Armageddon

Armageddon
Origin	New Freedomstan
Genres	Heavy metal
Years active	2013-2014 (?)
Labels	N/A
Website	None
Members	Unknown

Armageddon is a heavy metal band reportedly operating out of the New Freedomstani nuclear wasteland, consisting of at least ten separate members. They have been known to sporadically upload music, with accompanying music videos of themselves posing with weapons, killing people, driving tanks and trucks and showcasing what they claim to be 'mutants'. Contact with the band is sporadic at best, but they have explained their name as being inspired by 'anglo term for the end of the world, which we are experiencing every day'. Armageddon is a part of the Union of Metal States, with an unknown rank in the federation's hierarchy of bands.

Musical Style

While Armageddon does not release albums, but rather singles over mutube, each one seemingly having some variance in band members (at least two distinct vocalists, for one) some similarities are found in all songs. All seem to have been recorded with relatively primitive phones or microphones, and while electric guitars predominate, some have been played with fully acoustic instruments. Lyrical themes have the most uniformity, with themes such as fatalism, violence, the betrayal of ideals, death, brutality and hopelessness being common.

Armageddon's music varies quite a bit between released songs, but generally features rapid drums (at least one featuring 'drums' played on human skulls) and guitar play, with rapid and guttural vocals and little in terms of backup vocals.

Discography

• Armageddon (February 2013)
  • First song released on mutube. No video, only the music itself, played using acoustic instruments with plenty of growling. Description on mutube stated 'heavy metal straight from the hellhole of the former SWRNF'. Mostly sung in english, although includes some phrases attributed to former Nefreedian leaders, particularly Comrade One and Anders Ivansen, openly mocking both.
• Dødsmarsj (April 2013)
  • With a name translated as 'death march', the song is far more militant than the previous, and included a rather poor music video, of the band members walking about in rubble, pissing on whatever symbols of the former state, including a New Freedomstani flag and a banner of the dissident Republic of Zeelania, they find. Song seems to revolve around the Nefreedian-Spirean War.
• Leviatan (June 2013)
  • The band seemed to have found electric instruments by Leviatan, and it was with Leviatan they attracted some attention. Lyrics, with a deep monotone replacing former growling, revolves around failures of leader figures and saviors, and the 'ruined and rotting society'. Refrain goes 'We hate many things in our forsaken soil, but more than many things we hate pretty words, forked tongues tricking us into going to the slaughter, whoever hails the leviathans I hate the most'. The band stated 'leviathan' is a term that has emerged to describe the jotnar in post-apocalyptic New Freedomstan, a term seemingly referring to a non-human species who had managed to get into several leadership figures in the SWRNF. Video depicts the band seemingly killing one of these creatures, along with nearly a dozen other people, causing the music video to be considered a snuff film.
• Burning Skies (July 2013)
  • Their first music video depicting the band simply playing, seemingly in some kind of garage. The song itself is about the end of the world through nuclear fire (describes as 'hell fire' in the song).
• Pansermarsj (October 2013)
  • After a long hiatus with rumors the band had perished, they released a song whose name translates as 'March of Tanks'. The video depicts a tank, a T-72 outfitted with loudspeakers and rather gruesome trophies, driving around and firing at buildings.
• Fimbulvinter (December 2013)
  • Fimbul's Winter is about death of hypothermia, describing the process, with a video showing a man walking through a building, walking past dozens of corpses, frozen to death, including several children. The man picks up their food and leaves, as the song ends with 'and the fimbul winter will come for all'.
• Martyrmuren (February 2014)
  • A song mostly revolving dying in battle and going to 'the wall', video actually depicting a firefight, showing the same tank as from Pansermarsj blowing apart a group of militants. Vocalist is different from former songs, and description simply reads "See you late, 482-574, Harald, Ivar". Band later confirmed those are the names of fallen band members.
• Death to Hip-Hop (February 2014)
  • Released only two days after Martyrmuren. Video ends with the band executing a man claimed to be a 'rapper'.
• Comrade-Overseer (May 2014)
  • Highly anti-authoritarian lyrics, with a decent amount of growling like in their earliest works, seemingly being about a man in particular who led a rag-tag group of survivors as an overseer, doing brutalities as time wore on.
• Mutants (July 2014)
  • A song seemingly being about butchering 'mutants/subhumans' (the terms are used interchangeably), while showcasing images of various vaguely humanoid creatures in cages, all of which seem entirely feral.

Reception

Armageddon and their style have accrued some popularity in the Greater Pony Herd, their videos receiving millions of views from the country. Their popularity has spawned a particularly notable apocalyptic metal followers in the Horses of the Apocalypse band, who have utilized a private nuclear arsenal to create apocalyptic scenery from an abandoned industrial complex, where they record their own music videos and hold concerts.

Armageddon has proven to be extremely popular in Malgrave with their videos receiving millions of views despite fears initially that they might be banned. While the Ministry of Cultural Sensitivity has failed to comment on why the band passed censors it has been said that the bands seemingly anti-communist agenda granted it favourable passage through the system.