One of the more common complaints about metal that I’ve heard non-metalheads say is that it’s just noise and screaming. To an extent, there is truth in that – there are a few bands that will just be noise and screaming. However, I don’t think that it’s entirely fair to judge an entire genre of music based on that alone. I think that people should give metal a chance. As aggressive as it can be at times, I believe that metal can really be intelligent and creative. 

Additionally, metal has so many subgenres that not all of them can be labeled as noise and screaming. Five seconds of a death metal song can, and often will sound different from a power metal song. Both will sound different from folk metal. In my experience in metal, I’ve found many bands with songs connecting back to various forms of literature and media. In this post, I want to take a look at some of them, to try and show that metal is beyond the stereotype of being just noise and screaming.

Works of Traditional Literature, Legend, and Lore

Blind Guardian is a fantastic example of a metal band connecting their music back to literature. Their album 1998 “Nightfall in Middle Earth” is entirely based around the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Some songs from their album, “Tales from the Twilight World”, take inspiration from Stephen King’s works, like It and The Tommyknockers. Other albums of theirs have gone on to take inspiration from myths and legends of the world. One interesting example of this is “Lionheart” from their 2004 album “A Twist in the Myth”. This song is a twist on the tale of Ulysses, this time struggling to find his way out of Hades. 

The album that would follow, “At the Edge of Time”, takes inspiration from Robert Jordan’s book series, Wheel of Time. A Song of Fire and Ice by George R. R. Martin is also included on the album in the form of the song “War of the Thrones”. This album even features a track based around Milton’s The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, a work about why a tyrannical king should be executed. Blind Guardian would also delve slightly into Arthurian legend on their 1995 partial concept album, “Imaginations from the Other Side”.

The concept from this album would later be explored further in the band’s 2015 release, “Beyond the Red Mirror”. Blind Guardian’s most recent album “Legacy of the Dark Lands” (as of this post) is based entirely on the book Die Dunken Lande by Marcus Heitz. The album itself actually is rather unique, being the first metal album, to my knowledge, to be entirely orchestral.

Cirith Ungol, a Californian heavy/doom metal band, takes inspiration from Tolkien in its name, but their songs are not specifically influenced by Tolkien’s works. Rather, the band pulls more of its influence from books in Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone series. This is primarily seen in each album’s cover art. The Atlanta-based heavy metal band Mastodon would do something similar on their album “Leviathan”. Released in August 2004, the album is loosely based around the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. While not a full concept album, the influence is easy to spot – the cover and initial tracks are evidence of this.

One year prior, German power metal legends Grave Digger released the album “Rheingold”. The album is a concept album based around The Ring of the Nibelung, a musical drama composed by Richard Wagner. Virginia-based Death/Thrashers Deceased (one of my top five favorite bands of all time) had a song on their 2000 album, Supernatural Addiction, titled “The Hanging Soldier”. The song is based on “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. That work by Bierce is arguably one of the most recognized short stories in American history.

British heavy metal icons Iron Maiden (another one of my top five favorite bands of all time) is another fantastic example of a band connecting their songs to literature. Many of their songs from the 1980s show this. In 1988, the band released “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son”, based around the Orson Scott Card novel that starts the “Seventh Son” series. Now, personally, I don’t like this album; I find it to be overhyped and oversynthed, with few decent songs. However, I can’t deny that it has had a big influence on Maiden’s career. 

I think that a better example of Iron Maiden connecting to literature comes from their 1983 album “Piece of Mind”. Songs like “Flight of Icarus” and “To Tame a Land” are perfect examples of this. Those songs explore the myth of Icarus, and the story of Frank Herbert’s Dune respectively. However, my favorite example from this album is the iconic song “The Trooper”. Based on Lord Alfred Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade, the song tells the story of the 1854 Battle of Balaclava from the Crimean War. Live performances of this song would even see frontman Bruce Dickinson quote the poem directly before the initial riff begins. 

Other great examples from Maiden’s storied career include “Children of the Damned” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. “Children of the Damned”, from “Number of the Beast”(1982) is based around The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wnydham. The book itself is a science fiction tale from the late 1950s about a town overrun by parasitic aliens. On the other hand, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, from “Powerslave”(1984), is a faithful adaptation of the poem of the same name by Samuel Taylor Coolridge. This song would be one of Iron Maiden’s longest at over 13 minutes long – a record that would stand for about 30 years.

