Angel of Death

DISCLAIMER: Do not read this post if you take offense to graphic language, the song I chose contains material meant to draw a visceral response from the audience.

Slayer's song "Angel of Death" was controversial when it first came out, and still is today due to rhetorical techniques only utilized by metal bands. the song is about Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi physician who performed human experiments on the victims at Auschwitz during the second world war. At the time that this song came out, Slayer was the most extreme band in existence, and they employed a technique popular in death metal which I refer to as satirical irony. It is common for vocalists to adopt the point of view of the person they are commenting on, and express the disgusting thoughts that the person has. This is why there is a stigma against this song in particular, people who are ignorant of this technique think that the vocalist is literally saying that he wants to do these things, when he is really ridiculing the sick person who committed these crimes against humanity. Tom Araya, Slayer's vocalist, has a higher-pitched, clean style of vocals that is present mainly in hardcore punk and thrash metal. This style of vocals usually convey a lot of angst as it is easier to annunciate vocal inflections when you're not growling. Overall, the cover by "Jaytromusic" on Youtube gives off very different vibes. His vocal style is less clear, taking after Chris Barnes and George Fisher of Cannibal Corpse, modeling his low, guttural words after death metal and black metal more than thrash metal. These lower vocals are associated less with political commentaries that are common in thrash metal and hardcore. This style of vocals is meant to exaggerate the purely evil side of the words, rather than a larger meaning behind them. Because of this, the tone of the song is different than the original version. Two phrases in the song stand out in terms of the different tone displayed by the performer.
"How long can you last
In this frozen water burial?
Sewn together, joining heads..."

When Slayer plays this song, it's like the vocalist is speaking as an observing third party, commenting on the nature of the situation through his words.

When "Jaytromusic" performs this set of lines, his words make it seem like he is the perpetrator, taunting his victims with his evil sounding voice.

"Angel of Death
Monarch to the kingdom of the dead
Infamous butcher,
Angel of Death"

As the punchline of this song, both vocalists take more care with this phrase than the others.

Tom Araya opens up his voice and makes it seem like he is throwing his head back and yelling to the world. This gives the impression that he is addressing the disgrace of this story.

Here, "Jaytromusic" does nearly the same thing, but adding even more anger to his words, and sustaining the end of each line, emphasizing this phrase in relation to the others.

The message in this song is basically the same from both vocalists, they are simply bringing up this story and conveying their awe at the evil in the world. Both styles are successful to me, but in my opinion Tom Araya does a better job appealing to a large audience due to his more objective sounding voice.