Metal Monday: not so special K

As I think said before, for some reason the groups I follow tend to cluster around certain letters of the alphabet: A-C, I, M and S being the most noticable. Which also means some letters have no representation in my collection whatsoever, like today’s letter: K. In fact, of the seventyfive bands known at the BNR Metal Pages, I only recognise a few and those I do recognise I’ve never really followed, like e.g. King Diamond, which a lot of my fellow metalheads at high school used to like back then. This is Abigail:



Some others are a bit dubious. Take KISS for example. Now the line between rock, hard rock and heavy metal is of course thin and easily crossed, but to me KISS is on the wrong side of the line somebody like Alice Cooper is on the right side off, in my definition of hard rock and metal. Still, there’s at least one classic KISS song everybody, including metalheads like:

KISS – I Was Made for Loving You:



An even more odd band to be represented at the BNR Metal Pages is Killing Joke, the UK post-punk band best known for “Love Like Blood”. As the site puts it, this is one of those “not-really metal bands that kind of sound like metal and that metal fans often like”. Fair enough and it gives me the chance to show two of their best songs.

First up: “Love Like Blood”



Somewhat later and different is the next song, “Democracy”, from the 1996 album of the same name. Somebody wasn’t happy with the state of politics in Britain…



Metal Monday: Unleashed in the East

Judas Priest. Who could guess the leather daddy lead singer was gay?

For the “J” installment of Metal Monday there’s only one band that can be featured, the lawbreakers themselves: Judas Priest. To me Priest is the perfect link between hard rock and heavy metal, sort of halfway inbetween hard rock pioneers like Sabbath and Deep Purple and NWOBHM bands like Maiden, able to match both. Discovered them sometime in the late eighties, when I found a huge stack of their records on a flea market, for a guilder a piece. Not quite in pristine quality when I got them, played them so much over the years the grooves have worn out — long live MP3s.

Now the least interesting thing about Priest is that their lead singer, Rob Halford, is gay, which he only openly acknowledged in 1998, though it really couldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, considering the outfits he tends to wear. Heavy metal may unironically celebrate the macho leather look, but Halford is a bit over the top even so. Again, it shouldn’t matter and luckily for most fans it didn’t, but it seems still to come as a bit of a surprise to outsiders. Metal has a bit of a reputation as neanderthal music I guess…

The other thing everybody knows about Priest is that they were accused of putting subliminal messages in their songs to get their fans to commit suicide, to which Halford said that would be the dumbest thing a musician could do, kill of their fans and that they’d rather subliminally influence their fans to buy more albums…

Priest’s music has evolved a lot over the years, though the core qualities remain the same. One of their earliest classics is “Diamond and Rust”, a Joan Baez (!) cover from 1974 here in a great recent version:



1980 album British Steal saw this breakthrough hit, complete with naff videoclip:



From 1990 comes Painkiller, which may be one of the few songs in which I prefer the studio version. The quick pounding drums come through much better that way. Especially with the sound turned up to eleven on headphones. Still haven’t lost the buzz…



And of course, no metal band should be without their serial killer shoutout — The Ripper:



Metal Monday — on Sunday!

Because of a post I’m doing tomorrow remembering the bombardment of Middelburg then seventy years ago, I thought I’d do MEtal Monday today… We’re at “I”, so let’s have an Iron Maiden classic first, eh?



In Extremo is a band I discovered one night in 2006 or 2007 when I was idly zapping past some German channels and found a live registration from Wacken 2006. I don’t know what kept me, but it might have been the extremely loud bagpipes. It was brilliant though; turns out In Extremo is a folk metal band who take their inspiration from all sorts of traditional songs and take them up to eleven, as the selection below will show.

Spielmannsfluch:



Villeman Og Magnhild:



Vollmond:



Not everybody’s cup of tea perhaps, but I love the combination of traditional instruments and songs with metal.

Metal Monday: Indian!

