Why do I love extreme metal?

Extreme metal…it would be an understatement to say that it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Even among die hard metal fans. Many, both inside and outside of the metal community, are easily put off by its brutality, barrage of sounds, lyrical content, brown notes and demonic vocals.

More often than not, the first reaction when I show my favourite extreme metal artists to others is one of “This is not music. How can you listen to this?”

And you know what?…that is a bloody good question.

Why do people love extreme metal, indeed?

Why do I get excited as a kid on Christmas morning when a band like Lorna Shore or Brand of Sacrifice drops yet another disgusting breakdown that would, in the ears of others, be exactly that…disgusting.

I have always been fascinated by why people like extreme metal genres. However, music means a different thing to different people, so I will not speak for others.

I have thought hard about it and I came up with three reasons why I like listening to extreme metal. So, here we go.

Extreme metal requires extreme talent and endurance.

Full disclosure: I was triggered to write this article when I watched my favourite YouTube metal reactioner, Tank the Tech, react to Brand of Sacrifice’s Exodus.

In that video, he briefly touches on the question why he loves extreme metal. To him, extreme metal is the closest thing to extreme sports. And I couldn’t agree more.

One of the reasons I love extreme metal genres like Deathcore (e.g. Lorna Shore and Brand of Sacrifice) and technical death metal (e.g. Obscura, Revocation and Spawn of Possession) is because I am in absolute awe of the musical abilities required to play this kind of music. To my mind and ear, the sheer talent of extreme metal artists is unparalleled in the metal industry.

Both instrumentalists and vocalists alike have honed their skills to perfection to be able to produce some absolute masterpieces.

It is not just the talent, though, that keeps me coming back for more. If you listen to some of the recent tracks of Lorna Shore, you very quickly ask yourself: how do they keep up with this kind of speed, technicality and vocal acrobacy for six, seven or even almost ten minutes straight!

Added to that, these artists are playing show after show, for weeks or even months on end, almost every single evening.

The endurance needed to pull that off is mind-blowing.

So yeah, extreme metal is the closest thing to extreme sports on the highest level of people’s musical abilities.

Therefore, I can forgive people if they tell me they can not handle these kind of extreme forms of music. To each his own, of course. Don’t expect much leniency from me, though, if one would try to tell me (extreme) metal doesn’t require any talent and anyone can do it.

Extreme metal is my personal, psychological exhaust pipe

Like for most people on this green earth, our lives are very stressful. Being grown up sometimes really suck, I am not going to lie about that. I work hard to provide for my family, there seem to be always bills to pay, raising kids is hard, the world is tearing apart at the seams, and so on.

Some people pick up boxing gloves, subscribe to yoga classes, bury themselves in horticulture or find other far more unholy ways to unwind and release that ever-pressing valve. All to avoid burn-outs or heart attacks somewhere down the road.

I turn to metal to get my fix. And extreme metal at that.

It is often hard to explain (and perhaps even harder to understand) why extreme music for me functions as a surrogate shot of heroine (assuming I would even know how heroine feels like…).

Extreme metal provides me with the opportunity to transfer all my stress, anger, worries and other negative emotions onto the brutality of the music.

In other words, extreme metal (and metal in general, I would say), is cathartic. Hell, the dictionary definition of “catharthic” is “providing psychological relief through the open expression of strong emotions!” If that isn’t metal in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.

Extreme metal can be emotional expression in its rawest form

Although the lyrical matter of extreme metal acts ranges from the fantastical to the heretical and everything in between, once in a while a band releases a record which is nothing less than a soul searching experience.

When given the chance, you will find that the brutality of the music can be in fact used as the ultimate way of expressing deep emotions, personal struggles, addictions, psychological pains and other deep rooted issues.

Names that spring to mind are Whitechapel (notably 2008’s The Valley and 2021’s masterpiece Kin) and Lorna Shore (their latest album, Pain Remains, is nothing short of a gorgeous psychological treatise).

I have always gravitated most to music that deals with the darker side of life. I love the melancholic, the Romantic, the minor key versus the major key, the brutality. As much as I love extreme music, I am a big admirer of the master of melancholy, Chopin, and I am a sucker for a weeping ballad.

More importantly, I love the effect this kind of music has on me. I am not afraid to admit that I am and have always been an emotional person, whose life choices are often made based on emotions rather than rationale. As a result, I need music to reflect the emotional setup of my own mind. I don’t just listen to music. I need to feel the music. If I don’t, I move on to something else very quickly.

It is therefore no surprise to me that I feel very comfortable with extreme metal, particularly those acts that touch on sensitive, emotional topics. The brutality functions as a conductor of raw emotion. This is music I feel very deeply.

I know it is hard for people outside of the metal community to understand that extreme music can cause goosebumps or even get us all choked up, but trust me when I tell you it surely can.

At the end of the day, metalheads are all a bunch of weepy, soft-hearted, cry-babies. Trust me. It all comes down to the emotions with us.

And there you have it.

Music means a different thing to different people. This is what extreme metal means to me.