You can blame Guitar Hero for this one...

Alright. So where do I begin with this one? How has Guitar Hero changed my life? Let me count the ways... Well for one thing, it has turned something that should have been a passing fascination into a persistent obsession. Enoch called it a passing fancy and I agree -- metal is fancy! But I guess I should start at the beginning.

Basically, my interest in pop music didn't manifest itself until middle school. I was exposed to Ace of Base, then Greenday, then Third Eye Blind, then Linkin Park, etc, etc. Well, what I mean to say is that I missed out on the whole heavy metal phenomenon of the 80s and 90s. The first metal album I ever picked up was Metallica's S&M album senior year of high school. Too little, too late, you might say. For by the time someone is getting ready for college by buying extra long twin sized bed sheets at Bed, Bath & Beyond, it's pretty hard to convert oneself from Elvis Durant and the Z Morning Zoo listener to the dark side of double-bass pedals and keyboard/guitar solos. You'd think.


Well, luckily (or unluckily?), this is just about the time when nu-metal (umlauts optional) started to come into style with Linkin Park, Papa Roach, and Disturbed. This was also the heyday of Rage Against the Machine--the king of the legion. As with all good things, though, as RATM disbanded, so did my fascination with loud, screamy music. Wait, hold on, somewhere in there, you've got the other four-word group: System of a Down, arse all ready to sit upon a heavy rock throne vacated by the Zack-less RATM (who simultaneously blew fans' minds by announcing that the new front man would be Soundgarden's Chris Cornell?!).

Yeah, so thus started the age of Napster, freshman dorms, broadband, and pirate parties. Learned to love odd little things like Acid Jazz, Emo, J-Pop, Power Pop, Breakbeat, and Trip Hop. Well, you know how history likes to move in cycles? Metal wasn't through with me yet. Cue the Darkness.


Permission to Land was granted in 2003. Glam rock or British hard rock? Who can tell the difference? Serious or farce-faced? Who cares? These guys re-lit the dragon candelabra's black candle of Metal somewhere deep within my heart. For that, I am eternally grateful (don't mind Enoch's eye-rolling). Charisma plus ten to all! Two years later, to less fanfare, they would release another mind-numbingly-titled album: One Way Ticket to Hell and Back. What might, on an uneventful year, have been the hottest shit in Best Buy, was overshadowed, though, by a behemoth of a phenomenon, just two aisles over.


A revolution in rhythm-based gaming had arrived. Guitar Hero. That was 2005. Cowboys From Hell would become my anthem while it simultaneously proved to be my foil for two long years (finally beat it on expert earlier this year). Well, after the release of Guitar Hero 2 and Guitar Hero Encore: the 80s, I am now down with not just Pantera, but Slayer, Guns n Roses, Anthrax, Lamb of God, Dethlok, et al. The track list for Guitar Hero 3 has slowly been released as the October 28th release date draws near and here is where I get to the meat of this post. Last week I stumbled across a video displaying the hardest song in the upcoming melt-your-face-a-thon: "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce.

As I ruminated over the subtleties of this masterpiece of dragons and wizards and flames, Enoch brought up an interesting question. How can you tell when a metal band is for real? Doesn't the whole thing just seem like one big black-t-shirted, flowing-long-haired joke? I thought about this and came to the conclusion that with this particular brand of metal, teh power metal, you've got to feel it in your soul. Because these guys are serious.


These guys are serious about things like dreams and destiny, eagles and rainbows. Man, I love power metal. Thanks to a little something called Pandora Radio (yes, ironic that I would blame everything on something named after the box that ruined mankind -- but don't forget, it left us with hope, and by association, power metal, too!), I was turned onto the awesomeness that is the Finnish power metal pioneers Stratovarius. If you're not sure about how well epic fantasy lyrics, keyboard solos, and double bass petal mix, you really have to look no further than their tour de force: "Eagleheart", to know if this music is for you.

Seriously, now. Just listen to these lyrics:

Heart of an eagle
He flies through the rainbow
Into a new world and finds the sun
Spreading his wings above all the sorrows
The glory of Eagleheart

'Nuff said. Now for the flurry of youtube music videos.




(And you're welcome!)






Now that's what I call epic.