Illogical or meaningless sentences: This one certainly isn't unique to Death Metal English, but it's popular in the realm. Make whatever you're talking about sound really big and important.
Grandiloquent metaphor: This is death metal. Speaking of which: award more bonus points for each reference to any obscure or fictional non-Christian deity. Dave Vincent and Glen Benton are probably responsible for popularizing these tricks in a death metal context, but Nile raised them to an art form. Yoda-style unconventional sentences can achieve the same effect, as in "Civilized I shall not be / By the holy strain of laws" or "I know the texts divine" (both from Morbid Angel's "Brainstorm"). "Thou," "hast," "thine," and so forth are all great "unto" is my personal favorite. Bonus points for using constructions that evoke the King James Bible, which is ironically among the most metal texts in the English canon. Why say "The beast hath consumed him" when you could say "He hath been consumed by the beast"? Speaking of which -Īrchaic or pseudo-Biblical verbiage: If you write like you are some kind of ancient, ageless force who is unfamiliar with modern grammatical conventions, you are probably pretty evil. Plus, it highlights whatever weird power dynamic is going on in your lyrics. Passive voice is useful when you need to add more syllables to a line to make it fit the riff. Passive voice: Active verbs aren't brutal. "(Verb)ing the (noun)" is also a great default song title, as in "Cloning the Stillborn," "Infecting the Crypts," and "Christening the Afterbirth." Progressive tense: Especially useful for song titles. It also has parentheses, which are a less common but still valued component of Death Metal English. "(-ation word) of the (ominous word)" is perhaps the most brutal of all grammatical constructions, which is why "Procreation (of the Wicked)" is one of the best song titles ever. Prepositional phrases: Same is true here, too - the more prepositional phrases, the better. Is Wormed's "Multivectorial Reionization" a real thing? Who cares?Īdjectives: In Death Metal English, they're like guitar solos.
Double bonus points for words ending semi-inappropriately in "-ment," as in "Torn Into Enthrallment." These words don't even have to be real. Bonus points for Greco-Latinate words that end in "-ition," "-ation," "-ution," "-ous," "-ized," "-ism," "-ance," "-ial," "-ity," and variations thereon. Not all death metal bands write in Death Metal English notably, Chuck Schuldiner of Death did not, but his disciples in bands like Decrepit Birth do.īig, polysyllabic words: You don't have to use them correctly you just have to use them. Carcass helped to develop Death Metal English with the whole medical thing, and then started applying it to non-gore topics. Demilich took Death Metal English further into impenetrable weirdness than most bands before or since. Dismember get down with Death Metal English on occasion, but not always Mike Åkerfeldt plays it for laughs in Bloodbath.
It is most common in Anglophone countries, but it has traveled elsewhere too.
Exhumed use aspects of Death Metal English for brainier ends. Both American and Mexican Disgorges practice Death Metal English, albeit differently. Suffocation's song titles and lyrics might be the archetypal examples of purebred Death Metal English, though Nile's are up there too. Bands like Celtic Frost and Slayer gave us the roots of Death Metal English, just as they helped to build the foundations of the genre itself.
0 kommentar(er)
