Writing about metal is a lot like covering sports. Dozens of releases drop week after week like games stack up during a season. Just like sports writers try to find ways to make a touchdown pass sound like a major event, it’s tough to find a novel description for the umpteenth grindcore or black metal album. So the same words and phrases show up again and again. Trust me, I’ve used them all.
Here are the worst offenders:
1. Brutal
This word should henceforth be banned from any discussion of metal. It’s been so overused that it has ceased to mean anything. The last time this sounded cool was when The Misfits released Legacy of Brutality.
2. (Enter genre) and add a y
Metal writers need ways to say something doesn’t sound like Motörhead. The answer is employing phrases like doomy, bluesy, proggy, stoner-y, Bathory-y, etc.
3. Epic
Denotes a song that is longer than five minutes. Used most often with bands that dress up like extras on the Jack Black movie Year One.
4. Blackened
Best describes what should be done to a catfish fillet. Instead, usually describes a band that has a passing interest in Emperor.
5. Melodic
You can’t have music without melody. This word is nothing more than window dressing. Even the most primitive metal has melodic elements.
6. Majestic
Used with music that employs any other instruments than guitar, bass, and drums and often employs a female vocalist (see Leaves Eyes, After Forever, Nightwish).
7. Any adjective hinting at bodily harm
Metal specializes in songs about harming others, yourself, or religious icons. This extends to the listener’s ears. Hence, when writing about metal we get pummeling, bruising, scorching, pounding, wrenching, etc. Can also extend to phrases like artery-ripping and soul-decimating. Can a song really remove a body part?
8. Full-length
We can do away with this one. If it’s not a single or an EP, chances are it’s an album.
9. Fucking
Indicates that the writer is very excited.
10. Lots of adverbs
We don’t like to let musicians speak for themselves. Hence, we see things like “‘This is our greatest album’, Winger said triumphantly”. Chances are he considers it a triumph if he says it’s the best record.
This also extends to a general reluctance to use the word says. Very rarely do metal artists say anything. Instead they exclaim, state, declare, note, emphasize, and add. “‘I’m a kick ass guitarist’, Winger proclaimed”.
. . .
Now see how it all works together, using Venom’s At War With Satan as an example.
At War With Satan — Rating: Nine Bloody Axe-Hewn Heads
At War With Satan isn’t as brutal as Welcome To Hell, and it lacks the blackened punk aesthetic of their earlier albums. But the band’s third full-length still berates and pummels the listener with often majestic sweeps and an epic track. The melodic introductory riff appears throughout the lengthy eponymous song, but Venom isn’t afraid to slow down to doomy interludes. “This may be our finest album”, Cronos says boastfully. “And it shows we aren’t just a joke”, he exclaims. Fucking-a, is he right. This soul-decimating album will make you shit your drawers.
Your turn. Any other words you’d like to remove from the metal lexicon?
Related posts:
Killswitch Engage,As I Lay Dying, Dragonforce, Avenged Sevenfold
Guilty of all ten.
Fuck yeah. \m/
#9 is never a problem for me. Not sure what you’re getting at there.
Oh, wait, ummm…
I’d like to see ‘dissonant’ used less often not because dissonance doesn’t occur in extreme music but because I get the feeling writers don’t know what a consonance is to begin with. It also doesn’t say anything about the music itself, if its evocative, if it goes somewhere. Igor Stravinsky made some extremely harrowing music that uses mostly consonant intervals and Sergei Rachmaninoff made a lot of beautiful, meditative music that uses dissonant ones. What does the reader gain from reading that a piece of music is dissonant?
Most guilty in reviews of metalcore where guitarists move a finger off from the powerchord to form a tritone and go ‘whoa! let’s make five records using this!’
Also I dislike ‘caustic’, ‘chugga-chugga’, mentions of double-bass prowess.
So no speaking about melodic death at all? Seems legit in that case to me. I also find blackened to be a decent shorthand way of explaining a style. If a writer calls something blackened death or blackened thrash, I feel like I have a better understanding of what to expect from a sound.
I’d vote for any suffix that follows the words “Pink Floyd”: “-esque,” “-ian,” etc. Their ubiquity is now on the level of Black Sabbath’s, so drawing comparisons these days is like calling something “heavy.” It gives me little impression of what the music sounds like, other than that there may be a melody in there somewhere.
A lot of times writers/critics use the word “melodic” when they really mean “catchy.” It’s very possible to have music without melody; it certainly isn’t what defines music.
