Gladiator Rock
There is one kind of song that stirs your blood into a hot, coagulated potpourri and force-feeds you into a rock-out frenzy. It makes you feel like swinging an 8-foot long broadsword (probably named "Lick") and vanquish everything in your path. The bass trembles the foundation of your musical sense and the ambience breaks down your inhibitions. The kind of song that the Storm Troopers would march to.
The Song of the Gladiator.
Imagine yourself clutching your rifle, stuck on a trench and no way out but through the thick frontline of the enemy. It’s enough that your sweating bullets, but you have to worry about dodging your enemy’s. The pulse is rising, and the excitement… overwhelming….
AFI - Miseria Cantare (The Beginning)
It’s fantastic that the crows was chanting at the beginning part of the show while the band was pumping up….
*tug tug tupak!*
*tutugtug tupak!*
*tug tug tupak!*
*tutugtug tupak!*
See what I mean?
Coheed & Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth:3
This tongue-tyingly long title of Co&Ca’s flagship "war" song still gives me meteor-sized goosebumps every time I hear this song. The somber guitar riff, the sustained note at the start of the song set the war-time mood. All hell breaks loose in the chorus with the "Man your own jackhammer! Man you battlestations!"
(Oh btw, in the story of Co&Ca, Jackhammers are huge gun turrets used by the red army)
The chant near the end of the song just cemented the song’s status as THE song of gladiators.
Just when I thought that they couldn’t top themselves, they release THIS:
Coheed & Cambria - The Reaping/No World for Tomorrow
This is Co&Ca’s 1-2 combo. The first song, The Reaping, feels like an intro for a horror movie. Pure acoustic love. It’s melody feels like the ticking of a perfectly manufactured clock. As the next song enters, No World for Tomorrow, all the gears fall apart and it just spits on your face. The song may not have a face- melting solo, but still, the ENTIRE song feels like one…
long…
guitar solo…
try listening to the riff… too many sweeps, too many licks, too many arpeggios. I LOVE IT.
Now… where’s my broadsword?