Monday, May 7, 2007

Can't Resist

[Edit, 5.6]

I've said it before (and now I'll say it again, to paraphrase Sir Robert Halford): there' s a bit of a heavy metal renaissance bubbling away beneath the surface out there in the choppy waters of popular culture zeitgeisty land.

More specifically, in this case, there's been a resurgence of metal based around the template of the protest song/ album in this paradoxically conservative genre.

Like anything else, it ranges from the sublime (Machine Head's ferocious and possibly epochal The Blackening) to the ridiculous Ozzy Osbourne's well intentioned but ultimately whiffy Black Rain, to everything in between (Pro-Pain's blunt force trauma inducing Age of Tyranny; Megadeth's occasionally incisive but mostly confused United Abominations).

At any rate, these blasts of vitriole and dissent from the politicised, shaggy maned widdly diddly set reminded me, if you'll pardon the indulgence, of the vivid depictions of aural torture in Michael Winterbottom's harrowing Road to Guantanamo.

Specifically, I was reminded of the use of, you guessed it, good old innocent Satan baiting HM as a technique for the 'gathering of information' from, in this case, a couple of Pommy schoolkids who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time (Pakistan) post, and I hesitate to use the term, '9/11', and ended up in Cuba at the pleasure of one Mr Dubya Bush.

So, there you go- put two and two together and you get this, entry deux in this week's 'politics' themed jamboree:

¡Republicanos de los dioses v del metal!

Clockwise from top left: Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Ozzy Osbourne (Prince of *ahem* Darkness), Robb Flynn (Machine Head), Eric Klinger (Pro-Pain)



3.6.07

A Sunday evening freakout, spurred by the next President (don't let him tell you otherwise)...

Read this for a sampler.

It's your duty!

More to come later this week.

El cuadro de Juan Winston Howard (apologĂ­as a Oscar Wilde)

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