Much of heavy metal is shrouded in dark mythos, some of which extend to reaching notoriety of the general public. I have tried to avoid some more cliche choices in order to show off groups that have given me chills in my spine since my earliest days of exploring the perverted realms of extreme metal. Here is just a small taste of the chaos held within this coveted, beloved, and despised genre.
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Autopsy
This revered OSDM collective acted as a spiritual continuation of Death’s ‘Scream Bloody Gore’ imagery and sound, furthering the short lived tenure of Chuck Shuldiner’s initial shock horror lyrical concepts. Autopsy had spawned into existence from the earliest incarnation of Death, adopting a slower approach more akin to Black Sabbath entwined with grindcore tendencies. While the likes of “Sacrificial Cunt” and ‘Regurgitated Guts’ had differentiated Death’s extremity from the thrash metal craze of the time, Chris Reifert crafted ideas far more sadistic.
The following are snippets from Autopsy’s 1995 effort “Shitfun” respectively, its really as raw as you can get in the genre’s early days!
PRAISE THE CHILDREN
Praise the children, with their toothless jaws
Satisfying my darkest thirst with their little fingers broken, snapped like twigs
Praise the children for they fill me with love, with their legs cut off
Crawling with crimson snail tracks, screaming all the way
FUCKDOG
You look at me like the dog you are
Your naked body all covered with scars
Out of the closet for an hour or two
For a urine bath and sadistic screw
Later albums never seemed to reach this same level of depravity, but their original primary works remain as a necessary template in the canon of early death metal songwriting.
Carcass
As death metal began to find identity in drawn depictions of gore, grindcore legends Carcass bestowed the emerging genre with a taste of morbid medical imagery lifted straight from college pathology textbooks. Early album lyrics were a far cry from the likes of their contemporaries Napalm Death and Morbid Angel, cultivating in sick masterful compositions with bizarre sadistic overtones and grotesque autopsy collages.
For up-and-coming extreme metal fans, cuts like “Embryonic Necropsy and Devourment” must’ve surely hit them by surprise…
“Flowing lochial discharge of copious womb lining torn
The mutilated still-born mangled by the whiplashing umbilical cord…
Mixing together post-natal juices, the dead infant used as stock
Slurping this horrendous concoction, eat the cervical slop…”
Carcass would continue to pursue surgically crafted heavy metal, innovating their own original genre of goregrind in addition to every subsequent genre they attempted. Imitators inspired by their early works however, would gloss over any resemblance of traditional metal composition completely.
Disgorge (Mexico)
With such masterpieces as Reek of Putrefaction and Symphonies of Sickness, Carcass had carved out a bloody path of grinding madness that they fortunately (or unfortunately) would abandon within only a handful of years. Out of any and all so-called “death metal” bands attempting to deliver something traumatic ignorant of all standards in the same vein, few were as effective as Disgorge.
The band’s entire discography is infested with indecipherable death metal and noisy goregrind instrumentation that somehow retains an element of structure, desperately held together by a loose string. Despite being pigeonheld to mostly a goregrind audience, Disgorge have differentiated themselves with their inhuman production values and vocal ability alongside shockingly progressive drum work. 2000’s ultra-violent showmanship of Forensick had been enough to convince George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher to lend his own vocal talents to the Carcass love letter of “Crevice Flux Warts”, leading to the group’s only moment of traditional heavy metal resemblance.
Disgorge’s most fearful moment may be the contrasting use of beautiful string arrangements ending the likes of their debut, Chronic Corpora Infest, which had been nothing short of an audio assault forty minutes prior. Mexico’s Disgorge remain as one the most traumatic in all of gore metal, an audible equivalent to psuedo-snuff mixtape footage.
Last Days Of Humanity
Possibly the most outwardly disgusting genre in the history of music itself is the coveted anomaly of gorenoise. The ultra infamous Last Days Of Humanity are most associated with the term, beginning as a concept to further noisecore away from any form of public accessibility. Examples of other originators include the audible torture of Anal Birth and Pathologist, who all collectively plagiarized Carcass’ use of graphic imagery tenfold. L.D.O.H exemplify tastelessness in the exact same vein, sampling some of the worst of what medical gore has had to offer. An average listening experience of just about anything in their discography consists of ugly vomitous grindcore straight from the dark web. No guitar riff or lyric is even close to discernible, no song is over two minutes, and no moment is left without a horror movie sample or pummeling blast best. It’s quite revolting, or humorous to some.
