To: The Division

oh, and the term ZERO TOLERANCE is fast becoming a stance i would take for people who don't have a clue what they're talking about yet find it acceptable to preach their ill-informed whinges to whoever is around to listen simply because they like the sound of their own voice (or the strokes of their keyboards).

and sincerely, if you do come across the mag and you read it, i hope you enjoy it because that's what it's there for - just like the music it exists for.

To The Division,
I have just read the posts on this thread, and I have to tell you-you just got the forum equivilent of having your arse handed to you...on a plate.
I don't know who you are or anything about you; you may have felt to have good reason to say what you are saying though I think it is painfully obvious you have not been succinct in your eloqution.
I have no idea at this moment of what your ideal of music or a music magazine is-maybe I should really look at your site.
But, before I do that I just wanted to say to you that the extreme metal genre is fiercely proud of its own and will defend with that aformentioned ferocity and with pride and passion those who attack it and also with intelligence.
I would recommend you go check out a few labels and band websites go check out the zines and magazines-make some friends find out for yourself.
If you still feel the same way come back and please make your case and explain with considered opinions gained by experience. I would strongly suggest go to see some shows as well.
And you know I could make a list of bands for you -recommendation if you will.
And I bet you this thread could double its present size by the sheer volume of recommendations by all fans and you will find some band running across those recommendations get repeated-you could also find yourself bombarded with a myriad of bands you have never heard of-there are a world beyond perhaps more than you thought possible of them.
Just to give you an idea: a couple of years ago, there was a a couple of books published called the A-Z of Black Metal and the A-z Of death Metal I can't remember for the life of me, who wrote them and I am not sure of the Death Metal book, but the A-Z of Black Metal had some 2000 bands listed form around the world and its probably out of date now. And When I say from around the world, I mean it literally and not just in Western or former Eastern Bloc countries either. I am talking places like Malasyia and India and Thailand-who'd ever thought. But there is a common spirit amongst them all that identifies; that connects.
Yet still if you wish further proof each band has their own style; their own unique interpretation to add to extreme music, so while the root is from the same tree, if you will forgive the metaphor, the fruit each branch of that tree is as different as the next and yet paradoxically.
In [their] responses ZT said about allocating genres as a necessary evil but what happens as is happening in the underground of extreme metal where genres blend and merge where styles collide or are blended to create a new style, just two examples being Cephalic Carnage, or Aborym who combine industrial with Black Metal what happens when you have bands that blend classical influences awith avant garde jazz breakdowns with blast beats where ancient philosophies and modern day pummelling brutality blend to create sounds that come from imagination.
Sure there is a lot of bands who are similar but there are those who push imagination and the art of music and its visual interpretation to its limits on a regular basis. Yet all have a traceable history-something they were influenced by.
Speaking for myself I am going to be 38 at the end of this year htis music has helped me through difficult times it has strengthened me-when I was awya from my wife for 10 months on a different continent it helped. It also helps keep me feeling young. There is a world of possibilites at the edge of extreme music where the half life of a genre is short at being the cuttign edge, yet that is also forged by interpretation: as the saying goes "one man's meat is another man's posion".
The possiblities are limitless only held back by your own definition.
I think you owe those here an explanationof what is your definiton not by someone else's.
You cannot paint broad strokes of paint from the can of generalisation in such a haphazard way to the extreme metal genre it doesn't work-especially when you stand back and act as if you have said something important without really saying anything important at all.
I for one, find it offensive. I have worked damn hard on building my label and getting it started and have suffered much in the way of derision and persecution for my music and what it means to me in terms of culture and out look on life.
At t the end of the day though, it's all good I will keep going I will still putiing out quality releases ( or in my opinion what are quality releases).
Can I ask, what will you be doing?

I don't mind getting my arse handed to me. Beleive me, I just want to express my point and hear the response. I realise that others have differeing tastes and that judgements on taste are always subjective.
I am arguing MY point, what's true for ME.

But when I walk down the street and see groups of bored, threatening teenagers, when I hear about young people stabbing eachother, when I hear about attacks on gays by young people (killing in London yesterday), when I hear yet another perverted story of bullying at school, when I hear about young US tank crews killing iraqis to the strains of Coal Chamber, when I see that many young folk in the US LIKE the idea of war, I begin to wonder about culture.

Energy has to go somewhere. If culture is heathly, the energy goes into creativity and joy. If culture is decadent, it goes into depression and violence. today, despite being realively well off, we have depression and violence. It scares the crap out of me, and I feel so sorry for our younger people.

I LIKE "extreme" music - indeed I think it is VITALLY IMPORTANT, particularly NOW, but I feel that it has marginalised itself. At very important points in history it has proved very important. It is the only music powerful enough to batter down the walls of decadent culture.
Presley, Hendrix, The Sex Pistols, Nirvana.

In 1976 Johnny Rotten passionately felt that culture was decadent. Punk lead to an outburst of creative energy. Not just in rock.
These things go in cycles. What I see this time around is much more threatening - the decandence is deeper. The stranglehold that monetary values has on culture is stronger. The dissatisfaction is deeper, but its being held down, and the longer it is held down, the bigger, less creative the explosion will be.

I believe in work, beauty and humour. But I also understand the fascination of violence, war and death. I've listened to plenty of black metal, but for me (apart from a handful of tracks) it became a dead end, it ulimately does not satisfy the urge that makes me want to listen to music.
I beleive that when music is plugged in to the truth, it is better.
For me, extreme music should draw on the energy of war and violence to create catharsis, style, zest for life. But is is always walking on a knife edge, always flirting with death and violence. This is where the excitement come from.
If extreme music falls backwards into the unconscious it ends up being very formulaic, very boring, tedious - a racket.

What the current crisis speaks to me is UNCONSCIOUSNESS - of falling prey to dark forces. Did that young lad who plunged a knife into another pupil know what he was doing? I think not. Now the poor kid is in a cell, pondering and realising. When I listen to death metal, black metal etc, what I hear is the soundtrack to that dangerous force.
If there are black and death bands that are using thier skill and imagination to subvert this, then I want to listen to them, and I salute them. But usually I hear 1 of 2 things from these bands:
1. They hate humanity and welcome its destruction - hell, maybe they are right, bot god, I hope they are not.
2. They don't think about it - they are just playing according to the rules of the genre.

My ideal of an extreme band would be something like The Dead Kennedys:
- Catchy enough to get into the mainstream.
- Saying something true, with wit.
- as hard and threatening sonically as anyone.

I have read all the other replies and all I can say is - I hope I'm wrong and that everything is hunky dory.


LEE and LIZA, SadOLD MAN, KILLZONE, yes, I agree, everything you say is right - but do you see NO truth is what I'm saying?
btw - Don't assume Paul Morley doesn't know anything about extreme music. He writes plenty about noize in that book. But he thinks that rock is moribund - he actually thinks that pop is more subversive than rock at the moment - get that!

LIZA - I'd love to hear what the "extreme thing" for you is. I'm quite prepared to be proved wrong.