Heavy Metal Bands

"Ah, but there was more to Floridian death metal than pure savagery, and Nocturnus, from – where else? - Tampa, proved it with their daring and progressive style. First formed in 1987, Nocturnus were among the first death metal bands to incorporate keyboards into their sound, and their lyrical focus on science-fiction offered a refreshing alternative to death metal’s prevailing preoccupations with Satan and gore during those early years. Heck, even today, 1990’s ‘The Key’ remains an awesome achievement, well ahead of its time, and Nocturnus would deliver a second worthy LP in ‘92’s ‘Thresholds,’ before sadly losing steam and shutting down their space station for many a year."

"I always thought that the name of the band derived from the death of [Chuck's brother Frank]. And while the word had such painful memories, I did not object."

"Almost as depressing as the song themes is the regularity with which the members of Cannibal Corpse have been forced to explain that a) no, they don’t take their violent lyrics seriously, b) no, they don’t advise that anyone tries these things at home and c) no, they themselves are not violent or in any way generally extreme as human beings."

"Cannibal Corpse have so much gore in their songs that it's hard to think of any other band so hyper-focused on tales of people getting killed in gruesome ways."

"It worked out for me because I wasn't happy in that band ever since Bob Rusay left."

"The idea of a completely melody free, utterly brutal death metal band that specialize in the most stomach-churning lyrics and imagery ever seen in music -- going on to become million sellers and Hollywood movie stars -- is like something from an alternate universe."

"These guys are hands down, the undisputed kings of death metal."

"Cannibal Corpse is by and large the face of the death metal sub-genre, and they have been ever since they broke out into scene in the early ‘90s. [...] the band’s ferocious songwriting and often comically vile lyrics have lended them to becoming one of metal’s most notorious and celebrated bands."

"In junior high school I had discovered "music" and the power and exhiliration of a live performance. Shortly after reaching high school, I was playing in a band and by graduation time I had signed with a major recording label and were were on our way. In the course of eight years, we had put together three full-length albums and toured the United States, Europe, Mexico, and Canada several times and were featured in the movie "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.""

""Intestinal Crank," ' (2012) as quoted by"

""Severed Head Stoning," ' as quoted by"

""Hacksaw Decapitation," ' (1999) as quoted by Jon Wiederhorn of"

""I Cum Blood," ' (1992) as quoted by"

""Hammer Smashed Face," ' (1992) as quoted by"

""Fucked With a Knife," ' (1994) as quoted by"

""Starring Through the Eyes of the Dead," ' (1994)"

"More power to Bob [Rusay]. Once leaving the band, he pursued his other passion and made a career out of it. The rest of us could be so lucky."

"Arguably the ultimate progressive metal band of their day, Atheist's impossibly Byzantine death-jazz proved too advanced even for committed metalheads to stomach. Over the span of three albums admirably recorded in spite of crippling adversity, the band's inventive but inaccessible style has earned them a lasting respect, but likewise compromised their chances of attaining widespread success."

"What man creates Man will surely destroy The rule of thumb In the mouths of little boys Earth spins delight We kill everything in sight To serve the needs And all purple skies will bleed And a bird flies weak Against polluted skies Before it dies And nature becomes illegal According to rules Made by fools"

"Anyone doubting that Florida’s death metal community represented the absolute cutting edge of metallic invention during the early ‘90s need look no further than Sarasota natives, Atheist, whose experiments in jazz fusion – soon dubbed death-jazz – remain without peer, even today. Led by vocalist and guitarist Kelly Shaefer, Atheist began life as R.A.V.A.G.E. (Raging Atheists Vowing a Gory End) before making a head-spinning first impression with 1990’s ‘Piece of Time’ showcasing the incomparable bass skills of Roger Patterson (hailed by many as Cliff Burton’s heir apparent). But when Patterson was killed in a horrific van crash, the band recruited Tony Choy to give life to his bass lines on the group’s arguable masterpiece, ‘Unquestionable Presence.’"

"One of the main reasons Atheist ended up being such a strange band was we were trying so hard not to sound like anybody else that we went way overboard. We were outsiders within an outsider's scene so we made it doubly hard for ourselves."

"They say you have a lifetime to write your first album and this was the case with Piece of Time. We didn't our entire lifetime creating it, but we spent many hours in a very hot warehouse in South Florida making our best attempt to combine the finesse and technical execution that we heard in Rush, with the ferocity we heard in Slayer and Merciful Fate."

"I am my own self-ruler I need not any ministry I see our music scares you Can't you see that? There's no truth in modern religion A god we do not praise There's no truth in heaven or hell Or what lies in between There's no truth in a man-made Bible So who are they to say? There's no truth, we are our own god And that's the only way People living their lives By something never seen Dreaming all their lives Of a place they've never been Why can't you see you live a lie? Humor yourself until you die We're atheist as you can see We all control our own divinity There's no truth"

"The things we sing about in this band are incredibly brutal and negative -- we want everything in this band to be brutal and negative. Really. And that might sound strange to the average person, but it's what we want. You know, that's the way to make it effective death metal and to effectively capture the emotion we're going for. If you're gonna make music that sounds aggressive and hateful, then [obviously] the lyrics should also be aggressive and hateful. It makes complete sense to me. And if it's something that is about something negative, but it makes you feel good when you're done listening to it, and no one's been harmed by doing that, then there's nothing wrong with it at all. [...] I mean, we're not too surprised that people want to censor us, because most of the people who are in political offices [...] they were teenagers when Elvis was being censored for moving his hips around on Sullivan's Show. So people who grew up with that -- what are they going to think of a band that sings about eating people?"

