Valentina Sirangelo
Università della Calabria, Rende, Italia
valentina.sirangelo@live.com

 

 

Water and Dreams in Early Finnish Death Metal:

Adramelech’s Spring of Recovery

 

Abstract: The present study aims to investigate, through mythocriticism, the song Revived by the early Finnish Death Metal band Adramelech, as an example of Contemporary Written and Visual Media. The article will focus on the symbolic constellation which lies beneath the lyrics of this song also in relation to the cover artwork of the EP from which it is drawn, Spring of Recovery (1992). The first part of the study will analyze Revived’s scenario of «initiatory death»: the Regressus ad Originem – i.e. the return to the germinal stage –, grounded in an intense aquatic imaginary, eventually reveals itself to be a Regressus ad Uterum, that is a regression into the watery abyss of gestation. Then, the symbolism of the immersion into the «spring of recovery» – a key-syntagm which again informs the whole EP’s title – will be explored. Through its matricial and primordial Water, the chthonic spring bestows onto the initiate a prodigious renovatio, which starts his uterine ascent. This study will thus demonstrate how some representative artists of the Death Metal subgenre – authentic postmodern lyric poets – evoke and recombine the most fecund archetypes of the collective unconscious, substantiating Mircea Eliade’s assumption according to which «poetry renews and continues the myths» even within the contemporary mediatic universe.

Keywords: Death Metal; Water; Spring; Initiation; Regressus ad Uterum; Forest; Hades; Swamp; Sea; Blood.

 

 

In his Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary, Gilbert Durand focuses on myth not as an already accomplished diegetic entity within a religious system, but as a potential «extension of schemata, archetypes and symbols»[1]. If one fully perceives the Durandian notion of myth, scholars of mythocriticism and comparatists will find numerous examples successfully instantiating what Mircea Eliade defined as «the mythical structures of the images» in mass media[2]. The present study, by concentrating on an example of Contemporary Written and Visual Media, investigates the symbolic constellation lying beneath the lyrics of the song Revived by Adramelech – an early Finnish Death Metal band – also in relation to the cover artwork of the EP from which this song is drawn, Spring of Recovery (1992).

Unlike other Extreme Metal ramifications or more dated Classic Heavy Metal branches – in which phenomena such as hypertextuality, or the «emergence» and «flexibility»[3] of myth[4] are mainly observed –, Death Metal[5], especially that of the origins, shows a marked inclination, through the elaboration of its own imaginary, to draw on «a sphere of unconscious mythology whose primordial images are the common heritage of mankind»[6]. Under the creative impulse, the most representative artists of the kratophanic Death Metal subgenre – authentic postmodern lyric poets – evoke and recombine the most fecund archetypes, which thus lie at the core of some veritable contemporary paraliterary proposals. One should not forget that these paraliterary works do not function but as tiles in a much more complex media product, which fuses musical and lyrical elements[7]. Early Death Metal emerges thus as a prolific artistic territory whose constellation of images underlying its lyrics (and those making up its artwork) may be explored by means of mythocritical exegesis. Therefore, this musical genre could be usefully analyzed as a postmodern instantiation of Eliade’s assumption according to which «lyric poetry renews and continues the myths», since «all poetry is an effort to re-create the language», to invent a «new» one, «in the last analysis secret»[8]. One of the more unsuspected fields of the contemporary media universe – that of Death Metal «poetry» – can thus be studied as an extension of myth into our contemporary age[9].

1.    Early Finnish Death Metal and Adramelech’s Mythological Choice

 

In the legendary early 1990s, Finnish Death Metal stood out as a Scandinavian musical reality which remained nestled in its shadowy niche, in the most recondite recesses of the European Metal scene, without any attempt to break out internationally[10]. Less popular and vast (but not less fascinating) than its more well-known geographic neighbour, Swedish Death Metal[11] – which likewise flourished quietly, but which reached a distinct international fame –, the «dark and atmospheric»[12] early Finnish Death Metal could boast bands who were very keen on sharpening their own particular style and approach[13]. The same members of these bands seem to avoid any classification, appearing puzzled by the notion that they embody a «school» (however minor)[14]. Nevertheless, one can roughly identify the typical, primeval «Finnish sound» with that peculiar «gloomy tone»[15] which characterizes their early musical creations.

