Showing posts with label Metal Cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Metal Cinema. Show all posts

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Metal Cinema: The Cosmic Heartbreak of Asunder


The now-defunct Asunder were a funeral doom metal band active in the Bay Area from 1998 to 2006. They released two full-length albums, A Clarion Call in 2004 and Works Will Come Undone from 2006.

Funeral doom is meant to be slow, dense, and pitch black. In rare cases it will temporarily warp space-time, creating a small black hole that will drain the light and happiness from anything within reach. Asunder were appropriately low and slow, with death growls that crumble mountains, but their brand of doom holds an undeniable warmth and humanity. As a a spiritual predecessor to the heartbreaking and highly melodic works of Samothrace, Asunder's riffs, while still capable of burying you in hopelessness, drip somber melodies that stir the heart before crushing it into cosmic dust.

This footage, taken in 2006, captures the majesty and ritualistic thrum of their sound perfectly. With almost no shots of the crowd, they are the only light in an endless dark.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Watch Can Freak Out Everyone in Germany

For the uninitiated, Can were a German experimental weirdrock band active in the late 60s and early 70s. Their music was highly improvisational and, oddly enough, highly successful, even landing a few songs on the singles charts.

This live performance, filmed in 1970 in Soest, Germany, is a pretty good introduction to their music. But more priceless is the crowd's total lack of comprehension. A few people are uncomfortably nodding along—one woman is fine just blowing bubbles in the corner— but the vast majority just stare, totally frozen, unable to process what they're seeing and hearing. That right there may just be the best indication of just how far out of time and space the band was.

Enjoy the show!