TOP & BOTTOM: "Stillborn" Metal Songs

Very, very sad

 

   I'm a metal-head at heart. Even though I don't listen to all the bone-crushing, blood-curdling, abortion-making (maybe?) death metal music that I used to, and I've mellowed out a bit in my old years (I'm 57*), I still appreciate the heavy stuff.
    A few weeks ago, I was listening to the album The Arrival by the band Hypocrisy. First of all, great melo-death album. Go check it out. But, there's a song on there called, "Stillborn". This got me thinking: boy, there sure are lots of metal songs named "Stillborn". Even as I thought that, I couldn't name a single one. Still, I knew it might be something to investigate. I ended up going to metal-archives, where they have a very nice search feature. Simply put, I searched for songs entitled, "Stillborn". As I had figured, there was a good amount. Somewhere around 45. However, I had only ever heard two of them before. Why the hell did I think there were so many, when I had only heard two?
    [author's side note: I was going to do a similar list to metal songs with the word, "requiem", but the results came up 1,729 entries...]
    However I got the idea in my head, I decided I would listen to them all and rank them. However, I ran into a problem. I couldn't find about twenty of the songs. I listened to a majority of these on Grooveshark or Youtube. Some of these, however, I just COULDN'T find to save my life. [hey, another author's note: I'm not doing the following sentence"] I'll include that list at the end. So, instead of ranking every one, I decided to turn this into a "Top & Bottom" post. So, here are the top seven and bottom seven metal songs entitled, "Stillborn". Enjoy this incredibly specific, niche list!
    Also, because I'm a slave to list cliches, I've rated these all on a popular 1-10 scale.
    [author's OTHER side note: a word to the squeamish: there might be a few gross-out death metal album covers. Nothing Cannibal Corpse level though]

TOP SEVEN:

7. The Shattering (from the album, The Shattering Begins)

Image obtained from technicaldeathmetal

    Out of the twenty-or-so songs I listened to, a decent amount of them were death metal. This was the only death metal song that really stuck out to me. The vocals start off screamed but they get guttural soon after. Unique, fresh-sounding death metal is so hard to find. I really appreciate good, heavy stuff I do find (even if the cover art sucks). Based solely on this song, I would buy this album. 8/10

6. Rise and Fall (from the album, Our Circle is Vicious)

Image obtained from crucialattack

    This almost seems more like an intro track than a full-on song. It's still pretty good anyway. The big drums really stand out, there's some nice, crunchy guitar, and even a bit of the ol' screamed vocals, to boot. If this song was even a minute longer, it would probably rank higher on my list. At least that album cover absolutely rocks. 8/10

5. Hanging Garden (from the album, Inherit the Eden)

Picture obtained from metalarchives

    Boy, what a depressing-sounding sound. This is easily the saddest song of all the twenty-whatever I listened to. It's also instrumental, which is great. It starts off slowly with light strings and piano. It picks up with heavier guitars towards the middle. This is a great song that really makes you think. Specifically, with its sad sound, and with it being titled, "Stillborn", it's maybe the only song that actually makes you think about a stillbirth, and how fucking horribly horrific it is. Ugh. Thanks for bringing down the room, band I've never heard of until now (I would also buy this album based on this song). 8/10.

4. Hypocrisy (from the album, The Arrival)

Picture obtained from metalarchives

    Hey, a song I've heard before! In fact, I own this album! Of course, I wrote the tiniest, crappiest description of it in my notes. The chorus is actually pretty catchy and it's pretty heavy overall. Not much more to add (apparently), but as I said above, this is a great album, and this is one of the better songs on it. 8/10

3. Black Label Society (from the album, The Blessed Hellride)

Picture obtained from wikipedia

    This was the only other "Stillborn" song I could think of off the top of my head. I generally am not a huge BLS fan. I like a few songs here and there (I will say, I would buy their album 1919 Eternal, which I've heard most of in the past, and remember thinking it was pretty good). However, this song kicks a huge amount of ass. It's got sludgy riff goodness and a super catchy chorus. Even with Ozzy singing in it, he amazingly doesn't detract. Great, great song. Just swell! 8.5/10

2. xDiscipleX A.D. (from the EP, Lantern)

Picture obtained from lastfm

    These guys are straight-edge Christian apparently. Not my normal cup of tea. Too bad this song is amazing. I was blown away when I listened to it. It wasn't even on the original "Stillborn" list that I found on the Metal Archives site. I found this by searching "Stillborn" on Grooveshark. This is a very short (a few seconds shy of two minutes) sludgy rock song. Mostly screamed vocals, but they sound great. I have a love/hate relationship with the screamed vocals. Overall this is a surprising song, but ALMOST my favorite of all I listened to. 9/10

1. Deville (from the album, Come Heavy Sleep)

Picture obtained from heavypsychsoundrecords

    Wow! The above song blew me away, but this song B L E E E W me away. I've never heard of these guys, but I would unequivocally buy the shit out of this album based on this song. It's a stoner rock ditty with sludgy guitars and clean-sung vocals. Great, catchy chorus as well. If anyone out there is a fan of stoner rock and hasn't listened to these guys, I would give them a shot. Start with this song, because if nothing else, this song kicks some major ass. Easily the best song I listened to for this little list. 9/10




    Aah, some great music up there. Well, that was fun. Now, let's dredge through the drudgeries of the bottom seven "Stillborn" metal songs (as a note, 7 is the least worst, and 1 is definitely the worst of them all).