Hence, wrongly reduced to a mere satellite of Swedish Death Metal – whose influence will be acknowledged only a posteriori – and considered secondary to it[16], early Finnish Death Metal stood out for its absolute stylistic specificity and preciousness[17], which made it «one of those short-lived phenomena that carried the true underground spirit»[18]. The absence of any «interest in longevity»[19] on the part of its representatives led to the rapid depletion and the almost total extinction of its original characterizing sound just after a lustrum from its emergence. Indeed, «by the second album, if they were lucky enough to make it to the second album, the bands usually went into totally different directions»[20]. Consequently, whereas other Finnish Metal bands, such as Sentenced and Amorphis, still active, «had roots in death metal, but hardly anyone can relate the band name to that anymore»[21], other bands sunk into oblivion after a very short time; their early productions remain «hidden gems»[22] buried in European Death Metal’s early history[23].

Many bands underwent this apparently unhappy fate, never experiencing the same metamorphic evolution – or the same inglorious decline – of their Swedish cousins or American colleagues. Adramelech[24], considered among the pioneers of the Finnish Death Metal scene, are chronologically halfway between these extinct Finnic pearls and those few Finnish bands of the early days who are active today and still strive to preserve, in the sound of their very latest works, the same purity of the origins[25]. They are often associated with Demigod[26] – perhaps the overall most renowned band of the Finnish scene –, with whom they share their hometown Loimaa and some members. Their activity status appears, at present, to be on hold[27]: their last full-length, Terror of Thousand Faces, dates back to 2005. This study, however, will focus on one of their first works – the EP Spring of Recovery, released in 1992[28] –, whose description summarizes the essence of the golden age of Finnish Death Metal in which it places itself: indeed, it «has the typical early 90s Finnish DM sound, cold, raw, and putrid […], definitely darker than the Swedish sound, which is similar yet different»[29].

The main theme upon which Adramelech’s production focuses appears explicitly under the phrase «Ancient Mythology»[30]: this is also testified by their choice of an Assyrian god, then turned into a Biblical demon – «Adramelech» or «Adrammelech»[31] –, as their own name. Indeed, throughout their entire discography, one may detect some echoes of Mesopotamian, Norse, Egyptian and Greek mythologies: their first full-length, Psychostasia (1996), perhaps represents the best and most successful alchemical synthesis of these references. Instead, the EP Spring of Recovery differentiates itself from all the albums which followed. What emerges, in a covert manner, from its very brief tracklist – made up of just three songs – would rather appear as the cyclic experience of mortal decay (Dethroned, Mortal God) and of rebirth (Revived) – the mythic adventure par excellence.

 

 

2. Lost in the «Maze of Beyond»: Regressus ad Originem

 

The B side of Spring of Recovery includes only one track, Revived[32], which ideally closes the EP thematizing an experience which can be related to the symbolic macrofield of rebirth – i.e. «an affirmation that must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind», which are «based on […] archetypes»[33]. In actual fact, the whole Spring of Recovery is dedicated to «second birth»[34]: one may infer it from its cover artwork (which will be dealt with later), depicting an ascent from the womb of the earth via water, and from the title, in which the noun «recovery» appears – presumably a prodigious cure bestowed by the miraculous «spring». The choice of the terms «revived» and «recovery» establishes a therapeutic isotopy of rebirth: Spring of Recovery thus proves to be a veritable concept album of renovatio – which will take place under the sign of the water element, through an iter which «brings together the two basic points in the rhythm of the universe: reintegration in water – and Creation»[35]:

 

Revived

 

Condemned life

Call from beyond

Sink to the mist

Break the bounds of beyond

Maze of beyond

Leads you astray

Spring of recovery

In theforestofHades

Through the swamps

Through the woods

Roam across the sea of blood

And you’ll be revived

Return to life

From the Endless sleep

New life created

It has a soul that revived

Revived

From the godless realm.

