Few things in life are more masculine than Castlevania.  In fact, the New York Times bestselling book The Alphabet of Manliness includes on its short list of “definitive winners in history” the likes of Castlevania 1-4 and Symphony of the Night.  Castlevania is also the most metal non-metal piece of Western creativity outside of Lord of the Rings.  I mean shit, you’re out crusading and fucking up demons and monsters on behalf of the church, shoving crucifixes up asses and drowning degeneracy in holy water.   It’s exactly the kind of shit that true metalhead Hessians and Templars should be doing to SJW the soy metal mutants infesting the underground in incredibly large numbers (who can be open-endedly interpreted to be the grotesque villains of Castlevania lore).  DEUS VULT- butcher and savage them all!  Even those who think video games are gay (most of them are) can appreciate how based Castlevania is.

But on that note, the relationship between video games and metal is strikingly more prevalent than people realize.  The artwork for Burzum’s legendary first two albums are based off of a strategy guide for an RPG game called The Temple of Elemental Evil and much of the music also sounds like it could be lifted from a video game soundtrack.  Fucking Dimmu Borgir’s Stormblast (much respected around these parts as indicated in the DLA) actually had a track that was ripped straight from a video game, meaning that that weirdo top hat wearing son of a bitch probably jacked even more of their keyboard melodies from video game soundtracks.  What a fucking scumbag!  But truthfully, as the goofy ass 8-bit black metal YouTube trend indicated- a lot of black metal was heavily influenced by video games.  And honestly, coming from a 32 year old millennial who got into metal at the tail end of the 90s- my first dose of minor key melodies was from the boss battles and last levels of video games.

I hope you neckbeard philosofags are paying attention, because there’s an important fucking point to be made: the next generation of metal musicians will be heavily influenced by video games.  And so whether video games are a staple of life-failure nerd culture or not, they will have a hand at crafting the next wave of metal.  But as we’ll find in Megadriver’s Metalvania album, this may not at all be a bad thing…

On this ablum, Megadriver shines as one of the best of a growing class of metal bands covering video game music.  What we first saw with Powerglove and several clever YouTube guitarists is being refined and perfected by fully committed bands and musicians into some of the best instrumental metal that we’ve ever come to know.  With easy access to music and recording software, young people that have the time to get good at instruments are able to record at pretty decent quality (which, by modern standards, is way better than most of the CDs from the 90s).  The sound quality of Metalvania is top notch, with all of the guitar, drum, bass, and keyboard instrumentation sounding exactly like a big budget metal album.

Fortunately for the band, the Castlevania series provides a lot of great composition to build from.  Featuring an eclectic mix of dark, minor-key classical workings, the music was great even when stuck between the technical limitations of yesterday’s electronic hardware.  Castlevania’s music was always heavy metal inspired, and this is incredibly prevalent when heard in actual metal form and composition.

But look past the source of this material and the musicians creating it, and you’ll find that that it holds up as an impressive and dark instrumental power metal album.  The guitar work is incredibly superior and well varied- harmonies and added countermelodies are abundant with every bend and sequel played to absolute perfection.  The rhythms are often altered to “feel metal” and it works to perfection without falling into the pit of failings that is groove metal.  The guitarists even add their own masterful solos and dissonant chord shapes that work to perfection.  The bass is spectacular and often weaving in and out of octaves, perfect fourths, and whatever metal as fuck spot it can find.  The drums do their job and don’t get in the way of the music, while the keyboards only show up when they have to.

Now, mind you- I’m not usually one for guitar wankery- I think Dream Theater is gay and that Yngwae Malmsteen is too fat to be playing metal (gluttony is a horribly tolerated sin).  But the musicianship on Metalvania isn’t obnoxiously showy- it’s well crafted and well varied in riffing style.  It’s not like the music just tries to fit as many notes as possible into the compositional space- every fill and pitch harmonic has meaning and purpose.  This leads in an overall enjoyable listen and not some ass hat trying to fucking act like he’s smart (e.g. everyone who likes Opeth).

Sure, I shouldn’t be hailing a fucking instrumental video game album as awesome- but fuck it, it’s fucking good music.  It’s based as fuck metal and I’m man enough not to have my head up my ass when shit like this comes along because I should only be writing about Hell’s Headbangers cash grab reissues of monkey shit black metal.  Fuck that, and fuck everyone who shits on Iron Maiden and their fucking spiritual children!  Also, fuck Toilet ov Hell’s Headbangers and their beastiality goatfucker metal- I’m sorry you fatass pansies were too awkward to get laid by hot conservative women that don’t mouth the fuck off in public gatherings!

Templar badasses would do well to learn from Metalvania and fuse these alpha as fuck minor-key power metal riffs with atonal death metal.  Morseso, we need to ensure that metal artwork and aesthetics goes back to Conan the Barbarian-like hyper-masculinity and Castlevania-like degradation of Godless harlots.  When the metal crusades happen and we butcher the fucking brains out of oversensitive soy metal losers I’ll personally shove my fingers in the stumps of their decapitated corpses!  Long live heavy fucking metal- death to false idols!!!

Tags: 8-bit black metal, Deus Vult, heterosexuality, instrumental metal, masculinity, metal, power metal, Templar, the crusades, video games