I’LL HAVE THE AMON AMARTH WITH A SIDE OF SCAR SYMMETRY, PLEASE.
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 1:29pm by Vince NeilsteinThis week saw the release of two delectable new videos from Swedish metal notables Amon Amarth and Scar Symmetry. Those videos, with our cheeky analysis (natch), after the jump.
We’ve gotten some amazing entries so far in our Amon Amarth Viking Video Contest (deadline is Sept 30th, so hurry!), but there’s no substitute for the real thing. Amon Amarth may have just scored a nomination for best music of the year, complete with full Viking regale, battle re-enactments, Viking boats, and, naturally, synchronized windmills in the live performance cut-ins. Apparently Johan Hegg must think he’s in Iron Maiden these days, ’cause he’s even wearing his own band’s t-shirt.
In Scar Symmetry’s latest video for “Morphogenesis,” the newly singerless group take a page out of the Ratt playbook and give it a new twist. The departure of Christian Älvestam is still completely killing me, but… Man, it’s really killing me. Will Scar Symmetry — or Death Jovi, as we call them ’round these parts — ever be the same? Enjoy the video and try not to think about it!
Note to other bands: do NOT put mindless violence in your videos because Amon Amarth will always put you to shame.
Yes I am talking to you Scar Symmetry
The AA video is killer. Love that band.
If you don’t like Amon Amarth, you have no soul. Or the band already stole it from you, since they are all about the pillaging.
The Amon Amarth video is cool, their guitar riffs are getting lamer and lamer though. Still, can’t wait to consume many flagons of mead before before seeing them and Ensiferum at Slim’s next month.
I die a little more every day that Christian Älvestam isn’t in Scar Symmetry. I am now certain that there is no god.
Johan Hegg throws a wicked Invisible Fruitbowl during his first scream. Fucking awesome
Loved both videos especially the one of AA! Both AA and SS frigging rule!
Too bad Christian left, even the return of Peter Wichers and GF’s new song can’t compensate for the loss of Christian, :( :(
GODDAMN those videos are awesome. I know this has been said before, but there has to be something in the water in Sweden for so many amazing metal bands to come out of there.
SS vid is way better. I mean, Vikings are badass and all. But SS vid has violence, some hot bitch randomly getting fucked (which has nothing to do with the rest of the video, which is hilarious), but most importantly, it’s got Christian. What more do you need?
…I have no Idea why I’m writing this…No one’s gonna read this…But man, I hate this! So, I might as well just say this and get this out of my system already. I was into Amon Amarth way the hell before everyone else heard about their ‘awesomeness’…And that was before they were as awesome as they are now.
I know this sounds stupid (I presume everyone agrees) and I’m sure everyone goes through this once in a while, but the fact that I knew this band before everyone else, bothers me, now that all these other fans are jumping on the bandwagon.
I’ve arrived at a minor dilemma as a fan…
In a sick sort of way, I want to ‘discourage’ other fans from listening to Amon Amarth – just so I could listen to a band without them becoming overly-popular/commercial (I’m pretty sure they’re not that big in America, as I’m pretty sure Metal probably isn’t that big either – apart from the usual ‘Ozzfesters’ – compared to traditional rock, pop, rap, country, punk, etc.) but if they gain no popularity/notoriety then they probably won’t succeed and will probably quit making music.
So, I suppose me spamming message boards in the past on various sites with “Listen to Amon Amarth (insert weblink to sample .mp3)” style spams (that would get deleted nowadays within minutes…And I would probably get banned as well) have worked a tad bit towards increasing the popularity of the band.
…But I don’t know, isn’t there a way they can still be financially stable/successful with a ‘cult’ level status of die-hard fans?! (And no – I’m not the most die hard fan, just a huge fan who knew them first, that’s all) As opposed to the ’steadily-increasing-popularity’ that will eventually turn the band into a Metallica/Kissesque sell-out…Okay fine, I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea.
Sincerely,
IWantAmonAmarthToSucceedButINeedThemToFailSoI’mConfusedSoI’llSurfForPornInstead.
@ AWB:
Why is that don’t want them to succeed? A band can be successful without their music turning to shite. Or is it that you want to be perceived as underground and don’t want to be associated with anything remotely mainstream? If so, phooey on you.
Rest assured, you’re right that Amon Amarth are not THAT big in the U.S. And they’re too niche anyway to ever reach anywhere even close to being close to being close to the level of Metallica / KISS ubiquity.
-VN
@ Vince Neilstein:
“Why is that [you?] don’t want them to succeed?”
I want them to succeed. Obviously they won’t become “Limpbizkit” but y’know, I worry sometimes and it keeps me up at night (I’m exaggerating, I have more important things to tend to).
“A band can be successful without their music turning to shite.”
…I certainly hope so…But “Machine-Head” comes to mind. Then again, I also listen to “Depeche-Mode” who (while they’re not even metal more dark-synth-pop/rock – their best work was probably “Violator”) continue to make neat music, that’s still very Dep-Mod-ish (quite listenable) and similar to past material without – note-for-note regurgitation that will turn them into “KoRn”.
“Or is it that you want to be perceived as underground and don’t want to be associated with anything remotely mainstream?”
…I hate to say this, but (a lot more in the past, but a little every now and then too) you might be right. I just might be a tad bit guilty of this ‘anti-mainstream-ism’. I’m sure this happens to every avid music-fan/listener, but I have a rather ‘bad-habit’ of being amongst the first to come across a really awesome band that either ‘no-one’ or ‘very-few’ know about I start listening to (and in the past, even going as far as promoting – in some fashion or other) that band, and then 6 months later, that band is suddenly making waves and is ‘the shit’.
This happens to me all the time (I’m sure it happens to MetalSucks.Net as well, but you guys run a website for this purpose, I’m just one person). I’m not trying to take credit for [insert-band-name] suddenly becoming successful (and many bands do take a ‘long-time’ to generate a crowd – so it doesn’t happen so ’suddenly’ either) but I guess everyone/many-people have that ‘elitist’/’social-climber’ attitude where if you’ve been apart of something longer than others, you’re somehow supposed to be more ‘privileged’ than the newcomer…And I personally hate to be the one receiving that kind of attitude.
I know, we’re taking about a band here, not a fraternal order like the “Free-Masons” – which is why it sounds so silly. But I guess, the same ‘body-politic’ applies here as well: larger numbers of newer fans tend to alienate older/original fans. I generally find myself anywhere between a couple of months to several years ‘ahead’ of the mainstream, which is why this is so frustrating…I’m just throwing a temper-tantrum here.
Okay, fine, I have no idea what I’m talking about but: AARRRGGGGHHH!!!
By the way, I’ve posted an article about Jenna Jameson having twins. I poked around a little here and there (http://www.nemrosim.blogspot.com/2008/09/tito-and-jenna-are-having-twins-i-poke.html) but it’s kinda funny, half-laugh funny, but still please read it. It’ll make me feel better from and might stop me from throwing childish temper-tantrums if y’all post comments.
Thanks for reading, if anyone even managed to get this far.
Sincerely,
BoredTheFuckOuttaMyMindStraightIntoYourLittleSister’sCrotch.
[...] out Scar Symmetry’s latest video for “Morphogenesis” as well. It’s bad ass, and likely the last video of Christian you’ll see until the [...]