MetalSucks

A few weeks ago Cosmo Lee at Invisible Oranges called for power metal fans to defend the (in his opinion) indefensible genre, a call which I readily answered because I love the stuff. Almost on cue, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable issued his own defense of power metal — I swear I didn’t prompt him — claiming that in its current unpopular state, playing power metal in 2010 is about as punk rock as you can get. I salute you, Sacha.

Raintime, one of my favorite Europowercheese bands, have come out with a new song this week on the MySpace page of their American record label, Bieler Bros. The song, “Fire Ants,” comes from their forthcoming March 16th release Psychromatic. Their last release Flies & Lies was an excellent album so I’m curious what this new record will hold for these fine Italian gentlemen, but based on the new track I’m kind of nervous. Musically the song is solid if unspectacular, but vocally it’s weak as hell. Nevermind the fact that Claudio Coassin has ditched his vocal growls completely… I’m more concerned with the fact that his clean vocals kind of suck. Perhaps this was the case on Flies & Lies and I just didn’t notice because the music and songwriting were so strong. There’s a new pre-pro track on Raintime’s own MySpace page which leaves me feeling pretty much the same way.

Way to not give me any more ammo in my power metal argument, guys. With Mercenary ditching half their band last year and Gus G.’s obligation to Ozzy over Firewind for the immediate future, what have we modern power metal fans got left?

-VN

Professor Cosmo Lee at Invisible Oranges, ever the metal theologian, asks in this morning’s blog post what, exactly, the appeal of modern power metal is:

Seriously, though — can anyone explain modern power metal to me? I like the ’80s stuff. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Accept — that’s good, strong music (given the right albums). But at what point did power metal become so saccharine, synthed-out, and bloody ridiculous? The only “power” it has is in making me laugh.

In response to his own question, Lee posits the following:

Modern power metal is pop music with everything turned up.

… but then proceeds to attempt to explain away this theory by over-intellectualizing. And therein lies the problem, Cosmo; I’d like to suggest that power metal ought to be subject to zero intellectualization, rationalization or any kind of deep thought. It’s cheesy and it’s ridiculous but it sure is fun, and that’s the end of it. Any attempt to invoke European history as inspiration — while this might explain why American metal musicians aren’t as willing to be so overtly corny — is already taking things too far. Power metal is big, dumb, and goofy in just about every way but if you take your brain out of the equation and just let the music flow directly into your ears it sure is really fucking fun. Less intellectualization, more listening.

And not for nothin’, all metal is pretty damned ridiculous when you take a step back and look in from the outside. Black metal? Come on. It doesn’t get any sillier.

-VN

Sorry for the slow start today, ya’ll!

But good things comes to those who wait. MS Maniac David H. sent us this phenomenal power metal version (!) of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” done with the original vocal track on top of instruments all performed by Andy Xiong. I kinda liked the original version of this song (shhhhh!) but this version turns it up to 11. Nice work, Andy!

Stick with it until the ripping Mercenary-style guitar and keyboard solos.

[UPDATE: Download the mp3 here.]

-VN