I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: POSSESSED-Seven Churches (1985).

Back in high school I was really into heavy metal.  And I got into something of a contest to find the heaviest, scariest metal bands around.  (To counter the guy in class who was into Stryper, naturally).  Well, I think I hit the jackpot with this album.

This is brutally fast speed metal.  Growling vocals, staccato super fast drums and a general sense of doom.

The song titles tell it all: “Burning in Hell,” “Holy Hell,” “Pentagram,” “Satan’s Curse” and “Death Metal.”  Allmusic.com states that this is the first death metal album.  So, how about that?

At this point, though, I think it is most notable for featuring Larry LaLonde on guitars.

LaLonde went on to be the guitarist for Primus for many many years.  So, he turned in his upside down cross and fake blood for purple hair and an alternative rock gig.

And I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

[READ: November 3, 2009] Black Metal

This graphic novel comes from the beloved Oni Press.  It’s the story of the brothers Stronghand, adopted siblings who live and breathe black metal.  They are notoriously evil and their past precedes them. They have been to five schools in four years and, as the story starts, we see them on their first day at Ronald Reagan Jr High.  (Which at first I thought was actually “Ronald Reagan Junior” High School, which would have been even more hilarious.)

By lunchtime, they have intimidated everyone with their black metal stares.  But, when someone questions their manhood, they strike back and are instantly expelled.

It’s then that we meet their adoptive family: a super sweet blonde woman and her natural child: a booger-eating sweetly babbling toddler.

While they were at school, one of the brothers saw a girl wearing a Frost Axe shirt.  Frost Axe is, of course, a seriously heavy black metal band from Norway.  They track down the album and it blows their mind.  Lyrically, it’s about the story of a magical sword forged by The Roth, which was used in an epic battle in Hell.

When they play the album backwards, they are given a chance to pull the sword from Hell’s stone.  The rest is history.

This only gets through to about half of the story.  The rest is battles, intrigues, secrets raveled and, of course, and epic meeting with Hell’s demons and with Frost Axe themselves.

The story was fun for its epic storytelling style and adherence to Norwegian black metal’s mythic stories.  It’s also got all kinds of funny (and often juvenile) humor.  But it is rated T for teen, so it’s never too too raunchy.

The art is wonderfully dark and sinister.  The brothers Stronghand have a weird Asian/Native/Central American appearance (yeah, that’s an unlikely mix, but it works) which helps them stand out from the rest of the WASPy kids.  The demons and hellpit stuff is also pretty cool with plenty of light areas to counterpoint the darkness.

Occasionally, I found it hard to tell the characters apart. Sam and Shawn look enough alike that it’s not always clear who is who (which may even be the point).  And when the Frost Axe girl enters the picture (with the same haircut and general appearance) let’s just say there are times in battle scenes where I have no idea who is doing what. But that’s not really a big deal.

Of course, when the story reaches its end, we get a very ominous To Be Continued….  I don’t mind sequels, but I don’t like when a story is so clearly set up for a sequel that it doesn’t finish itself.  Fortunately, this story doesn’t do that.  It wraps itself up very nicely and then preps us all for the next stage of the saga.  Which is alright by me. And which I’m looking forward to.

If you like your metal black, you’ll enjoy this book.

And my word count is now 666.