What if metal music was more than music? You would think not...

We all know about heavy metal or at least we all should, you know that the metal music genre started out in 1968 with Black Sabbath kicking it all off in the industrial city of Birmingham, not only did they kick off the heavy metal sound properly but coincidentally through their dark and gloomy lyrics they delivered Doom Metal.

How is it that such a powerful and monstrous music genre has been the most global sound with over 100 countries being represented by it and yet no one has looked in beyond the lyrics, ok so now you're going to say 'what do you mean by that, come one we sing to them and we already know what they mean you idiot!', question is do the lyrics understand you? Consider that a juxtapose to the original hidden question of whether we can actually decipher a song's lyrics to find it's true meaning and or can we actually learn from metal music?

Global Metal Apocalypse examines a couple of carefully selected metal bands across the globe of whose prominence in either the international scene, local or underground scene has exceeded their own expectations and ideally bands whose lyrics focus on a specific theme or set of themes and not just the human emotions; anyone can sing about happiness, sadness, anger and other emotions including hyper sexual activity aka orgasmic happiness.

So where do we start? Simple. England...

Eastern Front. An English Black Metal of whose sub-genre is dubbed 'War Torn Black Metal' specifically focuses their lyrics on exactly that, the Eastern Front in the Second World War. So consider them as a band teaching history that was never taught in your school, with songs like 'Unleash The Panzer Division' and 'Dvenadtzat Kilometrov Ot Moskvy' leading the front line, some have called this band NSBM and naturally they refute this claim, in fact GMA cannot work out how they are anything related to NSBM!. However, referring back to the educational note, catch one of their live sets and their theatrics set the stage remarkably through the use of search lights, barbed war and other props and make-up pertaining to the darkened times of the Eastern Front. Forward March!

https://www.facebook.com/EasternFront

Oh how the Finnish love their metal, they were practically born out of the womb with an instrument attached, it runs in their veins and so does the cold harsh winters. Sure Lordi may have nabbed Eurovision through their emphatic 'Hard Rock Hallelujah' but Wintersun capture the true feeling of the Finnish environment and climate through their spine-chilling mix of Power Metal-cross-Melodic Death Metal composition, so in retrospect of their lyrics what you can decipher is the feeling of being in a cold and bitter land and amusingly entering the brain of Jari Mäenpää as the lyrics also tend to expand into space and time, but retaining that distinctive icy feel to their music, Wintersun are not just a Finnish Metal band, they are the pioneers of the umbrella genre 'Winter Metal'.

Heading into Asia, you can't exactly blame ChthoniC for paying attention to bands being connected to their own country because as far as Taiwan's most successful metal export is concerned there is a message everyone should know, that being Taiwan has had a dark and disturbing past. For example take their album 'Mirror Of Retribution' and read the inset, it explains the terrible battles the Taiwanese folk were involved in against the Chinese of whom still lay claim to Taiwan and yet the rest of the world see Taiwan as an independent country (GMA steers clear of politics). But the fact being ChthoniC incorporate traditional Taiwanese music into the foundation of metal and through that they use the Er-hu, a Chinese violin (called the hiân-á in Taiwanese), so effectively distinguishing them as the masters of Oriental metal (a term that covers most bands in Asia and North Africa of whom utilize traditional instruments for a more oriental sound, this sound differs evidently as when you compare ChthoniC to the likes of Myrath, Orphand Land and Melechesh the sounds are totally different).

https://www.facebook.com/chthonictw?fref=ts