Music

The top 10 most metal band names

by Ciaran Thompson

For metal bands with obscure names, or ones we sometimes just gawk at, one can only wonder what they’re thinking about when selecting a name for their opus. It might be as harmless as seeing a car accident involving a stray cow to come up with Cattle Decapitation or watching an episode of one of those birth story shows to think of Decrepit Birth, although we’re not sure how those folks came up with Crucifixxx Sodomy or Goatwhore, or rather just don’t want to not know. Metal bands seem to draw the most attention from their names, whichever the style. Here’s our top ten list, the inaugural I might add, of the most metal band names.

10. Deathspell Omega – French death metal band who apparently formed after members were in a band called Hirilorn. One of the fiercest things to come out of France since the Guillotine.

9. Satanic Warmaster – Part of a few black metal bands from Finland to make our list, the main musician in the group, Satanic Tyrant Werewolf, has said “satanism constitutes my world view 100%.”

8. Aborted Fetus – Russian death metal band Aborted Fetus admit they had trouble selecting a name. It was either between Aborted Fetus, Incide Decay or Fermented Corpse. Tough call.

7. Cattle Decapitation – The last album from San Diego’s Cattle Decapitation entitled The Harvest Floor has a picture on the cover of people instead of cows being led through a narrow passageway leading to the abattoir.

6. Decrepit Birth – There’s not much to say about a name like Decrepit Birth besides the fact these guys wanted to play “devastating, brutal, technical death metal, mixed with influences from the early 1990’s Florida death metal scene” from the start.

5. Goatwhore – Singer/guitarist Sammy Duet was previously in a band called Acid Bath before he started Goatwhore. Stylistically, both names don’t stray too far from one another.

4. Aryan Terrorism – Aryan Terrorism are a black metal band from Ukraine who have an album called War with songs like “Destroy the Church of Christ,” “Our Banner Swastika” and “Jewish Provocation.” They’re by no means light weight, hence the band name.

3. Torsofuck – Death metal band Torsofuck from Finland write songs about necrophilia, rape, perversions and feces. In direct relation to their name, on one of their album covers a man is fornicating with a bloody female body with no head.

2. Impaled Nazarene – Staying with Finnish metal bands, Impaled Nazarene formed in the early ’90s and the first song they wrote was called “Condemned to Hell.” In an interview band member Mika Luttinen said the band name stems from reading a pamphlet about Christ appearing to be a vampire and how impaling a vampire is one of the only ways to kill them.

1. Crucifixxx Sodomy – It’s only fitting a local Toronto band tops our list of most metal band names, but with a name like Crucifixxx Sodomy it’s difficult to put them anywhere else but at number one.