 

The mythical structure underlying Revived’s lyrics is that of an initiatory death, which is, as Eliade argues,

 

a recommencement, never an end. In no rite or myth do we find the initiatory death as something final, but always as the condition sine qua non of a transition to another mode of being, a trial indispensable to regeneration; that is, to the beginning of a new life[36].

 

Revived’s protagonist-initiate, who corresponds to that of the entire drama of Spring of Recovery – and, on the graphic level, the anthropomorphic individual portrayed in the cover artwork – undergoes a double journey: first beyond and then back from the «bounds» separating a realm of life, which is simply mentioned, from a realm of death, whose morphology is rather complex. At first simply presented as «beyond», the death dimension later assumes the traits of a «maze» and of «theforest ofHades»; afterwards, and above all, its geography is enhanced by the delineation of a hydric landscape, involving the symbols of spring, swamp and eventually sea. Water is precisely the elemental channel which allows, through a magical-therapeutic procedure, to undertake the third stage of the otherworldly journey – the miraculous «return to life». Around its extraordinary symbolic pregnancy pivots the whole organization of the text, which this study aims to unearth the underlying archetypal constellation.

The incipit of the initiatory journey in Revived presents itself as a descending movement (katábasis), followed by the protagonist’s getting lost in an unfamiliar realm: the «beyond», which manifests itself as a terrifying «maze». The choice of the term «maze» – i.e. multicursal labyrinth[37] –, instead of «labyrinth», emphasizes the initial state of bewilderment which the unknown dimension of the beyond causes («leads you astray»). Indeed, the labyrinth is «a single circuitous path that leads uninterrupted to a center»[38]. In this sense, the Adramelechian beyond is a labyrinth in every respect, whose Sacred Center[39] is the spring of recovery. It is not a case that Gaston Bachelard assigns to the Labyrinth archetype – which includes the «maze» building, too – the power to make those who enter it lose themselves:

 

It is this typical situation of the lost being that we relive in the labyrinthine dream. Getting lost – losing oneself – with all the emotions this implies, is therefore an obviously archaic situation[40].

 

In the initiatory context, according to Eliade, the labyrinth is «a symbol of the Infernal»[41]; the underworld, in its turn, is to be counted among the symbols of the unconscious[42]. Indeed, Bachelard acknowledges that «if the feeling of being lost is systematically attached to all our unconscious wayfaring, we find the archetype of the labyrinth»[43]. Hence, the initiate, through his Descensus ad Inferos – as a result of which he loses himself in the maze of beyond –, «falls into the unconscious for an extended time to eventually emerge as a person reborn»[44]. If the act of losing oneself is a sign of regression to a primordial and unconscious state, the labyrinth and the underworld prove, therefore, to be among the archetypal images arising from the principle of Regressus ad Originem – that is, according to Eliade, the purpose of initiatory death:

 

The most terrible of initiatory ordeals, that of death, […] also constitutes the only possible way […] of re-entering into the primordial situation. […] This re-entry into the germinal state of “the beginnings” is itself equivalent to death[45].

 

To the symbolic pair labyrinth-underworld, deadly theatres of a (provisional) Regressus to prenatal chaos, one must add the «forest of Hades» – the second metaphor for the realm of the dead in Revived. The intricate, «labyrinthine» forest is explicitly infernal, as witnessed by the mythological toponym «Hades» associated with it, which inevitably calls to mind the classical netherworld’s geography[46]. Because of «its darkness and deep roots»[47], the forest, too, is a fearful symbol of the unconscious. In the wondertale, of which initiation is the oldest basis[48], the forest symbolizes «the entrance to the other world»[49]: therefore, it might archetypically place itself at the threshold of the infernal realm or coincide with it. Such is the same potentiality of the labyrinth, which, if it does not coincide with the netherworld itself, might simply represent «a door […] that leads to the netherworld»[50]. Since symbolizing «both hell and cosmic night, hence death and virtualities»[51] – as Eliade underlines –, the forest inserts itself perfectly in the imaginary of «ritual death […] as an initiatory ordeal necessary for a new birth»[52].

