagery and genuine sociopolitical commentary. Dying Fetus provides an apt example of lyrics that deliver a message about reality meshed with images of violence and expressions of hostility. Dying Fetus’ 1998 album Killing on Adrenaline demonstrates this lyrical phenomenon in the song “Procreate the Malformed”: “Corporation nations start the game, Persist exploit, rip-off, defame, Put one against the other till they’re dead, beat them, face down make them eat shit, burn the fucking global village down ... UN, IMF, they’re all the same, nations all enslaved ... A lack of total vision, it’s social amputation, they’re locked inside a world apart from reality.” Many find this particularly disturbing because of the presentation of real issues combined with the advocacy of violent reprisals. It is important to note, however, just how outlandish and unrealistic the actual descriptions of violence are. They utilize completely fantastic imagery: there is analogical symbolism rather than real advocacy of terrorism in a phrase like “burn the global village down.” Anger without direction is expressed toward corporations with words like “make them eat shit.” Who are “they”? In truth, for many listeners, these lyrics serve merely as a release for aggression and anger at the social order. This fact should not be mistaken for a total absence of meaningful and prescriptive sociopolitical messages in such lyrics. Inherent in even the most violent imagery, one may find messages that are both critical of the status quo and prescriptive.5
In contrast to the light-hearted masochism of porn-gore bands, a serious criticism of sexism can be found in the deeply sarcastic lyrics of Napalm Death songs like “It’s a Man’s World”: “God give me strength, women suck my length. ...It’s a man’s world, so you’d better act like one. Cunt, born some more, to be big and strong like Daddy, drill them to perpetuate into the ultimate form of stupidity.” Napalm Death also criticizes sexism within the mainstream metal scene and the underground punk genre. According to the song “Cock-Rock Alienation,” “Capitalism, Racism, Sexism [are] the foundations of Cock-Rocking idealism.” “The Missing Link” mourns hypocrisy and misogyny: “Earnest words, calling for unity of the sexes, when she’s still the chick, or stupid bitch, ridiculed for showing an interest.” Napalm Death lyrics explore many other social issues, including corporate exploitation, racism, drug addiction, homophobia, and mindless conformity. “Multi-National Corporations” are criticized as the “genocide of the starving nations,” while racists are challenged to “look into yourself, you’ll find the real oppressor, to live a life of unchallenged hate, it’s yourself who’s the nigger.” The song “Aryanisms” captures much of Napalm Death’s philosophy stating the constructive truth that “harmony can only flourish with mutual regard.”
Many Death Metal bands have tackled social issues ranging from environmental concerns to social values to drug abuse. Obituary’s 1994 album World Demise expresses concern over the deterioration of the environment and continued pollution; the album is covered with images of oil-covered ducks, dead seals, and syringes lying on beaches. Environmental themes are rare, but the pain and hopelessness of drug addiction is a somewhat more common theme. The band Atrocity, for instance, created an anti-heroin concept album called Hallucinations in 1990. Social commentary has also adorned the lyric sheets of Death’s later albums. Anti-abortion messages may be found in songs like “Altering the Future,” and the problem of infants born with addictions is explored in “Living Monstrosity.”
The theme of embracing freedom and thinking for oneself became a prominent concept emphasized in Death lyrics. Death’s 1993 album Individual Thought Patterns contains songs like “The Philosopher” which criticize the blind acceptance of others’ theories and decry thought without originality. Death lyricist Chuck Schuldiner, recently deceased, used lyrics to present his personal reflections and philosophical analyses such as those in “Individual Thought Patterns.” Newer bands, like God Forbid, resuscitate such critical yet positive themes. The following lyrics are from God Forbid’s 1999 album Reject the Sickness: “Meaningless morals of a class unlike you, a struggle of embraced words which ring untrue ... weather the storm, go your own way, for freedom against the lies told to you ... regurgitation of old becoming new, corrupting the bowels of society, values plague for dominion, lower class bent on redemption.” It seems that where there is a legitimate critique of the social order, there is also some vague prescription for change or at least the plea for a new order.
The themes of individuality and freedom often emerge in lyrics with sociopolitical overtones. Even more often, individuality is endorsed in pleas to reject dominant religion and mainstream culture. Death Metal entails an irreverent rejection of cultural norms, and in any such rebellion, there lies an inherent call to individualism. Thus, themes of individuality and freedom are extremely common in Death Metal. Many of the lyrics are reminiscent of Enlightenment philosophers’ calls for an end to intellectual “tutelage,” as Immanuel Kant put it. The Monstrosity song “Slaves and Masters” from the 1996 album Millennium brings out the theme of individualism in an almost Humean criticism of organized religion: “Open your mind as it was the day you were born. Your religion is just a waste of time. Striving harder, ever harder, to please individual gods, they follow blindly, lives are wasted, slaves and masters of ourselves ... Unlock the mysteries of the soul. Drown in the essential knowledge that we’re all gods on our own.” Pat Robertson might not approve, but then again, such words got David Hume into some trouble, too. This does not detract from their meaning or value. Death criticizes blind adherence to the dictates of powerful forces on the Individual Thought Patterns album: “Like a drug it feeds the imagination of minds that go unanalyzed. Followers to the leaders of mass hypnotic corruption that live their lives only to criticize, Where is the invisible line that we must draw to create individual thought patterns?”
On this note, we conclude our summary of the sort of lyrics found in Death Metal music. The primary themes have been sketched out and their meanings have been touched upon. This brief description, however, has offered a glance at the lyrics themselves, which are not necessarily tied in with motivations for listening to Death Metal music. It cannot yet be said whether metal fans identify with the lyrics that are prevalent in the music that they listen to. Most importantly, it cannot be overemphasized that the material presented thus far has been but a description of the music, not of the fans themselves. The later analysis of the philosophy, behavior patterns, and attitudes of Death Metal fans will help to discern which themes in Death Metal music are truly embraced by the fans (if any), which themes are disregarded, and why we observe the patterns that we do.