Shirt Stains: Death Or Something Like It
All the subgenres of the rainbow.
There’s so many subgenres now that it’s really hard to keep track of them. It feels like every other week a new name pops up from almost out of nowhere. Genres based on sound, lyrical content, themes, location, beliefs. It’s all a rich tapestry of words that don’t really mean anything. Some have merit while others sound completely made up. I’ll let you decide which ones fall into which categories. These shirts all fit somewhere under the Death Metal umbrella. Technical death metal, slamming death metal, brutal death metal. Lot’s of grrr grrr grrr death death death stuff. These shirts are the equivalent of eating different colored M & Ms: it’s all the same color in the end.
Chamber Of Malice – Don’t you mean “on”?
Chamber of Malice hail from Hof, Germany. According to their Facebook page, the band’s genre is, and I quote, “CRIME CITY SLAM.” You see why naming your own sub-sub-sub genre is ridiculous? Is Hof that crime-ridden and dangerous that it needs its own style of heavy metal? It seems pretty nice in photos. Maybe there’s a seedy Bavarian underbelly that we don’t know about. I guess “CRIME CITY SLAM” sounds better than, say, “IGNORANTCORE” because that’s what you get with this shirt.
The front of the shirt has an always-tasteful and not-at-all-repugnant photo of a woman being choked. The band proudly displays their difficult-to-read logo above this lovely display as if to say “Look, ma! We have our own shirt! Aren’t you proud?” We can’t see all of the bottom from this picture, but it looks like it says “BAVARIAN DEATH-SLAM.” What, no CRIME CITY SLAM?
The real crème de la crap of this shirt is the back. The IGNORANTCORE title really shows when you see it. “CHOKE IN YOUR OWN BLOOD.” In your own blood, not on your own blood. As if you have so much blood in your body that once it exits your mortal form, you will then drown in it, like falling into a thick vat of Ragu sauce. I like that BLOOD is in the bloody font. Really drives home the message. Of course the text is in ALL CAPS. Chamber of Malice only knows ALL CAPS. You should see them try to order a coffee. None are spared by their loud noises and utter brutality when they ask for soy milk.
Element -I still see a little black on there
Metal-Archives.com describes San Diego’s Element as “technical brutal death metal” with sci-fi lyrical themes. There’s no purple on this shirt, so I question the validity. Element is on a label called “Brutal Bands” which, while very simplistic, at least allows the average person to know exactly what they’re getting into. No cutesy names like “Nuclear Blast” or “Napalm” for these guys.
This long sleeve shirt (although from the picture, it might be a sweatshirt) is for the band’s 2007 album Aeons Past. The album art is perfectly fine, especially for a genre that has, of late, gotten a bit bogged down in hyper detail. You’ve seen one giant alien monster invasion, you’ve seen them all, right? The simplicity of the art is its strength. That’s all ruined by poor shirt design.
Do we need the album title on the bottom and one of the sleeves? No. No we do not. Do we need the label’s name on the other sleeve. No. No we do not. Presumably, the artwork isn’t so stretched out in real life that it pushes the band’s logo and album title to margins. The back has the band’s photo which you can take or leave, depending on personal preference. Beneath the photo is a few lines, possibly lyrics They’re so tiny in the picture that we need the label to tell us below the shirt. “Advancing from the vast expanse, One consciousness crossing the void.” Ooooookie dokie. Sure. Why not? Now I know why the shrugging emoticon exists.
Thirteen Bled Promises – Orbcrotchalopolis
Spain’s Thirteen Bled Promises recently played Resurrection Fest and were enjoyed by our very own MoshOff. Their brand of brutal deathcore is a good break from the generic chuggity chugs from their lesser counterparts. I’m not sure what to make of their name. I’m sure there’s a story or valid reasoning behind it, but it doesn’t immediately make sense. What are the promises? Why are they bleeding? Who’s doing the bleeding? Is it me? Is it you? I guess we’ll never know. Maybe this shirt was created as a way of distracting us from such burning questions.
Thirteen Bled Promises like aliens and science fiction. Could you tell? I know it might not be too obvious. After all, you were probably distracted by the skull-faced demon serpent lovingly staring at its glowing orb crotch. Seriously, look at its face. That demon serpent has a look of pure joy on its skull face. You can practically hear it squealing like a child getting a giant lollipop.
The back is where things get interesting. And by interesting I mean eye-damaging. That font is not made for any living creature to see. This is what you see when you accidentally sit on a cactus and your pain receptors fire on all cylinders. They blew all their shirt budget on the giant, hard-to-read words and the heavily detailed front and couldn’t afford colors. We’ll never know how much purple they wanted on it.
Emeth – That’s…that’s not possible
Emeth Smith is the former running back for the Dallas Cowboys and is the NFL’s all-time leading rusher in yards and touchdowns. He was an Offensive Rookie of the Year, a 2-time league MVP, a Super Bowl MVP, and made 8 Pro Bowl appearances. Wait, that’s Emmit Smith. My bad. Emeth is a brutal death metal band from Belgium currently on Xtreem Music as previously seen in Tech Death Thursday. You could see how I would confuse the two.
I swear I’ve seen this shirt design for other bands before. Maybe it’s just so generic that it just feels like I’ve seen it before. After all, metal bands do like using headless torsos and gray bodies for their shirt designs. Most don’t have such ample bosoms or explodey beams of light, though. This is the album art for their Telesis album. The improved details only raise more questions. Questions I don’t want to ask lest blood starts spurting out of my nose.
Once again, we go to the back of the shirt. I sense a theme with these shirts. Regardless, this shirt eschews giant pictures or hard-to-read text with 2 simple lines. “Kill yourself, die daily.” Oh, did I say simple? I might say, “So simple that it doesn’t make sense.” If you kill yourself, you can’t die again, and you certainly can’t die daily. I don’t care if it’s a metaphor or a simile or a loss in translation. This shirt English no good.
Throne Of Entrails – Shirt Design Provided By 2001
New Jersey’s Throne Of Entrails must love Korn. That’s the only explanation for why a deathcore band has this design. That or they couldn’t afford an original piece of art and had to use one of those pre-fabricated designs. Either way, this shirt is a freak on a leash.
