I found this really good article about one of my new favourite bands, Wolves in the Throne Room. For an article in the mainstream about a black metal band, the writer seems to know what he is talking about. There are a few over-generalisations - a lot of seminal black metal bands dropped the corpsepaint early on, not all bands adopted the traditional lo-fi production aestethetic (listen to Immortal!), few were involved in the church burnings and saying Satanism was proclaimed is a common stereotype (many were anti-religious, while other professed pagan beliefs). However, it's a thorough introduction, and an intelligent piece on a fascinating, progressive metal band.

Unlike this, which serves so little purpose - few Oxford students have any interest in the death metal scene, and this is hardly an introduction (the disc or the review). More annoyingly, the writer goes on about the boundaries of the style, ignoring the fact that extreme metal is one of the most diverse genres of music - that's what extremity is really all about. A portion of death metal bands, of which Severe Torture are one, aim to make the most brutal, heavy albums, and at first listen, they may be a lot of similiarity between different bands. However, it becomes quite possible to distinguish the ones that are playing generic death metal with the ones who show a desire to push the genre forward, of which there are many examples.

Also, the Scandinavian scene never imploded. It exploded and produced several different subgenres, each with a different sound, but ultimately falling under the label of death metal. Which pretty much says everything about the genre's "space for creativity".