The Death Metal Pastorals

Ryan Patrick Smith

THE DEATH METAL PASTORALS register a lament, caterwauling against entropy, violence, and subjection. Here, each blooming things fades, and what crests must also break. May the bleakness be fleeting, may the song-turned-cry of the lyric shake us out of our stupor—if only to become better conduits for our tears. Ryan Patrick Smith says it better anyhow: “Everything dies on a wave.”

—Joshua Marie Wilkinson, author of SELENOGRAPHY, SWAMP ISTHMUS, THE COURIER'S ARCHIVE & HYMNAL, and MEADOW SLASHER