Ode to a dying God: Debasement of Christian symbols in extreme metal

Abstract

That extreme metal has had a conflictual experience with religion is nothing new. However, extreme metal’s engagement with ‘God’ is much more complicated than mere mockery, disdain or satire. This article will explore, through a close analysis of Celtic Frost’s Monotheist, and Antediluvian’s Cervix of Hawaah and λόγος, the often sincere and thoughtful, yet critical, engagement with God and religion through a very particular voice that I see within the extreme metal ethos. This voice takes the form of deconstructing Christian mythology through the paradoxical aspects of the religious – where the aetiological aspects of a myth are undermined not by reasoned analysis but through the inverted repetition of biblical stories and mythology.