Ultimately, though, my biggest peeve (and this extends to non-metal spheres) is “trials and tribulations,” which is usually a clear indication that a writer’s ability never progressed beyond 9th grade. Are we talking about music or the Lewis and Clark expedition?
I would be really bummed if metal writers gave up the bodily-harm descriptors, actually. They’re usually the most entertaining part of a review.
Anyone else read the lolspeak review of belus doing the rounds, wasnt really an improvement.
Interesting that you used “decimating” in your fake review. That word gets on my nerves. It means “reduce by 10%”. When you think about it, leaving 90% of what you’re attacking doesn’t seem very br00tal.
I vote that Helm does a weekly column on technical analysis. I relish the days he gets involved in the commenting. Do you write anywhere else, Helm?
And, as for my thoughts on this posting, since TRUE (trve) originality is exceedingly rare, I think descriptors like “Slayer-esque soloing” are efficient, accurate, and effective ways to capture a sound on paper for a reader who’s never heard a band before. I can imagine what that would sound like and better determine whether to seek that music out. Br00tal (especially with the “00s”) can go, though. What does it mean? Heavy? What does that mean? Downtuned? But what if it technically isn’t? Because of its ambiguity, it is meaningless. That is unless you use it to the contrary, describing something as surprisingly lacking in brutality (unbrutal? non-brutal?). IMO, it is assumed to be “brutal” unless otherwise stated.
[PS: I note that my dismissal of the "00" variant of brutal may seem in conflict with the "v" instead of "u" substitution I utilized (vtilized?) previously (that's actually a 'v'), but I think the "v/u" swap IS kvlt and awesome... so, I'm a hypocrite. Sve me.]
Technical death metal, symphonic black metal, and deathcore, in my honest opinion, are the worst genres to write about.
Very good. At the same time those are so useful and telling and perfectly easy to catch by the average metal fan. They don’t say much in the large context, but they all say so much.
I dislike seeing reviewers talk about how some band’s “departure” from the more orthodox traditions of whatever genre is “bound to piss off the purists”, when it’s clear from the coverage (or lack thereof) in said magazine/website that they’re not really paying attention to that genre to begin with. see: Nachtmystium, WITTR, Xasthur, Fucked Up. I’m not taking pot shots at these bands mind you, just an aspect of the press they receive from certain quarters. nit picking really…
The single most annoying word I hate to see in a review is “cheesy”. Not a fan of “dated” either.
You left out “unleashed”, “run riot”, “complex”, “renowned”, “hellish”, “gore-soaked”, “war”, “murderous”, “ambitious”, “blasphemous”, “demonic”, “truly”, “literally”, “evil”, “wicked”, “lethal”, “price of admission”, “the balls”, “goosebumps”, “savage”, “Benjamin Disraeli”, “podiatric”, “Bermuda Triangle”, “of”, “Tabasco”, “whither”, “wither”, “with her”, “zither”, “else”, “cum loudly”, “sabbatherial”, “Niebelungileedle-dum”, “potato-raping”, “all new”, “pure play”, “leveraged”, “intimate”, “sartorical”, “lipless”, “sub-two-minute atmospheric opener”, “battle-spatula”, “fine milled endpapers”, “limited time only”, “mercury poisoning”, “red-shift” and “hesher”.
Most Overrated Tag in Metal: “Return to Form”
“Whisky-fueled”
We might need to write part two …
@Helm, when you mentioned double bass prowess you got me thinking about Derek Smalls manning his massive weapon during “Big Bottom.” No doubt this is an evil, wicked performance worth the price of admission and a return to form for Spinal Tap…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzsWuqNlLK4
Tap also included the best album review, ever. Two words — shit sandwich.
TomB, thanks for your interest. I used to write for a Greek e-zine on the subject of HM but they imploded. Now I post my comics at http://asides-bsides.blogspot.com and write about them, music, bits about philosophy, heavy metal and my cats. You can read the metal-relevant bits by filtering by the tag ‘Heavy Metal’ but try reading the ZX comic I’ve been making for almost a year now from its beginning, you might like it.
I’d have a second blog for the metal pieces because I’m getting the itch to write more but honestly, I don’t have the time to maintain two of them. I’ll always be here in the IO commentspace though, or at least until Cosmo kicks me out
With Satan as my witness, I will shank the next motherfucker who uses “Thinking Man’s Metal.”
