Chuck Schuldiner's heir?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpmbFEGgvRU]
I have a weakness for making-of videos. They’re like junk food – tastes great, less filling. These days, the slightest movements by bands get magnified into breathless press releases. Hype has replaced mystery. But at their best, making-of videos transcend the commercial forces behind them. They can humanize icons. Performers become people, fallible and vulnerable. Thus, their achievements seem even greater. Like us, our heroes put on pants one leg at a time. Their hands just do so much more than ours.
The making-of video for Dreaming Dead‘s Within One (Ibex Moon, 2009) is an example of this. It’s fascinatingly mundane. The band tells unfunny jokes, nerds out on gear, and dotes on the recording studio cat. Guitarist/vocalist Elizabeth Schall swigs beer between takes. She air guitars to herself when tracking vocals. But when she gets down to business – wow. Her picking hand is a marvel of discipline, barely moving in the thrash riffs of “Stairs into the Vortex.” Her fretting hand is likewise fluent and efficient. But mechanical matters are only part of the picture. Strip out the click track, add in mini-universes for songs, cram in awkward enjambments, top with muscular sound, and you have nothing less than the heir to Chuck Schuldiner.
Buy:
Amazon (MP3)
The End (CD)
Ibex Moon (CD)
