While waiting quietly near the merchandise table in Valhalla Metal Pub, I struck up a small conversation with Humiliation, a band hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Their presence immediately caught my curiosity. Since forming in 2009, they’ve built an impressive catalogue of recordings and clocked countless touring miles, earning recognition as one of the leading forces of their genre in Malaysia.
Encounters like this remind me why I resist the idea — made popular by Rick Beato among other you-tubers — that “music is dead.” What feels dead is monoculture: the old model where a handful of label-promoted bands defined the global soundscape. The internet has cracked that system wide open, making room for countless parallel worlds of music. Today, a death metal band from Malaysia can share the stage with European acts and earn a following far beyond their local scene.
Humiliation’s performance underscored that truth. Their sound carried both the raw heaviness of classic death metal and the confidence of a band with years of road experience. They proved that passion and persistence, not geography, are the real drivers of musical relevance.