I think that this article is a little silly. I don’t go reading metal reviews expecting to be blown away by the variance of their vocabulary. No matter how descriptive a review, you still have to listen to know what a band sounds like. The article just points you in the right direction. Don’t tell me that “brutal” or “doom-y” have no useful connotations, especially in a certain context. You wouldn’t call the new Shrinebuilder brutal, but you could call it doom-y. You wouldn’t call Wormrot doom-y, but you could call them brutal. But “brutal” and “doom-y” together would work for, say, November’s Doom or a similar band.
This post totally slays and/or shreds!
Henceforth should be banned the word “heavy”. No-one can seem to agree on what it actually means and most stuff that this word is used to describe isn’t usually remotely it. This includes any derivative such as heavy-assed, fuck-heavy and my favorite “crushingly heavy” (what, as opposed to floatingly heavy?). There are simply hundreds of other words, phrases and metaphors one can employ to illustrate what you are trying to describe, get some imagination!
Any descriptions pertaining to an extreme vocalist’s performance. “Cookie monster vocals,” “puking one’s breakfast,” etc.
I can’t help but to think of sports announcers. Sometimes when I read a review, I read it to myself in the voice of John Madden or someone else. “He literally ripped his head off!”
Hysterical list Cosmo.
Piece was written by Justin M. Norton
OK, OK – so those are all the lousy words. What should we use instead? Hybrid words like “metalocalyptic” or “bleedospherous” – help!
We can do away with this one. If it’s not a single or an EP, chances are it’s an album.
Reign in Blood.
See, sometimes it’s useful.
Isorski, all these words are fine imo, just not to be overused. If you see them in all the reviews someone writes, it’s possible they don’t know what they’re doing or why.
I never cared for “epic,” especially in everyday use.
As an amateur metal journalist, I’m glad to know I do not abuse most of the things stated in the article. I still have my shortcomings, though.
The problem is partly because writers confuse normative (value judgment) with positive (description) language. Genres are unfortunate things, but a side benefit of them is descriptive ease. I’m not going to the thesaurus for “bluesy”.
“Floatingly heavy” would be awesome, actually. I saw a Wolves in the Throne Room show that was like that. Some modern drum ‘n’ bass is, too.
“Decimate” originally meant to remove a tenth, but that usage is now archaic. Now it means to remove a lot.
I like “cheesy” and “dated” music and feel no qualms about describing them as such. “Cheesy” is a wonderful word for which I need not reference a thesaurus.
“Thinking man’s metal” does need to go.
“Shred”, however, is staying with me until the bitter end.
I think the problem isn’t necessarily the overuse of words. The redundancy of terms is a symptom of the redundancy of bands. We do all know what “brutal”, “shreddy”, or “majestic” means in a metal review. If nothing else, these words serve the purpose of brevity. However, in this day and age, there are so many bands around that they have to end up sounding like each other eventually, so the words used to describe them end up being used thousands of times.
I agree with the overuse of the word “fucking”. A writer should be able to express his enthusiasm without resorting to profanity. I’ll readily admit I’ve done it a handful of times for effect in the past, but it’s something I try to avoid nine times out of ten.
“Hails from…”
A metal band never “comes from” a place. They ALWAYS “hail from” a place.
“Flourishes”
When some kind of embellishment is added to a musical trope it’s almost always called a flourish. Please! No more flourishes!!!
“ear piercing”.
I think you mean ear DRUM piercing. Wait. You really mean that music made it possible for you to wear earrings?
“beat into submission”.
I expect any heavy metal band to treat me like the gimp. I imagine that’s why David Vincent listens to brutal music: http://www.deanguitars.com/content/endorsees/evild/evil3.jpg -or- maybe that’s why he makes brutal music…
“Literally”
Whenever someone uses the word literally incorrectly, they usually mean to say, “utterly”.
Not exactly metal, but the word “ROCKSTAR” really needs to die. I’ve noticed in the last few years that this word has been greatly abused and misappropriated. Most especially if it’s used in non rock music related words by normal people, ie; “SALES ROCKSTAR”, “ROCKSTAR CHEF”, “ROCKSTAR RETAIL MANAGER”, etc. Oftentimes, people who abuse this word don’t even know what being a rockstar really means.
Hahahahaha guilty as charged. But I totally notice this too.
I will be sure to use all ten of these in my next review. Maybe I can even use them all in once sentence.
Fucking brutal onslaught of blackened melodies in an epic, nearly majestic six song full-length that will adverb you to bodily harm in that Band-y way that only Band seems to pull off successfully these days.
