TVSquad

(S01E01) "By the power of all that is evil I command you to awaken and make me a sandwich!"

This is an early review courtesy of Adult Swim Fix.

Are you metal? I don't mean are you made of a durable alloy of some sort, I mean do you RAWK* in every conceivable way that one can RAWK? I think I used to be slightly metal, but my frail body couldn't take it so I had to give it up for folk music. Sad, really.

Anyway, Dethklok is a death metal band of mythical proportions, a group of five musicians who so embody everything that is metal they're unable to really function in any other capacity. They're the idiot savants of metal, which is just fine because their worldwide fan base has made them worth billions of dollars. In the premiere episode, over 300,000 fans gather at the Arctic Circle to hear one song from the band, a jingle they've written for a coffee commercial. Lead singer Nathan Explosion insists the band has not sold out, and that they will not only make coffee metal, they'll make EVERYTHING metal. Encased inside a gigantic cube, the band parachutes from their restaurant/helicopter, missing their target and smashing several people in the process. Then the cube opens its spiked doors to reveal the stage, also killing more people. During the song large pots of coffee are poured onto audience members, burning the skin off their bones. This is why all fans are forced to sign "pain waivers" before entering a Dethklok concert.

Unfortunately for the band, a missile fired at the end of their less-than-a-minute long show hits their chef and he's knocked into the blades of their helicopter. They keep his body alive in several pieces on some weird life support machine, but they have more important things to worry about, such as figuring out how to make dinner. They travel to the "food library" (read: grocery store), which isn't a very metal thing to do, but they're hungry and desperate. Nathan Explosion actually smashes his face through a glass case to get to some sausages, and since he only needs two cups of rice he actually measures it out in the aisle. Cooking for themselves turns out to be too much, so they sew their chef back together so he can cook for them again.

I don't think one can really judge a show absolutely on the first episode, but I think Metalocalypse has potential. Brendon Small, who created Home Movies, brings some of that same dry wit to this venture, but it's really a kind of love letter written in blood to early Metallica, Pantera, Cannibal Corpse and other bands of that ilk. Of course, compared to Dethklok, those bands might as well be clones of Tiny Tim, because only at a Dethklok concert can you have your eye gouged out and force fed to you, or have your severed fingers smoked on stage by one of the band members.

* "RAWK" should be pronounced with a deep guttural tone, as if Satan himself is trying to dislodge a chicken bone from his throat, and should be stretched out into a five-second chant while your eyes roll back inside your head, like this: "RAAAAAAAAAAAWK!!!" Pronunciation key provided free of charge.