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12/03/2015 Comment: Metal Meets Drama | Bright Young Scribes
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COMMENT · FREELANCE FRIDAY · MUSIC
Comment: Metal Meets Drama
Miguel Bernardo Olmedo Morell is aSpaniard currently residing in Edinburghwho has studied linguistics and literature,now hoping to make a career as a literatureresearcher and fiction writer. He loveseverything to do with medieval, romantic,Victorian and fantasy fiction, as well as fairytales, myths and sagas. In this week’sFreelance Friday, he writes about theunlikely connection between metal anddrama.
Time and again we are faced with thenotion that metal is a genre of music thatonly Satanists and degenerate people listento—notwithstanding the fact that groups
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12/03/2015 Comment: Metal Meets Drama | Bright Young Scribes
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such as Helloween are composed almostcompletely by Christians and that otherssuch as Sacred Warrior describethemselves as Christian metal. Suchmistakes are rendered even more notoriouswhen they are faced with bands thatactually help enlarge their listeners’ culture.
Contrary to popular belief, metal musicusually has many literary influences andcan, thus, serve as a medium for itslisteners to get better acquainted withcultural works of great importance. Thegroup I will be discussing today, theBrazilian band Angra, has proven this overand over again. Not only are such conceptalbums as Temple of Shadows (Angra2004) worthy of being analysed throughliterary critic Joseph Campbell’s descriptionof the hero’s journey (Campbell 2008), fromthe hero’s departure (Spread your Fire), hisdefiance of the Father (Angels andDemons), with the goddess (WaitingSilence), the boon he brings to the worldafter his journey (Sprouts of Time) to hisdeath after achieving illumination (LateRedemption)—but also, some of their songsand concept albums reference and take onactual literary works, such as “WutheringHeights” (Angels Cry, Angra 1993), AuroraConsurgens (Angra 2006, based on themedieval alchemy treatise sometimesattributed to Thomas Aquinas), or, as is thecase with the album I’m about to review,even Shakespeare’s plays.
Angra’s 2010 album Aqua is a beautifulreworking of Shakespeare’s The Tempest,not only as an adaptation, but as the kind oftransmedia narrative Henry Jenkins hastalked about time and again, the sort thatenriches the original work by creatingadditional content that fills in the gaps leftby it and makes it more accessible toanother kind of public, better acquaintedwith their music genre than with Elizabethantheatre. Some of its songs explore the
character of Prospero from a more
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character of Prospero from a moreenergetic point of view than that depicted inthe play, as is common in the power metalgenre, and so we have strong, upbeatsongs like “Arising Thunder” and “Rage ofthe Waters”, where his anger for theinjustice committed by his brother is broughtforth in furious lyrics and fast guitar riffs, toculminate in “Hollow”, a dark melody thatexplores the old man’s rage and his desirefor revenge.
Some other characters that had not beenexplored quite as much in the play havetheir own songs in Aqua, so that we mayknow their feelings and thoughts better.Such is the case of the lament of Ariel in“Spirit of the Air”, where she (he?)celebrates the wonders of the island in anexotic and beautiful tune as she serves hermaster in hopes of regaining her longdenied freedom; or the tragic “A Monster inHer Eyes”, where Caliban tells us of theslavery that Prospero has put him under, ofthe love he bears for Miranda, and of hishope of regaining the island that had beentaken from his mother, the witch Sycorax,as well as his pride, with the underlyinghope that, then, Miranda will love him forwhat he is. In the end, he’s seeking nothingbut acceptance and love.
However, the highlights of the album haveto be the single “Lease of Life” that broodsover the love of Ferdinand and Miranda; itssweet lyrics explain the impressions the girlhas left in the young man’s heart—whichthen leads to the final piece of the album,“Ashes”, where Prospero, moved by such alove, prefers to lay his revenge aside andinstead embrace forgiveness, all of it in amoving melody that takes and reworks themonologue of the old man in the originalplay. As such, Aqua ends in what many, meincluded, consider the most beautiful wordsever written by Shakespeare, as Prospero,just about to leave the island with newfound
faith in love and life, asserts that “We are
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