Tag Archives: Guido Rants

Death ’til Death – Day 1: Death

When I announced our week dedicated to the most important Death Metal bands of all time yesterday, I guess everyone had one band in mind: Death. They’re an obvious choice, and were the very first band to spring to my mind when I came up with this idea. My idea was to either cover them first or last, and ultimately decided to go with the fathers of Death Metal first.

Death were started under the name of Mantas in 1983. Mantas recorded five demos, including the infamous Death By Metal demo, before changing their name to Death. “Evil Chuck” Schuldiner; vocalist, guitarist and temporarily bassist of the band; named the band Death to turn the death of his brother Frank into something positive.

The name “Death,” and the early demo Death By Metal, are also the reasons why the genre was named Death Metal. Early Death Metal bands usually played a heavier Thrash Metal style, up until Death, and some notable other bands, changed the game. In the early and mid 80’s, people therefore referred to this style of music as Death’s metal — which over time turned into Death Metal.

This band is not only responsible for the name of this Extreme Metal genre, they’re also responsible for a number of groundbreaking metal releases. While Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy are landmarks of the early Death Metal scene, Individual Thought Patterns and especially Symbolic were pioneering releases of Progressive Extreme Metal.

Symbolic was, and still is, one of the most important monuments in all of metal. Death were, and still are, one of the most important bands in Death Metal. That is the reason why I just couldn’t skip this band in this one-week column. Death Metal without Death wouldn’t be Death Metal.

Death – Empty Words

Death ’til Death introduction – Day 1: Death – Day 2: Possessed – Day 3: Morbid Angel
Day 4: Cannibal Corpse – Day 5: Nile – Day 6: Hypocrisy – Day 7: Obituary

Friday Top 26: Heavy Metal Alphabet

We’ve done so many Top 10’s already, but this time we’ve decided to top it all with a Top 26. 26? There was something with 26, right? You got it! The Latin alphabet, that is used in most countries on this planet, has 26 letters.

So what are we going to do with these 26 letters? Well, every band has a bandname, and every bandname consists of letters. Can you follow me so far? We’re going to list the best band for each letter of the Latin alphabet (including their best song and album).

Ain’t that cool, now? It sure is. Make the jump for 26 letters and 26 ear-shattering Metal bands!

Little Drummer Boy

So, before I get into this rant, I want to let you know that I don’t know much about drumming from a technical perspective. I don’t play drums, either. I’m just a regular music listener who enjoys some good — sometimes fast, sometimes heavy — drumming. I’m not one of those guys who searches on YouTube for guitar covers of my favorite songs, I search for drum covers of those songs. I just enjoy watching and listening to drummers.

Especially within the last decade, or so, drumming within Heavy Metal and its sub-genres became more of a focal point than ever before. I’m sure Thrash Metal drummers, i.e. Charlie Benante and Dave Lombardo, had a lot to do with that which then further evolved in the Death Metal genre.

So, I just thought why not take a minute and share some of my favorite drum covers or drums-only videos with my devoted DoM audience. After the jump you will find videos of Gene Hoglan and covers of songs originally played by Dave Lombardo, Joey Jordison, and Nyan Cat.

Friday Top 10: Best Death Metal songs

People always ask me “Hey, you awesome metal journalist you, what are the best songs of <insert genre>,” so I figured I’d write a list about the greatest Death Metal songs of all time.

There are just a couple of rules I’m limiting myself to. #1 Only one song per band, #2 Must be Death Metal; not Melodic Death, Deathgrind or Blackened Death.

Sounds simple? Well, it is, isn’t it? So make the jump now for this week’s Friday Top 10.

Metal Kino: Anakonda Im Netz

In the past couple of years, it became popular to shoot documentaries, as well as biographical feature films (i.e. Walk The Line, Ray etc.), about musicians. And it doesn’t stop with Metal. Documentaries about music genres or specific bands are more popular than ever before, so I thought it would be a good idea to start recommenting metal documentaries that are worth a watch right here at Dose of Metal.

We’re starting the first edition of Metal Kino (Kino is German for cinema, get it?) fittingly with a German band: Who else but Rammstein? The band released a documentary called Anakonda Im Netz (= Anaconda In The Net) with their Live DVD Völkerball in 2006.

I couldn’t find a trailer for the documentary but the video above is also taken from Völkerball, a performance of ‘Reise, Reise,’ which also appears in the documentary.

The thing that impressed me the most about this documentary is that each of the bandmembers, especially the surprisingly soft-spoken Till Lindemann, seem to be extremely laid back, down to earth and just overall very nice. Coupled with their exemplary work ethnic (a typical German stereotype) and interesting stories from the road, this 60-minute film gives a nice view into the world of Rammstein.

A story of fire, fishing and heavy music, you can view Anakonda Im Netz after the jump. The film is in German with English subtitles.