Metal [heavy]

Yeah, we’re not talking Cd, Hg, Pb, etc, although I think we shall at a later stage. It irks me the way people get overly scared about stuff like that – everything is bad for you at some level, but people just freak out and get fooled by all this advertising and scaremongering and it’s really crap. Generally, we need trace amounts of almost everything, although I’m not sure how much plutonium is good for you and those first three aren’t known to be very helpful. And even something as simple as water can kill you. Reminder to self to finish writing that spiel about the dangers of organic food and ignorance. Yes the dangers. It’s underlined.

OK, onto “Metal” [music]. Like with many things there’s some great stuff and some really horrible, unspeakably bad stuff in this category. Sure, it’s a genre that generally attracts a young male crowd, full of aggression, but the best stuff can really be timeless. I don’t listen to much these days, comparatively, but there’s still some great music coming out of the genre I’m barely in touch with anymore, eg. Opeth. And I still find Cradle of Filth funny and actually even better musically compared to their cheesiness 10 years ago (they have more of a HI FI cheesiness now). But I was lamenting that I never got to see an extremely cheesy metal gig, you know with all the blood and stuff , like how Cradle apparently used to be, I only saw them a few years back, alone and without my long hair also, a very daring move I thought, and it was a very tame gig. I was more concerned for my wellbeing when Ween played the Evelyn.

But anyway, I’m meant to be mourning the lack of quality metal these days, in an uninformed, grumpy old man kind of fashion. I heard the new Darkthrone song “Too Old, Too Cold” a few weeks back and it’s just plain horrible. Sure, the trademark, minimal sound with extreme distortion is ok (although not very adventurous after how many albums?) but the lyrics were so embarrassing. And I actually have some of their cds. Maybe they’re sick of pretending to be EVIL and are trying to get into some humour ala Cradle? And then there’s another band I used to listen to a decade ago, Cannibal Corpse, who don’t sound like they’ve changed one bit. It’s a great sound, but surely hardcore fans can’t keep buying cds where every single song sounds the same as everything else they’ve ever done. Well, I guess a lot of uncompromising death/blackmetal is like that. Maybe I’m just not metal enough anymore. and, yeah, I’m sick of this subject already.