XIX: 4 Heavy, Dark, KVLT, and Brutal Things (That Totally Aren't)

Greetings, metal fans (and people who read this without liking metal, although to be honest I have no idea why you're here). Sorry about my delayed absence, this entire semester has been like a battle of priorities between which class I want to focus on more, so you can imagine how my blog falls through the cracks sometimes. But this isn't a time for excuses, this is a time to tell you something that must satisfy a few rules:

1. It must be metal (or alternatively, a silly thing).
2. It must be thought-provoking, interesting, or blasphemous.
3. It must include at least one ungracefully horned-in joke.

So, on that note I present to you the subject of this blog: things that are often mistaken for being metal, and frankly some of the mistakes the metal community has made are embarrassing.

THE METAL MYTH:

We all know what this is, right?

I figure this is a good one to start with, as for the last few decades Iron Maiden have successfully ruled over metal with an iron fist. But as to the origin of the name, I'm sure you know how this gruesome piece of torture works...or do you?

THE UNMETAL TRUTH:
Iron maidens, which is to say hollow metal tubes shaped like women with an interior full of spikes, were never actually a valid torture device. The only one ever actually found is likely to be a hoax or a misunderstanding, as there are no records of such an elaborate torture device as this. In reality, medieval torture devices didn't glamorize the brutality like the supposed iron maiden did. Things like thumbscrews and the pear don't make for a grandiose show of the macabre, but they still would absolutely fuck your day up.


THE METAL MYTH:


Ah, the pentagram. The classic, forbidden symbol of evil. The mark of the devil and basically the signature-stamp of Hell, the pentagram invariably finds it's way to metal logos, stage backdrops, and the backs of notebooks of every angsty American teen.

THE UNMETAL TRUTH:
That would be all well and good, except the pentagram isn't evil. This one is really more to the posers, as anyone well versed in metal, demonology, or plain old knowledge can tell you that the pentagram was never associated with the devil. The symbol of the five-pointed star inside a circle was adopted by Wiccans after the recent formation of their religion, but for a while before that it was embraced by Christianity and said to ward off evil.

The confusion lies in the fact that the inverted pentagram was the evil one. A diligent metalhead will know that this inversion of something holy is very metal (but can be deceiving, as we'll see later on). This is essentially a metal poser-trap, because you can only be so KVLT while you're warding off evil.

And on that note...

THE METAL MYTH:


The inverted cross is a famous choice of black, doom, and generally Satanic bands and metalheads all over the world, and why wouldn't it be? Taking a symbol as sacred and dignified as the cross and turning it on it's head? Surely this is the equivalent of shredding out a guitar solo and then raising your middle finger high in the air, as a direct affront to God.

THE UNMETAL TRUTH:
Except what if it's not?

As it turns out, the inverted cross was a symbol from a very long time ago. It is also referred to as a "Cross of St. Peter", because when St. Peter was going to be crucified, he considered himself not holy enough to die the same way as Jesus, and requested to be crucified upside-down. As if his thoughts on man humbling himself to the holiness of Jesus weren't non-metal enough, there's one organization that really liked that image and what it represented, and well...



That's right, the famous black metal symbol of defiance against the church has been the symbol of the papacy since it started, because we all know there's no one more diabolical and KVLT than the man in the elongated hat.


THE METAL MYTH:
If you've been paying attention, you know where I'm going with this next one. I'd
like to pay the proper metal respect beforehand by offering a sacrifice of awesome.

\m/ \m/

The sign of the horns. The most iconic of all the heavy metal imagery. The popularity of this gesture is not even limited to metal, as its evil is so powerful it can't be stopped from infiltrating other genres.

THE UNMETAL TRUTH:
It's a way of asking for a safety from a curse, and actually grants protection from evil.

The gesture has risen in several areas of the world, but most prominently in Italy. In a country so rich with old-world magic you can never be too prepared, and the sign of the horns wards off curses, the most famous and potent of which is the malocchio, or the evil eye. The evil eye, as any Italian will tell you, is both a real threat and terrifying. However, for some reason squinting with one eye, staring with the other, and casting death-curses never really caught on as a hip thing to do on stage.

Certain big-name stars really latched onto the signs of the horns, like some now forgotten earlier bands and some huge icons. Like...



I don't care if it's not brutal or evil, if it's good enough for Dio, it's good enough for me.

Viva la metal!

XVIII: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ia, ia, Cthulhu fhtagn.

I've talked about the sheer metal that is Cthulhu before, but I haven't really done him proper justice. Tonight I happen to be a tad freaked out about Cthulhu, so I figured I'd blog about him and how he totally fucking exists. Even as I type this he's fucking with me, and I'll explain that too. But first, you need to hear this.



