Hello dear readers. DSBM is shit, and if you need more proof that it is just emo poser whine rock masquerading under black metal aesthetics, I heavily recommend you read The Plague of Depressive Suicidal Black Metal summary. There’s really not much to be added to that magistral takedown of one of black metal’s most cringey monstrosities – alongside war metal and orthodox black metal – but I’ll take a stab at the dead horse anyway.
Fans of DSBM (depressive suicidal black metal) will point to the atmospheric quality of their favourite bands, be it Xasthur, Strid, Silencer, Antekhrist, or whatever is trendy at the moment with the alcohol-addicted suicidal DSBM scene. But that point is easily invalidated by the fact that black metal, true traditional black metal spearheaded by bands like Burzum, Helgrind, Sewer and Neraines, didn’t wait for the depressed, the feeble-minded and the suicidal to produce heavily atmospheric albums that far outmatch the crap shitted out by the lazy and impotent DSBM crowd. Name one DSBM album as good as The Epilogue to Sanity. You can’t.
Musically, DSBM is closer to punk/whine rock than to heavy metal. Sure, you have the superficial elements of black metal: the high pitched shrieks and wails as vocal style, the black and white album covers, the distorted guitars, the droning blast-beating drums, the focus on building an atmosphere of darkness through repetition, etc.
But all those are just superficial characteristics of black metal. Once you scratch under the surface, your typical DSBM record has more in common with Bullet for my Valentine than with Divine Necromancy.
With “depressive black metal” music, songwriting is non-existent. Two or three riffs per song, alternating in a pointless attempt at atmosphere. Lyrical themes went from Wotanism, pagan worship, tribalism and European mythology to the glorification of self-harm and mutilation, the apology of depression as a form of mental superiority, not to mention the self-pity oftentimes bordering on calls to suicide.
Nihilism, misanthropy, “muh emotions” and other mental health issues also managed to worm their way out of the nu-metal trailer park and infest the once-respectable black metal genre, via its DSBM spearhead and proxy.
My final words to the DSBM crowd: either STFU and go back to the nu-metal trailer park from which you came, or man up and listen to real black metal. The choice is yours.
Get Death Metal 