I was just reading this article about improper treatment of Gitmo prisoners and a little factoid jumped out at me:

“In a previously unreported allegation, one interrogator bragged to an FBI agent that he had forced a prisoner to listen to ‘Satanic black metal music for hours,’ then dressed as a Catholic priest before ‘baptizing’ him.“

I’d be very interested in knowing what music was used. What bands would be considered abusive to a Muslim inmate? I would have thought Christian Country/Western a better choice. It sure as shit would make me spill the beans after a couple hours of high volume exposure.

I love Black Metal to a near retarded degree. I like the music, the imagery and the ideals behind it. It’s depressing to hear that people are being abused with it. It’s wrong and it angers me. But, on a disassociated and aesthetic level—it kind of makes sense. I mean, it is Black Fucking Metal. Aural and psychic abuse is usually the general aim. Honestly the whole thing reads like a Black Metal video, the prison, the priest, everything.

Would this constitute good Black Metal media coverage?

I’m not really sure what’s brought this drastic change in my musical listening habits, but over the past six months, I’ve become obsesssed with metal. Not that sissy-ass shit like Metallica, Iron Maiden or Megadeth—I’m talking Death Metal and best of all, Black Metal. From the corpsepaint and mutilated animal parts to the cookie monster vocals, it’s the shit. I’m all about it. It’s my new thing. Hail Satan. Where’s my Axe of Doom?

Bands like Gorgoroth, Cannnibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Kataklysm and Darkthrone have taken over my playlists and my mp3 player. I feel compelled to wear tight leather pants, glue carpenter’s nails to my clothing, have sex with severed goat heads and carry around disproportionately huge battle axes. I find myself getting odd stares as I hit up the local ghetto Brooklyn bodega for a forty wearing corpsepaint and looking like Kiss on a negative death trip.

I kid…I kid. Although it’d be kind of cool to be the only white dude in a Brooklyn ghetto keeping it real, Satan-style. I wonder if I’d get an award?

If you need a good laugh, there’s an awesome Black Metal gallery at photographer Peter Beste’s website.