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Perhaps the biggest religious influence of all on heavy metal is that of Satanism. Satan is seen by many, especially by Abrahamic religions, as being the personification of darkness and absolute evil. References to Satan in the music can be traced all the way to Black Sabbath’s eponymous song on their debut album, in which they describe Satan as a dreadful beast with eyes of fire. Descriptions of Satan and demons are seen prominently in nearly every subgenre of heavy metal, in both lyrical themes and visual representations. Anti-Christian ideas are also popular in metal, often being portrayed quite graphically.
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Common symbols and visual elements in metal that reinforce these two evil themes include inverted pentagrams and crosses, images of Satan himself or of demons, images of the Baphomet, which is the combination of a woman and goat, and perverted or blasphemous depictions of Jesus. Examples of these symbols can be seen very easily by observing different metal bands. The popular trash metal band Slayer uses an inverted pentagram as their band logo. A large majority of the lyrics, album covers, and music videos from the band Dimmu Borgir include blatantly obvious Satanic and anti-Christian themes. The best example of this is the band’s music video for their song “The Sacreligious Scorn”, taken from their album “In Sorte Diaboli”, which translates from Latin to mean “In league with the devil”. The music video includes pentagrams, baphomets, burning and inverted crosses, Satanic priests, and mockeries of St. Michael the Archangel, The Last Supper, and the sacrament of Communion.
This blatant referencing of Satanism is nearly always just for show, considering only a very small minority of metal musicians and fans are actually practicing Satanists. The one exception to this is certain members of the black metal subgenre. Black metal relies heavily on Satanic themes, more so than any other metal subgenre. Black metal “initially referred to any extreme metal that was explicitly ‘satanic’ in nature” (Hagen 182). In Scandinavia in the early 1990’s, specifically Norway, a large number of Christian churches were burnt to the ground. These arson attacks were linked to the Scandinavian extreme black metal scene, and several arrests were made for the events (Hagen 180). Along with Satanism, themes from the Occult play a significant role in influencing heavy metal music.
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