A VISION OF PURE METAL

Skulls, black obsidian, carved like Maya temple decorations, arrayed like peaches in some improbable orchard. Each and every one of them has the glowing eyes of DOOM. Oh, great ones, I crawl beneath you, through this hall of diabolical judgement, towards the INFERNUM. Guitars, like pickets, rise imposingly to either side of me. In the distance, where the two walls lead but do not touch, a column of flame rises, and before it, a throne. I have paid homage to you through DEATH METAL, through the most sinister of imaginings, through the loathsome, despicable, and decadent lifestyle I have lived for these many years.

Flames rise from every direction, and in those flames, images of strippers dancing on poles, saber-toothed cats bringing down extinct megafauna, girls in catholic schoolgirl uniforms setting fire to garages. The unholy IT sits beside its master, GREAT BAPHOMET, an a mighty stone made from the bones of extinct reptiles, magma from the formation of ancient supercontinents, and ten million broken guitar strings, all melted into chrome tailpipes, projecting from the thing like antlers.

Baphomet, so beautiful, the body and face of a Las Vegas hooker, eyes of a reptile. Observes.

This is the DEATH METAL level of Hell, deeper yet than the frozen lake, next door to Tartarus, where the imprisoned titans groan and strain against their shackles. Here, the strains of Deicide and Morbid Angel, Possessed and Goatwhore, wail against the disembodied screams of metal's victims. Metalhead, beware. One stray footfall from the path of TRUE METAL, and you could join these eternal outcasts, wailing in the wind for all eternity, rather than sit at the LEFT HAND of BAPHOMET, baptized in the wail of guitar.