Pay to die, you sick motherfuckers

If pressed to select a single figure to represent the very essence of the metal underground, one would be incredibly foolish not to immediately grant the title to Paul Speckmann. Speckmann is, for all intents and purposes, the unsung godfather of death metal: a figure exalted to the highest level of genius by a tragically narrow few and condemned to obscurity by most in the shadow of less-deserving figures like Chuck Schuldiner. Speckmann, however, gives precisely zero fucks about the travesty that is his obscurity, as evidenced by his words of indifference regarding the greater success of other early death metal bands such as Death or Possessed. He's in it purely for the music and has been incessantly toiling in the underground for nearly three decades. He's metal all the way down; and the fact of the matter is that his contributions to the genre are of insurmountable importance due in no small part to his succinct, acerbic treatments of grand subjects that, in a fashion very similar to masters (pun intended) of the aphorism like Nietzsche or Shakespeare, express 20 pages of discourse in a phrase or two. Perhaps the most brilliant of his offerings of this sort comes in the form of "Pay to Die".

The song itself is a testament to the immense musical and philosophical potency of this genre. In seven words, Speckmann delivers a multi-faceted message of vitriol when he summarizes the absurdity of modern life with the profoundly simple proclamation: "pay to be born; pay to die". In his own words, from an interview with Jeff Tandy, Speckmann recounts the origin of the song:

"The song was about my father. He was always giving me hell and dragging me to church, and I was arguing with him over the years. Then he got sick and died, and obviously we had to pay to bury him, you know – “pay to die”! The words in the song speak for themselves – you pay to be born, you pay to die. It was real life for me at that time, and it hit really hard."

Jeff replies that the song itself seems to sum up American (read: modern) life, a suggestion to which Paul agrees. It is precisely this concise summary of life that makes it universally appealing. By and large, we live in a world dictated by monetary and utility values. Bouts with impassioned existential anxiety and theorizing on matters of abstraction, that is, activities that comprise the very essence of what it should mean to live a human life, are roadblocks in the modern zeitgeist that "Pay to Die" describes in which life is catalyzed, fueled, and eventually ended by petty material means. The venomous seven-word mantra simultaneously functions as a clarion call to action and a more general lamentation of the dreadful state of affairs in the modern world: a dual-edged blade that makes the song as viscerally moving as any piece of music I can think of.

In observing the development of the song itself from its various incarnations in Death Strike, Master, and eventually Speckmann Project, one can very nearly construct a well-informed history of death metal as a style unto its own. The song's debut on Death Strike's Fuckin' Death, released in January 1985, is best viewed as a microcosm of the formative years of extreme metal when the amorphous styles death metal, black metal, grindcore, and the like were simply a hazy amalgamation of similar influences from both metal and punk such as Venom, Slayer, and Discharge. Speckmann himself even notes that during the early years of Master/Death Strike, the term "death metal" wasn't in popular usage: they simply played "metal". An important feature to note of the earliest incarnation of "Pay to Die" is the eminent importance that the punk tendencies of Discharge play in driving the song. The drum beat is one of complete uniformity, and Speckmann's destructive vocals pay little heed to the inherent rhythm of the song as much as they do exist as an exclusively separate element of the song in their own right.

Move to the version we find on Master's self-titled 1990 album. There are a number of new things brought to the table with this performance of the song, each of which can be traced back to a predominantly greater "metal" orientation than the one found on Fuckin' Death or Master's 1985 rehearsal tape. The song begins with a percussive series of ascending and descending power-chord tones before bursting into the song's main "melodic" line at a slightly more fluid and urgent tempo. The subtle introduction of the second bass-drum in the verse, as well as the inclusion of abrupt fills indicate a movement away from the strict uniformity that defines earlier versions of the song. This movement away from the nascent form of death metal that the 1985 version epitomizes reaches its pinnacle in the version found on the 1992 Speckmann Project album, where the song is filtered through 7 years of fervent stylistic progression by means of the aforementioned movement away from structural and percussive uniformity. Simply put, the song is not only colossal on a philosophical level; it is also a standing monument to death metal as a whole.

