whether consciously or not. Case 1 for me is Varg Vikernes. Firstly, by returning with a series of mostly underwhelming metal albums he kind of killed the mystery behind his 'greatness'. Those albums revealed him to be less great musically than perhaps we assumed in the 90's. Secondly, those silly Youtube videos, which seem designed to consciously destroy his previous image.

Other examples?

Trey Azagthoth, his MySpace posts were like a teenage girl.

Probably Kiss when they 'unmasked', or Slipknot when they did the same with their respective side projects. Benton when he backtracked on the suicide thing and adopted more of a biker persona.

Anyone who drops a gimmick, essentially.

Hmm? What did he post?

Probably some of his retarded shit about shampoo and Sailor Moon. He's outed himself in this respect on the liner notes for years.

Trey's mystique died for me the moment I heard his voice back in 1995

Well, he's since been diagnosed with Asperger's or some such shit, which probably explains a lot. He does sound like a fucking surfer 'dude', though. Can't deny his talent, mind you.

First hinge that came to mind was Kiss unmasking. I guess any act that paint themselves as more than simply people on stage as part of their act are always susceptible to this kind of loss of mystique. I expect Ghost will be next?

You ever hear Sandoval speaking? He sounds like Al Pacino in Scarface, meng.

Speaking of other surprising voices in the Floridian DM scene, Chuck Shuldiner had a voice that I wouldn't expect.

Dont get me wrong I worship Trey but receiving MySpace messages from him that had OMG and LOL peppered all over them was a bit surreal.

Fucking banana boater...Terrorizer is another example of a band that should have stayed dead. Awesome demos, live tapes and fucking World Downfall. Now there are 3 other piles of shite bearing the name that nobody wanted, effectively ruining the legendary status of the band...

He definitely sounded like a stoner.

I wonder how his lyrics on the 1990-1993 stuff was received, considering he wanted to move away from the typical DM gore-y subjects. Does anyone have an answer for this?

I seem to remember them being pretty well received at the time, certainly for Human (I bowed out when ITP dropped). It was considered refreshing to have lyrics that weren't the standard gore/violence/demonic/fantasy fare.


You know there are 2 Terrorizers on the go now? Garcia has his version, called Terrorizer LA. He and Sandoval fell out years ago so now you have this petty shit going on, similar to the Entombed embarrassment.

I don’t remember people being too disappointed by the lyrical change. As Sol said, many found it refreshing and considered it a maturation in the sub-genre. I think musical changes probably bothered people more (especially by the time of The Sound of Perseverance, particularly the change in vocal tone).

Behemoth were a mysterious Eastern European version of Emperor but now they are like a BM version of Ghost.

I've found that about pretty much all black metal bands: Many of them started off being mysterious and ended up nothing more than childish, racist, homophobic, c***s. I don't think Behemoth have quite plumbed to those depths, yet.

An interesting one is Neurosis: When I first heard their music, it was very different to what I'd heard before, and I simply did not equate it with being produced in a very organic way by 5 guys in jeans and t-shirts, one of whom is a teacher by day. In this case, my initial self-projected mystique was replaced by respect.

Another case is Devin Townsend: he has clearly gone to great lengths to remove any mystique held about him, and it's for the better. He lives in the same town as me and I actually bumped into him whilst out for a walk along the river and we had a little chat. An absolutely lovely guy: Nothing like the nutter you pictured listening to the Strapping Young Lad albums.

With regard to Kiss: I actually grew up thinking they were some kind of heavy metal monster, with riffs to go with the image they projected. How disappointed was I when I actually heard how lame their music was. They were shit with make-up, and are still shit without.

Devy actively promoted the image of him being a kind of 'mad genius' of metal, regardless of whether it was ironic or not. This was in the late 90's and early 00's.

As for KISS, I reckon when they took off their makeup everybody was confronted with the mundane fact that they were just a bunch of rather ugly 30 something year old men. Given how image focused rock became in the 80's, they were lucky to have survived it relatively intact. Even if their fanbase had significantly diminished by the late 80's/early 90's, they were still a name band and a consistent live draw.

As for black metal bands, the mystique would have been impossible to maintain over a few decades, especially once black metal lost its radical edge and just became part of the general musical landscape. As the musicians got older they probably realised that there was nothing in it for them anymore and that it would be quite laughable to continue acting that way into your 30's and beyond. In the case of Fenriz though, you do get the distinct impression that he misses the days when it was more cult and the mystery was intact, but those days are long gone and never coming back.

For me Varg didn't have a mystique and I didn't even know at the time when I bought his CD's off Black Mark's mail order, that he was really Black Metal. He has always been a struggling musician to me and it was well know that he shouted himself to a state of dysphonia so he could sing in a more metal way, because he is shit at it. I watch a lot of his youtube stuff, I haven't quite worked out if the really believes in most of the shit he says and it regularly makes me laugh but some of his views on D&D, Asartu and ecology are worth taking note of.