Kevin McCombs

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Edidin, Aron

Keywords

Death Metal, Cannibal Corpse, Violence, Aggression

Area of Concentration

Philosophy

Abstract

Death Metal is a musical genre which strives for a disturbing, aggressive aesthetic in order to depict graphic content. The genre succeeds in conveying graphic narratives by utilizing musical illustration in various ways. With special attention to textural and percussive elements of the music, Death Metal captures the sounds of events that occur in the program of the lyrics. This union of music and lyrics contributes to an aggressive aesthetic whole as violent actions are pictured by violent sounds. Additionally, the way in which Death Metal records are recorded and produced aims to capture a sound which is optimally heavy or extreme. The Death Metal band Cannibal Corpse stands as a paragon of these kinds of aggressive aesthetic values. Throughout their discography, Cannibal Corpse has featured powerful and violent compositions in order to convey narratives about butchery, torture, etc. A brief inventory of these narratives reveals complex and interesting compositional techniques at the heart of this morbid genre.

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