Historical Figures and Events

Iron Maiden has had songs discussing historical figures and events. For example, the album “Powerslave” opens with a snippet of Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Never Surrender” speech from June 4th, 1940. This helps lead into the beginning of “Aces High”, a song about the Battle of Britain. Maiden would further explore World War II, and war in general, in their 2006 album “A Matter of Life and Death”. On their previous album, 2003’s “Dance of Death”, Iron Maiden would include songs about other battles in Europe. “Paschendale” looks at the World War 1 battle of the same name. A later track on that album, “Montsegur”, looks at the 1243 Siege of Montsegur in southern France. 

On Iron Maiden’s 2015 album “Book of Souls”, frontman Bruce Dickinson would pen the longest song of the band’s career. At 18 minutes long, “Empire of the Clouds” tells the tale of the R101’s final flight. The R101 was the largest airship ever built, and it crashed in northern France in late 1930, en route to India. The song is also one of the only, if not the only, Iron Maiden song that incorporates piano. As one final point about Iron Maiden, the band has also penned songs about famous figures from history. The song “Sun and Steel” from the album “Piece of Mind” details the life of Miyamoto Musashi. Two albums later, on “Somewhere in Time”, Maiden would write “Alexander the Great” about the man of the same name. 

In May 2020, Grave Digger, a power metal band from Germany, released their most recent album, as of this post, “Fields of Blood”. The album revolves around various aspects of the history of Scotland. This album is actually the third in a small series of albums on the history of Scotland. The two previous albums on this series, “Tunes of War” and “The Clans Will Rise Again”, both explore the history of Scotland and even include songs based around William Wallace. The two albums that followed “Tunes of War” would focus on British history and legend. “Knights of the Cross” had a focus on the Knight Templar and the Crusades, while “Excalibur” focused on the entire tale of King Arthur. 

British heavy metal legends Judas Priest would do something similar in 2007. The group released a concept album revolving around the life of the French astrologer and seer Nostradamus. The double album is titled after the seer, is centered is around the man’s life and seeings, and was the band’s first-ever concept album. 11 years later, Deceased dedicated a song to the life and works of Edgard Allen Poe on their 2018 album “Ghostly White”.

As one final note about France, New York thrashers Anthrax has a song titled “Antisocial” on their 1988 album “State of Euphoria”. The song is actually a cover from the French rock band Trust. The song itself deals with tensions between different generations and the 1973 oil crisis.

Going back to the subject of war briefly, British death metal pioneers Bolt Thrower centered their entire career around various aspects of war. In eight albums, the band explored actual battles from war as well as fictional ones. Bolt Thrower even used Eugene Delacroix’s painting “The Crusader’s Entry into Constantinople” as the artwork for their album, “The IVth Crusade”. There is another aspect to Bolt Thrower’s career about war, but I’ll touch on that later. As another example, German thrash legends Sodom would focus on the Vietnam war in their1989 album “Agent Orange”. The band would delve deeper into the Vietnam war 12 years later on their album “M-16” (2001). One of the songs on the “M-16”, “Napalm in the Morning”, even includes a clip from the 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now” prior to the opening riff.

Modern Media and Lyrical Storytelling

As time moved on, bands began to write songs about newer media being released. For example, Bolt Thrower utilized artwork from the game Warhammer 40K on their album “Realms of Chaos”. The band had a deal with developer Games Workshop while signed with Earache Records. Jumping back across the pond, Anthrax wrote a song in 1987 titled “I am the Law”, which takes influence from the comic series Judge Dredd. However, some bands would opt to use their own creative works.

The New York rock band Coheed and Cambria base their music on a comic book series written by frontman, Claudio Sanchez. The comics themselves, called The Amory Wars, are based around events in Sanchez’s life. The band turns them into events in the fantasy universe of the comic. The band then turns the events of the comic into songs that are based on sections of the comic, embracing a lyrical storytelling style of music. For example, their album Second Stage Turbine Blade is based on events in one part of the comic. Danish metal legend King Diamond would do something similar on the albums “Abigail”, “Abigail II: The Revenge”, “Them”, and “Conspiracy”, all of which are great examples of lyrical storytelling. 

