Metal n' More Meth Minute: A Sunday Rant Sunday, November 18, 2007

Dan Meth explores an important question: is Rush heavy metal.

Okay, Rush isn't Dethklok, but... let's see... "Working Man"? "Finding my Way"? "Witch Hunt"? "Stick It Out"? "2112"?! Okay, let me break it down.

Rush was in the 70's was old-school metal, like Led Zepplin, like Black Sabbath. I think I remember reading that Geddy and Alex played Clapton covers at coffee shops in Canada. Rush, like many great bands that produce more than a score of albums, wrote a lot of different kinds of music. Rush became Rush by transcending those other influences and becoming the defining band of the progressive rock movement. Rush became the musical force that it is when it transcended those influences and produced albums like Moving Pictures, Permanent Waves, and Counterparts. And all of those albums have songs that are definitely metal.

And yet take a poll of old-school Metallica fans, and you will find a strong corresponding love for Rush. Their early body of work has a more viscerally rock sound, something we'd more often associate with a metal sound.

Name the qualities of metal?

Funny enough, due to my personal agony over a band I call Disappointica, I've thought a lot about what "metal" is. I think it goes like this:

• 70's: Sabbath. Metal.
• 80's: Metallica. Metal.
• 90's: Pantera. Metal.

It is my firm belief that Geddy Lee wanted to be Robert Plant when they first started. Listen to Rush's first album. Rush has strong and complex riffs early on, but of course that mellowed some when their sound reached its electronic peak sometime around Power Windows. It is this technical emphasis that made Rush develop alongside bands like Genesis, Kansas and Yes in the progressive movement later on.

Metal is three things: distortion, aggression, and virtuosity. The distorted sound of the electric guitar is arguably what created "rock", and I think that "metal" is ultimately just an exaggeration of that. Metal music sounds "heavy" because it is distorted and low. Metal means aggressive music. And virtuosity has long been its defining characteristic that separates it from its similar-looking-but-entirely-different cousin, punk.

So: is Rush metal?

To come back to my original statement, yes, of course Rush was metal, in the 70's. Like Zepplin, Sabbath and Cream, Rush had heavy distortion and played with great virtuosity. They were not particularly aggressive, more imaginative, but the fiercely independent lyrical voice of Neil Peart creates several angry moments in their corpus.

Rush's first few albums are decidedly 70's metal, and they continued to produce "metal" music throughout their career, even if their overall focus was elsewhere in progressive rock.

After all, look at Rush's most immediate successors: Queensrÿche and Dream Theater. That umlaut in Queensrÿche metal enough for you?

A Saturday Rant Saturday, February 10, 2007

I just listened to the greatest song ever on Pandora. It's the greatest song ever because it has the greatest title ever. It's called Knights With Mystical Powers Battling Evil Demons (In The Presence Of Kings, Queens, Wizards & Dragons). The song is sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants. I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. This song is totally awesome and that's a fact. It's fast, smooth, cool, strong, powerful, and sweet. I love this song with all of my body (including my pee pee).

But because I heard it on Pandora, I can't specifically go back and hear it again. Oh well. I also just discovered the joys of heavy metal cello in the form of Apocalyptica. They cover Disappointica, but I can forgive them. It rocks, people. It – um – r0x0rz my s0x0rz — or something.

And just who is Disappointica? I'm glad you asked.

<rant>

I realize that my very strong opinions on this matter are probably not widely known, but I want to get it out there. Metallica was poised to be a band that transcended its genre. I firmly believe that with ... And Justice for All, Metallica achieved a sound so uniquely their own, so powerful in its beautiful dissonance that it ceased being heavy metal. It's Metallica.

Yes, their lyrics and subject matter could sound puerile because it lacked subtlety, but more often than not, Metallica was able to produce something that sounded like a hungering beast, a fiery and sometimes virtuosic expression of anger.

The black album was the transition. Let me explain why. It was two different albums: songs like "Through the Never" and "Of Wolf and Man" are great songs and sound, to me, more like songs that the Metallica who wrote Justice would have written. But "Don't Tread on Me" makes me annoyed every time I hear it. Sandman is undecided, but that's not the point. Once you get past the Black Album, what do you have? That's right. The aptly-named Load. They're now trying to sound like other bands, when everyone used to want to sound like them. They gave up on doing what made them great: telling everyone else (like the cheese factory that is mainstream music) to f*ck off.

So I dub thee Disappointica.

</rant>