Alternative Metal Media

I really love that the metal appeal is continually growing and making it into more and more media, the more recent one would be Tim Schafer's newest masterpiece Brutal Legend, which pleases me more and more each time I see it. Combining Metal and Video games to create this epic world featuring voices from Metal Gods like Lemmy and Ozzy and some equally amazing people like Jack Black and Tim Curry. I'm super exited for this game to come out, and theres just about less than a month now until release. Even more impressive is the set list, they really got some big names into there. I'm especially exited that 3 Inches of Blood is featured in there, they deserve that extra exposure, and the fact that I'll be seeing them live around the same time the games come out is badass. Plus one of personal favorite bands is also going to be in the set list, which is Iced Earth, I was pumped when I heard one of their songs in one of Jack Black's teasers for the game. Sadly I haven't seen much Power Metal love in the style of the game, but granted I do admit that 50% of it ripped out of Tolkien. Still the style the team worked up is still very similar to some of the stuff the Heavy Metal magazine has been doing for quite some time, also disappointing is the weird ambiguous description of Death Metal, but I'm nitpicking seems more than enough original.

Actually Metal hasn't been very present in video games much. The first recollection was maybe the Twisted Metal soundtracks, which had some Rob Zombie and Gamma Ray, but even there it was very limited (and Rob Zombie was on every frikin soundtrack in the 90's anyways). First game that really impressed me with some Metal and showed massive effort was Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

It featured some gothic style already implanted from the first games of course, so it was natural to add a Metal edge to it all. One of my favorite games of all time (well it is one of those you need to play if you consider yourself a gamer). One reason for it was the soundtrack, further proving that a games soundtrack is essential for success. A unique blend of this very Symphonic Metal, with elements of gothic rock, some neo-classical stuff and little bit of electronic elements. Of course it would depend on which area you were traversing and it would change to more classical sound or jazzy, still the Metal as clearly dominant. Another example would be the more recent Sacred 2, which featured an awesome new track from Blind Guardian. The game itself is quite average, but still very enjoyable, and overly cheesy. Still having a new track (first in like 4 years!) from the forefathers of Power Metal is amazing.

There's also been a very very small burst of Metal Comics coming our way, which is leading to rumors and talks of future prospects soon heading to the drawing boards. In a way I think that Guitar Hero has placed music, especially rock and metal, in the mainstreams eyes. Now people are interested in the Metal universe a bit more, even so much that Activision sued Brutal Legend over the fear that it would be too much competition against their rhythm game. Now the first thing close to Metal Comics that I know of is again the magazine Heavy Metal, but that's not exactly a comic is it.Above is Iced Earth's album The Dark Saga, which features some very cool artwork from Todd McFarland. Iced Earth is all about concept albums, you find them releasing random songs with no correlation to each other. This concept is in fact a retelling of Spawn, so they borrow elements from Spawn and make this incredible album out of it. I didn't even realize it was about Spawn until a friend who is a huge Spawn fan pointed it out to me. After that Iced Earth got more and more interested into making a comic on their music, more specifically a story about their Mascot Dos Abomine which was created for their album "Something Wicked this Way Comes". Never really happened but they did increase more and more to their Something Wicked storyline, they did part II and there are talks of making it into a trilogy. Iced Earth is a little more Thrash than Power so they're slaying priest as opposed to slaying dragons, but that's still cool.Exodus jumped the gun first tho with their recent announcement of their new comic. The story line and premise sounds totally cheesy and idiotic, also features some weird talents, someone from Debbie Does Dallas if I understand correctly? Wtf. Still Exodus is a big thrash name and is understandable they got a deal. There is also Dimmu Borgir which got a comic adaptation as well, another style completely and I`m even less interested in it. Seems like its only the band members stroking their egos in comic form, saving the world from violence with even more violence. We will all have to see how it`ll all turn out, because we barely have any information out right now.

Reminds me of Metalocalypse, a show that takes satirical look on Metal. It is clearly made for metal fans, but I can see non-fans enjoy this is as well, the humor is still there. I simply love this show way too much, I urge anyone to watch it or at least try it out. I haven`t seen it all yet so I won`t talk about it much.

Fun fact, while all being exited a while back about Brutal Legend and their album cover inspired world, I was looking at Iron Maiden`s Somewhere in Time and spotted a TARDIS! Neat! Also finally going to able to watch more Dr.Who. Sadly the streams and torrent weren`t reliable as I thought.