That's "The Bloop", an infamous noise recorded from somewhere deep in the ocean, at the coordinates South 50° and west 100°. If it sounds weird, it's because that version was sped up times 16 because the real version was much deeper, much slower, and more importantly, much louder. In fact, this was so loud that it was heard by three different aquatic recorders about 5,000 kilometers apart. If you'd like to venture a guess what could be making this noise, go ahead. If not, I suggest you play this in the background while you read the following text.



Due to the wavelength of the deep, loud noise, scientists can tell that it was made by a life form, and due to the deepness of the frequency and the fact that this thing called out through the entire ocean means they can label it as "pants-shittingly gigantic", at the very least several times bigger than the blue whale.


The infamous statue. If you know what this is you'll probably appreciate this whole post more.

As if it wasn't obviously enough Cthulhu, the coordinates are very close to the location of his ancient, sunken city R'lyeh. If you're not familiar with the story, Cthulhu is the High Priest of the Old Gods, ancient beings of incredible power. But this power got away from them, and they expelled themselves from the universe; all but Cthulhu. As the High Priest, he knew of a spell to summon them back, but he would have to wait many millenia for the planets to align. As such, he now resides sleeping in his sunken underwater city, not dead but dreaming. And you know what that deep, loud, prolonged noise is?

He's just talking in his sleep.

Cthulhu is known for his psionic attacks, because as an Old God, his power is so terrible that merely his dreaming causes occasional nightmares, visions, and insanity to those sensitive to his calling from the deeps.

So if by reading this you get Cthulhu nightmares, it might be because it's scary. It might be because you had it on your mind. Or it might be that you just became aware of something that had been nagging at your subconscious for a while. The threat is real, friends, and the fact that he's stirring does not bode well for us at all.



All in all, he'd still get my vote.
Ia ia fhtagn!

XVII: You wanna know what's REALLY metal?

Having to write a computer science program in three days without having been taught the language. -______-

I would love to blog but I have to work. Once this is done I'll update, I swear. Probably about Cthulhu.

Oh! Go check out Alan Moore's "Neonomicon", it's fantastic and spooky. It totes gave me nightmares, so check it out if you like Cthulhu.

Stay metal and for the love of Satan don't be a CS major.

XVI: "The Final Frontier" - A Review

Good evening, metalheads. This week I've decided to review Iron Maiden's new cd, "The Final Frontier."



This is because if you say "metal" to a random person, there's a good chance that Maiden will be one of the first bands they think of. Awesome at their best and occasionally shameful at their worst, Iron Maiden has held a steady grip on the heavy metal world for quite a while, over the course of these 15 albums. Of course, this means at least 15 versions of their beloved metal mascot, Eddie.


Eddie, as seen during the Final Frontier World Tour.


But enough about mascots; I know what's on your mind. "But Bill, is the music good?" I'm sure that after some of Maiden's more recent albums you may have a few doubts here and there. I'm not here to address concerns about the past, but rather to say that "The Final Frontier" shows off a musical direction that Iron Maiden seems to have been perfecting over their long journey. It's still not quite there, but every cd had a jump of evolution from the last one, and this is by far the biggest.

The songs are longer than usual, with the longest clocking in at around 11 minutes, and all of them carrying a far more progressive feel than previously shown by Maiden. Changes in time signature pop up more often than one would expect from this band, but they (for the most part) don't feel forced and often contribute to the complexity of the songs.

Speaking of which, some of these songs are the most musically complex Iron Maiden songs out there, with riffs and licks not bounded by the contemporary limitations of the minor scale. The guitar harmonies play off eachother wonderfully, and the solos...Oh god, the solos.

The guitar solos on this cd are amazing. Right now I'm listening to the solo from "Coming Home", a piece that begins slowly and builds up to be quite climactic, and frankly every time I hear it I love it more.

Bruce still hits his notes with dignity, and the band keeps up with due force. I've heard rumors that this will be the last Maiden cd to grace the metal world, which is slightly depressing news, but I can totally see it listening to this album. The songs are each strong and masterful, occasionally lacking in certain areas but on the whole each has it's charms. Iron Maiden clearly has put a lot of work in this album, like a frenzied last push against crappy music.

Overall, I think this is a very good album. It showcases all the musical skills that Maiden has been harboring since the beginning, and if it truly is a goodbye album, it leaves a shining metal masterwork in their wake to continue to shape and inspire metal. Some particularly good songs are El Dorado, Mother of Mercy, Starblind, and The Talisman. Check them out if you want a good feel for what the rest of the album sounds like. Expect lots of harmonies, awesome riffs, and face-melting solos.