"The band have evolved away from the blunt shock/splatter approach that they took in their earlier years. Nowadays the horrors that they write about are more streamlined and precise, the equivalent of graduating from whacking a person on the head with a stick to dissecting someone with a scalpel."

"We’ve really tried hard to make our songs serious horror songs. But the ones that have the more extreme gore in them, those lyrics sometimes make the audience realize there’s a bit of black humour to it, much in the way Evil Dead or Evil Dead II did. Those movies were meant to be frightening, for sure. But it takes some of the scare out of it because they were so over the top. None of our songs are written to be intentionally humourous or anything like that, but I think when you’re describing something that bloody considering the context: it’s coming from a band. It’s coming from a band and you’re enjoying the music and you’re reading the lyrics that’s describing something completely atrocious, you know, and people aren’t going to take it particularly seriously. [...] It’s strange, but if you edge off the gore a little, the song becomes more frightening. I would say Cannibal Corpse has a little bit of Evil Dead to it, but we have more serious horror songs too. Not that any of them were intentionally not serious. But when you edge the gore back a little bit and leave something to the listener’s imagination you can wind up with something scarier. That’s the same way with horror movies, I think. The movies that I found to be the most frightening weren’t particularly graphic, as far as violence goes. [...] There’s a number of dark, frightening movies that I really like and they aren’t that gory at all. Some of our songs are Evil Dead-like, but we have songs that are more like The Shining."

"I remember walking backstage in the early days and seeing the guys from Morbid Angel sitting around a chalice, cutting themselves and bleeding into the cup. I thought, That's fuckin' nuts. We played crazy music, but we didn't roll like that."

"Few albums struck a chord within the ears and minds of the late-'80s underground metal scene like Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness did at the end of the decade, setting a new precedent for metal bands to reach."

"For anyone who looks beyond the band’s Satanic image and bloodletting rituals, Morbid Angel were death metal masters. Their debut album, 1989’s Altars of Madness, raised the bar from a musician’s perspective and gave others in the scene a motivational punch in the teeth."

"Come to me, lord of filth Hear my cries, princes of nightmares Touch us with your morbid lips Let us taste your foulness."

"This album is dedicated to the underground and all , death, and black metal fans everywhere."

"[...] Morbid Angel's ' changed everything [about the Swedish scene]. Before that there was no clear distinction between death, speed, or thrash among regular metalheads. It was just brutal metal. But Altars of Madness opened people's eyes, and made us realize something new was going on. Everybody bought that record. Everybody. And thrash was executed by it – the whole genre just disappeared."

"Death had beaten Morbid Angel to the honor of releasing the first unadulterated death metal album, but Morbid Angel took the blueprint and built the damn house. The seminal ‘Altars of Madness’ came in 1989, marrying Trey Azagthoth’s jagged, earth-heaving riffs with Pete Sandoval’s unmatched double kicks and unhinged blast beats."

"Saxon was one of the early leaders of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, alongside Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, even outdistancing them at the onset."

"Blasting chunks of magma into the stratosphere A thousand scarlet sunsets the land, a sea of fear To the east of Java basking in the sea The sign of Krakatoa is rising from the deep"

"In the night, the seawinds are calling And the city is far far away Soon the sea turns to darkness It is night and the seawinds are calling Seawinds call, seawinds call"

"Through the years, the memories fade Forgotten now inside his grave The first in line, an empire lost in timeUntil a farmer breaks the seal The terracotta tomb revealed To rise again for all the world to see"

"Wood and steel, gilt and glass Everything was made first class Nothing spared, the finest in the worldWe see them now in picture books Built by you on Belfast docks The greatest ships the world has ever seen"

"If you wanna make a life playing in a rock and roll band You've got to take a chance and don't look back There ain't no easy way, you can't fake it You've got to be yourself, don't follow the pack When it seems you'll never get a break You've got to make a vow to keep the faith"

"Time will come - we'll have to pay An evil war will come some day I feel frosty atmosphere Don't you see that the point is near"

"They never thought we could make it but that was never the case We made a vow to each other that nothing could break Just stand your ground against the odds That’s what we have to do Together we can face the worst That life can throw at you"

"Defenders of the faith to you this vow we make When our backs against the wall we’ll not surrender You may be young or old there’s no difference at all Just raise your glasses high and sing our song"

"Mystic powers in your hand Take the blade and free the land Unite the kingdom from sea to sea Excalibur your destiny"

"Prepare yourself for anarchy soon the end will come Sit there and delude yourself there's nowhere left to run The seas will rise across the land and sweep us all away Everything is changing soon that's the price we pay"

"You called my name Deep in the coldest blackest night You saved my life I heard your voice deep in the night But in my nightmare I start to scream In my nightmare this is no dream"

"Did you see the signs has the time begun It was the seventh star of the seventh sun Round and round this circle turns The planets all align this is the time This is the hour we've waited for the sign"

"Resistance is futile There’s no where to hide We’ve run out of options We flow with the tide We wait for tomorrow To see if it comes Defences are pointless It’s inevitable"

"Can't you hear the laughter Of the devil in the night Children must be soldiers Have no fear and have to fight"

"We‘ll never surrender or give up the fight We‘ll take what we're given and never lose sight We‘ve all been to the edge and back We're leaving no one behind"

"I can‘t live I can‘t breath You got to give me what I need Can‘t go on can‘t survive I got to rock to stay alive"