 

3. Rebirth as «Recovery» Through Water: The Symbolism of Immersion

 

At the heart of the Adramelechian beyond, the water element flows. As «the commonest symbol for the “unconscious”»[53], it seals the pattern labyrinth-underworld-forest. In fact, already in the incipit of Revived one finds an implicit aquatic isotopy: indeed, the initiate perishes by sinking into the mist. The verb «to sink» unequivocally evokes the act of drowning, i.e. a «descending yaw»[54] towards the depths of beyond. The latter thus acquires the contours of an aquatic abyss, confirming «the correspondence – the identity of value – among the leap into the water, the leap into the chasm, and the leap into Hades»[55]. The mist, too, «symbol of the indeterminate»[56] which it announces, places itself in the aquatic isotopy, being the result of the union of air and water[57]. If previously the incipit of the initiatory journey in Revived has been described in terms of «katábasis» or «Descensus ad Inferos» and of «bewilderment», now the predominant water element makes one recognize an element of «dissolution» as well:

 

The dissolving aspect […] is tightly bound to the perception of indeterminacy, or of vagueness of feeling, which is determined by that particular condition in which the air, by becoming moist and almost liquid, mixes with the freshness of the water it transpires. This perception produces in the soul a germinality typical of the state of indistinction, which is destined to dissolve the forms[58].

 

Halfway through the text, the SacredCenterof the Adramelechian labyrinthine beyond, which is an aquatic symbol, appears: in the deepest recesses of the «forestof Hades», the «spring of recovery» stands. The syntagm «spring of recovery», taking up again the whole EP’s title, is the core of the entire text: its waters indeed bestow onto the initiate a miraculous invigoration, allowing his rebirth[59].

While earlier in the text the katabatic dynamics of the novice’s death evoked the ill-fated process of drowning, now the apparition of the «spring» in the underworld mitigates this process, turning it into a bath – a «rite and regression to elementary existence»[60]. Just as the water element intervenes, the Regressus ad Originem in Revived proves to be precisely a Regressus ad Uterum – in which, as Eliade argues, «the fetal state is equivalent to a temporary regression to the virtual, precosmic mode»[61] and «the novice is first transformed into an embryo and then is reborn»[62]: such an embryo is indeed portrayed in the album’s cover illustration. If it has been possible to identify an exemplary initiation scenario in Revived, in which «death is never final, for the dead return»[63], it is only because the lustral spring water – which is, for Bachelard, «an irresistible birth, a continuous birth»[64] – flows in the Adramelechian beyond. The initiate’s Regressus ad Uterum is therefore a return to the Womb of the Earth – corresponding to the lower regions of Hades –, where «a repetition of the first gestation»[65] takes place: indeed, the water pouring from the spring of recovery has the same features of the primordial Waters underlying the cosmologies[66], since «the water of chaos, out of which the world springs forth, and the water which surrounds the embryo in the mother are parallels»[67]. By virtue of its magical-purifying properties, the spring symbol recurs also in alchemical terminology, that designates as «fons perennis» the original Water which «confers the life eternal»[68]. The Adramelechian spring water is lethal and lustral at the same time: on the one hand, it embodies the heart of the lower realm where the protagonist has fatally sunk; yet, on the other hand, it constitutes the magical site which will allow his ascent («you’ll be revived»). This ambivalence, deriving from the nature of the primordial Water, is confirmed by Libis:

 

Primordial water combines the idea of a nourishing substance, from which swarming life will flow, with the idea of a disorder […] of a silent abyss, generating some deadly connotations[69].

