The Art Of The Heavy Metal Music Video

Videos by metal bands make no sense.

I know that last sentence just got a lot of you readers foaming at the gums, but I don't care. it's the truth and you know it. No matter how furious and intense these purveyors of modern rock may me, when you stick them in front of a camera and attempt to make a visually creative product to describe their musical vision, the end result is almost always a bewildering bag of smoldering crap.

For those who don't take in a lot of metal here's how your typical music video goes down:

.Innocent people do innocent things.
.For no explicable reason, bad people come and do bad things to innocent people
.Innocent people are forced to wallow in creepy crawly things like spiders, snakes, dirty toilets, etc...
.Innocent people are no longer happy.
.Little bug-eyed, morose-looking girl stares into the camera looking tweaked.

Punch in a few shots of hairy men with instruments making bathroom faces and you've got yourself a metal video.

Being well aware of the formula, I rarely tune in to this kind of stuff anymore. But on a night like last night, when there's absolutely nothing on, throwing on a little Headbanger's Ball can make for some good background noise.

So, it was with some degree of surprise, that I actually saw a metal band deviate from the formula. It was incredible! For four minutes, I had a plot, character conflict, and even a moral. Hell, it was even kind of cute! It had furry puppets with little props, almost cuddly. Not that I'd recommend it for PBS or anything, but in the metal world, this may very well pass for Sesame Street.

So, give it a view or two. Take in the use of texture, consider the filming techniques, and give great thought about the message. But I'd still recommend watching it with the volume off since, despite it being more accessible, it's still not great.

Enjoy.

HIMSA - BIG TIMBER