Soundtrack To Your Annihilation V: Epilogue (Community Edition)
Weirdness. Darkness. Brutality. Difficulty. Such was the mantra of the series Soundtrack To Your Annihilation. We set out to uncover records from metal’s vast spectrum and beyond it, to showcase these albums and discuss them with our community. In its brief run, the series covered death metal, hideous sludge, “weirdo” metal, black metal, and power electronics.
This series was inspired by and assisted by the community at the Toilet Ov Hell. In what was initially planned as a ten article run (“Edward, ten articles is too many”), the series was reduced to a planned six articles. Placing difficult listens early on moved the series along even faster. Why do we do it? Why do we crave aural destruction, or music with a devastatingly dark and bleak outlook? Why do we worship at the altar of dissonant, otherworldly skronk, blvck fvkkin metul, and power electronixxx? Metal fans are amongst the most dedicated fans to their chosen genre, and can be the pickiest when it comes to what is accepted and what isn’t.
While producing each installment, I repeatedly fielded questions like, “Edward, how come you didn’t cover my favorite grindcore band? Where were the slower than a black hole screeching doom bands? How come you didn’t revisit The Vomit Arsonist, or do a career analysis breakdown of Merzbow”? Frankly, every article on the Toilet Ov Void should feature The Vomit Arsonist. Personally, I love reading about music, studying it, and learning about it, almost as much as I enjoy listening to it. In writing Soundtrack To Your Annihilation I learned a great deal about the bands I covered; in discussing albums from the series, and albums related to its trajectory, I discovered our community has a taste for the bizarre and profane, too. It’s possible another contributor to this site will pick up the mantle of this series, blazing his or her own trail of darkness. In the meantime, I leave you with this epilogue. These are albums that didn’t make the cut from my end, from suggestions of my co-conspirator, or, most importantly, albums that were mentioned by our community during the series run.
COAL ROLL: Is demilich going to be the next in this series? Plz
The Satan Ov Hell: Stalaggh, yeah!
Howard Dean: I actually only own Guiltless, and haven’t listened to it in awhile, but I remember enjoying it. I bought albums from Indian (1 album), Lord Mantis (1 album), and Coffinworm (2 albums) in order to find a sound similar to Dragged Into Sunlight (those three bands were all “similar artists” to DIS on metal-archives), and though I enjoyed them all, none of them captured the same sound and vibe as Dragged Into Sunlight. Still a little disappointed about that. (Writer’s note: damn it Howard Dean, <3)
Simon Phoenix: I really hope Wormphlegm is somehow in this series. Cause that band is just…yeesh.
Christian Molenaar recommended two artists to me which did not make the cut, both artists which I am very familiar with and would have loved to include. I believe these recommendations came as I was working on the third installment of black metal and would not have worked after Enbilulugugal in any possible way. I would have included Naked City’s Grand Guignol (their magnum opus), but I couldn’t find the whole album on the Tube of You and you guys already know how I feel about whole albums, regardless of if you listen to any of these damn things.
Edward: Two more artists I would have loved to include but did not for reasons including the short series run and progressive difficulty, Krallice and Behold… The Arctopus. Opinions may vary, but I found Behold… to be pretty intimidating the first time I heard them. You may not rank it anywhere as difficult as None So Vile. That’s why we have a comments section! I considered Krallice for the None More Black installment of this, but they didn’t have just the right feel for it.
Lastly, I wrote and “researched” this article while playing Merzbow’s Pulse Demon, a totally unrelated suggestion from my co-conspirator. #nowplaying #lolbuttz
From a “creative” standpoint, this series covered eleven different bands and noise musicians. It took many hours to research and write this series, and many more hours were spent listening to each band contained in it. The third article “None More Black“, and the second to last article, “Toilet Ov Power Electronixxx“, each had roughly 130 revisions before their completion; that is also a testament to my still somewhat painful process of writing. I exchanged hundreds of emails with our pal Christian. This series exceeded any kind of scope or vision I had originally imagined for it. Apparently people thought the articles were well written; some members of our community mentioned it was “their favorite series”, or that I had produced “one of the best articles on the Toilet”. This was often my motivation to continue through the daunting task of writing the series and listening to all the music involved.
So there you have it, my victory lap my first of many love letter to the Toilet. It might even give you something to do for a couple of hours. I hope you enjoyed reading Soundtrack To Your Annihilation as much as I enjoyed writing it and researching it. Keep on the lookout for another installment of None More Black, and anything else the powers that b [sic] grant me permission to work on.
Stay trve, stay Void, stay lifeloving, stay weird death forever, Toilet.
Thanks to Christian Molenaar for the assist in the conception, planning, and execution of this series, and for hooking me up with some edits on the opening paragraph.
Thanks to the community, for your warm reception and feedback.
Photo via