As another example of lyrical storytelling, Vancouver-based guitarist Devin Townsend released his metal opera, Ziltoid: the Omniscient, in May 2007. The album follows the multidimensional, extraterrestrial being known as Ziltoid in his search for the best cup of coffee. Ziltoid’s search for coffee leads to his conquest of Earth and the Universe. Townsend would explore this story further in the 2014 double album sequel, “Z²”, which included the Ziltoid sequel and Townsend’s sixth album “Sky Blue”. The entire story of Ziltoid is, to my knowledge at least, completely of Townsend’s own creation. It doesn’t seem to take much inspiration from outside sources – at least none that I could find.

American musician and comedian Brendon Small would do something similar with his show Metalocalypse, which gave birth to the band Dethklok. Small and his team of musicians would write the songs that appear in the show. In each episode, the band performed a new track, and songs from a given season would be turned into albums. Small would even perform some of these songs on the road. In addition, the characters in the band would reflect some characteristics of the metal figures that they are based on. For example, Nathan Explosion has a similar design and vocal style to his main real-life influence, George “Corpsegrinder” Fischer of Cannibal Corpse. 

Deceased really is a great example of how metal musicians connect their songs to different media. Deceased has written plenty of songs that connect back to movies and TV shows. The song “A Witness to Suspiria”, from the 2005 album “As The Weird Travel On” is about the 1977 movie “Suspiria”. Various songs on the 2000 album “Supernatural Addiction” cover various topics, including the Twilight Zone episode “22”, “The Trilogy of Terror”, and “The Blair Witch Project”. Hell, they have an entire album dedicated to George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” series. On the band’s most recent album, “Ghostly White”, Deceased wrote songs retelling events from horror movies like “Burnt Offerings”, “Black Christmas”, and “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death”. The New York death metal band Mortician also pulls from horror movies but opts more to use them as samples. 

Various Political and Societal Issues

Bands are free to express their opinions and pull inspiration from political matters. For example, on May 3rd, 1988, the American metal band Queensrÿche released Operation: Mindcrime. This album is a concept album and rock opera about a drug addict turned assassin in a world of corruption, and the mental turmoil he goes through. It would become one of the band’s most successful and recognized albums. The band would later expand on the story in the follow-up, Operation: Mindcrime II, in 2006. According to Wikipedia and Loudersound, the inspiration for the original Operation: Mindcrime was the Quebec Separatist Movement, which singer Geoff Tate discovered upon moving to Canada.

Political tensions would also be a theme in the song “Holy Wars… the Punishment Due” by Megadeth on their 1990 album “Rust in Peace”. In his 2010 memoir, Megadeth founder and frontman Dave Mustaine tells of the political and religious tension felt at a gig in Ireland in the late 1980s. The song would focus on the country’s unrest and Mustaine’s lack of knowledge of current events in the country in the first half. The second half of “Holy Wars” explores the events of the comic book series, The Punisher. Black Sabbath would also explore political tensions in their song “Children of the Grave”. The song talked about the real possibility of nuclear fallout during the Cold War. The song also stressed how the children of the world need to come together to show the world the love it needs. 

Bands are also free to express their views on plenty of societal issues in their music. For example, the band Body Count, founded by guitarist Ernie C. and frontman and rapper Ice T, penned a song titled “Black Hoodie” which explored police brutality. The band would also write the song, “No Lives Matter”, which looks at race and its role in social inequality. Bay Area Thrasher’s Metallica and the French prog metal band Gojira would both share their stances on environmentalism. These would come in the forms of “Blackened” on Metallica’s 1988 album, “…And Justice for All”, and Gojira’s 2005 concept album “From Mars to Sirius”.

“From Mars to Sirius,” I think might take inspiration from King Diamond, because the album tells the story of a dead planet being revived and made habitable once again. Gojira would make another call for environmentalism, specifically for the Amazon, with the song “Amazonia” on the 2021 album “Fortitude”. The band Cattle Decapitation from San Diego would explore environmentalism, among other topics, in their 2019 album “Death Atlas”. 