 

Thus, the initiatory death in Revived acquires, from the hydric imaginary in which it is grounded, a further symbolic value, probably the most important: that of the «immersion», which the image of the intrauterine «bath» has already disclosed. The act of immersion allows to detect a strict correlation among the «spring», the «recovery» it bestows, and the «revived» condition it grants to the novice, thus functioning as a trait d’union between the EP’s title and the track’s one. Indeed, as Eliade aptly explains, although «immersion is the equivalent, at the human level, of death»[70], actually it «does not mean final extinction, but simply a temporary reintegration into the formless, which will be followed by […] a new life»[71]. This is the same arrangement of the ritual-initiatory scenario identified above, in which «the “return to the origin” prepares a new birth»[72].

The Adramelechian spring is called «of recovery», and not directly of rebirth. Eliade seals the recovery-rebirth continuity by sustaining that «to be cured, the victim of an illness must be brought to a second birth»[73]. Indeed, all restorative processes – healing, rejuvenation, purification – are nothing but forms of rebirth. Rather than being regarded as a change through which «the resurrected being is a different one»[74], under these forms rebirth carries an atmosphere suggesting «the idea of renovatio, renewal, […] of improvement brought about by magical means»[75]. From this derives a «continuity between archaic rites and symbols of initiatory “new birth”, on the one hand, and, on the other, techniques of longevity, […] of divinization, and even such ideas of immortality»[76]. Bachelard summarizes the dreams of lustral rebirth by combining healing and rejuvenation:

 

One of the characteristics that must be joined to the dream of purification that limpid water suggests is the dream of renovation suggested by fresh water. One dives into water in order to be reborn and changed. […] To the Fountain of Youth complex is naturally linked the hope for a cure. […] We rediscover, in our own dreams, myths of birth, water in its maternal power, water which gives life in death, beyond death[77].

 

Spring of Recovery’s cover artwork[78] depicts the ablution of the novice into the «spring of recovery» at the center of the «forest of Hades» – a key turning point in the initiatory journey in Revived. The illustration is presumably set in the beyond, and not yet in the realm of the living where the neophyte will re-emerge, as the multitude of trees of the «forest of Hades» surrounding the spring testify; but also at least two other symbols testify this in a less direct way. The former is the sky, whose colour is that «nocturnal red»[79] which announces the fertile hue of the intrauterine «sea of blood», through which the neophyte will resurface. The latter is the moon, whose black colour refers to the phase of «new moon» or «dark moon», during which the moon is invisible in the sky and is supposed to have descended into the underworld – the same dimension in which the novice finds himself. The «three days of darkness, or “death”, of the moon»[80] correspond to the cosmic counterpart of the novice’s ritual immersion, i.e. the Flood[81] – that is, as Eliade asserts, «a cataclysm, but never a final one, for it takes place under the seal of the moon and the waters, which are pre-eminently the sign of growth and regeneration»[82]. Indeed, by virtue of the «periodic returning» of the moon, the black moon’s fate and that of the novice – to regenerate from subterranean water – are parallel: «as the moon is reborn on the fourth night, so shall the dead achieve a new sort of existence»[83].

The EP’s cover artwork represents precisely the case in which, as Libis affirms, «imagination seizes an aquatic dynamics and carries it within the telluric element»[84]. Indeed, the marvelous spring of recovery would seem to possess the contours of a well. The spring and the well belong to two overlapping semantic fields: indeed, as Libis again observes, «water is always below, producing a rêverie of cavity»[85]. Furthermore, the French scholar recognizes that it is in the chthonic character of the spring that both its lethal value and its restorative power lie:

 

Outlined from the earth’s indecipherable recesses, it gleans its existence from the world of below, from the dark telluric forces. The spring entertains a relationship with Hades, even though, on the other hand, it entails the presence of a reviving and fertile magic[86].

