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Metal Monday: Dooomed

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What better way than to work through the disappointment and frustration of losing the Worldcup final, the late breaking news that Harvey Pekar has died as well as more personally, having S. back in hospital yet again, than with some slit your wrists Doom Metal? Luckily we’re on the “P” in the metal alphabet, which stands for Paradise Lost and there’s nothing more Doom Metal than them. Like so many of my other favourites I discovered them in the late eighties and early nineties. They were the first band I know that was so heavy and slow, that didn’t attempt to pack as much sound in as small a time as possible, but extended their music, slowed it down, while dropping the usually high pitched vocals an octave or so lower. The end result is a type of metal that saps your strength, slows down your heart beat and turns you inside. No quick adrenaline rush here, but you do get a rebound in energy from their songs, much like a collapsing star can get a gravitational rebound when it crosses a certain limit…

Below are some of my favourite Paradise Lost songs.

True Belief:



Embers Fire:



As I Die:



P also stands for Pestilence, another great Dutch Death Metal band, but they didn’t really fit my mood today. Some other time.

Eighty Years War revisited

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If Holland wins the final tomorrow, will we be singing “one war of independence and one Worldcup”? I think, like me, most of us here started this tournament with some optimism but no great expectations after what had happened in 2008. In the European Championship Oranje started brilliant, defeating both France and Italy with devastating ease, but flamed out early against Russia. At the start of the Worldcup therefore I thought we would make it out of the group phase but was unsure about anything else. As Oranje kept winning and winning I started to hope, but I still don’t believe we will actually win tomorrow…. I want it so bad though I can taste it and with me the entire country — over twelve million people watched the semi-final out of a population of sixteen million.

Dirk Kuijt

And if we do it’s in no small part due to Dirk Kuijt, one of the hardest working men in the squad, somebody who was taken for granted before the finals and who was called on to be replaced by one of the “big four”: Robin van Persie, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael van der Vaart and Arjen Robben. Those were the supposedly best attackers in the squad, and if Kuijt was sacrifised than they could all play together. Fortunately Bert van Marwijk remained loyaal to Kuijt and he kept his place, proving his worth on several occasions. Kuijt worked hard in both attack and defence, scoring once and giving several assists, also helping save at least one goal that cou;d’ve knocked Holland out of the tournament. He’s a hard worker and completely unselfish, a good footballer but not one who has the kind of talent and skills to not have to work at it. Where van Persie is brilliant enough just to need one single moment to determine a game, Kuijt has to make the effort the full ninety minutes to do the same. He’s the type of footballer I like the most, a true Feijenoord player.



If Kuijt makes us champions of the world, the Dutch team will get a triumphant tour through the canals of Amsterdam — houseboat owners are already panicking. If it was a myth that several houseboats sank back in 1988 when Oranje became European champions, it came pretty close as the video above shows. If they win, they will arrive in Amsterdam on Tuesday and some two million people are expected to show their appreciation. I’m not sure whether or not I’ll be there, whether or not I can be there, but it would be a moment to never forget…

Metal Monday – reports of my death

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O is for Obituary, another Florida based Death Metal band, who first got together in the eighties — and really what else there was to do in Tampa Florida in the eighties? They played around for a couple of years before releasing their debut in ’89, but what a debut. Slowly We Rot was a masterpiece, one of those records you have to play loud on headphones to get the sound reverbing round your skull and the bass guitar echoing on your ear drums for days after. The title song especially was great, starting off slow and doom laden and then the song speeds up for the vocals and the hall erupts. I dare anybody not to start moshing to it:



From their second album Cause of Death comes “Find the Arise”, another personal favourite:



Only found two good videos this week I’m afraid; more next week.

Metal Monday: N is for Nuclear Death

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Two bands today representing the letter “N”. First up, Napalm Death, the UK grindcore/death metal pioneers. Influenced by punk and hardcore like so many other metal bands getting their start in the eighties, theyt took it further than most. In the first video, if you blink you miss their record breaking song “You Suffer”:



They got a bit more “mainstream” later on in their career. Here’s an example of their later style:



The other “N” band is Nuclear Assault, which you could call an Anthrax spinoff as Danny Lilker, ex-Anthrax bassist was a founding member. They of course play thrash metal with their earliest records having a decidedly apocalyptic flavour. No wonder considering the band was formed at the height of the Reagan era, when it really did seem like the missiles would start flying any minute now. Now unlike James Nicoll, who watches Threads as escapism, I still get nightmares thinking to much about nuclear holocaust and some of their songs I just cannot play therefore. This is “Game Over”:



And this is “Critical Mass”: