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This contribution is an investigation into the palpable connection of extreme metal music and concepts of death, dying and mortality. Like other dark subcultures, metal has an intense infatuation with the macabre; many of its subcultures seek to uncover meaning through musical exploration into varying dark themes that emerge when thinking about death and what lies beyond the bounds of existence. From the abrasive and animalistic blood lust of death metal to the melancholic textures of black metal and the sonic void evoked in doom metal, extreme metal is a catalyst through which fans of the macabre can explore many perceptions and conceptions of corporeal fragility; the consuming pain of life, of death, and of knowing; and the existential notion of the ungraspable abyss. This chapter explores these varying conceptualisations of death in extreme metal culture, their sonic representations and their cathartic consolation: delving into the psychoanalytic reasoning and embodied sound of death.

This brief chapter explores my experiences with music and death throughout my cancer treatment. Though I constantly confronted my mortality throughout my cancer treatment, music also helped to distract me from unpleasant, lengthy or boring treatments, as well as helping me to process my feelings about my own mortality. It thus served two distinct purposes, both focusing my mind on death and pain and distancing me from it.