Dragonforce: The Ultimate Guy's Band

Once again my apologies for not ever posting. Life since returning to Titusville has been frantically busy, what with working 50 hours a week.

Still, here's a little post to tide you over. I'd like to talk about a guilty pleasure of mine. As many of you know, my tastes range from the excellent to the terrible, but once in awhile I discover something that defies either of those categories. Dragonforce is, I think, one such band. There is no doubt that they have immense technical skill- the guitarists shred at speeds not sanctioned by the DOT. Still, there are many valid criticisms to be levelled at them, notably that their songs tend to sound quite similar and even run together.

One charge I would like to defend is that their lyrics are abysmal. Now, I will not try to equate the words to their songs as great poetry, but I think they have a certain something that makes them worthwhile. Let me explain: instead of the typical rock band subjects of love, etc., Dragonforce sings almost exclusively about things such as flying, dragons, fire, battle, et al. The wonderful thing is that they manage to avoid the "Tolkien trap" of many metal bands by being completely generic in their subject matter. Why should one listen to songs about wings of glory and battlefield despair? This is where the subject line enters in. I am firmly convinced that Dragonforce is a band for guys. What man has not dreamed of being the victorious warrior in a hard fought fight? Or of soaring over the countryside on a dragon's back? There is something distinctly noble about Dragonforce, in a goofy way. In a sense they are a modern Don Quixote, striving after battles from ages past. As far as I am concerned they should not stop tilting- their extreme rock carries us through the heavens.