If you’re playing a word association game, and Dethklok isn’t the only word you think of every time, go soaks yours head in round porcelain holes used to poops through. Season Four of Metalocalypse is here to melt store shelves everywhere while making every other DVD around it look as gross as the horrible dream where you’re, ugh, going down on a girl (show reference, ladies, not a personal opinion).
With each successive season, it seems like the music of Dethklok carves out a larger place for itself in the backseat, while the band’s antics become the central plot points. But it’s like lead singer Nathan Explosion says in “Diversityklok,” after the band is accused of being racist: “We don’t give a fuck what color our fans are because we don’t give a fuck about our fans.” So it’s assumed that anything I think about the scope of the series is shit and I shoulds hangs myself with a belts (that’s enough of that joke.)
This season does contain both an album release and an album recording that was performed underwater and in caves for proper audio perfection, with new producer Abigail Remeltindrinc (voiced by Janeane Garofalo). If you can imagine, the presence of a female producer inspires a lot of angry sex humor. And I guess it was more complicated than a simple record release, since all copies of the album that were shipped by boat were put into certain peril. So, I guess a season where the main arc revolves around the destruction of one album and the construction of another technically does focus enough on music. But it’s also about tell-all books, the recession, dinner parties, and extremely alcoholic wine.
I’m assuming there’s no need for a show overview, as no one should be getting into this show in the fourth season. But I can tell you what the characters are up to in Season 4. Nathan Explosion (voiced by Brendon Small) is better than everyone and gets all the ladies, though his scat career lacks pizzazz (and his ex-girlfriend Trindle gets all the Nathans, by kidnapping and sleeping with tribute band lookalikes). Pickles, after partnering with Nathan for their worldwide “Friender Bender,” hates Nathan for getting all the ladies—well, one in particular, though it isn’t his mom. Murderface makes prank calls and gets his feelings hurt when his ugly mug earns him the “brutalest looking musician in the world” credit. Skwisgaar loses his sponsors, thanks to the tell-all book, and eats too much candy. Toki (voiced by Tommy Vlacha) runs into his predecessor Magnus Hammersmith and turns Murderface on by wearing pink clothes.
The Tribunal are still around, poking their ruthless heads into Dethklok’s lives on a less constant basis, but certainly when it counts. Their convoluted mythology is somewhat given in overblown exposition by the season’s final episode, “Church of the Black Klok,” and at least one of them turns into a big electrical monster, which sets up a cliffhanger that will certainly cause suicides once it’s been seen.
Oh, and the band breaks up.
The mash-up of heavy metal, all of its clichés and charms, and even its absurdist animation will probably always draw more quizzical and dismissive stares than headbanging agreement, but Metalocalypse doesn’t rest on any laurels and probably isn’t capable of pandering to on-the-fence viewers. It’s going to make the “getting a blow job from a rabid dog” joke, and if you don’t laugh, at least they’ve done you the favor of pointing out how miserable a human being you are. And it also has better guest stars than your life has.
It may not ease your tension to know that there are plenty of various special features to fill your time once the episodes are complete. Some are great, such as the 87-minute long “Nathan reads Shakespeare #4: A Comedy of Errors,” which is just that: Nathan and Murderface are in the studio, and Nathan bitches about Shakespeare while comparing Murderface to a baby for not knowing who Shakespeare is. Barely any Shakespeare gets read in between all the dick-sucking jokes. “Dr. Rockzo’s Greatest Hits” is a short album compilation commercial, featuring song snippets, from the bizarre rock ‘n roll clown stylings of the high-pitched voice of Rockzo (“I dare you to buy a hundred, dude.”). In “Murderthoughts,” Murderface takes a few minutes to have a mental breakdown as his face is healing from his surgery. A fan art photo slideshow gets almost five minutes of viewing time. There are some really amazing pictures creature here, crossing all genres and media. I would spend good money on 90% of it.
“Pickles Flyby” is ten long minutes of Brendon Small ad-libbing as Pickles flying around in a box through settings from the series. Three “Stare Downs” of differing lengths show Toki and Skwisgaar trying not to blink, with some hateful banter passed back and forth. In “The Prophecy,” frequent voice guest Werner Herzog tells the folklore surrounding the metal apocalypse. “For “CFO Raps,” band manager Charles Foster Offdensen freestyles white-man lyrics over a simple bass drum and snare beat. Facebones hosts “Dethgame,” a fake band-centered quiz game played by a slut and a moron for Dethklok snow globes.
Though it doesn’t take a lot of time to zip through these episodes, each one is worth rewatching, as some jokes aren’t so obvious the first time around. Some of the music from this season is on Dethklok’s latest album “III,” which dropped in mid-October. (The real Brendon Small-led project, not the show’s version.) Both are worth the money, though the visual and humor elements make the DVD a far wider choice.
Rating:
Length: 144 min.
Distributor: Cartoon Network
Release Date: 10/30/2012
Starring: Brendon Small, Tommy Blacha, Victor Brandt, Mark Hamill
Directed by: Jon Schnepp, Chris Prynoski
Created by: Brendon Small, Tommy Blacha
