The Cabinet's Metal Album of the Week: Kreator - Phantom Antichrist

I know this probably places me within a very small minority of metalheads, but I don’t like thrash metal.  I don’t like Testament or Anthrax; I like a few Megadeth songs, but I don’t particularly like the band; and while I can appreciate Metallica for being an important influence on dozens of metal bands and for helping metal receive more mainstream attention, I’ve never really liked them either.  (Claims that Metallica are the best heavy metal band of all time are ridiculous as it’s an objective fact that this honor belongs to Iron Maiden.)  One very notable exception is Slayer, whose Seasons in the Abyss is one of the reasons I’m a metalhead today. 

I don’t really know why I dislike thrash except that most of it just sounds angry, and I like my metal to be evil (the more references to Satan the better) or to have a horror/science fiction/fantasy theme.  This would explain why Slayer is the one thrash band I do like.  However, it might simply be that I haven’t explored enough beyond the biggest thrash bands to find ones I like.  After all, if my exposure to death metal was confined to Cannibal Corpse, one of its biggest bands, I wouldn’t like this subgenre either.

Whatever the case, Phantom Antichrist, the new album from German thrash metal band Kreator, has given me a good reason to give thrash a closer listen.  It’s another rare instance of the music on a metal album being as good as its cover, which pictures the antichrist as a puppeteer controlling the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  The album displays the speed, aggression, and squealing guitar solos you would expect from a thrash metal album, but it also features the kinds of melodic choruses more at home on power metal albums, making it hard to resist throwing up the metal horns and singing, “Phantom. Antichrist!” and “Death to the world!”  These melodies help it stand out from other thrash albums I’ve heard, as do the unique and powerful vocals, which, to my ears at least, sound like a demon singing, as opposed to the generic vocals I typically associate with thrash that just sound like some guy trying to sing fast enough to keep up with the music. 

  

As its title suggests, the songs on Phantom Antichrist are about the collapse of civilization and the destruction of the world.  Non-metalheads often wonder why anyone would want to listen to songs about death and destruction, and the answer, of course, is the same reason one would want to watch science fiction, fantasy and horror movies: pure escapism.  Most of the time, I don’t want to hear realistic lyrics that might have an emotional impact.  Obviously, I don’t want “berserkers [to] start a blood-chain of attacks/Against religion and all nations’ flags,” just as I don’t want a cross-dressing madman in a dead skin mask to massacre people with a chainsaw.  But in a perverse way, silly lyrics about destroying the world offer a temporary escape from life’s harsh realities.  Hearing a blues song about some guy who lost his job would only remind me of how much of a dumbass I was for leaving a good job I enjoyed to pursue a career I thought I would enjoy more.  I’m too busy headbanging to think about this fact when I hear a demon singing about the coming of the antichrist while his band mates wail on their guitars. 

Let’s be honest here; after dealing with the frustrations of a typical week, who hasn’t wanted to sing along with a song whose chorus says, “Death to the world!”?

Next week:  Asphyx – Deathhammer

The Cabinet’s Metal Album of the Week: Candlemass – Psalms for the Dead

I’m terrible at describing music, and I’m particularly bad at explaining why an album is “good” or  “bad,” but I’m going to try anyway in what will be one of the revived Cabinet’s weekly columns.  I’ll start with the latest album, and purportedly the last, from the Swedish doom metal band Candlemass, Psalms for the Dead.

Before buying this album, I knew nothing about Candlemass and very little about doom metal, but I was already interested because, as any true metalhead knows, with a handful of very notable exceptions, all the metal that matters comes from Sweden.  If I were still in high school and just discovering metal, the name of the band and the album cover alone would have been enough to peak my interest, but ten minutes sampling metal on iTunes is more than enough time to learn a lesson that those of us who grew to musical maturity in the pre-MP3 age learned the hard way:  there’s often an inverse relationship between the coolness of a metal band’s name and album covers and the quality of its music.  After reading very positive reviews of Psalms for the Dead in Metal Hammer  and Decibel magazines and then sampling the album several times, I was glad to learn that this rule doesn’t apply to Candlemass.

Listening to Psalms a few dozen times has confirmed my earlier impression of doom metal:  it sounds like doom.  I know this description isn’t very useful, but if you’re familiar with the subgenre, I think you’ll agree that it’s apt.  However, a much more useful way of describing doom metal is simply to point out that in addition to inventing metal Black Sabbath also invented doom metal or that the brand of metal Sabbath invented was doom.  Chances are if you’re reading this, you’ve heard Sabbath, so you know what doom metal sounds like.  In case you haven’t, the best I can do (other than telling you to check out Black Sabbath and Paranoid immediately) is to explain that it relies on slow, heavy guitar riffs and that the vocals are more melodic and less grunty, screechy, or screamy than you probably expect from heavy metal.

