Posts tagged as “Music video”

[myspace height=”355″]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=55957820[/myspace]

I was all prepared to watch this video (which I found on MetalSucks) and then come here and lay into it with a new On Singing In Metal post. It has all the elements of the sort of band that starts off heavy and then interjects with some shit singing section that just doesn’t work or totally feels tacked on or, and this is really the worst, features incredibly bad singing. I maintain that I do not mind singing in metal songs as long as the singing is competent. Here’s what they had going against them:

Female singer? Check.

Song title that is unnecessarily emo? Check.

My prejudice against bands that aren’t clearly heavy as fuck? Check.

FEMALE SINGER? Check.

We can see what The Agonist had working against them, the primary factor being my completely ridiculous (side note: don’t you hate it when people spell “ridiculous” as “rediculous”?) prejudice against bands that I know nothing about and that have female singers. The only other band that I know that has a female singer that doesn’t lapse into completely horrible bouts of shit singing is Light This City, and I thought that they totally rocked, breaking up before they could really blossom. Am I wrong to judge bands before I hear them? Of course. Is that going to stop me from doing it in the future? Hell no. But, I’m always willing to give them a chance even if I end up thinking they totally blow.

And in this case, I was wrong. All my preconceived notions about what the song would be like based on the first five seconds and the first shot of the female lead singer with her multi-color hair and metal-head-fashionable style (what, no Suffocation t-shirt?) ended up being pretty wrong. And by pretty wrong, I mean totally fucking wrong. Do they lapse into singing? Yes, yes they do at about 1:38, but it’s buried so deeply in the mix beneath some disturbingly righteous demonic wails, pig vocals (!) and death growls that not only does it not stand out as bad, but it kind of feels good. I know. I feel so dirty writing that, but it’s true. Though singing, she doesn’t indulge in the typical Hot Topic-metal waaah waaah waaahs I hate so fucking much. You know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, here’s a perfect example of what I dislike. I also really like the horror movie style choral layer on top of the ripping metal sections. It’s like a cue from black metal without all the totally bullshit theatrics and better integrated into the song. And I swear those harmonized growls are evil enough to make Deicide proud. Pretty great. I’m going to have to pick this record up.

As far as the video goes, Brodsky did good job on what looks like cab fare. Shoot the whole thing in close up as a serious 1-shots of the band playing their instruments against a blank, featureless background? Sure, yeah, no problem. It’s going to cost you 30 bucks. That said, he did a good job with the edit making it feel frenetic, though the reversed footage shit seems kind of cheesy to me, but that might just be because A) I watched it like 8 times while writing this and B) I’m a total fucking dick. Whatever. Major kudos for the last shot though. And I love the guitarist’s intense ass metal faces.