This is driving me nuts. A couple weeks ago someone was talking about apocalyptic imagery in heavy metal and offered up Metallica’s “Four Horsemen” as an example. I thought I could come up with loads of other examples, but in all this time all I found is Satyricon’s Nemesis Divina.
You’d think the book of Revelations would be mined as a source of imagery and lyrics, but I just can’t think of anything that uses it. Am I missing a bunch of obvious stuff, or is there really a dearth of apocalyptic metal?
w/o direct reference to “Revelation”- Black Sabbath’s WAR PIGS
Not metal at all- but if you listen closely, the Prince song that goes
“All seven and we’ll watch them fall
They stand in the way of love and we shall smote them all
With intellect and savior faire…” is about the Beast/Babylon’s
fall & perhaps the Marriage of the Lamb & the Bride.
I’ve no doubt that you can find a lot of these references across all genres of music–in particular, I’m thinking gospel would be a rich hunting ground–but given how well they would fit with metal, I’m surprised they’re not more common.
If hilarious cock-rock proto-metal counts, there’s the absolutely indispensable 666 by Aphrodite’s Child. Yes, that’s Vangelis.
Also, Black Sabbath did a number of apocalyptic songs, even if they weren’t specifically tied to scripture. In that same vein, so has Slayer. Of course, they went all hard-core “God sucks wind” after a while, so I dunno.