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Comment by twic | Hacker News Reader

Death metal is indeed very silly. What I'm not sure of is whether its fans don't realise it's silly, embrace the silliness, or have simply moved beyond such pathetic human dichotomies as serious and silly.

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Most fans are very aware of the silliness. There's kind of an arms-race nature to the genre to see who can come up with the most over-the-top lyrics and ambience. Perhaps the one non-silly element to it is the cathartic feeling of aggression and rage it tries to get across. Few styles of music are as tapped into that dark portion of the human psyche that revels in violence, forbidden feelings, and raw aggression. It's actually a very cathartic genre to listen to; most fans and bands are very relaxed and calm people otherwise.

On the latter point, what the Rebel Wizard had to say made a lot of sense to me:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjkx4b/rebel-wizard-heavy-me...

Sadly i did not enjoy his music in the least.

I’d say most of us do realize it. The whole trveness is IME more a blackmetal thing. Now the question if we embrace it or have moved beyond is more personal ;)

A fantastic example of a man / band that is embracing the silliness is Rainbowdragoneyes. He mixes death metal with chiptune and trash pop voice modulators but still produces very intricate and well designed albums, that tell engaging stories, like this one: https://rainbowdragoneyes.bandcamp.com/album/the-secret-mirr...

He'd fit in well at the Bangface Weekender I go to religiously, they've had both plenty of chiptunes artists and Napalm Death play there in the past :) https://www.bangface.com/

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