Floatingly Heavy = Xerxes!
the only one i’m not guilty of using is “majestic” but, that might soon change.
“Post”
Get rid of it.
Post-Dillinger, post-hardcore, post-shoegaze, post-rock.
Anyone who uses these words should be beaten with, well, a post!
heres one: made me (insert adjective for ejaculation here)
i dont really want to know what music makes you cum prematurely, nor do i need to know that it happens every time you listen to music *cough* Metalsucks*cough*
Let’s not forget that music journalism was there to give us an idea if an album was good or not. Most journalists these days forget to let their personal taste and opinions on the side and be a little objective about the albums they review. They have no idea that if they hate an album by band X because they think their guitar player is an idiot, a hundred of kids reading the review might think band X album isn’t good and shouldn’t be considered. When you have the possibility to make or break a band to the people you should consider the responsability given to you and write accordingly.
I write hundreds of reviews of Metal and other genres for KZSU and I’m guilty of most of these cliches. It’s hard to get around at times. Epic I use in the most literal sense – that is, something that’s has a ’story-like’ feel to it going from one point to the other. It works for Moonsorrow, later-era Bathory and things they influenced like Hunter’s Moon.
Agreed 100% with Carm’s take on Rockstar. That needs to die in fire. I’ve even seen “Rockstar receptionist” – so they want you to take calls, make copies and do a bunch of blow with groupies? Kick-ass is extremely overused and rarely employed in the proper context.
Also: “simalcrum” and “mimetic parsing” the latter I read in an article on the Poltiics of Black Metal but still it’s just one of those pointless phrases.
What’s wrong with ‘mimetic parsing’, at least it sounds like a human being came up with that, unlike ‘die in a fire’ which was given birth to by the Internet or something. It’s easy to scoff at unwieldy expressions like ‘mimetic parsing’ but there’s occasions where they capture what the writer is trying to capture better than other words I think. Have you considered that adopting phrases like ‘die in a fire’ from the internet is having a secondary effect besides helping you communicate with like-mindeds in like-minded speak? Perhaps these clichιs (much like the ones discussed in the original post) are a shortcut to communal expression, like some sort of shield from the writer that doesn’t feel comfortable exposing themselves. When the writing seems to be composed of ‘public domain’ phrases, then there isn’t much of a writer there, right?
Sorry to grasp at something small to get to something big, I’m not trying to offend you. Just saying, I think it’s better to rail against cliches in journalism than against slightly misused big words.
Reduce usage of “GRIM” in Black Metal reviewage.
Bring in: peremptory, astringent, acerbic, jejune, stentorian.
I’m also guilty of dropping the word “legendary” … thinking it’s best reserved for maybe a handful of bands, including Black Sabbath.
I don’t normally post to blogs but I enjoyed this post so keep up the good work. -cheers-
@Eric Syre
Well, even objectivity is subjective, y’know. Information about anything cannot but be filtered through the writer’s ideas and tastes. So, when reviewing a record, a writer will obviously resort to “objective” facts (instrumental prowess, compositional skills, execution, production, etc), but he will also provide his own views about what he listens to (like or dislike it, finds it original or copying something else, y’know, the works…) and it lies on the writer’s capability to convey meaning and on the reader’s comprehensive skills to come up with the conclusion whether the record at hand is worthy buying or not…
Having – and using – a working vocabulary in “metal reviews” does not bode well for the writer. Trust me.
I’d also like to add, “transcends” (as in: “Filosofem has a me-against-the-world, fist-pumping quality that ‘transcends’ the xenophobic bog of Vikernes’ beliefs.”) to this list of annoying everyman argot.
I really enjoyed this post and all of the thought-provoking comments — and so I decided to write about them here: http://www.nocleansinging.com/2010/03/23/cringing-the-vocabulary-of-metal-criticism/
I think words like “death metal” “black metal” “guitar leads” “double bass” “solo” “band” “thrash” “harsh vocals” “clean vocals” “atmospheric” “drum beats” “lyrics” “symphonic” “rythmn” “beat” “melody” “chorus” and many others need to go.
… oh and the word “the” and “metal” and “music” “riff” and “verse” should take a hike too.
I’m sorry I’m trolling like an asshole. I just find some of these suggestions and comments to be rather stupid.
Not all music uses melody, listen to Giacinto Scelsi’s quattro pezzi su una nota sola.
And if I could remove a single word from the metal review canon, it’d be neoclasscial. It’s almost exclusively misused: Contrary to common belief harmonic minor noodling does not constitute clasical influence.