I’ve been waiting a long time to write the twentieth anniversary of The Book of Heavy Metalthird album by Dream Evilnot to write about the album itself but for the devastating opening, called The Book of Heavy Metal (March of the Metallians), which is one of the pieces that best represents heavy metal and everything it represents. Text, music, even video. This song is heavy metal. A head-slamming riff, hammer-pounding drums, shrill screams, whistling guitars, and above all a text (written by Snowy Shaw) that is both a manifesto of life and a declaration of love for metal. And then, to close the circle, the perfect video, with everything you should expect from a heavy metal video, with the theatricality, the arrogance, even the comical quality, because this is metal and there’s no point in taking the piss out of it. I’ll leave it here below and believe me, it would be much better for you to watch it and memorize it, but a description is still worth it. Because there’s not much better than watching the video of a song so incredibly kick-ass and so moving for its meaning while the band members show themselves made up and dressed as bad guys. Mad Maxcovered in silver paint in a lunar landscape, with even an ugly monster emerging gigantic into the sky surrounded by lightning, shooting electric beams from his hands and proclaiming in an altered voice the theogony of metal.
I don’t know if I can explain myself, but I’ll be precise again: Snowy Shaw plays the (studded) drums practically standing and dressed as Ken the Warrior’s bandleader, the singer walks around in dungarees holding a thing which at one end is a blacksmith’s hammer and on the other it’s a spiked bat WHY YES, the bassist shows off a collection of evil faces halfway between Abbath and a cartoon character and then Fredrik Nordstrom (because let’s remember that Dream Evil are a Fredrik Nordstrom project – THAT Fredrik Nordstrom – and Gus G) who closes the piece by making the guitar scream exactly as the guitar should do in a solo placed at the end of a piece like this. It’s all so super-magnificently sublime and reminds you, once again, why it’s more than our religion, it’s the only way to live.
The rest of the album is consistent with its desire to be a tribute to the most kick-ass music in the world, being a collection of eleven songs ranging from 80s hard’n’heavy to heavy/power metal (but never real power, despite the personal meaning that Dream Evil had shown in the first two albums), with mixed results but which in truth depend almost completely on the listener’s personal tastes. The masterpiece is the second, Into the Moonlight, which has a heart-bursting chorus and is the most comparable to the metal of the previous two albums; for the rest there really is everything, with a very vast range of influences. But the grandeur of the namesake at the beginning is so magnificent that everything fades into the background, so much so that The Book of Heavy Metal it can be considered a single with eleven bonus tracks. Nothing to say about the band itself, because with the names involved it would almost be considered a supergroup, but it’s worth reiterating what a beautiful voice Niklas Isfeldt has. Now I leave you with the video and I highly recommend you read the text as well. (barg)
I’D SIGN A CONTRACT WITH THE DEVIL
I’VE TRIED FOR SO VERY LONG
I’D DIE TO BECOME IMMORTAL
THAT’S WHY I SING THIS SONG
AM IA WANNABE? HAVE I NO DIGNITY?
WHO’D GIVE UP ALL MY LIFE TO BE
IN THE BOOK OF HEAVY METAL!
IN LIFE I HAVE NO RELIGION
BESIDES THE HEAVY METAL GODS
WEAR NOTHING BUT BLACK SKIN TIGHT LEATHER
MY SKIN’S CLAD WITH METAL STUDS
DON’T NEED NO FLASHY HOUSE, NO CAR OR UGLY WIFE
THE ONLY THING I WANT IS WHAT MY PARENTS DON’T
NEED NO WIDESCREEN TV, NO IN ALL HONESTY
THE ONLY THING I WANT: TO BE
IN THE BOOK OF HEAVY METAL!
IN LIFE, METAL!
TO DEATH, METAL!
I’VE SIGNED A CONTRACT WITH THE DEVIL
I’D LIKE TO BECOME A STAR
I’D DIE TO BECOME IMMORTAL
THAT’S WHY I PLAY THE GUITAR