Viva la metal!

XV: Your 2-Ton Exploding Death Machine and You

I've got a joke for you guys. What weighs about 4 thousand pounds, is full of explosive, combustible liquid, is made out of metal, and travels at dangerously fast speeds?

I'll give you a hint: it sounds more badass than it really is.




I'll give you another hint: it's one of these.

If by this point you haven't guessed that cars are the subject of this week's blog, I regrettably have to ask you to leave this blog forever and never return.

Anyway, with terrain and weather hazards, repair work, and terrible other drivers, driving is hard enough as it is, yet (like many of the silly things featured on this blog) it is actually pretty metal when you stop to think about it.

You're in control, and you love the feeling of going fast. So you go faster and faster, speeding down a long strip of rock-hard pavement with a total disregard of the danger that looms ever-nearer. Maybe you pass someone, or take a turn like you're Speed Racer. Now you're just showing off, but damnit, your heart is beating and you feel alive. Thanks to that fancy frontal cortex, you may begin to worry about safety issues and put on your seatbelt. The brutality in this is subtle and not immediately apparent. The seatbelt puts you into a false state of security, making you believe that it will save your life when you need it to. This in turn makes you drive more recklessly, because you think "Well, the belt will save me, so I can be a little more of a dick behind the wheel." Granted, many windshield- and human-bullet-related deaths are avoided by the wearing of seatbelts, but there are some situations where being strapped down can be interpreted as a problem.



Truly, thanatos at it's finest! Nothing says "I need to die" like speeding along a very hard surface in a metal coffin filled with explosive fuel, with other high-speed metal coffins in very close proximity. I swear, it sounds like a videogame...oh, wait.


So you're making yourself into an explosive-packed bullet, but you're still not satisfied? Take a moment and think about how many people are killed because of cars every year, every day, and literally every single minute. There's got to be some positive aspect to all that danger. Wait a minute, yes, there totally is.

Chicks dig cars.

Yep, you read it right. And to be honest, what part of civilization wasn't conceived as a plan to win over the opposite sex? Cars are dangerous death-traps that explode upon impact, sure, but you can totally have sexy car washes.


And in the end, isn't that all that really matters?




P.S.
When I searched for "car" in Google's image search engine, this is the first image that came up.



I don't know how this future-car would work, but it looks totally banging and I felt it was my duty to share this.


Stay metal, friends.
\m/

XIV: The Duality of Winter

Good morning, metalheads. Last week's post was a day early, and I was preoccupied yesterday so I figured I would just post again today. One day plus negative one day equals a balanced blogging schedule, right?

Right.

Moving right along, it's snowing outside and it doesn't really seem to be stopping. Some people would complain about this due to chores and safety hazards, but I've always loved the winter. Not just because it's cold either, but because it can be pretty metal. I mean, just look at any aspect of Norse religion if you want to see how frost can be metal.

However, there are anti-metal elements of snow and winter too. This produces a clash between a badass winter and a cute winter. Read on and decide for yourself which is more accurate, or more importantly, whether or not winter is metal.

Which it totally is.



Cute Winter: Snow as a pretty thing

I'm sure you all know this one quite well: traditional imagery of snow flurries and frost-covered branches, nostalgic Americana in which rosy-cheeked children fog up their windows to draw little smiley faces and pentagrams, and the mass creation of snow men and snow angels.


Not that kind of snow angel, but hey, I wouldn't complain.



Badass Winter: Snow, the ultimate trapper

One day in the 1800s, a group of eager and headstrong pioneers known as the Donner party decided to head out to California. Due to a series of unfortunate occurrences this included crossing the Sierra mountains during the winter. This is commonly regarded as one of the stupidest decisions in history, just below "invading Russia during the winter."

The pioneers became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Cursed to an icy tomb with dwindling supplies, the frigid and forlorn pioneers waited until their prison thawed. However, with every passing day supplies became lower and lower. In the name of survival, they did the only thing they could do: cannibalize those who died from sickness or starvation, bundle up for another cold night, and never speak of your hellish ordeal again.

Although while it should be clarified that a fraction of the members did actually survive, it was many, many years before they could even admit to themselves what had happened. And all because of a little not-so-harmless snow.



Cute Winter: Snow giving you a means to be cute with your girl



Every guy knows the drill of the "cold girl game" by now. If she's cold, offer your jacket. (Bonus gentleman points.) If she's shivering, hug her. Put your arm around her so you guys can both benefit from body heat in the cold. Subtly suggest getting under a blanket to warm her up. The tools of the trade for a cold day are endless, and often snowy days with a loved one can be quite romantic. Hot chocolate by a fire is basically a surefire key to a woman's heart.



