Top 5 Nihilist Rock & Metal Bands in 2020
In 2020 nihilist rock and metal is basically what I’m listening to for the most part. I mean, I’m listening to everything because I have a lot of different taste, but here are some amazing nihilist rock bands I’m into right now.
Fire From the Gods
Fire From the Gods is a heavy, spiritual, socially aware metal band from Austin, Texas that reminds me a lot of old school Coheed and Cambria mixed with Bad Brains and Living Color. Their song Right Now has become one of my favorite songs of the last few years, and I love the music video. It’s anthemic for the spiritual nihilism music scene for sure. End Transmission is another favorite. I dare you not to get the chorus stuck in your head.
Bring Me the Horizon
Bring Me the Horizon which, if you read my site, you already know is one of my absolute favorite bands right now, is the OG nihilist rock band. They’re pretty explicit about it, too, with songs like nihilist blues, Mantra and in the dark. Their aesthetic, also, is highly in line with 2020 clique digital and spiritual nihilism: lots of sci-fi, lots of christian gnosticism, cults and occultic imagery, and an attitude that combines ‘fuck it all’ ‘let’s get weird’ ‘it’s all burning down’ and ‘let’s fix it’ which is perfectly captured in music videos like the video for Throne. Definitely listen to Bring Me the Horizon. It’s the most nihilist band of all the nihilist bands on this list. Mantra should be required reading for anyone who’s interested in this kind of stuff. I also highly recommend Sugar, Honey, Ice & Tea.
Erra
Erra’s Eye of God is a top tier nihilist anthem, but Erra has an incredible back catalog of great music including songs like Skyline, Breach and Ghost of Nothing. Erra is kind of like if Opeth combined its lyrical songwriting style and its death metal style into one single entity instead of two sides of one coin. Aside from Opeth, System of a Down is definitely a heavy Erra influence. Most Erra songs feature pleasant, complex prog riffs and then choruses and verses that alternate between melodic crooning and hardcore metal. What the totality of it produces is a band that makes incredibly epic songs. I highly recommend their new album, Neon.
Demons & Wizards
Demons & Wizards definitely learns more toward the magic/occult and Christian gnosticism side of modern nihilism, and it takes influence from the rock side of things as well. You can hear the Ronnie James Dio influence, the Twisted Sister influence, the Alice Cooper influence and the plethora of 70s rock influences (like Jethro Tull) that inform Demons & Wizards’s sound. Demons & Wizards comes from the same school of metal as bands like Dragonforce & Tenacious D, with the same sort of fantasy theatrics, but it takes itself more seriously than those examples. For an example of what they’re all about, check out their song Diabolic.
Bad Omens
The second entrant from Sumerian Records on this list (the first being Erra), Bad Omens new album “Finding God Before God Finds Me” is about as in line with 2020 spiritual and digital nihilism as it comes. You can tell immediately not only from the album title, but from the imagery in their video for Never Know, which features a human hand clasped together with a robot/AI. The lyrical content on from the songs on the album also reflect their nihilist rock conversion (“I don’t know which way to go, but I’m okay to never know”). I highly recommend watching the video for their new song Limits. Burning Out is another favorite.
That concludes the top 5 nihilist rock bands I’m listening to in 2020. I mean, you should also listen to Poppy and Skarlett Riot, maybe Church of the Cosmic Skull — the list can go on and on. But let’s cut it off at 5. Click here for more music recommendations. Click here for more nihilism.
