Good news: the Metal Gear retrospective is proceeding very smoothly. I have only 4 games left to go in the series to play and review (although one of those 4 is Ground Zeroes, which should take only a fraction of the time that the others will). As a result, I figure that the retrospective series should likely be finished and ready to go by the start of the new year. I’m getting really excited for this, I have put in a ton of work on each of these entries and hope that people enjoy them!
First up this week is “Jesus of Suburbia” by Greenday from their landmark album American Idiot. Back when I was starting high school, American Idiot made Greenday HUGE amongst my peers. As a result, I got bombarded with their music, which turned me against them out of sheer annoyance. However, the one song that I couldn’t help but love was the song which has gone on to be recognized as arguably the best from the album: “Jesus of Suburbia”. It was a bit of a formative song for me, back when my taste in music was just starting to move beyond “what my parents listen to”. It helped set my love for really long songs, especially ones which evolve quite a bit over the course of the song. As someone who grew up in a rather dogmatic household, this was also one of my first “transgressive” songs. After all, in my mind at the time, this was a “taboo” song due to its references to drugs, swearing and that it seemed to be belittling Jesus. Also, y’know, it’s just a really great song.
Secondly this week we have “Whore” by In This Moment from their album Blood. I have been getting into In This Moment recently, which has stemmed from two sources. First of all, Metal Rock Radio plays a fair bit of their music. Secondly, Maria Brink appears on “Criminal Conversations” from P.O.D.’s The Awakening, which can make a strong case for being the best song on the whole record. These two sources have made me really start to like the band. For one thing, a female-fronted hard rock/metal band is really unusual outside of symphonic metal, which already makes them stand out. Supplementing this is the fact that Maria Brink has a really distinctive singing style. In a way, it kind of makes me think of a heavy-metal version of Caro Emerald – she has a very great singing voice which she can use to effect to make herself sound extremely sultry… before immediately breaking out into a scream. “Whore” demonstrates these dimensions quite well and just makes for a very enjoyable song.
