The Eagles of Death Metal were apparently onto something when they named their 2004 album Peace, Love, Death Metal. The band’s catchy music falls pretty far from death metal, in fact, it’s not at all. Throw on the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth, Morbid Angel or Nile instead and you’ve hit the heart of it.

But a small Aussie study into the genre is making some loud noise internationally.

Earlier this year researchers from Sydney’s Macquarie University published their findings on death metal fans and it turns out they’ve latched onto somewhat of a hard (music) drug.

The researchers looked at the effect of listening to song titles like Cannibal Corpse’s Hammer Smashed Face which has the lyric ‘Eyes bulging from their sockets, with every swing of my mallet, I smash your f***king head in until brains seep in through the cracks.’

Grim right?

The study found non-death metal fans were likely to feel pretty uncomfortable listening to this type of music and were likely to experience tension, anger and fear, but those who enjoyed heavier music experienced a huge uptake in feelings of peace, joy, power and wonder.

“Our results revealed striking differences in the emotional responses of fans and non-fans of death metal. For non-fans, listening to music with violent themes resulted in uniformly negative experiences. It left them feeling tense, afraid and angry,” the researchers, Bill Thompson and Kirk Olsen wrote in a piece for The Conversation.

“But the music had the opposite effect for its fans, giving rise to positive experiences such as power, joy and peace. Fans, it seems, can selectively attend to particular acoustic and lyrical attributes of violent music in a way that promotes psychosocial goals.

“Instead of leaving them feeling hostile, the music helps fans to discharge or distract from their own negative feelings, increase energy levels, and generate powerful, visceral emotional states.”

The researchers concluded it was death metal fans enthusiasm for the genre that ultimately led to a range of positive emotional responses when tuning into it.

The study, titled Who Enjoys Violent Music and Why? noted that “engagement with violent music may be a way for individuals who are already experiencing anger and other difficult emotions to process their feelings.”

Their research looked at the emotional experience that was most likely to be had by listening to music with violent themes, fan motivations for listening to death metal and whether there were clear personality traits between fans and non-fans.

A group of fans and non-fans were played a number of one-minute samples of death metal music with particularly violent lyrics and sounds that were associated with high aggression — in other words music that is the exact opposite of chill.

Both groups were then asked how they felt after listening to it.

The researchers found fans and non-fans had very different personalities, including their empathetic capacity and reasons for listening to music. The death metal fans were found to be less agreeable and conscientious than non-fans and female fans were found to be more neurotic than male fans.

The study found death metal fans had different motives for listening to music than compared to fans of sad music, which listeners were drawn to for its “aesthetic beauty”.

They found death metal fans were more likely to appreciate the genre for its energetic and empowering appeal.

“Many non-fans in our study expressed incomprehension as to how anyone could possibly endorse such repugnant lyrical content,” the researchers wrote, referring to the Cannibal Corpse lyrics mentioned above.

The American band was banned for a long time in Australia, in 1996 the country stopped the sale of any Cannibal Corpse recordings and all copies had to be stripped from music stores. The ban lasted ten years until it was lifted in 2006.

Almost immediately after the band made plans to tour Australia but they were met with heavy protests over whether or not they should’ve been allowed in. The fans were likely pretty stoked though.

Despite concerns about the lyrical content, researchers found the fans benefited a lot from listening to the genre.

“Fans typically expressed no such concerns about the lyrics. When describing their motivations for listening to the music, one fan explained that “when I’m feeling low or lazy it helps me feel energised”.”

“Another suggested, “when I’m angry it brings me to a dark place internally so I can work through it”.”

“A third speculated that “it has something to do with the primal scream in us, it’s a release, accepting and empowering”.”

The researchers said it was possible death metal fans were not troubled by violent song lyrics as they had an increased ability to distance themselves psychologically from them and were able to view the depictions as fantasy, not reality.

“For fans, violent music provides both a source of powerful visceral emotions and a form of social surrogacy, leading to a strong sense of community and shared identity.”