Another Bay Area Thrasher in Exodus wrote a song for “Tempo of the Damned” (2004) titled “Sealed with a Fist”. This song details a spouse standing up for themself against a domestic abuser. Elsewhere in California, the band W.A.S.P. worked on their rock opera, titled “The Crimson Idol”, which was released in 1992. The album deals with a young man being seen as a complete failure by his parents, while his brother is seen as a golden child.

After his brother’s death, the young man leaves his home for the streets and ends up becoming a rockstar. During a gig, he calls his parents to try and reconcile their differences, only for his parents to say that they “have no son”. Realizing that he will never receive acceptance from his parents, he decides to take his own life. The entire album explores topics of drug abuse, emotional abuse, suicide, and the mental turmoil that can arise with fame. 

In 2019, Jesse Leach from the Massachusetts metal band Killswitch Engage wrote the song “I am Broken Too”. The song acts as a way to raise awareness about mental health issues and reduce the stigma around mental health. In an article from altpress in 2019, Leach explained that the song was inspired by a friend’s mental health issues. Leach went on to explain that the song was written to help this friend not feel alone in his struggles. The Atlanta-band Baroness released the song “March to the Sea” on their 2012 album “Yellow & Green”. The song discusses the effects and tolls of drug abuse, namely from morphine, valium, and heroin.

Hopping across the pond, Judas Priest would sing about government surveillance in their song “Electric Eye” on “Screaming for Vengeance” (1982). Judas Priest’s longtime lead singer and frontman Rob Halford was exploring his own sexuality throughout the 1980s. He explained the challenges he faced in his autobiography Confess, and those feelings would manifest in lyrics. Songs like “Jawbreaker” from “Defenders of the Faith” (1983), and “Hard as Iron” and “Come and Get It”, both from “Ram it Down” (1988) (my personal favorite Priest album ever) are great examples of Halford exploring his own sexuality.

Other bands would explore topics like sexuality and other LGBT issues. In 1983, the German speed metal band Accept penned a song titled “Love Child”. That song talks about a person questioning their own sexuality during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The support for the LGBT community in metal still exists even today. In 2017, German thrash giants Kreator released the song “Side by Side” on their album “Gods of Violence”. This song shows the band’s vow to crush homophobia and stand by those who feel lost and hated simply for their sexuality. 

Those were all of the examples that I could find. However, I’m sure that there are more that I simply am not aware of at this time.

Closing Remarks

Growing up as a metalhead, my parents were slightly averse to my interest in the genre. However, as I got older, my parents were more understanding of my interest in metal. I’ve even been able to convince them to give it a chance. While they don’t listen to it as regularly as I do – something I think is unrealistic at this point in life – I’m glad that they at least understand why I love it so much. I’ve been able to show them some bands that they now like. They have both accepted that metal is more than simply screaming or praising Satan. I’ve shown them that metal can discuss so many diverse topics, many of which I’ve mentioned here. I’ve shown them that metal is more than just noise; it’s a community of welcoming people who just like heavy and extreme music. 

To those metalheads going through something similar with the authority figures in their life, why not show them this? I think that throughout this post I’ve shown that metal can be intelligent and beyond the typical stereotypes that surround it. I would hate for someone to give up on metal simply because someone who wields authority in their life says that it would be a bad influence or that it doesn’t conform to their outlook on life.

People shouldn’t be denied the chance to enjoy metal due to those reasons or for any reason. People should be allowed to enjoy this genre of music to the fullest. If listening to metal and its various subgenres makes you happy, as it has for me since I was 8, then don’t stop listening to it. Keep exploring the genre and looking for new bands to listen to. You deserve to be happy.

To those who believe that metal is just noise, I’d like to suggest listening to some of the songs and albums mentioned. The songs and albums that I have suggested here cover a relatively diverse range of songs in metal. While it’s not comprehensive, I’m willing to bet that maybe there is one song or album that I’ve mentioned that will pique your interest.  I’d recommend starting with power metal or heavy metal – bands like Blind Guardian, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, or Cirith Ungol. Giving things a chance may surprise you. I simply ask that you give it a decent chance before you write it off entirely.

Keep your horns raised, fellow metalheads! I hope to see you all in the pit someday! Until next time friends, take care.