 

By virtue of the «well/uterus association»[87], one may assert that the explicitly subterranean graphic depiction of the water gushing from the recesses of the Adramelechian spring contributes to reinforce its primordial nature of Water of the Abyss and Water of the Womb of the Earth – that «matricial and principal Water, from which the totality of beings originates, and towards which it returns»[88].

 

 

4. Journey «Across the Sea of Blood»: The Uterine Ascent

 

On the basis of the archetypal principle according to which «the below connotes the idea of a larval substance», the underworld often presents a composite «aquatic iconography»[89]. Indeed, the complex hydric geography of the realm of death in Revived is not confined to the «spring of recovery». Once the Adramelechian neophyte’s ascent towards his «new life» begins, two other aquatic hierophanies appear. The first is the «swamp»; the second is a «sea» which, in truth, since it is made up of «blood», includes in turn a double hierophany. The neophyte’s reemergence to life – that proves to be a laborious and slow ascent, like that of the fetus from the uterus – consists above all in an obliged transit «through the swamps» and «through the woods». The swamp belongs to the pattern labyrinth-underworld-forest, since it embodies «one of the most recurring symbols of the unconscious»[90], due to its fundamental «indistinction»[91]; yet, it is likewise in harmony with the regenerating power of the spring, since it is a «place of invisible germinations»[92] as well.

It is possible to identify in the «woods» not a variation of the «forest of Hades» – which may nevertheless represent the threshold of the underworld, as said above, and which must somehow be confronted again –, but rather the vegetation overwhelming the waters[93], preventing one to resurface effortlessly. Indeed, very often, in infernal geographies, the dividing line between the realm of the living and that of the dead is constituted both by aquatic elements and vegetation ones: think, for instance, about Hades (especially the Virgilian one), surrounded by woods and rivers – one of which is called, not by chance, «Stygian Swamp» («Stygia Palus»)[94] – which «interpose an obstacle to the return of those who descend to the lower world, for it is contrary to the divine law that they should be recrossed»[95].

Bachelard confirms that «the profuse vegetation of the swamp is the symbol of tellurism» and that «it is the substantial marriage of earth and water realized in the swamp that determines an […] abundant vegetal power»[96]. Nevertheless, as the French philosopher recognizes, the vegetation forces are also the «regenerating forces of the earth»[97]. That is the reason why the swamp, although «troubled water»[98] characterized with «a nightmarish vegetation»[99], remains a germinative symbol, one which plays an active role in the neophyte’s rebirth. Certainly, it does not happen without struggle, since, as Bachelard again acknowledges, «beneath the earth, every path is tortuous»[100]: in the swamps, where «water disappears to leave its place to a heavy, pasty, chaotic liquidness»[101], the neophyte, during his ascent, shall confront a hostile force, comparable to that of those «subterranean, silent waters that bear us away in our totality»[102]. Furthermore, one can note that, in the cover illustration, the trees’ roots seem to be animated and to coincide with ophidian forms. According to Eliade[103], the serpent belongs to the lunar bestiary, because it continuously regenerates itself, as moon and vegetation do. «Being the animal of the subterranean mystery of the after-life», as Durand asserts, «it assumes a mission and becomes a symbol of the difficult moment of revelation or mystery: death conquered by the promise of a new beginning»[104].

In relation to the dominant water element, one detects three well different movements in Revived: the descending one, recognizable in the drowning into the mist and in the immersion into the spring; the ascending one, recognizable in the ascent through wooded swamps; eventually, the horizontal one, recognizable in the crossing of a «sea of blood» – the final step towards rebirth. The last aquatic hierophany in Revived is, indeed, a thalassic one. Given that «in dreams and fantasies the sea […] signifies the unconscious»[105], it completes the pattern labyrinth-underworld-forest-swamp, representing the pinnacle of a bewilderment climax: every drowned individual – and, likewise, every Ulyssian traveller – is, indeed, «lost in the midst of great waters»[106]. The conception of the return from the realm of the dead as a great sea-crossing is in line with the depiction of the otherworld as a «land beyond the ocean»[107], which must be recrossed, in some funerary geographies.

