Debuting last fall, the animated series "Metalocalypse" has reignited a passion for all things metal in the viewing audience of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Spurred by this success and the recently released The Dethalbum, fictional Norwegian death metal band Dethklok — the "12th largest economy in the world and rising" — is on tour, and tore through a concert at the Majestic Theatre Wednesday that was free to University of Wisconsin students and die-hard fans alike.
The inside of the Majestic was splattered with very unmetal promotions for Virgin Mobile, and the flat-panel near the screen projected text messages — usually profane and obscure Adult Swim inside jokes — as they were sent by audience members to a dedicated number, stirring up a little crowd participation while everyone waited for the carnage to erupt.
Opening band …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead was met with a decidedly mixed reaction from the crowd, appropriate for a band whose 2006 album is titled So Divided. Featuring no less than two drum kits and keyboards, Trail of Dead seemed poised to rock the surly and anxious crowd.
Trail of Dead lost a lot of momentum, however, as their set began to focus on the newer material of So Divided and 2005's universally panned Worlds Apart — their quiet-loud progression and muffled vocals ended up making all their songs sound exactly the same. Worse, the outro of each song seemed to continue endlessly with its awful inertia, with almost half their set seeming to be taken up by them trying to end their damn songs. When the band said a quick "Thank you" and abruptly left the stage, the scattered applause was as much relief as appreciation.
After the winner of a "Guitar Hero III" contest was haplessly placed on stage for a subpar demonstration of his skills amid derision and impatient boos, the lights went down as the audience urgently chanted in Dethklok. On the large screen over the stage, a secret tribunal of military and religious figures convened — as they do every episode — devising a sinister plot of depriving Dethklok's fans of their consumer purchasing power by inexplicably unleashing a mutant virus onto the crowd. An explanatory skull also came on the screen at regular intervals throughout the night, demystifying the mini-nation of roadies it takes to put on a Dethklok concert, including the "Prophylactic Team" and "skank deflector bombs" needed to protect the band from their ardent groupies.
Though it was previously reported in the bowels of the Internet that Dethklok's performance would be akin to the equally fictional band Gorillaz, with live musicians hidden behind a screen as their animated counterparts played onstage, the actual performance was decidedly more low-tech, with the "real" musicians playing onstage in the dark as the animated music videos of Dethklok songs played on the screen above them.
However, this was far and away the better choice — though Dethklok may be a fictional band, the chops of its live counterparts were definitely not, with some of the most consummate musicianship on display on a single Madison stage in recent memory. Berklee School of Music alumnus and "Metalocalypse" co-creator Brendon Small ably held down the rhythm guitar of Toki Wartooth and growling lead vocals of Dethklok singer Nathan Explosion, despite never having gone on a live tour previously in his entertainment career. Joining him on stage was Mike Keneally — the National Music Director for the Paul Green School of Rock — in the role of lead guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Keneally's frequent partner Bryan Beller playing the bass of William Murderface, and Gene Hoglan of Strapping Young Lad skillfully standing in for Dethklok's Wisconsin-native drummer Pickles. After a brief introductory song — the "Metalocalypse" opener "Deththeme" — the band kicked into "Briefcase Full of Guts," a massive blast-beat pounding down on the audience as devil horns flailed in appreciation.
Playing songs from "Metalocalypse" as well as the longer, fleshed out cuts of their debut, Dethklok played a set composed of their most brutal material. The band played "Birthday Dethday" in honor of Murderface, summoned the diabolic H.P. Lovecraft-inspired "Mustakrakish" on "Awaken" and extolled the wonders of marketing tie-ins on "Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle," capping the song off with soaring power metal guitar heroics. And — lest the audience think Dethklok doesn't go to 11 — a rumbling, volcanic eruption of bass emitted on "Go Forth And Die," with Nathan Explosion's syncopated lyrics offering some advice to the undergraduates in attendance: "Dream of your own murder/ Strangled by the IVY/ Drown in student loans/ Better off just dying."
Even songs a bit thin or monotonous on The Dethalbum, like "Hatredcopter" and "Fansong" sounded great in the live setting — particularly the latter, espousing the contempt the band has for the millions of fans who buy their merchandise. The best song of the night by far, however, was the unrelenting "Murmaider," the crown jewel of Dethklok's water-themed shredders. As bare-chested mermaids captured helpless humans and warred with each other in a vicious underwater blood sport on the screen, the crowd pumped their fist in jackhammer unison as Explosion/Small crossed off his list of "instruments of pain": "Hatred? Check/ Anger? Check/ Mermaid? Check/ Murder? Check."
After a shout-out to the absent Pickles' hometown of Tomahawk, Wis., the band ended with the swampy, chugging "Go Into The Water" and exited the stage, the audience and their brutalized eardrums still reeling from the vicious demonstration of metal that had just transpired in all its low-budget, high-concept, animated glory.
