Chelsea Wolfe voices Wonder Woman in Dave Lombardo-soundtracked DC Comics 'Death Metal' video
Dark Nights: Death Metal is Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s sequel to 2017’s Dark Nights: Metal, a DC Comics crossover miniseries, and like its predecessor, it’s getting a soundtrack, featuring an impressive cast of metal and rock musicians (The soundtrack for Dark Nights: Metal featured members of Deftones, Mastodon, Alice in Chains, Sleigh Bells, and more.)
Executive producer Tyler Bates (Guardians of the Galaxy, John Wick, the Dawn of the Dead reboot) says:
In Dark Nights: Death Metal, Loma Vista Recordings and I saw an opportunity to bring artists together to create a diverse soundtrack that is inspired directly by this incredible comic series. Our intent is not to literally create a death metal soundtrack, but instead, to illuminate the darkest corners of each character’s psyche from an authentic perspective that is thematically inherent in death metal music. But a soundtrack is merely a collection of songs unless it is holistically intertwined with the story teller’s original work. With the support of DC and Loma Vista Recordings, and with the help of several artists, I’m creating a short-form animatic film series derived from Greg Capullo’s original artwork for Dark Nights: Death Metal. I’ve invited artists on the soundtrack, and pop-culture personalities alike, to voice the characters illustrated in Scott and Greg’s masterful take on classic DC characters. This has possibly never been more relevant to real life than the challenging time the world is currently experiencing.
In the first video released from the comic book’s accompanying short-form video series (as described in the quote above), Wonder Woman is voiced by Chelsea Wolfe and Batman is voiced by Black Veil Brides frontman Andy Biersack. It also features percussion by former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, guitar by Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society), and Carach Angren“s “Skull with a Forked Tongue” from their recently released Franckensteina Strataemontanus. The soundtrack tracklist is still to be announced, but so far we know it includes Marilyn Manson‘s 2015 song “Warship My Wreck,” and a new Rise Against song called “Broken Dreams, Inc.” It comes out September 16 via Loma Vista.
Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath added:
Personally, being involved with this soundtrack is really fantastic. Growing up, my little brother and I would ride our bikes to the newsstand near our house and spend all our money on the latest comic books, and Batman was a favorite. Also, Zach, our guitarist, is probably the biggest comic book geek in our band. He’s talked about how, along with his brother and father, they were all big DC fans – Batman, Robin, Superman, Aquaman, all the comic book series, the TV shows, and feature films. So, yes, we’re all very excited about being part of this.
You can watch the newly-released first episode of the video series with the Carach Angren song, the trailer with the Manson song, and hear a clip of the new Rise Against song here:
Credits:
Story by Scott Snyder
Art by Greg Capullo
Directed by Tyler Bates
Edited by Lorena Perez Batista
Batman – Andy Biersack
The Batman Who Laughs, The Joker – Charles Fleischer
Wonder Woman – Chelsea Wolfe
Score by Tyler Bates
Drums by Dave Lombardo
Guitar FX by Zakk Wylde
Mixed by Robert Carranza
“Skull with a Forked Tongue” by Carach Angren”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkk7RracXCQ&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=DC
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18 Essential Early 2000s Melodic Punk & Hardcore Albums
Kid Dynamite – Shorter, Faster, Louder (2000)
Alkaline Trio – Maybe I’ll Catch Fire (2000)
Rancid – Rancid (2000)
AFI – The Art of Drowning (2000)
Black Sails is usually the AFI album that's considered "the one that's cool to like," and Sing the Sorrow is usually the one that's considered the biggest musical and cultural achievement. Coming right in between them, The Art of Drowning is loved by longtime fans but might get overlooked by casual listeners or newcomers for not having much of a defining narrative beyond "the one after Black Sails" or "the one with 'The Days of the Phoenix.'" "Days of the Phoenix" is a milestone in AFI's career; it's the song that most predicted the sound of Sing the Sorrow, helped gain the band major label interest, and it's the one Nitro Records era song you're guaranteed to hear at an AFI show today. No matter how many times I hear that song, it never ceases to feel like the first time. It's a true classic, but it shouldn't overshadow the rest of The Art of Drowning, which is a much clearer progression from Black Sails than it sometimes gets credit for being.
