MY LATEST MUSICAL OBSESSION

Some of you may be familiar with the Adult Swim TV series Metalocalypse. Most of you, I'll wager, are not: It's an animated show about fictional death metal band Dethklok, who are the world's most popular band, have an economy bigger than Belgium, and may or may not be at the centre of some apocalyptic conspiracy.


I'm addicted to the show - the episodes are only 10 minutes (seasons 1,2 and 4, anyway. 3 is 20 minutes), so it's incredibly easy to knock back 3 episodes in a row, which shows, as I cruised into season 4 last night after only about 2 weeks of watching the show. It's a macabre, blacker than black comedy about this inept-at-everything-except-death-metal quintet, and Mark Hamill plays their manager. Yes, Luke Skywalker.


The thing that's most impressive about it is that the writers, Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha, not only voice the show, but they do the music too. They write some epic yet tongue-in-cheek melodic death metal that's actually good. 2 albums' worth, I might add. So if you watch any episodes, whenever the band are playing, that's really been done, vocals and all, by the writers. And they tour and all, not actually taking on the personas of the band members, but just playing with session musicians, playing Dethklok's songs. It's fantastic.


Anyway, enough from me, here's a bit of Dethklok - an episode and some music.