Is there any death metal that is not nihilistic?
Unfortunately, most death metal you’ll come across is probably going to have pretty negative and hateful lyrical content; that’s just the nature of the genre. That said, there are a scattering of bands that write songs about topics other than killing people, etc. Here are some suggestions: Dark Tranquillity: Dark Tranquillity are an extremely well known and highly regarded death metal band. Their music tends toward the ‘melodic death metal’ subgenre, which they actually helped to create with their first albums. Their lyrical content is all over the place, but it definitely does not veer towards nihilistic and violent topics. http://www.darklyrics.com/d/darktranquillity.html Cynic – “Focus”: the lyrics are very weird and new-agey almost, nothing like normal death metal. See http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/cynic/focus.html for the lyrics. The album itself is generally considered one of the finest examples of technical death metal in the genre. Lykathea Aflame – “Elvenefris”: this album’
