Every month, Decibel scribe Shane Mehling reviews the four videos that appear in the monthly metal mag. under “Decibel’s Clips of the Month at Metal Injection.” This month, watch picks from Mastodon, Accept, King 810, and a Corrosion of Conformity classic clip.
Mastodon – “High Road”
Years from now, children will sit at their grandparents’ feet and ask them if there was ever a time when every music video didn’t have something to do with D&D or LARPing or someone dressed up ready to fight a dragon. And the grandparents will chuckle wistfully and say, “Sure, but that was a long, long time ago.” The children will look at them skeptically and say, “Are you sure? Because it seems that as far back as at least the early 2010s, every single video needed a guy wielding a sword in at least a semi-ironic manner.” The grandparent, impressed by the child’s grasp of a complicated but sore subject, will nod their head and fall into a deep sleep, dreaming of those heady days when a video could make a connection to an audience without some guy dressing up like a wizard for comedic effect.
Accept – “Stampede”
Right now you’re asking yourself, “Is this the legendary band behind ‘Balls to the Wall?’” And according to how old these guys look, my answer is, “Fuck, I hope so.” Anyway, they’re playing live in a desert, rocking out way too much on mountains that I was scared the entire time they were going to tumble down. I don’t really have much else to say except they like to do a lot of synchronized windmills, and one of the guitarists has an instrument made out of riveted steel. No way does that sound good, but goddamn it looks fucking cool.
King 810 – “Fat Around the Heart”
What. In. The World. So, I’ve never heard of this band, but I guess I’m out of the loop because King 810 have a fucking posse. Pretty much the entire video’s a fuck-ton of dudes wearing weird outfits and running around Flint, Michigan, and a bunch of them have King 810 tattoos. Is this band the mayor or something? Anyone, Flint, Michigan seems like a pretty cool place to run. And also, they gave a guy a flamethrower and, holy shit, you’ve never seen a human being more stoked.
CLASSIC CLIP: Corrosion of Conformity – “Dance of the Dead”
When I hosted my TED Talk on how to review four videos a month, the first question I received was if I ever get sick of ’90s videos that are the band mixed with a bunch of random images and video clips. You better believe I had that asshole escorted from the building. Where would my life be if it weren’t for videos that mix shots of cattle skulls with the Nuremberg trials, then add a guy being wheeled around an asylum while the band members play in front of a banner for their own band? May as well ask myself what if I were born in the cold, unforgiving reaches of space. And big ups to the singer for having to scream when his jean jacket’s only halfway off.
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