Every month, Decibel scribe Shane Mehling reviews the four videos that appear in the monthly metal mag. under “Decibel’s Clips of the Month at Metal Injection.” This month, watch picks from The Haunted, Hammerfall, Electric Wizard and a classic clip from L7.
The Haunted – “Cutting Teeth”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN7HMG4tVI0[/youtube]
I should have known better, but was pretty confused at first. The singer lip-syncs while walking through an abandoned hospital and, seriously, he does so much walking. There’s some standing, but mostly it’s my man just taking a brisk stroll up the stairs and through corridors and singing to himself. And that is pretty much it except for some quick shots of people being tied up. And yeah, I should have connected the two, but I was dumbfounded until he finds the rest of the band tied up in an old pool and sets them on fire. That’s it. Then it’s over, and I have to give these guys credit for the simplicity of the idea. “We’re tied up and he sets us on fire.” This should be every video.
Hammerfall – “Hector’s Hymn”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtGFIrvtiAs[/youtube]
Power metal bands are living in a weird time. Because while the irony-soaked D&D shit can’t end soon enough, these grown men legitimately love a bunch of super ornate drawings of some winged, hammer-wielding warrior man, and I don’t want to take that away from them. Sure, the band probably didn’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a big-budget video with a CGI castle and some sort of 3D comic book, but this is clearly something they truly enjoy, and… holy shit, what is that drummer sitting behind? There’s like 40 toms. I mean, go ahead and be fucking dorks with your medieval cartoons, guys, but how about you give the roadies a break and trim that thing down?
Electric Wizard – “Sadiowitch”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3JMs1xzw58[/youtube]
Good lord. I love a drugged-up doom fetish video as much as the next guy, but this makes me feel like a square. When you see the girl in the cloak and belly shirt holding a skull and whipping at some rocks, you’ll know what I mean, and that’s literally one minute in. When there’s a witch stirring a cauldron in front of a chair made of bones, I can kind of hang. But then it switches to the naked S&M orgy in a house of mirrors; if I ever wandered in there, I’d be called a narc and kicked out before I could even think about harshing their mellow. All I’m saying is that if you broadcasted this video on national television in 1969, we would have carpet-bombed Woodstock.
CLASSIC CLIP: L7 – “Everglade”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie1dmQnMKC8[/youtube]
And speaking of cool places I never thought I’d be allowed, this is what I thought every show was when I was 13. A bunch of stage-diving and slam-dancing, and there are a million people and everyone’s disgusting, and at the end of the show, the band destroys their shit and sprays the crowd with water, and this is what it feels like to be alive. Then 20 years later, I sit in the far back with my seven-dollar High Life and wonder why anyone would stand so close to the stage, and I leave halfway through so I can go home, try and wash the hand stamp off, then snuggle up with the new Harper’s. Please watch this video and never grow up.
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