Blind Guardian, "Carry the Blessed Home"

12 Days to Find a Home



Chris Weingarten once wrote of today's music critics having "fairly pronounced predispositions for anything that reminds us of the golden-era hip-hop and grunge-era alternative rock of our youth (probably why we've been championing Killer Mike and Japandroids, respectively)." I understand and play into that sentiment, as a fan of both of those artists, but metal is different to me. As much as I enjoy neo-thrash bands like Skeletonwitch, Warbringer and Municipal Waste, I never feel much desire to listen to them when I already have the Big Four. I prefer metal bands to honor their heroes with innovation rather than imitation--to my ears, the Dillinger Escape Plan pays more tribute to Metallica than Machine Head does.

Likewise, you can keep your DragonForce and your Nightwish as long as I get to keep Blind Guardian. For about 30 years, these German badasses have been updating the Priest and Maiden formulas with more speed, pomp and symphony, complete with the songs to make it work. Most of their songs seem to be inspired by Valhalla and/or Tolkien, but "Carry the Blessed Home" is a wonderful piece of bombast that turns Stephen King's Dark Tower series into Legend of Zelda music from Asgard. If that doesn't sound up your alley, there's always the Decemberists.

Megadeth, "Use the Man"

Symphonic metal doesn't do much for me. Even at Emperor and Dimmu Borgir's best, their fussy keyboards and strings keep them from the top of the black metal heap, and bands like Nightwish embody the bombast that most people hate about metal. Give me a good Danny Elfman score any time I need moody orchestration and Rust in Peace whenever I need to thrash, but keep the two separate.

However, if symphonic metal actually were as enthralling as most Scandinavian metalheads pretend it is, it would probably sound like Megadeth's "Use the Man."



At the end of the '90s, Megadeth started taking artistic risks again, most of which didn't work, but here's one that did. Starting with a sample of the Searchers' "Needles and Pins" and employing the simplest chorus in Megadethstory, Dave Mustaine played a glassy-eyed junkie so convincingly that he could include one of his most electrifying solos and still sound strung out. The violins drift in and out with sun-dried haziness until the 3:22 mark, when they lurch up in the mix. This is the only symphonic metal song that reminds me more of "A Day in the Life" than "A Fifth of Beethoven."