Heavy metal is immensily popular in large parts of the world outisde Europe and North America; surprisingly so for a genre of music often seen as only belonging to white suburban scum. Yet bands like Maiden regularly sell out giantic stadiums all over South America, as well as all over India, as Rajan Datar discovered for BBC Radio Four:

With the collapse of The Iron Curtain in the 1980s, a new frontier was open for Western Music acts to exploit. For years, fans in Eastern Europe had been starved of live performances by Western bands and singers due to the difficulties involved in trying to perform in countries cut off by ideology and politics. So where is the new frontier now? Perhaps bands should look east? With the rise of India and China as economic powerhouses, complete with growing middle classes, are these now the new territories for bands and artists to target as they seek new audiences and revenue streams?

Presenter Rajan Datar follows legendary British band Iron Maiden as they head to Bangalore for a sold out festival appearance. With exclusive access Rajan hangs out backstage with singer Bruce Dickinson, who not only fronts the band, but is also the pilot of the specially-converted plane which they use to travel the world whilst on tour. He speaks to the promoters who are trying to make India the new destination of choice for Western music artists and hears from fans who have travelled for days from all parts of the sub continent to be at the concert. He also discovers, with surprising results, which musical genres sell in India and which don’t.

The actual programme is much less obsessed with filthy lucre than the description makes it sound; the best part is when it’s once again confirmed that Bruce Dickinson is a sweetie, as he calls out to the Indian fan the programme had been following. Worth checking out.

Meanwhile, over in Germany, it’s Power Metal that used to be king, with Helloween its masters. Naff as only a German band trying to make serious music can be, but I still have a not too secret linking for them. This is “I Want Out”:



I already linked to another “classic” song of theirs back in October 2007, but here are two more. First, “Dr. Stein” in a so new it’s still wet 2010 version:



Then, “Keeper of the Seven Keys”, the obligatory pseudo-fantasy story each metal band had to do in the eighties. Includes lyrics for optimal enjoyment:



Metal Monday – Carcass & Cannibal Corpse

Calvin and Hobbes

Death metal can be a very silly sort of music, not at all grown up. In attempting to shock its audience, or more often, the people judging its audience, it often resorts to the grossout, deliberate over the top stories of horror and revulsion, with decapitations and biting off the heads of bats and such. All a bit childish, an adolescent rebellion against authority, bought for the shock value. Certainly a lot of death metal fans, not to mention the musician share Calvin’s motivation in the strip above…

At first sight Carcass may fall in that category, but the band (which split in 1995, but has since reunited) has insisted that they have legitamite reasons for their grossout lyrics: they want to revulse people into stopping eating meat! (Of course, this is one of those things I’ve read a long time ago and can’t find any evidence for anymore) This may explain titles like “Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency” and “Vomited Anal Tract”…

Whether or not this helped convince anybody of the benefits of vegetarianism is doubtful; like so many death metal vocalists their lead singer is difficult to understand at the best of times and metal fans on the whole are a pretty unshockable lot

Reek of Putrifaction:



Exhumed to Consume



Cannibal Corpse is just as extreme in its lyrics, but perhaps somewhat more honest in their motivation:

“We don’t sing about politics. We don’t sing about religion…All our songs are short stories that, if anyone would so choose they could convert it into a horror movie. Really, that’s all it is. We like gruesome, scary movies, and we want the lyrics to be like that. Yeah, it’s about killing people, but it’s not promoting it at all. Basically these are fictional stories, and that’s it. And anyone who gets upset about it is ridiculous.”

Horror inspired, extremely violent and sexual (some would say: sexist) it’s no wonder such uptight countries like Australia and Germany banned their records and in the latter case, even the band performing songs from those banned records! But again, for me personally the lyrics are not the reason I like the band: it’s the music and the feel of it — heavy, sombre, aggressive — that I like.

Meat Hook Sodomy:



Butchered at Birth



So… Metal classics or just noisy filth?