Emmanuel
EUCHARIST: LIVING & EVANGELIZING
My “Death Metal” Kids:
Closet Sacramentalists
by Michael E. DeSanctis
A father muses on the musical and existential journey of his eldest son and
daughter. Could Easter and new life be at the end of their fascination with the
grave and death?
Michael E.
DeSanctis is
Professor of
Fine Arts and
Theology
at Gannon
University
in Erie,
Pennsylvania,
as well as the
director of its
honors program.
He serves
as a design
consultant to
Catholic parishes
involved in the
construction or
renovation of
places of worship
and has written
for a number
of publications,
including
Emmanuel.
I
confess
to
taking
a
perverse
pleasure
from
walking
through
supermarkets, restaurants, and other public places with the eldest of
my four children, an inseparable brother-sister pair in their mid-20s
whose pleasant disposition and wide-ranging talents could win them
the admiration of complete strangers. Instead, they attract mostly
disapproving stares.
My kids, you see, are Death Metal musicians of the sort who thrash
about the stages of bars and dance clubs most weekends enveloped
in a sonic equivalent of street graffiti or Guerilla Theater just this
side of cacophony. Even when the thrashing stops, they bear the
unmistakable marks of affiliation with the DM scene — real head-
turners in most settings and suggestive in no obvious way of their
upbringing in a Catholic household big on domestic rituals designed
to enliven the soul.
Nowadays, however, a vaguely funereal air ensconces my kids, the
result of wardrobes virtually bereft of color but stockpiled with loose-
fitting T-shirts, tank tops, and cargo pants draped in layers over their
frames like the black crepe of which the Victorians were so fond for
public mourning. Recycled Victorianisms figure prominently into
their outward appearance, in fact, though they would be the last to
recognize them as such.
Like their counterparts in the loosely-related Punk and Goth scenes,
they revel in the most maudlin aspects of late-nineteenth century
culture and claim thanatos itself the focus of their creative output,
despite the earthy, kick-drum eroticism that pulses through their
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