Dethklok | The Dethalbum (Williams Street/Roadrunner)

Norway’s greatest fictional metal band comes alive on this soundtrack from the the Cartoon Network/[adult swim] smash hit series Metalocalypse, just in time for the premiere of the show’s second season.

 

 

Say what you will about some of the shenanigans of the Aquanet-fueled hair metal bands of days gone by, but not even Ozzy Osborne snorting a line of ants or Led Zeppelin’s fish stories hold a candle to the ridiculous levels approached by the bands of Norway’s metal scene. Maybe it’s the lack of natural light, maybe it’s the long, cold winters, but when you have guys eating their deceased band members’ brains and stabbing their bandmate 22 times just because a guy in another band stabbed a guy 20 times, all so your band can be seen as more evil than the other guys (God, I wish I were kidding…), well, I’d say there’s something rotten in the state north of Denmark, wouldn’t you?

That’s where Metalocalypse comes in. Premiering on Cartoon Network’s [adult swim] block in 2006, the animated series tells the tale of Dethklok, a ludicrously popular Norwegian death metal band, skewering the ludicrous excesses in metal in general and Norway’s unique take on the genre in particular. The series was an instant hit, and with the extensive amount of songs in the musically-themed series, a soundtrack was pretty much inevitable. Series creator Brendan Small (of Home Movies fame) and company fleshed out the songs featured on the show into the 15 full-length songs that make up The Dethalbum, just in time for the DVD release of the first season of Metalocalypse and the premiere of the second.

 

I won’t pretend to be an expert on Scandinavian metal or the finer differences between death metal, black metal, etc., but I know a good metal album when I hear it and, perhaps surprisingly, The Dethalbum is a damn good metal album. The band (featuring such fictional members as guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf and bassist William Murderface) kick things off on the right foot with "Murmaider," a song that explores the techniques required to murder a mermaid underwater, first by cataloguing the required "instruments of pain" ("Knife? Check. Rope? Check. Dagger? Check. Chains? Check. Hooks? Check. Laser beams? Check. Acid? Check. Body bag? Check.")  The staccato, machine-gun fire guitar riffs, the double-kick bass drum, the cookie monster vocal growls, the odd symphonic touches, and enough six-string heroics to make even Dave Mustaine blush: it all adds up to one devilishly kick-ass package. Tenacious D could only dream about representing their musical heroes so perfectly.

 

On top of all that, the CD is funny. When singer Nathan Explosion gurgles "The learning starts now / Open up your textbooks and turn to the chapter concerning your death" in that trademark Cookie Monster growl on the track "Go Forth and Die", you can’t help but chuckle. The hits keep coming, whether Dethklok are insulting their legions of fans in "Fansong" ("We hate you, you brainless mutants") or giving the ultimate birthday present in "Birthday Dethday" ("Open up your birthday present / It’s a bunch of fucking nothing / R.S.V.P. please / For the death of thee"), and the band even mastered a few note-perfect tributes ("Hatredcopter" is an uncanny send-up of Rust In Peace-era Megadeth).

 

Now, the traditional death metal-style singing does unfortunately obscure some of the jokes, but when an album is both this much fun and this savage, you can forgive some of its shortcomings. When the fake band hits all the right notes, as they do on the ludicrously over-the-top "Dethharmonic" ("If I could write off your murder / I’d save more of my receipts / Because I’d rather you be dead / Than lose a tiny shred of what I make this fiscal year"), moaning "Prepare the laserbeam, it’s going to end your life" over chugging guitars and a histrionic string section, the results are about everything a metal fan could ever dream of.

 

Supreme Dethklok fans should also be on the lookout for the special 2-disc deluxe edition (unfortunately not supplied for review), which features 7 more songs, the video for the song "Bloodtrocuted," and perhaps the coolest bonus of all: a copy of Metalocalypse‘s season 2 premiere. B+ | Jason Green  

 

RIYL: Fear Factory, Emperor, Mayhem

Learn more about Metalocalypse at AdultSwim.com!