The last nuance of the song I'd like to touch upon is the line bellowed at the end of the versions found on Master's self-titled album and the Speckmann Project album wherein Speckmann delivers the impassioned declaration: "pay to die, you sick motherfuckers". In this we find yet another dual meaning that only adds to the legacy of this masterpiece. Quite literally, we can take the term sick in a medical sense, with the line functioning as a juxtaposition of the loss of something as intangible as life with the utterly tangible notion of the modern world's fixation on material ends. The other interpretation logically follows where we may also take the term "sick" to indicate a moribund psychological state; as if Speckmann is diagnosing anyone that falls under the umbrella of defective mind-states the song describes. 

(note: the last video is actually of the version found on the Speckmann Project album).

Mayhem in 1986

Sparse fragments of this video have been on the web for some time now, in compromised quality, but this is the finest and most comprehensive version of it I've seen. To keep it short: this video is rich with metal history and should be viewed by everyone.

My neat observation: Look at how closely Euronymous's corpsepaint resembles that of King Diamond's in contrast to the styles he would adapt alongside fellow death fiends only a few years later. It would be interesting to see a visual delineation of the corpsepaint members of Mayhem used in parallel with commentary on their gradual progression toward (arguably) the archetypal second-wave black metal band.

In Defense of Modern "Old School" Death Metal

An increasingly predominant movement in modern metal comes in the form of death metal that very closely resembles canonical groups such as Incantation, Asphyx, Entombed, and the like in both sound and essence. I've noted that as the number of such bands that bear the dubious descriptor "new old-school death metal" has risen over the past few years, so has the number of detractors that decry the movement as nothing more than a futile retreading of worn musical ground. As an ardent fan of many bands that are routinely dismissed amidst a sea of insubstantial mimes, I feel it necessary to discuss why a great deal of the aforementioned detractors' arguments against the movement rest on precarious footing; and this may be succinctly demonstrated by means of three main points, each of which will be briefly expounded below:

i.) The importance of sonic tradition and reverence for previous masters of the style has always been of eminent significance in the metal craft, and failure to comprehend the stylistically conservative bent that is embedded in metal's history leads to inherently warped views of the bands in question.

ii.) Many bands with rich, fertile musical offerings are summarily and inaccurately assessed as "clones" for reasons that I feel may mostly be attributed to a combination of latent bias against the movement coupled with lazy listening habits.

iii.) Very similar to i.): The artificial construction of an "old-school" epoch in contrast with a post-golden era epoch is a categorical fiction that sits on shaky ground. The development of death metal must be looked at as a continuous, ever-changing lineal process as opposed to the common discrete demarcation of "old-school" and "new-school".

Though it can be said of a number of styles of music, metal is especially notorious for producing bands that morph a general fanbase into a divisive fervor; one is hard-pressed to rattle off a litany of groups that have procured nigh-universal praise. However, such groups do exist, and these classic acts have formed the basis of much subsequent metal on the obvious sonic level; but they have also played an integral role in establishing the extra-musical notions of "poseurdom" that is so omnipresent in the subculture. In a process very similar yet paradoxically antithetical to monotheistic traditions, certain artistic entities such as Celtic Frost, Bathory, Venom, Slayer, and in a more universal sense, Black Sabbath, are sacrosanct; and failure to adhere to their doctrines has traditionally resulted in being cast aside as a "poseur" without exception (the metal equivalent of a heretic/apostate). For me, the sheer sight of the word "Bathory" invokes a visceral yet immensely intricate physiological reaction that encapsulates everything I love about this style of music, and I know I'm far from the only one who feels this way.

What this demonstrates is that the unquestionable reverence for such canonical acts has played a significant role in the development of metal thus far. To rebuke bands like Dead Congregation purely for their use of the same general musical palette as Incantation and Immolation is to commit an act of complete absurdity. The truth is that stylistic development is a perpetual process in any style of any given medium of art; and given the quasi-divine status of the preeminent bands listed above, it's only sensible that we get the movement of death metal that exists in the state it does today.

