for me, the idea of something like this - blending some traditonal music style into an element of metal - is usually ruined through/by the production of it… because it’s always contrived and overdone in the video. i can’t stand thematic videos, especially ones like that. they’re standing out in a field in europe somewhere dressed like eleventh century barbarians. all that’s missing are the battle axes. it’s one of those corny situations where a modern band tries to be patriotic by paying creative tribute to their heritage and history, and yet off stage they’d be indistinguishable from anyone else concerning their life styles such that what they really are is actually an effacement to what they pretend to hold sacred. this is the tremendous danger involved in artistic reproduction and symbolism; the depreciation of the object of art through the artist’s idiosyncracies. i just lost more respect for european culture because of that corny-ass video, gloom. thanks alot.
but yes, i understand your concern with wanting to find new forms of metal, especially today when just about every possible formula has already been tried and then reproduced into the ground. for me, the next logical step to be made is into the ‘djent’ genre. this is where standard styles of metal are forced to make significant compositional changes in order to remain creative. this had to be done to save metal, gloom. it is where metal meets fusion, the saving grace and energy for a style that has been dying since the 90s.
here’s one that rekindled my faith in metal… one that magnus ‘andy’ anderson turned me on to a couple years ago. now i had already known that there were plenty of polyrhythmic mathmetal bands out there… i just hadn’t been actively looking for them. once i listened to this i experienced a shortlived renaissance and began looking around again. bands like ‘plini’ and ‘polyphia’, for instance, are two that i found. but here’s the one that blew me away at a time when i was fast losing hope for metal. you’ll see here that there’s no need to dress up like barbarians and start growling into the microphone. the music tells the story (‘shut up and play your guitar’ - zappa)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmfzWpp0hMc[/youtube]