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With the Republican National Convention descending on Tampa, Florida, the GOP has found itself right in the black heart of death metal country. Death metal legends like Decide, Obituary and Morbid Angel all hail from the Florida city. Reuters reports—rather obviously—that the ritual christening of Mitt Romney as the official Republican presidential nominee won't feature any brutal riffs, punishing blast beats, or demonic Cookie Monster bellowing. The GOP and death metal surely make for strange neighbors, but many death metalheads think the central conflict in Reuters' story is a media concoction. After all, the genre isn't so much anti-Republican as anti-politics, period.

Reuters' Andy Sullivan writes, "Some say it's ironic that a party that includes large numbers of religious conservatives would hold its convention in the city that fostered a musical genre known for album titles like To Hell With God and Butchered At Birth." But where Sullivan sees irony, the online metalsphere sees a non-story. Gun Shy Assassin's Chris Harris writes, "Dude, Reuters must have been ultra desperate for Tampa-related stories ahead of the upcoming Republican convention, because they ran this huge piece on death metal, and how contradictory it is that the convention next week is being held in Tampa, home of the genre." Metal Injection notes that "death metal musicians aren't losing sleep for not being invited." A writer for metal site Lambgoat writes, "Personally, I think Morbid Angel frontman David Vincent summed up the whole thing rather nicely." Reuters quotes Vincent as saying, "There is usually something far more creative and worthwhile happening that distracts our focus from the ever-important empty suits who promise everything and deliver nothing."