The sea – more than any other aquatic «universe of death»[108] – reminds one that, as Bachelard writes, «Death is a journey»[109], from which return is not impossible. The funereal sea-crossing, which allows the neophyte’s rebirth, is thus reminiscent of the «Charon Complex», even though in the Adramelechian sea there are neither ferrymen nor boats; one only beholds him roaming. Such a condition is only apparently without a destination: if the neophyte roams «across» the sea, his destination exists and corresponds to the new life’s shore.

The swamp and the sea, as infernal aquatic hierophanies accompanying the neophyte’s uterine ascent, are related to each other by their nature of «black waters of death»:

 

All living things rise […] from water, and sink into it again at evening. Born of springs […] man at death comes to the waters of the Styx, and there embarks on the “night sea journey”. Those black waters of death are the water of life, for death with its cold embrace is the maternal womb, just as the sea devours the sun but brings it forth again[110].

 

Their dark waters are «stymphalized», meaning that they are among «the combinations of Water and Night»[111]; their crossing is a fortiori a «night» one, since, as Eliade affirms, once regressed to the prenatal stage, the candidate is «in the cosmic Night and in expectation of the “dawn”»[112]. However, there is more to be found in the sea: it is not a simple Mare Tenebrositatis, for it is made up of blood; it incorporates, therefore, a second aquatic hierophany. If water is, as Bachelard affirms, «the blood of the Earth»[113], one should not be surprised to encounter blood in such a chthonic landscape; moreover, if blood – especially (but not only) menstrual one –, as «principle of generation»[114], plays a central role in conception[115], one must not be amazed to see it participating to such an imaginary of gestation, in which the neophyte is literally given birth again by the Womb of the Earth. There again, in the cover illustration, the embryo figure mirrors the ambivalence death/rebirth by being depicted, at the same time, as a skull.

The Adramelechian neophyte’s rebirth is thus accomplished. In this paraliterary work – conceived by the Death Metal «poets» Adramelech –, the cycle of initiatory death and resurrection has been possible because, in the course of his passage through the inferior regions (as Regressus ad Uterum), the initiate has experienced the regenerative benefit proffered by the most maternal of «the four lands of death»[116] – water. The explicit of Revived’s lyrics – in which the same realm of the beyond, until then revealed to be of profound primeval sacrality, is finally denominated «godless realm» – might arouse the readers’ curiosity. In this case, one should bear in mind what Mircea Eliade had come to grasp about the modern world long before the flourishing of the Death Metal musical subgenre: «even beneath its radically desacralized forms, Western culture camouflages magico-religious meanings»[117]. The subject presented in this research is a typical paraliterary example which illustrates how, at the threshold of the twenty-first century, «in the case of those moderns who proclaim that they are nonreligious, religion and mythology are “eclipsed” in the darkness of their unconscious»[118].

 

 

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Sitography

 

«Adramelech» (Band Name):

www.metal-archives.com/bands/Adramelech/2426.

Encyclopedia Metallum: The Metal Archives:

www.metal-archives.com/.

«Jarkko Rantanen» (Artist):

www.metal-archives.com/artists/Jarkko_Rantanen/3882.

«Psychostasia» (Album Title):

www.metal-archives.com/albums/Adramelech/Psychostasia/6516.

Sdaniel, «A Darker, Faster Demigod» (Review):

www.metal-archives.com/reviews/Adramelech/Spring_of_Recovery/7780/sdaniel/133556.

«Spring of Recovery» (Album Title):

www.metal-archives.com/albums/Adramelech/Spring_of_Recovery/7780.

«Terror of Thousand Faces» (Album Title):

www.metal-archives.com/albums/Adramelech/Terror_of_Thousand_Faces/80931.

Turkka G. Rantanen (Artist):

www.metal-archives.com/artists/Turkka_G._Rantanen/134139.

 

                 Notes