By now, I’m sure most, if not all, metal fans are fully aware of who Dethklok are, though for those not in the know, they are the fictional, animated death metal band from the Adult Swim show, ‘Metalocalypse’ (which by the way, is a great show that pokes a little fun at metal itself, and the seriousness of it – I think all those who do not take their metal, or themselves too seriously are fans of it). Although Dethklok is fictional, the person that created the music (and the show) is not, and that person is Brendon Small, and he does a great job of capturing and embodying virtually every cliché found in metal within Dethklok, and the fact that the band is fictional is what makes that so great – I believe if they were a real band, a lot of people would be saying “are you serious?”

Now that’s out of the way, onto the music. As I said before, death metal is what we have here, with lots of melody, ridiculously over the top solos and lead guitar, guttural yet decipherable vocals, some blast beats and furious double bass parts. If I had to make a comparison, the band I keep coming back to is Amon Amarth, and to a much lesser extent, recent output from God Dethroned – melodic death metal to be exact, but not necessarily of the Gothenburg variety. Some of the songs are slower and heavy on the melody, such as the mini-epic “Go Into the Water”, “Go Forth and Die”, “The Lost Vikings” and “Dethharmonic”, while others pack a more ferocious speedy punch in “Briefcase Full of Guts”, “Thunderhorse”, “Awaken”, “Hatredcopter” (which features Pickels [the drummer] doing some clean vocals, though Pickels and Nathan Explosion are both done by Small), and “Birthday Dethday”. Some sick heavy groove can be found in “Castratikron” and “Face Fisted”, while the album closes out with the ‘hidden track’ of the shows short theme song. Most, if not all the songs are loaded with humor, or the cliché stuff I mentioned before, most notably in “Bloodrocuted”, “Murmaider”, “Better Metal Snake” and the hilarious “Fansong”.

One must mention that the one and only Gene Hoglan (Strapping Young Lad, Dark Angel, ex-Testament) handled the drum duties for the album, while everything else was done by Brendon Small, though some lyrics were contributed by show co-creator Tommy Blacha.

Chalk me up as a fan, and if the show stops at some point, hopefully Dethklok will not – superb stuff, recommended.

[Visit the band's website]

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