A Wise(?) Dip Into Music Criticism
You know those video game scenes where you’re racing through a maze of obstacles? You have to decide in a blink whether to duck, jump, go left or right as unpleasant objects barrel into your path? Life’s felt like that lately. Even considering that, though, I’ve been neglecting my very nascent blog. So hello again!
One thing I’ve been working on has born a single dark and sinister fruit: I’m applying to write for my favorite metal blog, Angrymetalguy.com! I’ve looked to their reviews for years to help decide what to add to my collection of loud scary music. I’m in sort of a probationary phase where they post our reviews anonymously to gauge the reaction.
Metal isn’t necessarily my favorite music in the most isolated sense. That is, I’m not sure its pure listening enjoyability is more than, say, classic jazz or bluesy rock. What it is, is the most mine of my music taste. My love of jazz was inherited wholesale from my dad. My love of old fashioned rock is a direct lineage of the 60’s rock my mom introduced me to. I love classical choral music because I spent years singing in classical choruses. Metal I discovered on my own, and it slots right into my constellation of other interests.
I love heroic stories, sword fighting, non-Abrahamic mythic systems, and big imaginary worlds. So there we go. As I wrote in my prior post here: Metal’s mix of grandiosity and technical skill is a perfect example of one of my most important principles of art: Intellectual appeal and visceral appeal aren’t opposites, and the former has no impact without a basis in the latter. At times it’s seemed like the popular attitude among thinky types that feelings are for plebs and dizzying philosophical wandering with no basis in actual human emotion is the highest art. I love metal for the same reason I love Shakespeare. It’s got all the brilliant wordplay and examination of humanity and the cosmos anyone could ask for, but all that loft sits on a heavy foundation of love, sex, and murder.
Anyways, here’s my review, if you’re curious!
https://www.angrymetalguy.com/shallow-grave-threshold-between-worlds-review/
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