Heavy Metal CDs

Metal music represents one face of a complex underground culture in which information is distributed through an informal system of human connections. For this reason finding how to locate, compare and purchase metal is highly difficult. The Dark Legions Archive research staff have compiled a few ideas on how to locate metal CDs and enjoy them.

1. Try before you buy using MP3 files. This is "natural selection": you pick the better music and shallow trends and garbage underground bands alike get ignored.

2. Never lose sight of the music itself. The guitar may sound a certain way, the vocals may sound better or worse, and you may be able to hear different instruments with varying degrees of accuracy - but, in all but the worst cases, you will be able to hear with veracity the tones and rhythms used to create the music itself - the abstract construction which is the understanding of music and life spoken in the language of metal as specific to the artist, genre, and song. Production is not music quality; the poetic nature of its composition and what it expresses is.

3. Try a local metal store and if it's not there, look up a mailorder distribution (or "distro") for metal CDs. Many metal record labels also operate mail orders both online and via postal catalog. Free Heavy Metal CDs and DVDs

By partnering with labels, we are able to give away metal CDs and DVDs on a monthly basis. We do this as a service to fans and get nothing from it except periodic promo copies (who isn't a sucker for free Danzig videos?).

Tips for Mailordering Metal

1. If you insure your package, it will arrive or the post office will pay you back in 4-6 weeks.

2. Mail order labels offer a greater selection at lower prices, since they don't have to physically display their releases or pay for the overhead of a store.

3. Quite often, mail order distributors trade with the bands themselves, thus transferring fiscal resources closer to the generators of the music.

4. No matter where you live, there is some form of postal service that can deliver metal.

5. The magic of the postal system is that you send out a check one week, and the next week, metal arrives in the mail at just about the time you were feeling down and needed something to reinvigorate the fervor of life in your veins.

6. If you're worried about security, use a postal money order and send your package with electronic tracking.

Buying from Individuals

Although eBay has almost obliterated secondhand sales, there are still fanatics who like to trade or sell to each other. Despite being a fair amount of work, this is rewardingly free from most complexities of modern life and allows you to get stuff too obscure to make return on auction sites.

1. Ask about CD's that are for sale; if they are in "perfect" condition, it means no scratches; anything less requires explanation in case you will be unable to play those discs on your equipment.

2. Watch for the random but still present phantom sellers who take money and never send discs. If you ask around, there are a number of "bad trader" lists; much as black lists are a destructive factor in human relations, it's easier to avoid someone with a problem delivering than it is to support them so they may ripoff others.

3. Consider using a P.O. box or rental box unit to keep your home address separate when publishing your address on the net. Coupled with a money order, this affords reasonable anonymity.

4. Always confirm with an email the availability of a sale item before sending money.

5. When you find someone you trust to buy from, consider asking them to put you on a personal distribution list in case they sell again.

6. To avoid sending cash, use postal money orders - available for a cost of 85 cents at any post office in the US; these work like checks but must be filled out with sender/receiver name and addresses.

7. Expect to pay 60-70% of new price before tax for releases in perfect condition, and 30-40% for CD's in lesser condition.

8. Be patient - if you need your CD's immediately and can't wait, arrange for that with the seller beforehand.