Metal Medallo: the Stertor as Aesthetic of Violence in Eighties Medellin

One of the classic problems of music research involves linking in some way the sound structures of an era, with their social, economic, political and cultural correlate. However, this correlation becomes more obvious in times of crisis, such as in the case of the emergence of Metal Medallo during the war between drug trafficking and the Colombian state in Medellín in the 1980s. In this context arose Alex Oquendo—an iconic death metal figure—who to this day remains a key example of a performer of the gutteral vocal style known as growl. Despite the evident relationship between the aggressiveness of his voice and the extreme violence unleashed in the country, so far, no studies have been published on the subject. Based on ideas such as vocality and embodiment, we will try to explain how and why the Metal Medallo scene is not only the effect but also the premonition of the violence unleashed at that time, with the stertor –“the voice of the death”– as its most outstanding manifestation. Additionally, we will briefly compare an emblematic song of that time –“Every man is a story”– sung by Elkin Ramírez, leader of the well-known group Kraken, with the version that Oquendo performs in a guttural voice accompanied by the same band.