Psalms consists of nine songs that the band’s website describes as being about “the presence and absence of time. . . about leaving, goodbyes and farewells . . . inner demons and false.”  Not surprisingly, the music portraying these dark themes is suitably doom-laden, with slow, heavy guitar riffs, deep, bellowing drums, and the occasional keyboard accompaniment adding a touch of eeriness throughout the album.  The songs gain variety from melodic choruses that periodically punctuate the doom.  I seem to remember reading the vocals described as a bit “Dio-ish,” and this is a good way to characterize the vocals, which are sung, rather than growled or screamed, at a pitch that’s somewhere between James Hetfield’s and King Diamond’s.

There’s not a bad song on the album, and two that stand out are “The Sound of Dying Demons” and “Waterwitch,” both of which sound scary enough to make me think twice before playing them while I’m alone in the dark.  “Dying Demons” is about an inability to escape inner demons, and its layered sounds invoke impressions of being surrounded by demons.  It opens with a ritualistic drumbeat that leads into a slow, droning guitar riff that’s soon accompanied by thunder and faint sounds of howling demons.  Melodic vocals singing of hopes that demons are gone and noting that “you thought the voices were dead” are followed by a demonic whisper claiming, “You didn’t listen!”  “Waterwitch” personifies time or death as a witch that’s stealing our lives.  Thick, doomy basslines underlie the vocals as they describe the witch whose victims can’t be saved by angels’ tears.  Slow, grooving riffs with a slight waa effect add to the sense of dread.

Part of the reason I like this album so much is that it adds variety to my metal collection.  It’s heavy and very dark while also being melodic and thus enables me to give my ears a periodic break from the brutality of bands like Skeletonwitch and Goatwhore.  It’s also nice to have choruses that I can sing along to while running.

Psalms is my only exposure to Candlemass, so I can’t compare it to their other albums, but I’ll definitely be checking them out in the near future.  The band have claimed that although they will continue playing live shows, this will be their last album.  If it does end up being their last, they will have ended with a shot of doom that’s likely to give metalheads nightmares for years.

Next week:  Kreator – Phantom Antichrist.     

Running

Lately, I've been running longer distances and more frequently than I ever have before. Although I could say this is because I want to be healthy and in good shape, I'd be lying if I said these were the motivating factors. What really inspires me is that running enables me to become a cyborg and gives me an opportunity to listen to metal. I'll explain.

Cyborgs

One could argue that because I'm rarely without my iPod touch, I'm almost always living as a cyborg. However, I disagree for the same reason that I don't think my girlfriend Vicki is a cyborg even though she's rarely without her Android phone. Becoming a cyborg involves a more intimate merging of human and machine, like, for example, using a bluetooth ear piece that rarely leaves your ear. It can be removed at anytime, but while it's in place, it essentially becomes part of your body.

Running with a Nike+ iPod Sport Kit has a similar effect. It becomes a supplement to the nerves in my left foot, which do a fine job of letting my brain know when my foot feels pain, but can't determine how far I've run, my average pace or how many calories I've burned. When the chip in my left shoe alerts the receiver in my iPod that I've run two miles and a friendly sounding voice tells me I've reached the half way point, I can't help but to imagine myself as a character in a science fiction movie and wonder about the ways in which technology might be enhancing our bodies in the near future. The fact that I can become this character again every time I put on my running shoes means that exercising is almost as fun as watching Blade Runner.

Heavy Metal

To say that Vicki and I have different tastes in music is a bit like saying Satanists and Mormons have different tastes in God: it doesn't even begin to describe the gap seperating our musical preferences. This has resulted in our own version of the Cold War's deterrent of Mutually Assured Destruction. I know that if I try to play Cradle of Filth when we ride in my car, The Chipmunk's Christmas will be waiting to pierce my eardrums the next time we ride in hers. She likes to describe heavy metal as an assault on the ears, and although any metal band would take this a compliment, it's not intended as one. I hate to admit it, but I do have to acknowledge that I can understand why her ears find metal so offensive.

When I run, I can always listen to metal without assaulting anyone's ears but my own. Running also provides me with the perfect excuse to create new playlists and buy new music.

If I'm able to complete my four miles tomorrow, it won't be from a desire to tone my legs. It'll be because I don't want to miss the next episode of my sci-fi adventure and because I need an excuse to buy Entombed's "Wolverine Blues."

Introduction

If I could start my own magazine, it would cover real science and science fiction, fantasy and horror, heavy metal music, technology, Westerns, travel, dogs, running, chess, politics, the Middle East and US involvement in the region. Since the only common theme tying these topics together is that they interest me, I don't think my magazine would have much of an audience. While I don't expect this blog to have much of an audience either, I know I'll enjoy writing it. If you happen to stumble upon it because you share some of these interests, I hope you'll enjoy it too. For an explanation of the title, check out the following Wikipedia entry: Cabinet of Curiosities.