BOTTOM SEVEN:

7. Masterstroke (from the album, As Days Grow Darker)

picture obtained from metalarchives

    This is pretty standard new age power metal, kind of like Dragonforce (ugh, yuck). That's what I was reminded of at least. I honestly wasn't expecting the high pitched vocals. It's not awful, but it really doesn't grab me. It's wholly un-memorable. Eh. Definitely passable. 6/10

6. Ingested (from the album, Surpassing the Boundaries of Human Suffering)

picture obtained from metalarchives

    This is pretty damn heavy (can't you tell from the ultra-death metal cover?), which I like, but the vocals are so deep and fake-sounding that it really takes away from any goodness the song might bring. Not much to say. It's decent, I guess. I appreciate the heaviness, but it's hardly special. 5.5/10

5. Autopsy (from the album, Severed Survival)

picture obtained from metalarchives

    Eh, just decent. Slower death metal (which I generally don't like much). It's got crappy vocals and unremarkable music. This is quite forgettable, and just falls into the undulating mass of crawling flesh that is death metal. Not horrible, but, just...eh. 5/10

4. Fatal Array (from the album, Fatal Array)

Picture obtained from metalarchives

    This is pretty standard thrash metal. Apparently this was the only album released by these guys ("but look at the cover!" you might be saying?). I kind of see why. The music actually kicks ass, which is promising, but the high-pitched vocals really turn me off. Basically standard crappy thrash singing. It's almost like Flotsam and Jetsam-lite. 4/10

3. Spineshank (from the album, Self-Destructive Pattern)

Picture obtained from wikipedia

    This is a band I used to like, back in my nu-metal days (keep your hissing to a minimum, please). I guess they differentiated themselves somewhat because they had some industrial sounds. Either way, this is that super-whiny crap that I think gives good nu-metal (yeah, it does exist) a bad name. 13-year old me would probably rate this at least a 7, 27-year old me will give it a very generous 4/10 (mainly because of the industrial stuff. Don't get it twisted, this song sucks)

2. Maroon (from the album, Antagonist)

Picture obtained from spirit-of-metal

    This song kind of sucks. Kind of really sucks. It's like a hardcore punk screamo kind of deal. That sort of music really just doesn't do anything for me. So maybe people that like this kind music will think it's good, but I certainly do not. Oh well, music is decent at least. 3/10

1. Burning Witch (from the album, Crippled Lucifer)

Picture obtained from metalarchives

    Ugh. This song was EASILY the worst of the songs I listened to. For anyone's curiosity, I listened to 22 songs. And this one was the shittiest. It's typical drone doom. I can usually stomach drone, actually. But this was snooze-inducing. I understand drone is supposed to be very long, drawn-out, sparse, and nihilistic, but this is just boring. It reminds me a bit of Khanate (except, you know, Khanate is good), especially the screamed vocals. There's also non-screamed vocals. I really disliked these. I think that's all I can say. Good job Burning Witch, you've crafted the worst "Stillborn" song (that I listened to). 3/10

FULL DISCLOSURE:

    Here is where I'm going to list the songs that I didn't make either "top" or "bottom" list. I was going to list the songs I couldn't find to listen to, but what does that really matter? This is more informative. Even though I did discover some great songs/bands (Deville, xDisciplex A.D, and Hanging Garden come to mind) for this, most were all boring, bland death metal. That was the main problem with most of the bottom seven: they weren't bad, per say, but boy, they were very unoriginal, unforgettable, and they didn't do anything new or different. So, before I list the rest of the songs that didn't make the cut(s), what have we learned here? I would say, the whole lesson is, songs that are titled "Stillborn" are more-likely than not to be run-of-the-mill death metal. Even though much of the bottom seven aren't death metal, just know that a large majority I listened to that didn't make these lists were death metal. Thanks for reading, and hopefully you'll be back next time for another exciting installment of "Top & Bottom".

• Defaced Creation
• Malevolent Creation (this just missed the "bottom" list. It was ranked #15 [what would have been #8])
• Nexilva
• Polluted Inheritance
• Sleep (this just missed the "top" list. It was ranked #8)
• Crimson Falls
• Nattas
• The Scarr