Badass Winter: Snow, the maimer



That picture basically says it all, but suffice it to say that frostbite is tissue destruction caused by exposure to the cold. Think of blackened toes, fingers, and limbs, amputations due to frozen body parts, and the fact that it can spread like an ice-infection and just TRY to tell me that's not metal.



Cute Winter: Snow bringing joy to children



Ah, the adorable sight of children scampering up a hill only to sled down on some modern, super-advanced red and black piece of aerodynamically designed plastic. One of the oldest and purest forms of fun, sledding has probably been enjoyed for as long as man has known that it's fun to go fast and that snow makes things slippery.

Probably.



Badass Winter: Snow, the destroyer



Driving is hard enough as it is, and actually pretty metal when you stop to think about it. (Totally blogging about this next week.) But when you make the roads slippery and icy, you're basically turning your two ton explosive death machine into a two ton explosive SUPER death machine...that doesn't turn or brake.



Cute Winter: Snow bringing joy to everyone



I can't tell you how many different local rituals are performed to convince the snow gods to offer children the boon of a snow day. There's the classic "wear your pajamas inside out for snow" route, or the more modern "flush ice cubes down the toilet because the septic tank definitely controls weather patterns" path, but in the end all these children are doing are silly things to get off from school. It's not just the kids looking forward to snow days, though: everyone who would get off from their job secretly hopes that there is a snow god and it is merciful. However, sometimes nature smiles on these hopeless, stupid prayers and dumps a whole bunch of pretty, icy death all over the roads. Talk about fun!



Badass Winter: Snow, the killer

As if frostbite wasn't a bad enough consequence of exposure to the cold, you can totally die, too. Hypothermia is the process by which cold shuts your body down and kills you. That's pretty metal, but it gets even better- right before you die of hypothermia, you experience an intense euphoria. The brain reacts to all the stimuli of freezing to death in such a way that you become at peace and totally happy. By that point, you want to die. You have a smile on your face while Jack Frost is killing you with a curse.





I've run out of cute things about winter, but I could still go on about snowball fights, icicles, and how much shoveling sucks. But more importantly, there's one more badass thing about snow that pushes it over the edge of brutality.


Badass Winter: Snow, the Force of Nature



The avalanche. One of the most powerful natural disasters, and also one of the most easily provoked. Like a resentful sociopath, the avalanche waits for just the right provocation. It seems like nothing more than ordinary snow, but then with one spoken word too many, or in just the right pitch, the frozen onslaught is begun. Many tons of snow cascade down the steep face of the mountain, picking up speed and more snow as they fall. They cover all they can, smothering everything in a boundless snowdrift.


I realize that this post will not help those of you afflicted by this storm, and will probably only make it seem colder. Do what I'm about to do and get revenge on the brutal blizzard! Take up your shovels and I shall see thee on the battlefield! There may come a day our ancestors tell stories of when men and women didn't stand up to snow.

This is not that day!

Viva la metal!

XIII: The World's Most Metal Animals Part 1: The Insect World is Surprisingly Brutal

Good evening. Finals week came and went, and to my surprise so far I haven't failed anything. Thank Satan for holes in the education system. Anyway, I'm officially on break now, so you know what that means. It's time for some blogging, HARDCORE.

I was perusing the interwebs when I found some information about a particularly brutal bug- the bagworm moth. This inspired me to write a blog about other metal animals, and was surprised to find that the majority of them were insects. Guys, insects are pretty badass. Seriously.


I. The Bagworm Moth




This is the one that inspired this blog. That is an adult male bagworm moth and aside from the fact that it looks like something from a little girl's nightmare, it has a surprisingly badass origin story. You see, all bagworm moths have to endure a trial by fire to earn the right to exist, and by trial of fire I mean they have to push their way out of their dead mother's corpse.

Yep, you read that correctly. Only the male bagworm moths get the right the grow wings, so the female ones adapt and become mating machines who never leave their cocoons. However, God wasn't done punishing the female bagworm (probably because of some crazy Biblical bagworm adultery) so He made them fucking incapable of reproduction. However, the species didn't go extinct, and I bet you can guess why.

Mother bagworm moths harbor many eggs in their bodies, all of which produce larvae that have to struggle to escape from their mother's decaying corpse when they're born in the spring. Possibly the most metal birth ever.

II: Trapdoor Spiders



Most of you will already know this story, so I shouldn't have to elaborate much on why this is so fucking metal, but damnit, I will anyway!

