There are two sides to the damning indictment of music criticism that ensues whenever someone raises the inevitable spectre of Spinal Tap. The first in the perfectly legitimate claim that any critic brandishing a tired and worn out ‘amp turned up to 11’ quote lacks any imagination and has failed to judge to the album on it’s own merits. In their defence though, this is the failure of semiotics, the science of signs. Take one iconic moment in time that is Spinal Tap, and the very thing that it was intended to represent is somehow collapsed into the parody; the reality replaced by hyperreality, the real consumed by the fake. Lets put it a different way. Spinal Tap is the bodysnatcher and heavy metal bands the human host. Before they went to bed, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath were a viable brand of colossal and serious rock and in the morning they had turned into stumbling and moronic caricatures. But this is how signs work. The reality is unimportant – it’s only the signpost that matters and the signpost in this context simply outgrew its original human host: Spinal Tap became bigger than ‘Heavy Metal’. So you can’t blame folks for mentioning ‘Spinal Tap’ – as the movie behaves not as a simple reflection of ‘Heavy Metal’ – but as a powerful intervention. And if you don’t believe me, ask Roland Barthes [Roland Barthes]
The release of Dance of Death, Iron Maiden’s 13th studio album, however, has arrived with impeccable timing; thanks in part to the success of The Darkness, a namecheck in ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ and the pouring forth of a thousand and one previously unclaimed nu-metal influences. And in an era that values it’s own retro’ness, it’s own kitsch’ness and it’s resplendent ironic’ness more than it values any one definable characteristic of it’s own (if indeed the present era has a distinct identity outside of the burlesque) the faint and sickly ironic odour that pervades ‘heavy metal’ will naturally find it’s audience.
As long as your flailing ‘air guitar’ is performed with tongue firmly in cheek, tracks like ‘Wildest Dreams’ become a perfectly legitimate ‘exorcise’ in the finer excesses of rock. That you’re willing to listen the rambling and quasi-medieval title track ‘Dance of Death’ alongside the irreverent, Tenacious D means you’re just having fun.
Naturally, it’s anthemic. Naturally it sounds epic. Naturally it sounds ridiculous in the cold light of day. And naturally it’s still difficult to really dislike.
But you’re reading this review to find out what’s it’s really like. But the truth is, I just don’t know. I can’t help thinking of Spinal Tap.
Blame it on semiotics or blame it on the ‘Music fan from Cheltenham’ who wrote this priceless piece of crit’:
“…the brilliance contained in this album is unmeasured…don’t be a melon foobar, buy this album…”
Did I say ‘piece of crit’? Don’t be a ‘melon foobar’.