Failure to acknowledge the content above most certainly plays a role in engendering the sort of attitude that fuels my second point of contention. The criticism of bands I have in mind comes in the general form "Newer Band X sounds like Older Band Y, rendering Newer Band X insignificant", and the problem with this is twofold. On one hand, it's a reinforcement of the dreadful evaluative process adopted by many that simply consists of a binary comparison from one band to another based on surfaces aesthetics, which is intimately related to the second problem wherein the aforementioned assessments are often found to be fatally hasty and inaccurate. Take the case of Vasaeleth, a band I've seen dismissed as a vapid Incantation clone by a number of people. This diagnosis is inaccurate for a number of reasons, two of which deal with the band's approach to song structure and lyrical composition. A structural triumph that is on display a number of times on their debut album, Crypt Born and Tethered to Ruin, is the form that songs like "Wrathful Deities", "Figures of Chained Spirits", and the colossal "Gateways to the Cemetery of Being" utilize wherein an introductory section is succeeded by a section that acts as the classical "theme" of each song as it is reintroduced and manipulated in various contexts throughout the duration of each respective track. This structural convention logically endows the lyrics with a sense of ebb and flow, which is best portrayed in the aforementioned "Gateways to the Cemetery of Being": A song that embodies the chaotic essence of a sacrificial ritual with its abrupt musical changes and staccato-esque libretto.

Qualities such as those explicated above are essential in making Vasaeleth's debut the great work that it really is, and they simply cannot be gleaned from a cursory listen or two that allows the listener to absorb little beyond surface aesthetics. Vasaeleth is only one such case; I could offer equally valid cases for other bands like Grave Miasma and their fittingly miasmic approach to composition that often hints at Demoncy, Dead Congregation's unique mastery of the relationship between music and lyric to, Impetuous Ritual's uncanny ability to create an organic, seamlessly flowing work of art that very much is a ritual unto itself, and many others.

A rather nebulous tendency when looking at the history of metal from its origins to the present day is to bifurcate the developmental process of death metal into two eras of pre-1994/5 and post-1994/5, which is surely where this notion of an "old school" comes from. Now, I can sympathize with this tendency, as I will acknowledge a sort of "golden era" that ended around the release of Morbid Angel's Domination: A work that can retrospectively be seen as a sort of death knell for a once fertile musical style. However, the said bifurcation comes with its dangers; dangers that motivate this entire post. The fact of the matter is that death metal continued to flourish, albeit perhaps with longer intervals of silence, with classic, and most importantly, innovative, works by Immolation, Gorguts, The Chasm, Deeds of Flesh, and many others sporadically appearing from 1996 up until the middle of the new millennium; around the time this modern "old school" death metal movement began to take off with the release of Repugnant's Epitome of Darkness in 2006 (this seems as good an album as any to mark as the arbitrary beginning of this arbitrary "movement"). The corollary of this is self-evident and evinces the central claim of iii.).

Don't get me wrong, there certainly are a number of disposable clones in the modern death metal sphere. However, many groups such as those mentioned above are unfairly lumped in with the dime-a-dozen bands that are rightfully ignored. I only ask that the reader reflect upon what I have written above and consider such points when approaching post-9/11 death metal offerings.  

"Blood on stone and shell. Fragments of dead flesh lay torn in corresponding pattern in parallel to demonic being. Plagues cast on life forms. Fumes of putrid spirit
To bless what comes with the horizon with devotion to the coming death. Wretched curses on dead flesh. The cleansing of stone and shell."

Outset

This blog exists as a vehicle to publicly exhibit any thoughts regarding metal music that I wish to make public. The focus is simple: (somewhat) critical analysis of heavy metal that happens to creep in my head at any given time. Any further word would be superfluous; just read the damn posts and the essence of the blog will be clear.