"Days of the Phoenix" is also the one song on The Art of Drowning where AFI realize that if they settle into a mid-tempo alternative rock pace, they sound like they could be the biggest band in the world (and they'd do this for most of their career afterwards), but it's far from the only song on the album with masterful songwriting. Much more so than on Black Sails, Davey shows off his singing voice on The Art of Drowning, and the album’s got hooks for days -- not just from Davey but also from all the gang vocals and group whoa-ohs that are just about as perfect here as they would be on Sing the Sorrow. It'd probably be easier to list the songs that don't have cathartic choruses, but here are some of the ones that very much do: "Sacrifice Theory," "The Nephilim," "A Story At Three," "Catch A Hot One," "Wester." All of those are played at Misfits speed, but they come with blissful melodicism that proved AFI were just too good to remain in the punk underground for much longer. It's pop and punk without being "pop punk" -- it's still too dark and heavy for that -- and its combination of darkness, intensity, and remarkable melodies still feels innovative twenty years later. [Read more in our AFI album guide.]
The Movielife – This Time Next Year (2000)
Propagandhi – Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes (2001)
Anti-Flag – Underground Network (2001)
The Bouncing Souls – How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2001)
Strike Anywhere – Change Is A Sound (2001)
The Lawrence Arms – Apathy and Exhaustion (2002)
Against Me! – Reinventing Axl Rose (2002)
Dillinger Four – Situationist Comedy (2002)
Hot Water Music – Caution (2002)
Rise Against – Revolutions Per Minute (2003)
The Distillers – Coral Fang (2003)
Bad Religion – The Empire Strikes First (2004)
Bad Religion never really went anywhere so don't call it a comeback, but after two less-well-received major label albums without original guitarist/songwriter Brett Gurewitz, Brett rejoined the band in 2001, the band re-signed to his label Epitaph Records, they welcomed the insanely hard-hitting new drummer Brooks Wackerman (previously of Suicidal Tendencies, currently of Avenged Sevenfold, among many other projects), and they released the excellent 2002 album The Process of Belief. It rivals their classic late '80s/early '90s run and it's home to songs that are still live staples and fan favorites today. It can't be easy to follow up a big comeback like The Process of Belief, but Bad Religion did it by getting harder and faster than ever on The Empire Strikes First. With the metal chops of Brooks Wackerman behind the kit, Bad Religion could now write menacing songs like "Sinister Rouge," which seems to answer the question: "what if Slayer were a pop punk band?"
Pop punk as we know it wouldn't exist without Bad Religion, whose 1988 LP Suffer was one of the '80s punk albums that shaped the '90s pop punk boom, and when Green Day and The Offspring were bringing punk to the masses with 1994's Dookie and Smash, Bad Religion were right there with 'em with their popular 1994 major label debut Stranger than Fiction. But a decade later, mainstream pop punk was very bubblegummy and Bad Religion went in a more aggressive direction, all while retaining the melodies, harmonies, and whoah-ohs that made people fall in love with Suffer. Like The Process of Belief, The Empire Strikes First is home to some of the band's most classic songs, and that's no small feat for an album released by a punk band who were then 24 years into their career (now 40). Coming at the height of George W. Bush backlash and the Iraq War, The Empire Strikes First tackled the capitalist greed that accompanies war ("Let Them Eat War"), religious conservatives ("God's Love"), California wildfires ("Los Angeles Is Burning"), and other then- (and now-) relevant topics that made The Empire Strikes First rank among the most incisive Bush-era protest music. It sounds lyrically urgent and musically thrilling in the Trump era too, and here's to hoping one day it only sounds the latter.