Do something you wouldn’t normally do over the holiday break! – By @shein_dean
By Dean Shein
Do something you wouldn’t normally do over the holiday break!
Immerse yourself with culture… For mindfulness… And for a new perspective.
And so, I decided to listen to a genre of music that I don’t know the slightest thing about. Metal. In a more specialised sense, Doom Metal. The ever reliable Wikipedia defines Doom Metal as an extreme sub-genre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much ‘thicker’ or ‘heavier’ sound than other heavy metal genres. It’s soooo stoneryyyy. I genuinely feel a bit light headed just listening. The band of choice is Saint Vitus. The album… Die Healing (from 1995, the year after I was born) St Vitus was a Christian saint from Sicily who died as martyr. It seems fitting as this is turning out to be a rather devilish experience.
I
Feel
Theeee souuuuuunds realllllllllly
taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaking their timeeeee
to surrrrrrrrfaceeeee.
The album cover is very eerie. The black gothic and macabre font resembles the journey that has just ended for two souls buried in a coffin below. Or maybe their time is just beginning. Two big and dark crosses stand out among sombre green and yellow trees. Framed by bricks the irony is palpable as it seems humanity has all but disintegrated in this chilling wasteland.
A few favourites.
Dark World
Right from the get go, those early Black Sabbath influences enter the frame. Time seems to just slow down. Jagged guitar sludge has never sounded so muddy and yet smooth… In a swampy kind of way. The title track is a treacherous plethora of sounds, all melding together. The sonic behemoth is born. An Ominous guitar rift assures the listener that they have plunged into a rather chilling universe. Or do they already inhabit this world?
One Mind
It seems that Damnation has arrived.
I really resonated with this verse.
Humans programmed like robots
Making sure you don’t belong
No one understands your mind
Live with the constant knocking
From the fools at your door
No one understands your mind
At first I thought of Ray Kurzweil’s ‘Singularity’ but then it slowly occurred to me that this may be our reality. Already the machines have triumphed and understand our daily wants as we succumb to the constant noise of advertised goods that we speak about in daily conversation. They are listening. But are we listening to each other?
Sloth
it’s melancholic vocals elucidating that doom, gloom and boom are on the way in this post-apocalyptic society. The impending drum beat against the guitar. Smells like some kind of bloody revenge that’s about to take place. The guitar echos in a squirming sort of structure. Beware The Sloth. The once loved animal has evolved into squelching beast, banished to the depths of hell.
Return of the Zombie
This songs seems a bit reversed. As if the vocal echoes were flipped. The guitar distortion is volcanic. This solo currently haunts my ears and is really just an unnerving entity of its own. And then the drums are back in town. If you want to prove a point to Marc because he says ‘Meh’ to you when you send him a topical, this is your backing track.
