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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Ol’e Nessie - Mastodon (Remission. Relapse Records, 2002)
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Australopithecus -Intronaut (Prehistoricisms. Century Media Records, 2008)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Demon of the Fall - Opeth (My Arms, Your Hearse. Candlelight Records, 1998)
“…No, I thought you were a pussy before you started crying.” - An Ex and her response to seeing my drunken reaction to this song.
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Extreme Metal Hunks
Mikael Åkerfeldt
Hot Because: Remember how I counted one of the reasons Martin lopez was hot was because he played drums on My Arms, Your Hearse? No (then read the fucking LINK!)?
Well this guy wrote My Arms, Your Hearse, an album so artistically well rendered that people actually are still discussing the true poetic meaning of the lyrics and whether or not the song arrangements should be considered when analyzing such a heart-felt MASTERPIECE (which they should)! This guy also wrote every subsequent Opeth song which basically means that he sat down on more than one occasion and wrote out some beautiful if not a tad bit depressing poetry (aka, the best kind). He can play the guitar like a motherfucker and has a vocal range that at times is reminiscent of a rural bard or that of a mythological beast that was made by a large group of Gods only to turn on them all and rip their fucking heads off. The man’s vocal work is so consistently good that we could refer to him as the Celine Dion of Death Metal – but we WON’T.
Ideal Date: The park. A wicker basket. Mikael and you. The two of you sit down for a picnic in the park complete with song birds in the background and a soft wind that blows through the trees that all culminates in a serendipitous madrigal influenced by nature itself. Mikael sings you a song off of Damnation and then feeds you some home made Kladdkaka (it’s a Swedish brownie. You never had one? Look it up. They’re fucking amazing).
Then, just as you finish your wondrous meal, you look to the heavens and notice the clouds are coming in - hard. The sky, a once clear and idyllic shade of blue has turned to a haunting tone of obsidian black.
The song birds and faggy tree winds are replaced with thunderous double kick pedals and a choir of pinch harmonics.
Mikael looks you directly in the eye as he unhinges his jaw and consumes your entire head, ripping it off in a bloody mess that would make a Takashi Miike horror film look like a pussy. Blood pours down you severed neck as you raise the devil horns to a sky that is now filled with the white light of lightning. It’s the most romantic and metal thing that has ever happened.
And this happens every second weekend for you two. I recommend you bring a photographer the third time.
Deal Breaker: Considering how self-indulgent his recent work with Opeth has been, chances are good that he can’t be bothered during the “creative process.” So he might get really moody and snobby every so often throughout the year. Plus he probably snores.
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Extreme Metal Hunks:
Martin Lopez
Hot Because: He played drums for My Arms, Your Hearse.
….
Alright, fine. There is more to him than that by why would it matter? The man was a part of My Arms, Your Hearse! An album that is as “pretty” as death metal is allowed to get! And just look at the man (I apologizes for the small photo but it was the largest one I could find without putting more than 10 minutes effort into it).
The man belongs in magazines with the title Spanish Super Hunk preceding his name. A mix of Uruguayan, Spanish, AND Swedish blood, Lopez has selfishly absorbed all the hottest aspects of these genes to the point where it has become weaponized.
Ideal Date: You’re just finishing your shift at the local diner - it’s late and all you could use is a nice back rub. As you are about to take off the uniform you notice a shadow at the front door. Moments away from yelling at an incoming customer for being selfish for entering a restaurant that is five minutes away from closing, you realize it’s not some fat, bald American with bad skin, but the tall and dark Martin Lopez.
He comes in, ask how you was your day (and MEANS IT!) and calmly places his hand on your shoulder. You quiver at the knees while he picks you up with the strength expected in your modern-day Spanish Super Hunk and carries you off into the night, where he’ll demonstrate just what double-kicks and proggy time signatures can do for a man’s endurance.
(This happens everytime you work, from here on out)
Deal Breaker: Left his band for “health reasons” which either means he is lazy or legitimately weak. Word is he hurt his back. What kind of a man under the age of 45 hurts his back? Seriously.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Crack The Skye - Mastodon (Crack The Skye. Reprise Records, 2009)
Though ripe with the group’s usual aura of drum fills and calculated spastic riffing, Mastodon’s Crack The Skye ultimately lacks within it that what made me fall in love with the band: the sheer brutal nature of Remission’s chugg-a-lugging rhythmic assault or even Leviathan’s venturous drum rolls. Nonetheless, Crack The Skye takes off from the top of the submit climbed in Blood Mountain and soars off into the clouds of space. Oh, and something about Russians. Evil Russians. Apparently.
Where the album looses out to its thrashier and sludgier predecessors it makes up for it in King Crimson inspired guitar work accompanied by some of the more uniquely melodic vocal parts ever arranged within the modern wave of American metal.
I like Crack The Skye, but in a different way than how I enjoy, say, Remission, which is a extremely good thing. Surprisingly few musicians are making any progress with their sound with albums, and some times those that do go about it in sporadic leaps and bounds. Mastodon have actually made a successful progression of their sound from crushing monolithic metal tunes to atmospheric prog metal epics (complete with guitar solos).
After sitting through the album in its entirety a total of 17 times, I can safely say that my favourite track is the album’s title tune. The song has guest vocals by Scott Kelly of Neurosis.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Teeth of a Cogwheel - Baroness (The Red Album. Relapse Records. 2007)
Rules for the Modern Prog band # 023 - Gratuitously ripping off Rush is never frowned upon, if anything, it’s enforced.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Ghosts of Grace - Nachtmystium (Assassin: Black Meddle, Part 1. Century Media, 2008)
2008 was a benchmark year for extreme metal; last year saw the release of some amazing albums from all over the globe ranging from the genre defining acts of Rotten Sound (Cycles) and Origin (Antithesis) to the progressive and experimental efforts from groups such as Enslaved (Vertebrae), Krallice (Krallice) and of course, Nachtmystium. Ghosts of Grace stands as my favourite song off of Assassins as it perfectly displays both the group’s black metal core along with their twisted take on old Prog-rock acts.
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Fuck the Facts: I saw these guys last night with locals Gross Misconduct and Montreal band Neuraxis. David London [of GM] explained to the crowd that FTF would ripp out the heart [through the outstretched and bleeding anus of said individual(s)] of anyone who had never heard them before. They fucking blew my mind… after they gave me back my heart.