Senthil
The entire genre of depressive suicidal black metal would have a hard time reproducing the trauma induced from willingly engaging with Senthil’s output of relentless audio torture. What is present within works as unadulterated as Septemesis are sounds that escape the confines of guttural madness found in brutal death metal, and more closely resemble an attempt to completely destroy the vocal cords for no other reason but to illustrate severe mental distress. I would argue on my knees they’re more painful to listen to than anything conceived by the likes of Stallagh.
Kettle Cadaver
Acts of self mutilation on stage have found solace in extreme metal and hardcore punk, but none executed with such carelessness as Edwin Borsheim of alternative metal group Kettle Cadaver. Disillusioned by a lack of authenticity in heavy rock adjacent genres such as grunge and thrash, Edwin opted to intensify all conventions of controversial stage presence with severe self injury and infamous stunts rivaling the likes of Hanatarash. A glance at the obscure concert tape Among The Damned taps into just some of chaos the band would violently unleash, with brutal penile torture self- inflicted by Edwin not even five minutes in. The morbidity extended to acts of leaving multiple hooks, needles, and knives dangling from their skin, making performers like GG Allin and Dead seem like a complete saint.
It is very unfortunate that Borsheim had been partially influenced to pull off these acts to prove worth due to his stepdad, desiring to display only the most extreme realities possible. Kettle Cadaver never reached the same echelon as infamous shock groups of the time, slowly fading into obscurity until only recently being rediscovered by the public. The 2016 film ‘Dead Hands Dig Deep’ may have been partially responsible for this wider mainstream appeal, a documentary on Edwin and former band members reflecting on the group’s initial upbringing and history. Edwin would in turn commit suicide in the months following the documentary’s release, leaving a plethora of obscure music videos that reveal a clear passion for the macabre and amateur film-making. Despite existing mostly as a bizarre footnote in 1990’s alternative heavy metal, no band can truly say they reach the level of violence and fear unprecedented by Kettle Cadaver.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Utarm
It’s arguable Utarm are closer to an ambient group than anything in a traditional black/death metal category, but with more of a Throbbing Gristle-esque mentality to forward a truly disturbed soundscape of deafening anxiety. Vocals are delivered in a way more akin to primal scream therapy overtop layers of droning metal guitar, seen most vicious and prominently on releases “Apocryphal Stories” and “Panic Chamber”. Utarm have only recently come to the public eye more by a slight margin, thanks to a renowned interest in disturbing music by the underground metal community. There’s few groups that conjure up strong mental imagery of a psychiatric facility, but Utarm do so most vividly.
Ancient
Ancient hadn’t directly involved themselves in anything extremely violent, though their relation to a notorious Finnish murder case is enough to forever link the band to further infamy within the black metal crime canon. Brutal cannibalistic torture sessions had been carried out by the likes of a truly depraved Jarno Elg and handful of accomplices to an unknown young victim, all while repeatedly listening to Ancient’s second studio release, “The Cainian Chronicle”. Said victim had been duct taped, suffocated, and stabbed with scissors as part of a Satanic ritual in which all involved would subsequently receive lengthy prison sentences. Despite no relation the band on a literal level, the case of Jarno Elg had cast a level of uncanniness on their work that any so-called raw black metal band could only dream of achieving.
VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC
This is the only entry in which the name alone constitutes inclusion…Vaginal Penetration of an Amelus with a Musty Carrot. While goregrind as a whole plagues much of its song concepts with fetishistic love for the taboo, VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC represent the bottom of the barrel of the genre’s philosophy of regurgitated shock cliches, with members incomprehensibly dedicated to the craft. A music video had been created depicting associates of the band with a pedophile engaging in bizarre sexual acts. The track in which this video pertains to may be possibly the most repulsive title for any song even outside of metal that I’ve ever come across. How anyone willing decided to participate in the creation of the audio or video for this group is perplexing, listen to this group at your own risk.
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