Metal Band of the Week:
Dethklok
September 26, 2009 by Kyle BradyTags: Band, Dethklok, Metal, Metalocalypse, Review
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For the world’s most popular band and “greatest cultural force” – the twelfth largest global economy on Earth – that causes disaster, mayhem, and widespread death wherever they venture, the band Dethklok has produced shockingly few albums and tour very little. Perhaps... maybe... it’s because they are a cartoon metal band.
The main focus of the Metalocalypse series on Cartoon Network’s [adultswim], Dethklok is a fictional cartoon death metal band that has risen to extreme popularity and wildly excel at their chosen professions, while catastrophically failing at any attempts at activity outside the production, recording, and playing of metal. In reality, however, this make-believe band has risen to extraordinary heights within the metal community and likely shocked TV and record executives worldwide, as the show begins its third season and releases its second full-length album.
Dethklok is more than a cartoon metal band on a TV series – they have become something of a cultural icon. While the music is created by show co-creator Brendon Small and drummer Gene Hoglan (along with session musicians for limited touring), fans worldwide have accepted Dethklok as, surprisingly, a legitimate metal band. Their first release, “The Dethalbum”, debuted in the Fall of 2007 to great reception, and became the death metal band to have the highest position ever on the Billboard 200 charts, despite being mostly a repackaging and “fleshing out” of songs already seen in the show’s first season.
After a troubled-but-amazing second season on Cartoon Network, a new album was announced along with the return of the show for a third season of full-length 30-minute episodes, and “The Dethalbum II” will be released on September 29th, 2009. Unlike its predecessor, this album is mostly, if not entirely, new material that has never been seen or heard before, and completely eclipses any prior work that Dethklok has produced, which is no small feat. Songs such as “Bloodlines”, “I Tamper With Evidence At The Murder Site of Odin”, and “Murmaider II: The Water God” prove, as if any question still remained, that this cartoon metal band is responsible for some of the best, most talented, and most creative metal available in modern times.
Blending genres with clichés, brutality with sensitivity, comedy with Norse Mythology, and depth with in-your-face honesty, Brendon Small has created nothing short of a metal legend with his cartoon creation known as Dethklok that flies in the face of the entire metal community – who also happen to be completely devoted to this self-effacing endeavor. If the main characters of Metalocalypse manage to reach the truly epic heights of their fictional universe within the real world, metal itself will have been significantly influenced by a band that doesn’t strictly exist, but manages to outshine some of the best flesh-and-blood acts of similar kind.
Currently prepping for the third season of their TV show and a small tour, Dethklok can be found on MySpace; “The Dethalbum II” can be pre-ordered from Amazon, along with “The Dethalbum” [CD] [MP3], “Metalocalypse Season 1” [DVD], and “Metalocalypse Season 2” [DVD].
Kyle can be found on Twitter and MySpace, or reached via email.