So you have a spider, which is already a pretty monstrous being - 8 legs, poisonous fangs, more eyes than you can count on one hand, and an insidious, drawn-out method for killing its prey. But let's say you wanted to make it more metal; let's say you made it a burrowing creature, able to live underground anywhere there's dirt. (For those of you who've done too much headbanging, there's a lot of dirt.) Let's say you also gave it the behavior of dragging it's victims down into said burrow, so that their long, agonizing death is spent isolated and confused, slowly dying in a cave, because...well, what the hell, why not?

But by far the most brutal aspect of the trapdoor spider is the one for which it's named. The namesake trapdoor to the burrow can be subtly lifted by the spider so it can play sentry to the immediate area. The moment some unsuspecting beetle or something walks by, BOOM, the door is open, the spider grabs it, and the door closes again. In the blink of an eye a life form is gone, condemned to experience its final hours in a world of pain, solitude, and darkness.

III. Anything afflicted by Cordyceps unilateralis (The parasitic mushroom with mind-control.)



This isn't specifically about a bug, but rather something that preys on bugs in such a terrifying way that I'm shocked it hasn't been made into a horror movie yet. The Cordyceps unilateralis is a parasitic mushroom that grows on the back of certain insects: namely, ants. It grows on the back of an ant and slowly saps the life from it. It feeds off them for the majority of its life, but takes a grim "I'll take you with me" approach to mortality. The mycelium (which can best be summed up as "brain-roots") of the mushroom grow into the brain tissue of the ant, and the mushroom hijacks the brain of the ant.

It then commands the ant to climb to the top of the nearest tree, tightens all of its mightily strong ant-muscles into a death grip on the tree, and patiently waits for the ant to die.

At which point the mushroom itself dies, grafted to its host who is eternally locked in a grim embrace with the tree...and then the mushroom releases countless spores to spread across the land, blowing for miles and miles in the wind. Each spore will land and lie in wait, and the C. unilateralis spreads its terror like something out of H.P. Lovecraft's fevered dreams.



IV. Tarantula Hawk



Holy shit, that thing is huge! Boasting a terrifying wingspan and a perfectly evil method of reproduction, the Tarantula Hawk is not only a fucking badass bug but also a great name for a band.

Wait a minute, I'm positive I've seen this exact bug as a design in LoZ: The Wind Waker...


And there it is, called a Mothula if I'm not mistaken.

Irrelevant!

What makes this particularly giant wasp so badass? Well for one, as the name should indicate it hunts tarantulas (which is pretty awesome in and of itself, but it gets better.) However, it doesn't feed on the tarantulas - tarantula hawks subsist on nectar. (Hilariously enough, if they drink the nectar of fermented fruits in the wild they'll actually get drunk, in some cases too drunk to even fly straight. It is for this incredibly awesome reason that the tarantula hawk has the closer spot on this list.) This wasp does, however, use the tarantula for reproduction, and if you've been paying attention then you know it's going to be gruesome.

The male tarantulas are too weak and scrawny to fit this monstrous predator's needs, so it seeks the females. These females almost always reside in their burrows, so it becomes more of a "seek-and-destroy" kind of mission. The tarantula hawk invades the burrow and stings the tarantula. I would like to point out that this wasp actually breaks into burrows, underground and in total darkness, and STILL manages to overpower a tarantula.

The tarantula hawk's sting is regarded as one of the most painful wasp stings in the world. As it turns out, it's much more painful for bugs. The tarantula hawk eventually overpowers the female tarantula, and the toxins in the sting paralyze the doomed victim.

The paralyzed tarantula then gets dragged across the fucking desert to a specialized "nest" that the female tarantula hawk digs out. Before the paralysis wears off, she lays a single egg on the spider's back, and departs. Her job in this grim task is done.

Picture it: the spider wakes up from paralysis, panicked and desperately fearing for its life. This nest is impossible for the spider to escape from, as it lacks wings. Sure, there's probably stuff to eat down there so the tarantula won't starve, but I'm sure it would much rather starve to death.

Unfortunately, what actually happens is far more grim (and therefore far more brutal.) A larva hatches out of the egg, and quickly bites a hole in the abdomen of the tarantula and crawls inside. Over the next few months (read that again- MONTHS ) the larva crawls around the insides of the spider, eating everything it can while making sure to save the vital organs for last.

Why, you ask? Because the longer you can keep the spider alive, the longer you have fresh food.

Eventually, the larva pupates (read: goes through a metamorphosis) and then tears open the spider's stomach and escapes, ready to hunt.


Sound familiar?



Until next time, keep an eye on those terrifying insects. A few of these would make really badass song subjects if they were about humans or demons. Someone go write some black metal, NOW.

Viva la metal!