I’m back on a folk metal kick (OK, I admit it, I was never off of the folk metal kick) so I decided we’re going to start this week off with the band that got me stated in folk metal: Korpiklaani. Soil of the Corpse is a song taken from Manala, the band’s latest album. As with most Korpiklaani songs it has very strong and obvious folk elements to it (some folk metal bands forget the folk part and end up being mostly regular old metal):
Tag: Heavy Metal
Monday Metal: Bushido by Hammerfall
Hammerfall is coming out with a new album and have released a new song from it titled Bushido. After the disappointment that was Infected it appears as though Hammerfall is going back to its roots, which is to say they’re trying to not suck this time around. Based on this song, and the fact that Hector is back on the art work (and looking pretty bad ass as a samurai-knight hybrid), the band is on the right track:
God I hope this album doesn’t suck because I love everything else Hammerfall has done.
Monday Metal: Drink by Alestorm
As it turns out Alestorm is putting out another album of pirate metal and last night I came across the music video for that album. If you’ve heard anything by Alestorm you already know what to expect, songs about pirates and drinking (but I repeat myself):
Monday Metal: Hell Funeral by Grave Digger
I’m feeling old school so we’re going to listen to some Grave Digger this week. I hope the band doesn’t require an introduction. If it does you may want to rethink your life:
Monday Metal: King by Eluveitie
One of my favorite folk metal bands, Eluveitie, is cooking up a new album. To signify this the band has released a new single, King. I’m digging it. King seems to emphasize the folk instruments and death metal vocals. Needless to say I dig it:
Monday Metal: Message From Baghdad by Acrassicauda
With the clusterfuck going down in Iraq this is as good of time as any to post some Iraqi metal. This week we’re listening to a song by Acrassicauda, a band that was actually founded under and played during Saddam’s regime. From what I have gathered the band had to flee Iraq after the regime changed because the new more religious regime felt as though the band’s music was a little too… satanic panic for its taste. The band now lives in New York, which is almost as much of a shithole as Iraq (I kid, I kid):
Monday Metal: Shutdown by Battle Beast
I didn’t have time to do my usual search for new metal last night. So today you’re getting another song by Battle Beast (and you should be thankful). This week we’re listening to Shutdown, which starts off on the right foot with Duke Nukem and continues to rock from there:
Monday Metal: High Water Mark by Iced Earth
Iced Earth may be unable to maintain a stable lineup for more than 10 minutes but it can put out some great music. This week’s entry is one of its songs from The Glorious Burden. The Glorious Burden was a concept album that covered various battles, mostly from America’s history. High Water Mark covers the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg. My favorite part of the song is the opening, which is a bad ass sounding drum solo:
Solving the World’s Problems
A lot of people spend a lot of time discussing ways to fix the world’s problems. Usually the solutions involved government programs. Somehow people fail to recognize that every government program has ended up being a wealth transference between the people and the oligarchs. Fortunately I’m here with real solutions. To fix the world’s problems we simply need more metal:
Though heavy metal originated amist working class youths in the U.S. and U.K., new socioeconomic trends have shown a relationship between the number of heavy metal bands and a country’s wealth and standard of living. According to The Atlantic’s City Lab and the Martin Prosperity Institute, the number of heavy metal bands in a given area is positively associated with, “economic output per capita; level of creativity and entrepreneurship; share of adults that hold college degrees; as well as overall levels of human development, well-being, and satisfaction with life.”
Because this isn’t some bullshit research paper meant to push an agenda it does note that correlation does not imply causality. But I think it’s pretty fucking obvious in this case that the number of metal bands in a country causes it to be more metal and countries that are more metal are simply better.
I will continue to help in this glorious mission of making the world a better place by posting metal songs to this blog (usually on Monday mornings).
Monday Metal: Inmate 4859 by Sabaton
We’re doing Sabaton again. The new album, Heroes, was released last month and when Sabaton releases a new album that usually means I have to crack open some history books. Most of the band’s lyrics are based off of historical wars and event and one of the songs that I really took a liking to is Inmate 4859. I wasn’t exactly sure what the song was referencing so I had to look it up.
It’s about an event from the life of Witold Pilecki, a man who was one bad ass Polish soldier from World War II. He volunteered for an operation that involved him receiving a fake identity so he could be arrested by the Germans so he could be taken to Auschwitz. During the time of this operation not much was known about Auschwitz and this operation was meant to correct that. Another goal of the operation was to create instability inside the camp by raising a prisoner fighting force.
The song is excellent and the history makes for a fascinating read: