Metal faithful, perhaps you can explain to me how a genre more rooted in classical music than most rock – from the lower-than-low register compositions and general epicness of Wagner and Mahler to the virtuosity of Bach, Vivaldi, and Paganini – so often lends itself to mangled attempts at integrating keyboards into the mix. Whether it’s the silly attempts to nudge metalcore hacks like Bleeding Through and Winds of Plague into grandiosity, trying to create a macabre atmosphere that just winds up sounding like a Wal-Mart Halloween display like Abigail Williams or latter day Dimmu Borgir, or the occasional yet still sad missteps of Emperor and early Dimmu Borgir, incorporating synthesized orchestration into extreme metal more often than not results in over-the-top wanking for wanking’s sake and/or keyboard effects that sound embarrassingly dated before they’re even put to tape. Whether it’s interludes or providing a counterpoint to the rest of the band, it more often than not comes off more Danny Elfman than Beethoven. I can’t understand how one can think keyboard acrobatics sound remotely metal.

That being said, when presented in the context of metal with extra cheese, they usually put whatever band that’s employing them over the top, launching them into a land considered either fun or grating (see: Dragonforce). This is the case for the inclusion of keyboards in Swedish melodic power/prog/death metallers Skyfire, who are often swallowed up by cheesiness in both the good and bad senses on Esoteric, their latest.

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