Here’s another video I have done to the music of Swedish metal band Opeth (the first one is here). This band’s latest album, Watershed, does not come with conventional lyrics in the booklet, but rather a page full of rune-type characters. There are actually two different pages in different editions of the album, and in order to work out the lyrics you need to rotate the pages, work out a substitution cipher and combine the two sources.
To save you the trouble of doing all that, here are the lyrics of Heir Apparent. This is the only song on the album that contains only angry Cookie Monster vocals (beware!), so without my expert deciphering efforts (ahem!) it would be rather difficult for the uninitiated to know what the song was all about. If you can put up with the vocals, I think you’ll enjoy this!
This blog is supposed to a strange mix of AutoCAD, music, image manipulation and video, but so far it has been a bit light on in the latter three categories. This post will redress the balance a little.
This is a silly video I made based on the song Ghost of Perdition from the album Ghost Reveries by Swedish metal band Opeth. I’m sure the music won’t be to the liking of many of you, particularly as the vocals are partly in the “death grunt” style. If you’ve never heard a death grunt, just try to imagine Cookie Monster singing while he’s really, really angry about something. For the record, I prefer my vocals “clean” but this style is easy to mishear, leading to general amusement (hopefully).
Parental guidance: contains very mild nudity, very slightly offensive language and an oblique drug reference. You’ll have to be quick to spot them, though. I consider this safe to show to kids (as long as you think the vocals won’t give them nightmares), but some of you may not agree.
In this week’s adventure, Gaahl goes shopping. No, it’s not your eyes, the background image is fuzzy.
A couple of things may need explaining. According to his mother, Gaahl is vegetarian (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Also, Gorgorothwas his band. They have now split up and ownership of the name is in dispute. Maybe the other band members objected to what he brought back from the supermarket? After all, he eats absolutely no innards.
I like many forms of metal music, but I’m afraid the black metal sub-genre does nothing for me musically, particularly as far as the vocals are concerned. The Satanic themes aren’t my scene either. Black metallers in most cases really are Satanists, unlike most metal musicians who are mistakenly thought of as Satanic by some fairly clueless individuals but who are nothing of the sort.
Where black metal does score points for me is on the costume front. These guys put a lot of effort into trying to look more evil than each other, and the results are frequently hilarious. Do a Google image search if you dare, but don’t have your mouth full when you do or you may need a new keyboard. Some images may be considered offensive.
One of the big names in black metal is Gaahl, formerly of the band Gorgoroth. Like many black metal bands, Gorgoroth is from Norway. The antics of the various band members, particularly Gaahl, make for interesting reading (some language may be considered offensive).
A while ago I did a series of comic book covers based on one particular Gaahl publicity shot, and I thought some of you might be amused (or more likely bemused) by them. Here is the photo in question:
Unfortunately, I have lost the source so I can’t give copyright credit for this image. If the copyright holder wishes to contact me, I’ll be happy to correct this situation.
Without further ado, here is the first week’s edition of Gaahl’s Tr00 Life Adventures. Click the thumbnail to see the full size image.
I was intrigued to see Autodesk personality and fellow blogger Shaan Hurley posting a photo with his long-standing facial fuzz removed. Shaan may be moving in the opposite direction to myself (I’m getting hairier with age), but personally I don’t think he has gone far enough. I would like to see Shaan sporting a chrome dome. What do you think?