My musical world has been rocked . . . (picture mouth gaping)

Tonight I heard Dragonforce on the XM42 Liquid Metal station.  My mouth still hasn’t closed, and that’s not just because I’m a mouth breather with a cold.  I know a lot of music, and like I said a few posts ago, I’m re-embracing my metal side.  Why have I never heard these guys before?  Which of my friends that have heard these guys have been holding out on me?  It’s fast, it’s melodic, it’s . . . unbelievable.  My ears haven’t been this happy since Extol’s Undeceived album came out years ago.  The lyrics are very Lord of the Rings-ish, which is neither here nor there for me, but the guitar . . . wow.  Sometimes all you can say is . . . wow.  Those of you who have played Guitar Hero III have likely heard them before as they appear in the game, and for those of you who haven’t heard them before, take your ears out for a treat and click the link at the beginning of the post.  Your ears will thank you and your world will never be the same.

Re-embracing the Metal in Me

For those of you who are worried by the title; no I haven’t recently had any pins or rods inserted into my body for any serious injuries, and no I’m not talking about metal in me like the iron in my blood.  I saw what too much iron in your blood could lead to in X-Men 2 when Magneto sucked it right out of the guy.  That was kind of cool to see in a movie, but I certainly wouldn’t want to experience it myself.  And no, I’m not even talking about my inherent inexplicable love for the Metal Gear Solid video game series because I won’t fully be able to re-embrace that part of me until I get my new PS3.  No, the metal I’m speaking of here is of the heavy description.  I am re-embracing the harder side of my musical persona.

Now before you jump to any conclusions, this is not to say that I am rejecting the Damien Rice’s and Amos Lee’s of my music collection.  I still think they are some of the most talented musicians on the planet and they will always have a regular slot in my playlist, but recently I have had a reawakening of the darker side of me that loves hard music, especially metal.  I’ve been listening to my old Extol albums more, I bought a Revolver magazine last week to see what’s going on in the current scene (and to read the interview with Ryan Clark of Demon Hunter), I bought an As I Lay Dying t-shirt in Edmonton, and I’ve been having the recurring desire to pierce things and get tatoos.  No, I haven’t had anything done yet.  My church is pretty loving and open-minded, but I don’t think their quite ready for a painted and hole-punched pastor yet.  The church encourages pursuing the arts, but don’t encourage becoming art.  The church encourages holiness, but not hole-iness.

I say re-embracing the metal in me because I had my first real awakening about ten years ago when I first went to college.  Prior to this, my musical world consisted almost completely of country music and some gospel.  When I moved into dorm though an entirely new world was opened up to me and my musical desires have never been the same since.  I’ve grown to love the screams and harmonies of the guitars, the screams and harmonies of the vocals, and the overall passion and vibe that the music as a genre exudes.  Over the past couple years I haven’t listened to as much metal as I’ve discovered such accoustic and folk music greats as Damien Rice, Amos Lee, and Ryan Adams, but through it all there was still a piece of me that wanted something a little darker.  Something in my life was missing and I just recently discovered it was the fact that I had been missing out on the metal.  So with this great epiphany in mind, I have decided to re-embrace my metal.  Now I don’t expect Jenn to follow suit – she can’t re-embrace what she rejected to start with – but there is hope for Payton.  Of all the kinds of music I have introduced him to so far, he seems to like the metal.  It doesn’t scare him.  It doesn’t make him cry.  In fact he has even been known to smile while we rock out to Mortification together.  I won’t force anything on him, but I do think it would be a lot of fun if this is one thing that we could learn to enjoy together.

So before I nod off to sleep tonight I will encourage you to embrace your metal side.  If you haven’t found it before, take a look for it sometime.  You might even find out that you like it.